Action woman
Louise Jones took a substantial pay cut when she gave up a manager's job to follow her dream and join the ranks of the county's firefighters.
Louise Jones took a substantial pay cut when she gave up a manager's job to follow her dream and join the ranks of the county's firefighters.
Louise Jones doesn't look much like a man. She doesn't sound much like a man. And she doesn't act much like a man.
That's because she's a woman. Not that you can tell when she turns up, all 5ft 9ins of her, to a raging fire wearing heavy duty firefighting gear plus helmet.
In fact in the heat of the moment she's often mistaken for a man - until she opens her mouth.
Louise, one of the latest firefighting recruits on red watch in Telford, says: "We attended an incident to assist the police with a body recovery and the police officer called 'us gents' over. When he realised I was a woman he was very apologetic. He had just assumed as is often the case that we were all men."
But it is often women who are even more presumptuous about firefighters always being men.
"We are often introduced as firemen and then when they see two woman firefighters they are usually quite shocked," Louise continues.
"But I don't know why as there have been women in the fire service for years. Many are retiring now but members of the public do not seem to realise that."
There are currently ten women firefighters in the Shropshire service which has an operational staff of 538, and Shropshire has a proud history of women in the fire service.
Two women were the first females to join Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service as retained firefighters in 1990, serving for 16 and 13 years at Clun and Much Wenlock fire stations.
The first full-time woman firefighter joined in January 1993 and served for more than ten years. Furthermore, the county has one of the UK's highest ranking women officers in the shape of Assistant Chief Officer at Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service, Louise McKenzie.
She beat 13 other applicants to be appointed Shropshire's first woman assistant chief officer in 2005 and is responsible for training and development as well as HR and equality and diversity for the service and its plus employees.
It's something that Louise Jones, 34, can only recommend. Indeed she wished she'd followed her dream and become a firefighter years ago.
But again, sexism and misplaced perceptions conspired to scupper her plans.
Careers advisors were, she says, "dismissive" and "unhelpful" about her career hopes and were "a bit sexist about a girl having such ambitions".
Instead she was steered towards a more traditionally female career, training as a nurse. It wasn't for her and Louise found herself working in a residential home and becoming a care home manager by the age of 27 and later setting up residential and respite units for adults with learning difficulties.
But still she was left at the end of the day feeling unfulfilled, and like many people confesses that in her previous job she worked to pay for nice holidays to alleviate the dread of going back to work.
And, heaven forbid that Monday might come round again.
"I was desperate to change jobs," she says. "I had spent years dreading going to work. I used to get wound up on a Sunday morning thinking that I had to go back to work the next day."
Her partner Mark, a firefighter himself, gave Louise an insight into the work of a firefighter and Louise eventually took the first step to join the service after attending an awareness session for women at Telford Fire Station.
Soon she found herself carrying heavy weights, climbing high ladders and going into a dark, smoke-filled room wearing breathing apparatus as part of tests.
She loved it so much she even took a £7,000 a year pay cut to become a firefighter. Louise was accepted into the service and spent ten weeks training before joining red watch at Telford in January 2008.
In her job, no two days are the same and being on call means that Louise and her colleagues never quite know what horrors might await around the corner.
Today she attends road crashes and helps cut free people trapped in the wreckage of their vehicles, turns out for emergency fire calls at houses and business premises while also attending shopping malls and schools to give out leaflets and talk to the public about fire safety.
It's a vital role - firefighters in the county have reduced house fires to their lowest level.
Louise, who recently helped to pull a dead body from a lake in Telford, admits: "I'm not very good at sitting behind a desk.
"I am a practical person and that is why this job is so satisfying. All the elements of what I enjoy doing are rolled into one.
"There is the adrenalin rush of never knowing if you are turning out to an automatic fire alarm or a raging inferno. You are never sure what it may be.
"I do love the variety. It is a mix of supporting and helping people and then the next minute you are responding to an emergency.
"You do get the adrenalin rush and you put your skills into operation helping people when they really need it."
For more information about a career in the fire service contact Natalie Hill, Equality & Diversity Officer, on 01743 260236 or visit www.shropshirefire.gov.uk
