Retired Firefighters & Fire Service Personnel

www.ex-fire.co.uk

Dave (Jake)  &  Wendy Wilson

I retired from the Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue Service at the beginning of January 1996 after 31½ years service, 25 years at The Mounts, Northampton Fire Station and 6½ years at Mereway Fire Station and of reaching the dizzy heights of Leading Fireman.  (Some might ask how come 31½ years, well, simple, I served 4 years plus, left because I had a family and a mortgage, and pay in the Fire Service was poor, but I soon found out that I couldn’t live without it and luckily was able to rejoin.

 

On finishing as a firefighter I decided that I would work for myself and build up a gardening business so registered as a Landscape Gardener to get the benefits of trade prices from the local businesses.  I didn’t carry out much landscaping as firstly I didn’t have the plant for landscaping and I didn’t have the room to keep it anyway, and secondly, my love was for general gardening because I was turned on by the sights, sounds, fragrances and wildfire which went with working closely with plants and soil.

It’s almost time to get my free bus pass now, as I am pushing 65 and I should really be thinking of giving up work, putting my feet up and spending more time on my allotment, (am I crazy or what?) but I doubt I will.  I have had such a great time as a gardener, met lots of interesting people, been out in the fresh air all the time and just as it was when I was a serving fire fighter, I have never had the Monday morning feeling or doubts about what I wanted to do, apart from a couple of years back when it rained constantly and I felt as though I was squelching around in mud day in and day out, then I began to wonder if this was what I wanted.

 

Wendy and I do a lot of country walking and travel a lot, Europe being our favourite place to visit and Italy and Portugal being the favourites there.  I have never had any regrets about being in the Fire Service, but still resent being kicked out at 55.  It seemed as though one minute you are part of a team and needed, then at one minute past midnight you are on the scrap-heap and surplus to requirements, this I had trouble handling, but what I have learned is that nothing stays the same, doors are opening and closing all the time and life goes on.

 

More grandchildren have come along so we are called on to help out there which is a great delight because at the end of the day the little bread-snappers are handed back and we can flop back in that comfy armchair and wonder where they get all their energy and staying power from or where all ours has gone.

 

It’s a great life really, all we need is our health and our little bit of pension to keep dropping through the letter box each month and we’ve got it made.

 

Which reminds me, the amount of tax I have to pay every year.  I paid it once when I first earned it, I’m paying it again on my pension, and I’m paying it yet again on my gardening, and if...................Oh well, never mind, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.