Water, Water, Everywhere!

Take a hot sunny day and twelve excited children. Mix with copious volumes of water and you get – FUN!
Especially when it’s the Chernobyl Children’s Life Line and the water is coming from huge hoses at Billericay Fire Station.
Friday, June 29 at 10.00am. The children, all wearing red baseball caps, are ready and waiting at the fire station with Svitlana, their translator and CCLL Programme Organiser, Gaynor Manthorpe to be met by station manager, Dave and two of his team, Rob and Rob (shades of ‘Mind if I call you Bruce?’). They distributed bags of Haribo sweets to raise the children’s energy levels even higher.
Then out to the yard behind the station to be shown all the various equipment stored on the fire engine including the cutting gear, hoses and how the breathing apparatus works. Chance to put on a protective helmet and gloves and use the hydraulic cutter to chop up some old car doors. Easy – like a knife going through butter.

Driving Seat And Hosing Down!

Now the best bit. Climbing up, four at a time, into the crew area of the fire engine and, one at a time, into the driver’s seat for a photo opportunity. Then, a dressing up session followed; donning protective trousers, jacket, helmet and boots – easier to put on than pull off!
Lunch while hoses were prepared.  Svitlana double-checked that everyone had a change of clothing and we retired to a ‘safe’ distance with the camera. Then the real FUN began. Forward a volunteer and two children, assisted by the two Robs, aiming two hoses at them from 40 feet away. One soaked volunteer gave way to another but no escape for those keeping dry.  They found themselves getting wet as Rob and Rob turned the hoses on each other and in seconds, everyone was drenched.
The big floor-mounted hose was then turned on producing a huge fountain that the children ran in and out of for half an hour before drying off and getting changed. Time to go, so the children lined up in pairs to perform their “Thank You” clapping song. And so enjoyable was it all that Gaynor pencilled in next year’s visit in her diary.