Club Meeting 14th September 2026">Club Meeting 14th September 2026

The president welcomed members and today’s speaker John Craig. He also welcomed and inducted Bob Atack, Roger Collins and Graham Slinn into Club membership.

President Ted introduced John Craig to speak on the subject of “ Going to Blazes”.

John worked for the Fire service for 37 years and retired in 2000 having served as Chief Fire Officer for Wiltshire Fire brigade for 14 years, and his highly entertaining talk focused on the lighter side of a career in an often dangerous and physically arduous public service.

Firstly John told us how at the 1964 Leicestershire Fire Brigade annual review in the presence of the Lady Lord Mayor of Leicester, a demonstration using magnesium went ever so slightly wrong but the Brigade still managed to emerge with a recommendation from the inspector carrying out the review. He next described how he was personally involved in rescuing a horse that had fallen into a swimming pool during the extremely cold Winter of 1967.

John’s next story involved a United States Air Force Fire Unit which had joined his team in a training exercise in 1976. The outcome where the $ z ¼m US Crash track ended up submerged in a bog was met with much laughter from the audience. John’s final story told how on a return visit to the fire service in Uppsala, Sweden the hosts got their revenge with a practical joke involving very tight underwear.

Dave Pascoe gave the vote of thanks, congratulating John on his very funny talk and members showed their appreciation with a round of applause.