Haïti Thoughts #1 – Firemen don’t just fight Fires



This image copyright BBC News

The sheer scale of the loss of life and devastation in Haïti is far beyond the comprehension of most horrified First World viewers. We sit comfortably among soft furnishings on sofas, in warm, solid and impermeable houses, watching the crisis unfold on our over-sized television screens. Haïti has certainly kicked early January’s grumblings about the UK snow into rather sharper perspective.

The bereavement and misery beaming across the Atlantic is so shocking that, unsurprisingly, news organisations on the ground are constantly on the look out for stories with some sort of happy ending – no matter how qualified that happiness might be.

I cannot believe I was the only viewer weeping, when a team of UK firefighters located and rescued two-year old Mia, who had been trapped under the ruins of her nursery in Port-au-Prince for more than 72 hours. Mia was reportedly initially located by Echo, an Urban Search and Rescue dog with the team of volunteers from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue who flew out to Haïti last week.

More than 60 firefighters, from services in Manchester, Lancashire, West Sussex, Kent, the West Midlands, Lincolnshire, Hampshire and mid and west Wales, have been helping out in Haïti. Many of them were deployed by Rapid UK, a UK-based NGO, specialising in the relief of human suffering and distress in the aftermath of disasters, anywhere in the world.

Watching the British firefighters working tirelessly in Haïti reminded me of just how versatile these men have to be. Firemen do not just fight fires; far from it. These men and women are the members of the original emergency service, dedicated to protecting life, property and the environment – whether they are assisting at a fire, a car crash, or as in this case, a natural disaster. They are also invariably the first on the scene at unnatural disasters: 343 members of the New York Fire Department perished in the ruins of the Twin Towers on 9/11.

When my father, Fred Jackson, joined the Fire Brigade in Doncaster in 1947, his initial weekly salary was £4-10/- (four pounds & ten shillings - £4.50, in today’s money; about US$7.25). Fortunately, salaries have moved on somewhat since then, as have the technology, the engineering and associated fire appliances. This progress has helped to reduce disaster mortality rates, if only in developed countries.

Growing up in Hong Kong, my brother, Rory, and I were acutely aware that my father had a very important job, something that had to do with saving lives. He always had to remain in 24-hour radio or telephone contact with HQ; his weekends were often truncated and our free time with him was always overshadowed by the baleful presence of “Control”.

On a brief family break on the offshore island of Lantau in the early 1970s, Dad was spirited away one morning before breakfast. He did not return until early evening, covered in blood, soot and oil. He was also very quiet – a familiar sign that he had been at a fire or incident with fatalities. Next day, Mum told us that a minibus had crashed into a ravine. Dad had supervised the rescue operation and had personally freed half a dozen of the 23 survivors; 17 other passengers died.

Dad was also in charge in June 1972, when a steep hillside on Hong Kong Island collapsed, following days of unprecedented heavy rains, sweeping away a 13-storey apartment block on Kotewall Road. The incident itself was vividly, and terrifyingly, fictionalised by Rhodesian-born writer John Gordon-Davis in his 1978 novel Typhoon. In real life, 67 people perished. The half a dozen survivors whom my father was responsible for digging out remained in contact with him until his death in 2008.

That firefighters who already have such dangerous day jobs should volunteer to help out at disasters such as the crisis currently playing out in Haïti is extraordinarily humbling. We have all heard about Médecins sans Frontières; yet who knew that MSF had a sister organisation? Firemen without Borders.



This image copyright Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service

Rapid UK may be best known for search and rescue in the aftermath of sudden onset disasters, yet two-thirds of their efforts go into overseas training. They return to countries where they have previously deployed in an emergency, to provide training to expand capacity and thus mitigate the effects of future disasters. They also help to facilitate the donation of redundant UK emergency vehicles, such as ambulances and fire engines, to countries in need.

Rapid UK is entirely funded by donations and does not receive any funds from the UK Government, from the Disasters Emergency Committee or any other generic fund raising organisations or charities. Click here to find out more about their work.

Echo, and his furry friend back in Manchester, fire investigations dog Cracker, also have their own blog here - although it has been said that Crew Commander Mike Dewar helps them out from time to time.

“They told us it was none of our business…” – How Data Protection may have done for Derrick & Jean Randall



Dad, determined to be "useful" - on one of his last visits to Bedlam

The unimaginably sad end of elderly couple, Derrick and Jean Randall, found dead in their Northamptonshire bungalow last week, has triggered a predictable round of: “What is society coming to?” headlines, with an equally noisy backdrop of slamming stable doors and suitably sorrowful sound bites from the relevant authorities.

There is never anything pleasant or easy about the end of anybody’s life, no matter how old, how frail or how ill. Yet even my dear old Dad spent his last three weeks, in a comfortable room, in a slightly scruffy but clean and bright care home, being ministered to by a team of kindly nurses and palliative carers whose professionalism and dedication to their delicate tasks we never doubted for a second. The briefest trip to the dismal parallel universe of geriatric care would convince the hardest cynic that “society” is still alive and very much kicking – and caring.

There are clearly several complex issues surrounding the Randalls’ case but I agree with their MP, Sally Keeble, who raised the tragedy in the Commons earlier this week: “People say: 'Oh, they were reclusive', but I don't really accept that argument”.

What chilled me most about the reports of the Randalls’ death were the interviews with many of the couple’s neighbours, who insisted they had tried to contact both local social services and relevant charities:

“When I said, no, I wasn’t related to the Randalls, they said that it was none of our business. There was nothing they – or we – could do...”


The reason one concerned neighbour, Heather Footitt, and others were unable to get the relevant authorities to take their concerns about the Randalls seriously, or to act on them, is down to the now extremely stringent rules and regulations surrounding data protection in this country.

In this era of cyber-bullying, financial hackery and identity theft, it certainly makes sense to have some sort of data protection in force. Yet the act itself has now become highly complex and social workers and other local authority employees are now in terror of breaching its increasingly convoluted proscriptions. Consequently, there is now no scope whatsoever for the latter individuals to apply a reasonable dose of logic and common sense to individual cases. Surely Mrs Footitt did not have to be next-of-kin to have her very real concerns about the Randalls’ welfare taken seriously? It appears that she did.

I speak from experience. As many of you know, I am unable to go into detail about events during my father’s final months, many of which remain sub judice. So I won’t, for now, be identifying the local authority whose Family Services Department refused, on scores of occasions, to tell me anything at all about the welfare, well-being and often the physical location of my own father, even as his dementia progressed.

Late one Sunday night at the end of July 2008, my mobile went. I saw it was my father, calling from the cell phone we had given him, and answered immediately.

“They are sending me away again, Doh. I don’t know where to. I don’t know when. Tonight or tomorrow. I don’t know when I am coming home. Or if I am coming home. Will you come and get me? Please?”