AS a retained firefighter, Jim Reddish never knew when his phone or pager might sound, signalling him to get to Morisset Fire Station for a job.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It could be at 2am during a rain storm. It could be at 2pm during a heat wave.
But after 30 years and nine months on the job, he came to expect a call at particular times.
“Nearly every time you had something planned, you could guarantee that you’d get called out for something,” Mr Reddish, 67, said.
And so he’d drop everything and leave a Christmas lunch with the family to attend to a motor vehicle accident, or house fire.
Such is the life of a retained firefighter.
And it’s a life that Mr Reddish admits he’ll find hard to walk away from.
This week, Mr Reddish retired and handed in his keys to the station.
“I’ve got to wind down,” he said.
It’s time to spend more time with wife, Rhonda, his children and grandchildren.
“We’ve just bought a new caravan. My wife has put up with a lot over the years, and I just think it’s time to give her something back.”
But Mr Reddish’s long commitment to the dangerous and selfless work of a NSW Fire and Rescue crew only tells part of the story.
Up until 2015, Mr Reddish had also been working as an underground coal miner for 42 years. That included 32 years for Centennial Coal at its Myuna Colliery, and before that in Kandos, where he worked in mine rescue.
Related reading
As he sits in the lunch room at the Morisset station, Mr Reddish smiles and says: “I suppose this has become my home away from home”.
“I’ll definitely miss the blokes,” he said. “The comradeship is great. It takes a special breed of person to do this work.”
Mr Reddish said a retained firefighter never really switched off.
“If you’re going to mow the lawn, or you’re going to the pictures, you’re always thinking where’s my pager?”
There have been many jobs he won’t forget: the bushfires of 1994 and 2004, several motor vehicle accident rescues and fires, and a building fire and subsequent rescue for which he received a bravery award from NSW Governor General, Marie Bashir, and a commendation medal from the Fire and Rescue NSW commissioner, in 2005.
Mr Reddish said he’d witnessed extraordinary change in firefighting.
“We started out just being responsible for putting out fires. Then we went to HAZMAT, and then home, industry and road rescue, too,” he said.
Mr Reddish said his late father, Carl, had been a bushfire brigage captain, and now Mr Reddish’s son, Paul, was continuing the family tradition by working as a firefighter in Morisset.
