Guest contributor – London Assembly Member Brian Coleman
Three cheers for London’s firefighters!
Sitting in my lounge at about 10pm a terrible noise started. Difficult to describe – a bit like a pneumatic drill/rockslide, but worse.
I went to open the front door to see where the noise was coming from and, as the noise got louder, I thought to myself it was in the street somewhere.
I went back to the lounge and tried in vain to ignore the dreadful din by sticking my fingers in my ears and singing ‘la la la’, just as Boris had done the other day when he ran away from that reporter chap.
I shuffled to the door of my office and, despite the noise of my thighs rubbing together, I could clearly hear the din grow louder.
I entered the office and the filing cabinet was making a terrible noise but there was even more noise from above in the storage space where I keep all my GLA paperwork.
The house seemed at that point to be vibrating, so I grabbed the dog and got out the house as it felt as if something was about to blow.
I called 999 and the Fire Brigade (I have contacts), put the dog in the street to play with the traffic then re-inserted my fingers into my ears.
I’d forgotten the lyrics to the ‘ignore-a-reporter’ song, so was unable to distract myself sufficiently from the clattering noise inside.
I waited. Within a couple of hours the firefighters arrived, having been delayed by a collision between a bendy-bus and twenty-five cyclists. All dead – that’s 2,000 this year according to Boris.
On realising they were face-to-face with the Chair of the London Fire Authority, the lads all tipped their helmets to me, then fearlessly rushed into the house.
Had I done the right thing in calling them? Indeed I had.
As the noise subsided, the senior officer emerged badly bruised and shaken to advise me that there had been a serious structural failure in my office which had raised an already severe fire risk to a critical level.
The firefighters took immediate action and doused down my office, concerned that several thousands of pounds worth of taxi receipts, which had literally exploded from their storage space, might burst into flames at any moment.
Anyway, while the tumble-dryer finishes off the last two grand of receipts, I just thought I’d pen a public thank-you to the brigade.
It was a very frightening financial situation and they were there when I needed them.
Literally – my heroes!
If you haven’t a clue what I’m on about, click here.
