One more last working class hero

1999: 158-161). Third, if officers were to criticise the system, especially those who went before them, then they would
be criticising in effect themselves, or at least the system that they would argue chose them. The Dean of the FSC justifies
the fire service view:
The fire service is a vocation … motivated more by a sense of public service than by monetary awards … Graduate
entrants could never fully participate in the professional ethos of the British Fire Service because this ethos is founded
on the shared experience of having been a firefighter.
(Willis-Lee 1993a: 11-2). [My emphasis].
Willis-Lee argues against graduate entrant level, suggesting instead the importance placed on officers’ “shared
experience” of the fire service’s raison d’etre – the saving of life, the suppression of fire and the rendering of
humanitarian services (the product of firefighters’ labour). Officers will also have a, “shared experience” of having fittedin,
or at least having worked on a watch (see Chapters 1, 3 and 4).
79
5.2.2. Principal officers’ view
The Fire Service College trains most officers in the fire service and I gained access to two consecutive Brigade Command
Courses (BCC). This was an excellent opportunity to mix with those selected to lead the fire service in the future. I
shadowed them in formal sessions, at meals, in the bar, at a ‘landing party’ 176 and playing golf (rather, they played golf
and I followed them round: an excellent situation in which to meet people and gather data). The selection process for the
BCC is competitive and appears to be uncompromising:
Chief Officer:
The BCC cannot get enough good students for next year so has been cut back from two [courses] a year
to one.
(All details withheld). [My insert].
There is no compromise on standards of entry for the BCC and if promotion remains limited to STEP, then, according to
Alistair, there will not be enough trained officers to fill the expected vacancies:
Alistair:
Not enough courses to provide all principal officers that will be needed in the future: 387 applied for
this course, short listed to 59, 11 selected.
(BCC student). [My emphasis].
The fire service’s current inability to provide suitable candidates to run two BCC’s a year places a question mark over
who fills the vacancies that still exist when all those judged to be suitable have been promoted. Given the limitations of
STEP, in the future (and perhaps now) untrained (and by inference unsuitable) officers may fill the vacancies for principal
officers.
5.2.3. The BCC view
My access to those chosen to lead the fire service in the future provides an opportunity to investigate Willis-Lee’s (1993)
claim that officers had “shared experience” with firefighters. I did this in the awareness that when people who are part of
a shared experience/understanding (especially a class grouping) move away and adopt different value, this can be a site of
conflict (Hollway and Jefferson 2000; see Collinson 1992, 1994; Hearn 1994). However, the majority view amongst
officers confirms Willis-Lee’s argument. Officers are convinced (or at least they tried to convince me) that without
experiential knowledge of being a firefighter they could not do their job. Moreover, they also considered that they could
update their shared understandings by attending fires and talking to firefighters. However, Chapters 3 and 4 suggest that
firefighters may have something to hide from officers, and it would be reasonable to expect that this may influence the
discussions between firefighters and officers. In reply to a question about a gap between firefighters and officers,
Arnold’s answer was simple:
Arnold:
Certainly when I was a firefighter even the Divisional Commander coming to the station would be an
event. And we would be up and polishing things and making sure the appliance was together and all the
usual bullshit sort of stuff. I think a lot of that has gone now anyway. Certainly, when I go on a station
I wouldn’t expect firefighters to be anything like we were when a senior officer came. … Now when I
go on a firestation I tell everybody before I go and we sit down and have a cup of tea out of uniform ..
relaxed dress anyway and we sit round and have a cup of tea 177 .
(BCC student). [My emphases].
176 ‘Landing parties’ are not so much parties, but an in-house name for when students at FSC meet for late night drinking and socialising at the end of
their accommodation corridors.
177 Presumably this is similar to a ‘hats off’ meeting.