Firefighters don't want to strike but what option are we left with?

Like most people, I joined the fire service because it is a service.

We help members of the public - who pay our wages - when they are at their most needy, whether because they are losing their property because of fire, their own lives and those of their loved ones are at risk or Tiddles is stuck up a tree.

Twenty-four hours every day, every person in every city, town, village and hamlet in this country knows if they need us we will be there to help, normally within 20 minutes.

The Fire Brigades Union has been classed as Scargillian because of its strike campaign but what of the Thatcherite Labour government?

Its members can happily give themselves a 40 per cent pay rise unquestioned yet still condemn the actions of one of the country's biggest unions - which has supported the Labour government since its formation - when its members want the same.

So it comes down to us walking out the doors for periods of eight days at a time. This means we will be earning roughly half our normal monthly pay. For what reason? Because no one is willing to compromise.

A 40 per cent pay rise would be fantastic but I ask you to find me a firefighter who would not have happily accepted the 16 per cent local authorities were willing to give us had John Prescott not quashed that offer.

The cheapest property for a first-time buyer in Brighton and Hove is about £120,000. To enable someone to buy such a place, that individual would need £6,000 deposit, £2,000 moving costs and an annual income of £28,500.

They would then be the proud owner of a one-bedroom flat that a particularly large cat would not like to be swung in.

How would Mr Prescott or any other member of the Government like to drag a casualty out of a filthy squat, with temperatures in the hundreds of degrees, having to avoid discarded needles at every step?

Then, in the afternoon give a hopefully uninterrupted talk to a group of schoolchildren or pensioners about the merits of fire safety (one of the extra duties we are not paid for)?

How about starting a shift at 6pm and cutting the mangled body of a young joy-rider out of a car in the early evening, getting back to the station just in time to do a drill demonstration for a group of Brownies and then pumping water from a flooded basement for the next four hours?

Finally, at 9am, going home for eight hours. Unfortunately, that involves driving yourself - not being chauffeured - 40 miles to the only place where you can find a house you can afford.

Don't forget, you are back on duty in eight hours' time, of course.

If government fat cats can be paid for the job they don't do, surely we can be paid for the job we do do?

-Tom Walby, firefighter, Preston Circus Fire Station, Brighton