One more last working class hero

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linked to public services than currently apply to the uniformed services. It may also be that by a specific partnership at an educational level, in which uniformed public servants actually mentor students that the learning curve may become two-way. It is my intention to persuade my university to allow me to write a Public Service Degree as a way of providing the academic skills and awareness of equality and cultural diversity issues that are so needed in our public services. 112 6.8. CONCLUDING REMARKS Concluding remarks As I said at the start, traditionally the fire service has always been a male group, who lived and worked (and have always been aware that they sometimes die) together. Firefighters are individuals and as such they construct their individual masculinities. However, because it would be a monumental task to look at all of these, this report has sought out the dominant features of what I call ‘firefighters’ masculinity’: the masculinity, which ‘all’ firefighters may follow. From what firefighters have told me it is clear that firefighters socially reproduce the main attributes of their masculinity alongside the tests for how their informal hierarchy, defines a good firefighter: someone who can get-in at a fire whilst ‘others/civvies’ outside watch. However, almost cell like each group of firefighters has other attributes which form their particular view of a good firefighter. So on one watch, apart from being good at firefighting and getting-in, a good firefighters may need to drink a lot. On another watch the requirement may be that you also collect stamps, money for charity or play football. The requirement to fit-in with their hierarchy on the station is a recognised feature of fire service working arrangements. This is especially true because it is at the station where firefighters form their protocols for firefighting, joint understandings and decide who can be a good firefighter. Having established this possibility, it is just a short leap to establishing that being together on the watch provides a sense of security to firefighters. Firefighters’ informal hierarchy may even become their a primary reference group through which they understand the outside (civilian) world. Thus in many respects, the fire service is a closed organisation and in no particular order, central findings of this report conclude that the fire service is a conservative organisation, which: • remains secure employment, so firefighters can go to work ‘knowing’ that they do not face job insecurity or redundancy; • provides employment, which firefighters form an attachment to, enjoy and stick with until they are liable for a pension; • provides employment that firefighters consider to be worthwhile and they construct a professional ethos that they defend (on their and the public’s behalf) against their officers and employers who seem intent on cutting the service; • is a public body with considerable public profile and support; • provides, with some reservations about FP/CFS, an excellent service to the primary stakeholder, the public; • is institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic • restricts entry to those who show working class masculine standards, particularly the requirement to be hands-on, fit, strong able-bodied and heterosexual, and a preparedness to ‘prove’ and test themselves against those standards; • promotes from within its own organisation; • maintains patriarchal traditions and in particular male hierarchies; • is a symbol (an overt icon) of masculinity at work; • provides firefighters with a way of knowing the (outside civilian) world (the watch, in particular, becomes a primary reference group); • allows firefighters to form their subjective view of the standards of a good firefighter/masculinity at work, by being an active subject in setting standards for how their work is done, then testing themselves against these standards and then reflexively looking at themselves as objects that achieve these standards. Nothing in this report can fully portray the closeness between groups of firefighters as they congregate and develop their primary reference group. Work, talk and play are so synonymous that work (including firefighting) can then become almost a social event that firefighters look forward to. But this is not so for the public. The public are frightened of fire and the fact that firefighters ‘go into buildings as everyone else is running out’ gives firefighters a special public image. This image is further extended because firefighters are seen as someone who will help the public whenever they cannot cope with an emergency. This almost establishes firefighters as special and can lead to firefighters believing their image and acting out at work how they subjectively judge they expect to be seen, by themselves, their peer group and the public. In so doing they set themselves apart from the ‘others’ who cannot meet (often because firefighters will not let them) their expectations. It is these ‘special people’ that this report has studied: a group of ‘special’ men and women.
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ONE MORE LAST WORKING CLASS HERO: A
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ii ONE MORE LAST WORKING CLASS HERO
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Acknowledgements. ii Firefighters a
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1 1. CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION These
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1.2. METHODOLOGY Before coming to a
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who increasingly prioritise other a
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image they set of themselves. Firef
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skilled firefighters should also re
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1.4.6. Cutting the fire service In
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firefighters’ priorities mostly f
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1.8.1. Conflict Occasionally the un
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Jefferson 1990; Fielding 1991 1999;
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They have struggled for a long time
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o equal opportunities; o deskilling
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or being forced to accept men’s s
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collect. Then I will make visible s
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2.3.3. Marginal natives: auto-anthr
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particular not to challenge sexism
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other firefighters policing their m
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33 • conduct three focus groups i
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verified my more formal data collec
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37 3. CHAPTER THREE: FIREFIGHTING:
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39 • the need to ‘fit-in’ and
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Initial-training teaches firefighte
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could not overcome the heat and rea
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3.3. WHAT DOES ‘GETTING-IN’ MEA
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47 Cliff: It’s got to be your pri
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Colin: We couldn't see the fire and
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Roger: You want to go out and do st
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Alf: We are going to get two guys o
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55 DB: Dominic: What did the watch
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ecognise that some of those standar
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59 4. CHAPTER FOUR RELATIONS AT THE
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