Training begins

• I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity and privacy I've changed the names of individuals and sometimes places, I may have changed some identifying characteristics, so the people described do not necessarily reflect the actual person or persons involved. Incidents and situations are as I recall.

4)

I pushed open the door and went into a lobby. To the right there were big glass double doors leading to a canteen area, I peeked in and saw a lounge with a few people dressed up in their finery. Surmising that this was where I was meant to be going I walked in and enquired. Sure enough the people there were in the same boat as me, I should have realised, because they wore the same uncertain look on all their faces.

Just then a uniformed man came in through a door, saw me, and gave a cheery greeting. He enquired if I was there for the purpose of training and then ushered me into the lounge to join with the rest of the victims. Tea was shortly produced and we all started to get to know each other.

There were eighteen of us, but someone was cheating; one of our number stood out as she was already wearing a uniform. Enquiries led us to find out that she was already a qualified ambulance woman who was transferring from another area, but she still had to go through the induction process. Needless to say she was pounced on by all of us, pumping her for information and trying to find out what the hell we had all let ourselves in for. She didn’t disappoint as she regaled us with stories and explained in explicit detail that we would soon be on intimate terms with all manner of yucky bodily excretions. Two ex-coppers then revealed themselves from our group and joined in with the entertainment. The rest of us looked at the door and wondered whether it would be prudent to run now while we still had the chance.

Before we all ran for it the instructors came in and the process of turning us into ambulance staff began.

There were four instructors, and all of them had one thing in common, and that was that they had seen it, done it and had got the T-Shirt. Their task now was to pass that knowledge on to us. The head of the training school was a Superintendant Brian Graves, a softly spoken individual who had “Ambulance” engraved on his soul. Next in line was Station Officer Tim Landers, a northerner who could never keep still, spoke nineteen to the dozen and could leave your ears hurting just by being within ten yards of him. Joe and Paul were qualified ambulance-men who had recently qualified as instructors. It was into their hands that we were now all thrust.

We were split into three syndicates or groups, and each had a task for the day. There was a duty crew who were to check the training vehicles. The second group would keep stuff tidy and put everything away after each session. Then there was a tea crew, who had to, well, make tea. Each day the tasks would rotate so that everyone had a go.

The level of training was basic ambulance aid. Some of the students were only going onto the day vehicles so the induction course was mainly geared for them. Those of us who were going onto front line emergency vehicles were to go to the regional school for a further six weeks training once we’d managed to pass this one.

The course comprised of basic anatomy and physiology, signs and symptoms of various medical conditions and illnesses, cardio pulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, and lots and lots of splinting and bandaging. There was equipment familiarisation and also the local radio protocols to go through, along with all the paperwork that we would be required to fill out once we were let loose out on the road. The course itself was well balanced, but was like an extended first aid course with a couple of other things thrown in, mainly oxygen therapy and the giving of a pain relieving gas called entonox.

Joe and Paul would delight in setting up mock incidents. We would be in one of the teaching rooms getting to grips with some procedure or other when one of them would burst into the room yelling that the duty crew were needed as an incident had occurred and that there was no-one else available. The first time this happened it had the desired effect as the duty syndicate as one turned pale and were in dire need of incontinence pads. We all rushed over to the ambulance station across the way to find that one of the staff over there had been made up as a casualty; in this case someone who had fallen from a ladder, hit a wall and then fell onto a sharp upturned spike. The injuries were supposedly a fracture to the spine, a broken femur, concussion, and a penetrating injury to the chest. (They didn’t like to do things by half) All of us not involved began to relax and settled down to enjoy the show as the poor duty crew got to grips with the problem before them. Comments flew, suggestions were made and very quickly the incident was reduced to a farce. The casualty was eventually pronounced deceased and a CPR dummy was thrown down, everyone then had to take a turn on bouncing up and down on the thing and using a bag and mask to get the breathing going.

When the third week began it was felt that we had all done well enough and were expected to pass the final exams and tests, so that meant we could get our uniforms. We were packed off to the stores, which was housed in a massive dark and dingy room right at the back of the Headquarters building, and queued up in little groups. The stores officer guided us in, keeping a close watch on all of us in case we decided to start nicking stuff, what in the world there was for us to nick I do not know, but that didn’t seem to worry him. We were shown the uniform racks and told to dig in. We were given a list of what we had to take and then sort of had to grab the nearest thing to our sizes. Some like me were lucky and got hold of the correct size, but others had to make do with the leftovers. Even worse for some was that they had to have second hand trousers and tunics, I dread to think what delightful bits of people had dripped off them during the course of their existence.  The list we had was as follows: Five shirts, white. Three pairs of socks, blue. Two NATO pullovers, blue. Two pairs of trousers, blue. One clip-on tie, blue. One tunic, blue. Two pairs of epaulettes. One pair of shoes, black. One peaked flat hat (for the carrying of sandwiches). One raincoat, blue. One high visibility jacket. One pair of gloves, black. One belt, black. One first aid kit bag. The stores officer ticked everything off his list then sent us out. When we returned to civilisation we huddled together in the corner and then emptied our pockets of all the stuff that had somehow managed to sort of fall into them. Soon we all had extra bits of kit and uniform.

This was also the time when we learnt where we were all to be based when we passed training school. I found that I was to be sent to Berkhampstead. For me it was good news as it wasn’t that far from where I lived, but others weren’t quite so lucky and were sent to stations quite a long way away.

The Union man also descended, and quite quickly we were all signed up. It wasn’t compulsory but it was advisable to join one. In those days the unions were very active, and actually held a lot of negotiating power.

The rest of that week passed by in a blur. Friday saw us all successfully pass our induction course and the only thing left now was to go out and get drunk. This we did in the knowledge that the next week would see us descend on our respective stations where we were to spend a week riding out with a crew. The week after that we were to attend the regional six weeks residential course at Banstead in Surrey, a prospect that all seven of us were looking forward to.   

What the future holds

• I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity and privacy I've changed the names of individuals and sometimes places, I may have changed some identifying characteristics, so the people described do not necessarily reflect the actual person or persons involved. Incidents and situations are as I recall.

3)

Monday morning on the 9th January 1981 saw me driving up to the car park in Ambulance HQ in Welwyn Garden City. I can quite honestly say that I had never been quite so nervous.

I started this blog with the words “Thirty odd years ago I did something very stupid...I joined the ambulance service.” Even today when I look back I wonder why I did it. If I hadn’t I might have found a job that actually paid a decent wage, worked socially acceptable hours and one that would have kept me relatively sane - but it’s boring doing the easy stuff.

It was the start of a love/hate relationship that would play havoc with my emotions.  It would be a roller-coaster ride, one minute I would be filled with euphoria, the next would see me come crashing down to earth. Throughout my service I would meet people who would help me, mould me, shape me and influence me. I would make friendships that would last a lifetime. It would cast me as a villain and a saviour, a mediator and a trouble maker. There would be tears of both sadness and laughter - but most of all laughter. Lots of laughter.

The one thing that was common in those early days was that the emergency side of the service was predominantly male, though a few women did break the mould. But by and large it was a male dominated occupation; women were mainly on the day vehicles, ferrying people to their out-patient appointments, but that all began to change in the mid 1980’s, a new type of recruit to the emergency side came through the door.  A younger crowd, of both sexes, were now joining the service; and with it they brought a new dynamic. It showed that the service was changing; it was morphing into a modern service. The recruits were changing, the training was changing, the skills we had were changing and the expectation was changing - and I was there when the change first started.

Over the years I’ve had a few crewmates, all of whom deserve a medal for putting up with me. In my early days there were the Second World War veterans, or those who had done national service: these were people who had seen it, done it, survived it and came out the other side. There were others, a little younger, but had been in the service for years and had garnered a great depth of experience. These I leant on heavily, picking up snippets of information and listening intently as they recounted their stories. Then I transferred stations and after a few weeks found that I was to be crewed with a clever, pretty, young female trainee, the polar opposite of what, up to then, I was used to. I was now the experienced one, but I certainly didn’t feel like it.

But all that’s another story and all in the future; at the moment I’m parking up my car to start my three week induction course at Ambulance HQ.    

Interview time

2)

The girl behind the desk looked up at me as I stood in front of her. I handed over the reference number as she invited me to take a seat and then she disappeared into the depths of the office in order to look for the master copy of the job I was interested in. A short while later she came back with a frown on her face. She sat down and looked at me again, looked at the card in her hand and regarded me a second time.

‘The ambulance service?’ she asked.

I nodded.

‘Hmmm!’ she hummed.

I was regarded for a third time as if she was weighing up my suitability. I could see what she was thinking, she was imagining a situation where she might need to call on the service, and being in that situation wondering what it would be like to have me come to her aid. The look said it all. I was obviously found wanting.

‘Are you sure?’

I nodded again.

She sighed. ‘Okay, I’ll give them a ring for you. You don’t have any O levels do you?’

‘No,’ I agreed.

‘They like O levels as a rule, but we’ll see what they have to say.’

That didn’t bode well.

She rang the number anyway and spoke to someone on the other end. For some reason I was feeling a little nervous as she discussed me with the invisible person, she chuckled a little and shook her head as she said ‘No.’ I could only imaging that the O level situation had been broached. A bit more conversation with a few more shakes of the head and then she looked at me. ‘Are you free for an interview next Tuesday?’ she said, somewhat surprised.

An interview? I thought. Already? ‘Er...yes,’ I replied, my voice a little strained. ‘No problem.’

She hung up and began to scribble down on a piece of paper. ‘This is the address, nine thirty on Tuesday morning, try not to be late.’ For the first time her face softened and something like a smile found its way to her lips. ‘Good luck, I hope it all goes well for you.’

I thanked her profusely and left the office. An interview arranged and I had only asked about the job a few minutes earlier. The weather was wet, it was a cold miserable November day and I got soaked as I walked back to my car....an omen perhaps?

The interview was to take place at St Albans station, and I was to be interviewed by the district superintendent. There was also a driving assessment to take place, presumably to see if I could negotiate my way through the streets without banging into things. Suited and booted I arrived with time to spare; I waited in my car for a few minutes, checking my watch every minute or so until the appointed hour. The ambulance and the fire service shared premises and there was a lot of activity as the firemen were playing at putting out fires, I watched for a bit and then made my way to the front door. Inside I rang the bell and waited. A fireman came through and I explained why I was there, he gave me a look of sympathy and then disappeared back into the building. Shortly another man came through and introduced himself as the superintendent who was to interview me. He smiled, we shook hands, and then he guided me through the corridors to a little office on the far side of the building.

I sat down and we went through my employment history and he then told me a little about the service, we chatted away for a few minutes and then he asked me why I wanted to join. I couldn’t tell him that it was only going to be a stop-gap until I found something decent to do, so I just said the first thing that came into my head.

‘I’m still not sure I do want to join, I’m here to find out a little bit more about it; but from what I’ve heard so far it’s certainly making me more interested.’

I suppose he was used to most people saying that they want to give something back to the community, or help people, or, as I was reliably informed later, that they wanted to drive around with the sirens and the blue lights on! (They didn’t get the job) so maybe I had come up with a new one for him as he seemed quite satisfied with my response. He stood up and indicated that it was now time to see if I could drive.

We went through to the appliance room where all the vehicles were parked up. The room was divided down the middle; one half was filled with big red fire engines, while the ambulances filled up the other. He picked a day vehicle, basically a mini-bus with ambulance painted on the side that was used to take people to out-patient appointments. Unfortunately there were a few blue light vehicles parked in front of it. He then started moving vehicles around in order to extricate the one he wanted. I soon found that he had an audience as I turned around to find three or four ambulance staff standing around and watching him, they were grinning, and then helped him along with a few choice comments, one suggestion being that he should have sorted it all out earlier. I noticed that no-one came over to help. Eventually we hit the streets with him still swearing and me trying to sink as deep into the seat as was humanly possible. Fortunately the drive went without mishap and as I relaxed that he told me that he had moved the one I was to use first thing in the morning, but as soon as he was out of sight the staff decided to re-arrange everything for him. He couldn’t say a word to them seeing as I was standing there, but he warned me that “things had a tendency to happen” within the service.

Eventually he told me to return to the station, and as we were pulling up he told me to park in the middle of the yard. He then asked me to take the key out and hand it over. He was grinning as he stuffed it into his pocket and strode across to the small crew room with me following hard on his heels, he poked his head through the door and then tossed the key to one of the two crews sitting there who were drinking tea and playing cards.

‘Park that up for me,’ he said. ‘Needs to go right to the back as it won’t be needed for a while.’

I looked over and immediately recognised that having pips on your shoulder could come in very handy sometimes, it seemed that they would be moving vehicles around for the rest of the morning.

A few days later I received a letter asking me to attend a medical, which despite my lack of fitness I passed with flying colours, a few days after that I got another letter, this time telling me that I was required to attend the ambulance HQ for a three week induction course. It was to commence in January 1981, and was to be the start of my ambulance service career.

A 'Why did I do that' moment

Thirty odd years ago I did something very stupid.....I joined the ambulance service.

Today you really have to have degrees coming out of your ears to even think about applying, but back then it was different. It was 1980 to be precise, and I was an innocent 21 year old. In those days they would take virtually anyone!

I was technically unemployed at the time, having been working as a sales rep for all of two weeks and hating every moment; I just couldn’t sell a thing, partly because the stuff I was trying to sell was total crap and partly because I really couldn’t be bothered.

The local job centre was a frequent stop for me; you just walked in and looked at the little pieces of cardboard stuck to the wall, if something took your fancy then you would have a quick word with one of staff and they would sort you out. One day I was perusing the said wall when one of the bits of cardboard caught my eye. The Hertfordshire Ambulance Service was looking for victims.

I didn’t do anything then. I just walked out and went down the pub.

A couple of days later I decided that trying to sell stuff that I had absolutely no interest in selling was perhaps not a good career move, so I jacked it in. I was now unemployed... again.

Over the next few days I started thinking about how I intended to support myself and how I could get beer money. I was still living with my parents at the time, so beer money was the priority. I chewed the cud and started thinking seriously about joining one of the emergency services.

The police force was a good option, but wasn’t there a possibility that you could actually get hurt? I mean the police had to arrest people, generally people who didn’t want to get arrested. You could even get shot at...with a gun! I’m a coward, and I had seen a few rucks in my time and had seen a few coppers get in the way of a good right hand. No, the police wasn’t for me.

The fire service was another option, but you had to put out fires, and I had no desire to go anywhere near something that was hot and burning and smoking and exploding, you had to climb ladders too.....No, the fire service wasn’t for me either.

That left the ambulance service. You only had to take sick people to hospital, so you should be relatively safe from harm, it would be a doddle. The pay wasn’t that good, but I could do that while looking for a job that I actually wanted to do. I had already seen the bit of cardboard pinned to the wall down at the job centre, so I resolved to wander down the next day and see if it was still there.

I went down......and sadly it was! 

Call Centres.....don't you love them!

Ofcom, the regulating authority over here in dear old Blighty for communications, are planning a crackdown on nuisance cold calling and text messaging. They have decided that they can/will investigate ‘annoying’ calls as well as ‘distressing ’ ones.

Now, I may be mistaken in this, but as far as I know, any bloody call which drags me out of the shower, in from the garden, or even one that makes me get off my chair, only to pick up the phone and have a few seconds of silence followed by a voice calling itself Nigel along with an accent which I can hardly understand, and who then struggles to pronounce my name correctly before giving the impression that we are old friends and that he knows that I’ve been sitting around all day just waiting for his particular call to send me into raptures of delight, and that I would then enthusiastically agree to buy whatever it is that he thinks that he might be able to sell me, can only be described as annoying and distressing.

A television programme was recently on in the UK following a call centre, a fly on the wall type of thing which had the media singing to its tune. Hang on a minute, this was a call centre, cold calling people who didn’t want them to call in the first place....and the media think that it was great television and that the manager was a star in the making who then proceeded to be invited on to other television programmes to have ‘chats’ as though he was a z-list celebrity. What is that all about!!! He was/is not a celebrity; he was/is an annoying person who cold calls people to get them to drop their hard earned cash into what amounts to his pocket. He is/was a ............... (please feel free to fill in the blank).

What Ofcom and the authorities should be doing is banning the whole bloody practise, making it illegal to cold call anyone....ever!

That is the only way to get these parasites off our backs.

Would I feel sorry for the staff made redundant from this simple little exercise? Actually no, because they could be redeployed to the various customer service departments who would then actually have enough people to answer the sodding calls that the customers who are having troubles with their various bits of equipment/bank/broadband etc  make, and not sit and wait eons on the phone waiting for someone to answer, which normally means waiting for forty minutes only to have the connection break and having to start over again and spending all their hard earned cash on bloody phone calls to premium rate numbers to all these different businesses/organisations who once they have your money spend it on getting bloody call centres to phone you up instead, these same businesses/organisations who really couldn’t give a toss about all the problems you are in reality having!

Today’s rant over, I will now go and lie down with a cold towel over my head!

Shopping

One of the words which will always strike fear into me, like a finely crafted stiletto, is the word ‘Shopping’.

It’s not like, ‘need to pick something up from the shops’, which means there is an actual purpose to the proceedings, but the word ‘Shopping’, especially when accompanied by the word ‘Sale’, conjures up an entirely different prospective experience. It means that I will be dragged around the mall as a walking talking coat hanger hangerer, my only purpose in life being to stick out an arm with the fingers extending whilst all manner of stuff is hooked on in case some other woman comes along and grabs the only remain size whatever. I walk around the shop aimlessly following in her stead and feeling the weight of yet another article as it is placed along with the masses already drooping off my arm. I get sympathetic glances from my fellow man, maybe a look of horror from some man who has just entered the shop, trailing in the wake of his nearest and dearest and knowing full well that the plight that I am currently suffering will surely soon be his. I clatter into things and people for the simple reason that I can’t bloody well see! I hear the tut-tut’s and see the withering glances from the unaccompanied women who have to make do with their own arms to carry the stuff around, while the pile draped around me only gets bigger. What happens then? Well, I then have to retrace my steps, because in her wisdom she has decided that everything that she has hung off my fingers is either “too long” “too pink” “too short” “too thin” etc, etc, etc. A few minutes later I can then rest my weary and aching arms as the last item is hung back on the rack and she makes an exit, deciding that nothing has come up to her high expectation. Me? I’m ignored as she has that look on her face which means that she is already thinking of the shop next door and what delights that it might have to offer. It’s a look of steely resolve, one of fierce determination as she flexes her elbows (shadow jabbing) in readiness for the next assault. I receive a twitch of the head as she leaves the shop, an indication that I’m too slow and that I’m lagging behind and if I know what’s good for me that perhaps I should hurry up because the particular thing that she is maybe looking for is waiting next door and there is no time to waste in the pursuit of whatever it is that she is after, even though she hasn’t a bloody clue what it is!

Then there’s the other shop, the one that sells absolutely nothing of any use whatsoever, the one that people go in purely because it’s there and that it has a sticker on the window which says, yes, you guessed it, ‘Sale’.

“What are we going in here for?” I ask, a bewildered look on my face.

“Because I want to,” she replies, confused.

“But we don’t need anything here,” I counter.

“I don’t know that yet, I might find something that I want.”

I shake my head to clear the fugginess. “But you already know that you don’t want anything here otherwise you would have said that we had to come in here, so if you know that you don’t want anything, then there is no reason to go in and have a look.”

The look I receive is one that would turn anyone else to stone; I’ve had the inoculations so I am relatively safe, for the moment at least. I sigh, and then follow her in.

Which brings me to my point.

Shopping malls have crèches for children; surely they should also have crèches for men too? You know the sort of place, nice comfy chairs, a telly with the football on, tea and coffee on tap, a few in-date magazines; the sort of place where we can go and sit quietly out of the way while she goes out into mall to do her worst to the bank account. That way there will be no arguing, no accusing looks, no angst, no boredom! The men will high-five each other on entering and sit down with a nice cuppa and a biscuit, we could also have a little remote device connected to a tag that the missus has to take with her so that she can come and claim us when she’s finished. But this device will have a cctv attached so we can see what she’s up to, and then there could be a switch that we can flick that gives her an electric shock (only mild mind you, he,he he!) whenever she looks at something too expensive, as we all know women never ever look at the price tag!

A gentleman’s crèche.....what a boon to shopping that would be! 

Coming home

The last few days have been a nice relaxing time, away from the stresses and strains of everyday life, chilling out in the beautiful Wye Valley.

The cottage was near the pub, always a plus and always one of my priorities when searching for somewhere to stay. This one was a good one with the stagger back along a wide meandering river through wild meadows and wooded glades lit only by the moon and stars.

The walking was good too, with paths going through shaded wooded hillsides with panoramic views glimpsed through the trees. They undulated, sometimes steeply, which left me gasping for breath and thinking that perhaps I wasn’t as fit as I thought I was.

However it was a break away and it recharged the batteries. The car was hardly used, shanks’s pony being the main form of getting about. It was a holiday, it was nice.....but then I came home.

Parking the car I was looking forward to the cup of tea and the collapse into the chair.

Emptying the car of the luggage I staggered to the door, the missus standing behind me giving me instruction on how best to place the stuff so that everything was properly balanced, (nice touch dear) and then whilst balancing three cases, a back pack, a cool bag and assorted other bits and pieces fiddled with the key to get into the house. The door seemed stiff so I leant into it thinking perhaps that the heat had perhaps swollen the wood. But no, the frame was fine, what was causing the problem was a week’s supply of junk mail.

There was a mountain of it, piled up beneath the letter box higher than half the hills I’d been walking up only a few short hours ago. It was massive, and as I stepped in it cascaded across the floor. Cursing and swearing at the pile of unsolicited, unwanted and certainly unnecessary communication from people and companies that I have never heard of, never want to hear of, and never think that even in the future would want to hear from, I found that stepping on the pile of leaflets was rather like stepping on ice. I skidded across the hall, or I should say one foot skidded across the hall, as the other one had miraculously found a bare bit and stayed put. Now bear in mind that I was knackered, I was hot and I was laden down with bits of luggage, so you can imagine my language as my foot went from under me and decided to get into the front room well ahead of the other. My groin also complained, because though thirty years ago my joints and muscles were reasonably flexible, age, beer, ciggies etc had taken their toll. I heard the sinews stretch, felt them complain and with a degree of horror realised that the next few micro-seconds were not going to be one of the best.

You girlies haven’t got them, but us blokes have, and I’m referring to the two round hairy objects which dangle between the legs and give a sense of masculinity. Yes, I’m talking bollocks here!

Now, I’m getting on in life, I’ll admit to that, but that makes it even harder to take as I did something which the body is not designed to do even under normal circumstances. I did the splits, and the floor came up at a rate of knots not conducive to the good wellbeing of the soul. My bollocks hit the floor with a half ton of me on top. They scrunched and twisted and screamed out their displeasure at the unwarranted attention of a bit of parquet flooring. I was not happy and my bad language increased accordingly. The wife looked on and smiled.

I dumped the luggage and somehow managed to get to my feet, and then casting a furious glance at the pile of crap adorning the floor staggered bandy-legged through to the front room holding my two precious objects gently in my hand, thanking the Gods that they were still there whole and intact.

I rested awhile and then when the reverberations had slowed down enough I began to go through the pile of junk mail, now there must be a truss manufacturer here somewhere.....or at least some bastard that I can bloody well sue!