When Roddy McAllister started working in fire, 45 years ago, Glasgow still had the unenviable reputation as the “Tinderbox City” of Europe; in the 60s, fires were frequent and some shockingly devastating – with death tolls not seen outside wartime bombings.
In late autumn, days after Roddy retired, Glasgow was in the spotlight as world leaders gathered to save the planet from the ravages of global heating. This was the momentous task COP26 was under pressure to deliver. Though some progress was made, commentators agree there is still a very long way to go – and further delays could well mean too little too late.
AMONG THE LONGEST SERVING
Roddy, keen to see all generations escape climate catastrophe, has firm views on this, agreeing with campaigner Greta Thunberg’s no-nonsense take on Cop26:“She was right. Too much blah blah blah and not enough action.”
He must be among the longest serving firefighters in the UK and has lived through the changes global heating is bringing to the job – more wildfires, more rainfall and more floods.
At an FBU public meeting during COP26, Roddy spoke from his decades of experience in control on how climate change is reshaping the job.
“There have always been grass fires, but they are becoming much more intense,” he says.
And on his last two night shifts in late October, just before COP26, control was inundated with flooding calls”.
But it is not only global heating that is changing the firefighter’s role. Roddy reckons the pandemic has seen firefighters becoming “social workers too” – with an increase in the number of mentally distressed people phoning 999 during lockdown – some on the cusp of self-harm.
‘TINDERBOX CITY’
Roddy has heart-breaking first-hand experience of the devastating effect Glasgow’s past as “Tinderbox City” had on families.
In 1960, when he was just five, a warehouse crammed with a million gallons of whisky and 30,000 gallons of rum caught fire in Cheapside.
As fire crews from across the city battled the alcohol-fuelled blaze, the building exploded, killing 14 firefighters and five salvage workers.
One of them was 27-year-old firefighter Christopher Boyle, married to Roddy’s sister. The couple had four children under five – the youngest born just 19 days before the fire.
Roddy gives a moving account of this historic family connection to the infamous blaze in the union’s centenary film The Firefighter’s Story. He took the surviving nieces and nephews he grew up alongside to the Glasgow premiere screening.
Roddy was active in two national strikes spending nine weeks “freezing on the picket line” in the winter of 1977, shortly after he joined – sustained by camaraderie and “Yeoman Instant Mash Potato”.
Some 25 years later he was out freezing on the picket line again in the national pay strike, his ardour for the cause of a better deal for firefighters undampened.
Gorbals-born Roddy is proud to be a “Red Clydesider”, with a longstanding loathing of Margaret Thatcher for the “damage” she inflicted.
He is “disgusted and appalled” by station closures and job cuts under Tory rule in the UK over the years and the devastating effects of “light-touch regulation”, he sees as paving the way for the horror of the Grenfell fire and the loss of 72 lives.
FIREMASTER’S COMMENDATION
Roddy has always been a team player at work – it’s just the way he is.
Take what happened back in 2000. He was set to receive a Firemaster’s Commendation award for a fire survival call. He had kept a young woman, trapped in a burning building with her baby, reassured and as calm as he could for half an hour as fire crews fought the lames before the rescue.
But Roddy refused to accept the award in person unless the watch control team joined the ceremony. The Firemaster duly came down to the control centre, 17 miles from the city, to make the award in person, with the watch in attendance. “It’s not just about the individual, it’s about the team,” says Roddy.
His insistence that the team should be part of the awards ceremony was mentioned by senior Scottish Fire and Rescue staff when he retired. It has always underpinned his approach to the job and his colleagues in control.
It was a memorable “leaving do” too, held at the Rhoderick Dhu pub in Glasgow. The walls were covered in Roddy’s quotes – disproving in an instant one he often uttered: “You never listen to a word I say”.
He is known as “The Voice” at control – for his “distinctive delivery”.
Former colleagues from the ’77 strike, fathers and sons he has worked alongside and mentored, were among the many who turned out to celebrate his distinguished career on the telephone front line.
Roddy was “very touched” by “An Ode to Control” – emailed by group commander Murdo Henderson to everyone at the control centre, singling out soon-to-retire Roddy as “this legend” with an “unmistakable voice”.
He had heard Roddy, “Calm. Steadfast. Consistent. Professional”, guiding a trainee new to control. But, crucially, the group commander added, “control is the gel that binds us” – praising the team not just the “legend” who “taught us well”.
An inclusive, team approach, acknowledging the key role control watches play in fighting fires. Given his track record on sharing praise and recognition, no wonder Roddy was so touched.
