I just had to show people my first blog. My daughter read it avidly….until line 4, when she reached her boredom threshold, suggesting that, instead, I show it to her boyfriend. (He watches cricket incessantly, so clearly has an infinitely high boredom threshold.)

The link to the Proclaimers’ Sunshine on Leith brought back fond memories of Leith; when I hear the song, I regret ever leaving the greatest capital city in the world, where even the inspecting officers of the fire service are a friendly bunch.

However, they did not, apparently, take kindly to a disk jockey’s innocent endeavours to burn down a nightclub, just up the hill from Leith, one New Year’s Eve, with over-exuberant pyrotechnics. This precipitated the first (and perhaps still the only?) prosecution under the Fire (Scotland) Act. The pyrotechnics ignited netting on the ceiling, while kids chanted “The Roof! The Roof! The Roof is on fire!” (Rock Master Scott and the Dynamic Three for those less hip than myself.) Who says it’s Glaswegians who have the sense of humour! The Sherriff duly relieved the DJ of £1000.

All a bit more frenetic than the audience in the fire at the Empire Palace Theatre in Edinburgh in 1911, which gave us the 2.5 minute evacuation time (though it’s not, as suggested in CLG guidance, appropriate for sub-compartments in care homes, and it did not, as is legend, emanate from the time to play the National Anthem).

When studying fire engineering, I drove black taxis in Edinburgh, and loved cruising the dark, dramatic deserted streets of Leith on nightshift. I have a vivid memory of beginning to eat a freshly baked sausage roll, obtained at 4am from a Leith baker, when control called for anyone to take an emergency at Portobello power station, where an injured worker needed hospital treatment.

Sandra, the controller, was a plain speaking and articulate girl – she once threatened me “tak yer han aff ma knee or I’ll brek yer jaw” – and advised me what to do with the sausage roll when I volunteered that, if there was no one else, I’d go once I’d finished it. As her suggestion was anatomically impossible, I held it wedged in my mouth, while driving and flashing headlights to overtake slow moving lorries. (The road rage of a lorry driver was less frightening than the wrath of Sandra.)

Driving nightshift allowed reflection on a future career, which at the time seemed rather dismal. A fire officer had told my mother that fire engineering was “a load of rubbish”, while an insurance company chief surveyor told me he had not a single ‘O’ grade and was fantastic at his job, so there was no place for fire engineering graduates.

Funny how things change, isn’t it? Insurance companies now recruit engineering graduates, while some fire officers have fire engineering degrees. However, many fire and rescue services fail to recognise the worth of these qualified officers because fire safety is not regarded as a worthy career in its own right. It still has its share of those with no interest or aptitude in the subject, posted as a career step, while long term commitment to fire safety ruins careers.

It was ever thus, but building design has grown in complexity, and fire safety is no longer simple in application. This has been recognised by the insurance companies. Will it ever be recognised by fire and rescue service management?

New Years Eve fire at the Luna nightclub, Edinburgh: