Fire Woman

When seventeen-year-old Josephine Reynolds signed up to the Norfolk Fire Service in 1982, there was no such thing as a firefighter – only fireMEN. Nevertheless, she was determined to stick it out. From the gruelling fifteen months of training – wrestling 25-metre thrashing, water-spurting hoses, and manoeuvring through pitch-dark, smoke-filled rooms – to her years on the job as a fully-fledged firefighter – tackling forest fires, escaped zoo animals and unexploded bombs – she tells the story of the exhaustion and exhilaration, the grief and camaraderie, of her career with Britain’s Fire Service.