She washed her hair in the toilets of the Pen and Wig pub in Newport and revised in “quiet corners and shop doorways”. She made national news when she turned up for her GCSEs with dyed red hair, a pierced lip and a dog, and was required by her headteacher to sit her exams in a wig for infringing uniform policy. Somehow she managed to pass with an A star, six As and three Bs. “It wasn’t as good as I should have achieved,” she says. If it is something you’re interested in and you think you would be good at it, then go for it.” Modern Day Firefighting Considering the writing, the author has portrayed his role at this incident in such an ambiguous way to lead readers to believe he was part of the initial deployment. For instance:

We begin with one of the worst tragedies in recent years in the UK, Grenfell, the tower that light up London with fire. Edric wasn’t one of the first firefighters there and doesn’t claim to have been but he tells us of his experiences, the heart-breaking task he was asked to perform, a search for victims of the fire. As she had made her way to west London, Cotton, 48, had been listening to her brigade radio, which was transmitting messages between the control room and the fire ground, trying to form a picture of what awaited her. When she saw the blazing tower, any hope she had that loss of life would be avoided was extinguished. It has a wealth of traditions and history, sometimes tragic, sometimes not, that can so easily be overlooked if it is not put in the public domain for people to share and to reflect on. In this book I was aided by individuals with a similar version of bringing aspects of the past to life with true stories of bravery and sacrifice and of fictional tales which shows the work of London’s fire brigade in all its guises. Cotton had gone into the tower to gain an understanding of the nightmare confronting her colleagues. “I could see the conditions when we went in, the severity of the fire. The debris was raining down on us. I knew I was committing them to an extreme situation, and in those situations things aren’t always predictable and that was very frightening.”Is it like that now? “It’s not,” she says. But her seniority will afford some protection and I wonder how the experience differs for 18-year-old women joining the fire service today. “I am really confident that they wouldn’t have that same experience – because we’ve done so much work,” she says. “We know what the world is like and we are doing our best not just to change the fire service but society.” One small place to start could be renaming Fireman Sam. Her daughter, who would like to be an astronaut firefighter, putting out fires in space, used to rail at the TV, “It’s not fireman, it’s firefighter!” I’d guess she heard that from someone else. “I 100% think it should be Firefighter Sam. Language makes a difference,” she says. Cohen-Hatton loves the metaphor of a jigsaw for the eternal piecing together of information that is an incident commander’s life, but a reader trying to do the same with the memoir elements of her book may struggle. Not all the pieces are present and presumably the missing ones are the result of her own risk analysis.

The Massey Shaw fireboat is an octogenarian. Like others in their 80’s not everything is as fit and well-oiled as things were in their 20’s or even mid-40s. The old girl needs constant maintenance and upkeep. That all cost money and as the most iconic fireboat in the UK I could not think of a better cause than my writing supporting the Massey Shaw Education Trust, its aims and, maybe, seeing this historic craft reach her 100 years and beyond. When she was homeless, she spent some nights on the street, some in derelict buildings. These squats were better than hostels. “I could make a safe space, control it,” she says. She knew the exits, the threats. The calculations she made each night did not differ greatly from her incident commanders’ Decision Control Process. I am that old that I actually chose the career of a ‘fireman’. Today’s term reflects the changing face of the service and its drive to secure ever more women into its ranks. But regardless of which label you use the ‘job’ had (and still retains) qualities which were exciting, demanding and extremely rewarding. I Was a London Firefighter contains a host of factual narratives and fictional tales based loosely around personal experiences from individuals from the London Fire Brigade, ranging from the mid-19th century to present day. The book focuses on key historical events such as the IRA’s 20-year bombing campaign in London, the King’s Cross fire of 1987 and a compelling description on the 2017 Grenfell Tower Fire.

It wasn’t meant to be antagonistic, they were simply curious, but it obviously was a very odd experience for me.” Aynway, I wished for more stories of his life as a firefighter - I mean, certainly there have been many other interesting jobs he had to do during his watches but he doesn't tell us! Our main character is the author of the book himself and it's finally a book where you can really see how mentally damaged a firefighter can be. Sure, he's talking a lot about his feelings and the problems that bother him after jobs, but that's the life of many firefighters. Maybe a lot of people complain about it but I think it's important to show that a firefighter is vulnerable and with how many things they have to deal - sometimes even without the help of a supporting centre or so. When I arrived I got out of my car and looked up at Grenfell Tower. My first thought was that it looked like something out of a disaster movie, like something that could never happen in London.”