Cohen-Hatton loves the metaphor of a jigsaw for the eternal piecing together of information that is an incident commander’s life, but a reader trying to do the same with the memoir elements of her book may struggle. Not all the pieces are present and presumably the missing ones are the result of her own risk analysis. It wasn’t meant to be antagonistic, they were simply curious, but it obviously was a very odd experience for me.” As she marks 40 years since she began her training, London’s first female firefighter Sue Batten has shared her memories of her career for the first time and called for more women to think about a job as a firefighter. There is a vast gulf between the numbers of men and women in the UK’s fire service. Even in London, which leads the UK in the total number of women in an operational role, they only represent 7% of its workforce as firefighters! So, with ever dwindling resources the job of a firefighter is arguably more difficult than ever. It remains a role that has always been fraught with physical danger and mental trauma. Sadly, as the Grenfell fire inquiry has demonstrated, it now includes being in the firing line of everyone from politicians to lawyers and the public. David joined the Fire Brigade as a cadet at just sixteen. Awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct as a young fireman, David steadily rose through the ranks of the London Fire Brigade, until he retired from senior rank in 1996. Now, David writes and reflects on his career and experiences, with I Was a London Firefighter being the latest of his work.

Cohen-Hatton has overcome substantial adversity to reach a position of seniority in the fire service, and The Heat of the Moment is also a memoir. Her father died when she was nine – the same age as her own daughter, Gabriella, is now. As a teenager in Newport, south-east Wales, Cohen-Hatton was homeless for about two years, an experience she hid for a long time. “I became afraid of anyone ever knowing about it,” she says. Dave and I crept up the stairs, the floor had burned through in places as had the floor above, the roof was gone so there was a bit of dull light. The floor was covered in rubble; tiles from the roof, burnt timber, cork and all sorts. Dave took the nozzle and we pushed forward along the floor. The smoke was tolerable, the heat was a different matter. As I breathed in it was searing my lungs, a bit like trying to breathe in over a boiling kettle, I was lying on the floor in a puddle of steaming water trying to find some cooler air. Fire-floats and fireboats-a history of London’s firefighting craft. This really was a voyage of discovery for me and a book that I am very proud of. It might have taken ‘niche`’ to a new level but unearthing many of the innovations that put firefighters onto the river took both detection and joining some of the dots. The book not only helps raise much needed funds for one of central figures, the fire-float Massey Shaw, but details its amazing history right up to the present day. In extreme situations such as Grenfell Tower, the local authority will dispatch a structural surveyor. But in the early hours of the morning one was not immediately available and Cotton had to make urgent decisions about whether to commit firefighters in the absence of that formal assessment.For most authors writing a book is not done on some frivolous whim but rather for serious good reasons. Certainly, you wish to see your work published, it is something that AM clearly understands, but they are not a charity. They are a publishing business and, like any business, without satisfied customers and positive results they don’t move forward, hopefully taking you as an author with them.

When I arrived I got out of my car and looked up at Grenfell Tower. My first thought was that it looked like something out of a disaster movie, like something that could never happen in London.” In 1991 I was in senior rank and tasked with putting together a major commemorative event at St Pauls Cathedral in the presence of Princess Diana and the two young princes, William and Harry. Some 80 ‘blitz’ veteran firemen and firewomen were invited to attend and to march in the emergency services and military parade from Aldersgate to St Pauls, a distance of just over a mile. But these dreams need to be nurtured and protected from an early age by challenging conventional narratives. Personally, working within a profession where there are fewer women, I know first-hand that if youngsters don’t see people who look like them doing a certain job, then they are less likely to go for it. So, we need to work hard to recast our messages and the even the language we use with children to ensure we don’t inhibit broadening of their horizons.”

Uniform

Is it like that now? “It’s not,” she says. But her seniority will afford some protection and I wonder how the experience differs for 18-year-old women joining the fire service today. “I am really confident that they wouldn’t have that same experience – because we’ve done so much work,” she says. “We know what the world is like and we are doing our best not just to change the fire service but society.” She carried out 21 weeks of training – seven weeks longer than the rest of her cohort – before her “pass out” ceremony on September 29 1982 – her 30 th birthday. I especially enjoyed the author’s recollection of a heroic episode on honeymoon in Gran Canaria, where he took it upon himself to help out the local bomberos to stave off a blaze, prioritising the health and safety of others even in the midst of enjoying an idyllic time on holiday with his new wife. It would be interesting to hear how Cohen-Hatton’s work, which won an award, might help to frame the London Fire Brigade’s response to the Grenfell Tower fire – particularly as she has focused on the tension between instinct and procedure. Also, for many years London Fire Brigade has used a different method called the Decision Making Model, but is “fully aware”, as a spokesman for the London Fire Brigade puts it, of Cohen-Hatton’s guidance. In any case, Grenfell is absent from The Heat of the Moment – no high rises are included in the book. Cohen-Hatton, who worked for London Fire Brigade at the time of the fire in June 2017 (her position in Surrey is a secondment ) did not attend on the night, although she ran the welfare centre in the morning. She is unable to talk about Grenfell, as the inquiry is ongoing. In August 2022, Steve's first book, "London Firefighter". 6 August 2022. was published. The book is a memoire of his career in London Fire Brigade from 1987 until he retired in 2018. The book do*ents his career where he attended some of the most significant incidents to befall London in recent decades. Writing and Media