Edric Kennedy-Macfoy - Into the Fire: My Life as a London Firefighter

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

6163 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

www.penguin.co.uk

Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright Edric Kennedy-Macfoy 2018

Cover: Firefighter and background Alamy
Design by Stephen Mulcahey/TW

Edric Kennedy-Macfoy has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473558762

ISBN 9780593080375

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

To my beautiful mother and all the loved ones I have sadly lost: Edric Macfoy and Isata Macfoy, Nigel McCarroll, Carol McCarroll, Ryan ODonnell, Edmund Cole, Josephine Cole, Olo Macfoy, Fred Macfoy, Rosalyn Macfoy, Donald McCormack, Justyna Sawyer, Hannah Shrimpton, Adam Blennerhassett, Wayne Richards, Kieran Nagar, Joanna. And to all those who have fallen victim to tragedy in the city I have served throughout my career. You are free from any pain and suffering this world has to offer and live on in the fond memories and eternal love that will always remain.

Gone but never forgotten, may your souls continue to rest in perfect peace.

The events described here are based on memories of my experiences as a firefighter. To respect the privacy of others, I have altered various personal details and descriptions. My views and the publication of this book are in no way endorsed by the London Fire Brigade which accepts no responsibility for my opinions or conclusions.

I have served for over thirteen years in the London Fire Brigade, and seen many things in my time as a firefighter. For years, I thrived on the intensity and fed off the adrenalin of the job, looking forward to the next high-risk call-out, the station bells summoning us to a serious fire, a large road traffic accident or some other unfolding disaster in which human life hung in the balance. Racing to a scene and deploying my training in the desperate attempt to save lives felt like my calling. It gave me a huge sense of satisfaction, and I was enormously proud to wear the uniform. Then everything changed.

My flashbacks started not long after Grenfell. At first, they crept into my sleeping hours and turned my dreams into nightmares. Soon, they appeared during my waking day too, seeping into my consciousness, transporting me to another place, back into the tower at Grenfell or onto the tracks at Croydon, or any number of scenes from my career. Time would appear to stand still, the real world would fade out, and Id be falling once again through the black hole inside my mind.

In this semi-conscious state I would see them. I would see all the people we have failed to save, the faces of the lives that have been lost, of those we have been unable to keep from harm. Sometimes they would be distant, haunting me, suspended in the mist of everyday life. At other times, Id see them clearly. When I slept, they were in technicolour. A thousand lives playing out in my vivid dreams. They drew me to them, through the heat and the smoke. Id race forwards with an outstretched hand, but Id never make it in time. The fires raging inside my head always claimed them first.

This hasnt always happened to me. Mental fortitude is a huge part of the job. Good firefighters have to be able to detach themselves emotionally from the job, to work diligently and with compassion, but to leave the trials of a day at the door when they return home. Otherwise the burden becomes too great, the trauma too much to bear. I have always been very good at separating my professional experiences from my personal life. But recently things have been different.

I have seen a lot in my time in the London Fire Brigade I am well acquainted with tragedy but nothing could have prepared me for the scenes at Grenfell Tower. They changed me. In the pages that follow I will do my best to help you understand my job, to show you what we sacrifice and why we do it. I will take you with me to Grenfell, and to a number of other callouts that have defined my career. I want to give you an unvarnished account of my life as a firefighter, but before I tell you about my past I want you to understand something important about my present.

Firefighters have a reputation for being brave. We charge headfirst into situations that others are fleeing from. We fight fires. We save lives. Some say we are heroes. Many of us are drawn to the job because we thrive on the danger and we value the opportunity to do something truly meaningful. We are proud of what we do, and we do it well. But we are also human beings. We are fragile and vulnerable too.

Attending Grenfell had profound effects on me, and on a number of my colleagues many of whom played more significant roles than I did in saving precious lives on that awful day. What began as sadness in the immediate aftermath of the fire soon grew into frustration and despair, and eventually guilt. I struggled to understand why it had affected me so deeply and I questioned my right to such an emotional response after all, there were many other victims whose lives had been impacted by the fire far more than mine.

This initial chink of self-doubt slowly began to weaken the armour I had relied upon for so long, and it wasnt just Grenfell that played on my mind. A lifetime of suppressed feeling flooded in and narrowed my vision. I shrank into myself and stopped enjoying life, and I began to develop suicidal thoughts.

An epiphany on a train platform helped me seek out the help of some good friends and to lean on the support of the Fire Brigades counselling service, and I was slowly helped back from the edge. I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and prescribed time off work, and I began to rediscover the positive person I thought Id lost. Life regained its meaning.

It is a long road back from an experience like that, and it has had a lasting impact on the way I approach my life and my profession, and on how I view my colleagues and friends. Writing this book has been a sort of therapy for me and I hope you enjoy reading my stories, but more than anything I hope that speaking about my experiences will help anyone who can relate to them. None of us are invincible.

I woke up shortly before 5 a.m. and had a quick look at my phone; bad habit in the middle of the night. I checked my messages and found nothing particularly interesting, then switched to my internet browser and a news site. The main story was about a fire at a block of flats in north-west London called Grenfell Tower. The pictures were shocking. This huge tower block completely alight and massive flames set against the night sky.