Great Bales of Fire

by Malcolm Castle

It's the early 1980s and rookie fireman Malcolm Castle is set to take on the biggest challenge of his life. After three years bouncing around in the back of the country fire-engine, he's about to start driving it! At just 22-years-old—less than half the age of many of his colleagues—he's set to thunder through the narrow streets of one of England's most beautiful medieval towns and speed out across the glorious Shropshire countryside. But while his responsibilities are changing fast, almost everything else in Malcolm's life stays the same. Despite facing his fair share of car accidents, house fires, and farm fires he still seems to spend an awful lot of time answering a string of unlikely and unexpected emergency calls. He rescues shortsighted dogs from frozen lakes, newborn lambs from flooded golf-courses, a pair of angry cows from a busy dual carriageway—and even a hot-footed hamster from a burning cage. Backed up by a heartwarming cast of fellow firemen, Malcolm's enthusiasm for his job and his life are as infectious as ever. So whether it is cats up trees or trees on cars, follow Malcolm as he takes to the wheel for another crazy year in the country fire brigade. Told with the same gentle humor as his first book, All Fired Up , and full of even more extraordinary real-life anecdotes, Shropshire's longest-serving fireman is back—a little older, a little wiser, and even more convinced he has the best job in the world.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2013

Reviews

[Judd Street]

I'll admit that I'm predisposed against the "stories from the fireline" genre to begin with, but this book ended up being a below average entry into that corpus. It's not that Castle isn't a likeable narrator - he absolutely is - but there's just little substance to the stories. More often than not, the tales are more to do with lounging around the station than responding to calls or grappling with the weighty tasks.

The country station to which Castle belongs is a relic of a bygone era: a time when firefighters drank on the job and on the call, and when there wasn't a women to be found in the force (aside, of course, from cooking the meals). There isn't much grappling with these narratives either - just excitement about learning to drive the engine and the occasional call around the township.

While it's an interesting account of the life of a country firefighter, and the way it differs from the urban or wildland experience, it's one of the less compelling, interesting, or insightful accounts I've read.

[Adam Thomas]

A pleasant enough light read, which is worth a look if you want a break between more serious literary adventures. Malcolm "Windsor" Castle recounts some of his experiences as a Shrewsbury firefighter, including the exciting moment when he gets to drive a fire engine for the first time. Despite the male chauvinism in the workplace, Castle is a likeable narrator. But once he'd driven the engine for a few real "shouts," it became clear that there are only so many firefighter anecdotes I can handle in one book.

[Michelle]

Reads like fiction. I love the humor he finds in almost every situation.

[Louise Armstrong]

What a vanished world! Bars in the firestation for the crews! An all male crew who respond with horror to the idea of a female fire fighter! Women are nurses and cooks, preferably to be seen undressed. Right at the end of the book he describes some older firemen who have come to a party - so different from the 80s that they could be dinosaurs. That's how I felt about this world. Gone and good riddance.

There is a very powerful description of a tragic event - it was as clear, as potent, as grave as a Greek drama. I think his heart is in the right place.