“A subterranean hell”: Ex-firefighter on the Kings Cross fire and PTSD in the emergency services

(Image: Christopher Newberry under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Firefighter turned BBC reporter Clifford Thompson was on duty when fire broke out in the King’s Cross Tube station in 1987.

The blaze, which killed 31 people and injured 100, was one of several tragedies and callouts revisited in Thompson’s recent memoir.  Falling Through Fire documented his experiences as a firefighter and, later, a reporter covering tragedies, across 25 years.

Most traumatic of all was the memory of a three-year-old boy dying in his arms after a house fire. Thompson, who was eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), tells IFSEC Global about keeping a diary throughout his career, how attitudes to PTSD within the fire service have improved immeasurably and the sweeping changes to firefighting and fire safety prompted by a “decade of disasters”.

IFSEC Global: Hi, Clifford. What prompted you to write the book in the first place?

Clifford Thompson: Although I’d already made use of my career [in the fire service] at the Paddington train crash [as a BBC News reporter], having been to about five train crashes in total, I never felt I needed to write about it.

But in 2005 we had the Bunsfield fire and I started to make a note of what I did. I was building up a stock of major incidents, never mind the hundreds of routine incidents.

The big turning point was 2007 and the 20^th anniversary of Kings Cross, where I did my first big foray into by-line feature writing for the BBC website. So really from about 2005 to 2007 onwards.

It wasn’t a sudden decision, because writing a book is a big commitment. It was a case of trying to get things on paper.

Then by 2009 I thought that if I’m going to do it I’d like some help, so I started looking at a Masters in creative writing – specifically narrative non-fiction.

IG: How difficult was it revisiting some obviously traumatic episodes?

CT: It was difficult. A lot of [the details] blanked out. I couldn’t remember the name of the road where the fire with Gordon was [three-year-old Gordon Taylor died in Clifford’s arms], a big turning point in my career and book.

“It’s not a bad idea to write down everything you can remember about what you see if there’s a major incident, because you’ll want to go back to it at some point in your life”

I’d never read any of the notes I took at the time. One of the things I said in Facebook groups with firefighters I served with, and the ones at Grenfell, is that it’s not a bad idea to just write down everything you can remember about what you see, [especially] if there’s a major incident, because you will want to go back to it at some point in your life.

You don’t have to write a blog or a book; just for yourself, to have a record of it.

So I was quite diligent; I kept a diary for all the time I was in the Fire Service.

It was quite a difficult process. When I wrote the chapter about Gordon I actually went away for a week by myself. I wrote in the morning and had time off in the afternoon and evening until I could get that chapter down.

It was hard to get the technical detail down and to stay true to it.

It doesn’t all pour out in one go. It progressed over a couple of years. And on the Masters programme, we had a two-year deadline from starting the course to having to complete a book.

IG: It’s interesting to read in the book about the various ways in which the fire service has changed…

CT: I wrote a piece for the BBC on the 20^th anniversary of the Kings Cross fire. A lot of things changed after Kings Cross.

The public enquiry report led to real changes in operational procedures and personal protection equipment.

The old Victorian uniform was done away with. We were given Kevlar helmets, longer fire tunics… although most brigades have gone back to using shorter ones.

On the documentary Inside London Fire Brigade, in almost every incident they used thermal imaging cameras. We had thermal imaging cameras but they were very few and far between and we didn’t use them routinely.

“Thermal cameras were few and far between […] We didn’t have mobile phones or decent radios […] Technology has changed the job”

We didn’t have mobile phones or decent radios that worked underground. Technology has changed the job.

One thing I said for an interview I did for The Mirror, is that it’s also now about what you know about an incident, or can find out.

Think back 30 years ago: we had four TV stations, local radio and daily newspapers. So unless you bought a newspaper every day to follow every twist and turn, it was quite hard to go back over an incident.

I know much more about the Kings Cross fire 30 years on than I did at the time because of access to information.

Psychologically that’s helpful. There’s a lot of noise out there but there’s a lot of information.

The charity Mind has a blue-light service targeting emergency service workers, there are Facebook groups… They talked about the number of firefighters on long-term sick leave because of mental health issues on Five Live.

IG: So there’s much more psychological support for firefighters now?

CT: Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, a very senior officer, is a psychologist. Senior officers, and even firefighters, do tend to be much more qualified.

That does make it sound like it’s a job only available to people with qualifications, but it’s more about personal attributes.

“Firefighters at a major incident like Grenfell won’t even leave the fireground until they’ve been debriefed”

Firefighters at a major incident like Grenfell won’t even leave the fireground until they’ve been debriefed and taken to one side to check over.

I think there is a much greater understanding about the psychological effects of traumatic incidents. I think it began to be taken seriously after Kings Cross in 87.

The 80s was the decade of disasters. There were so many major incidents in the UK: Piper Alpha, Marchioness, Hillsborough, the M1 crash, the Manchester airport that caught fire, a coach crash on the A4, the Bradford City fire…

In the Broadwater Farm riots a police officer died trying to protect firefighters.

Because there were so many major disasters so close together I think that really brought PTSD to the fore for emergency service workers and witnesses.

IG: It’s astonishing that the Bradford City and Kings Cross fires were started by a lit cigarette – that smoking was allowed on the underground and in a football ground with wooden stands with piles of flammable rubbish below…

CT: Yeah, I think attitudes to fire safety have improved massively.

I don’t know the stats, but fewer people smoking at home has made a difference. Not leaving bins full of cigarette ends in pubs has made a difference.

I suppose people had never really thought of them as a risk.

The Bradford City fire was broadcast live. In the end they had to cut away because it was too graphic.

They were very public disasters.

Kings Cross happened underground, so it wasn’t visible. The only thing in the news was the smoke coming out, but beneath the surface it was a subterranean hell.

When you saw these disasters publically, and obviously the same with Hillsborough, it really started to raise awareness of PTSD. It’s a terrible condition.

IG: You also mentioned in the book that firefighters are now expected to work a lot longer. Should we have more respect for the fact it’s such an exhausting job mentally and physically?

CT: Firefighters now have to work until 60. It doesn’t stop becoming a physically or emotionally demanding job.

It’s not a cliché to say you don’t know what’s going to happen [when you’re called to an incident]. The LFB Greenwich ticker feed tweeted that the first crews were on the scene of the Parsons Green attack in three minutes. You go from a standing start to a major incident literally in minutes.

In the police there are other [less stressful] roles. My brother was a police officer for 30 years and spent time on credit card fraud.

“I don’t know how paramedics deal with it day in and out”

There are desk-based jobs and research, training and fire safety departments [in the fire service]. But it’s not like policing, where there are operational jobs away from attending blue-light emergency calls.

The difficulty in my day was that if you think there’s a risk [around attending certain types of incidents], they can’t sort out the type of incidents you attend.

I don’t know how paramedics deal with it day in and out. They see more fatalities. Firefighters see a lot of damage to property, but pretty much everything paramedics see is people.

IG: Despite Grenfell, the number of fires has fallen steadily in recent decades and the role of firefighter has evolved as a consequence…

CT: There was never a time in my day when we were sitting around doing nothing. We were training, in the gym, doing drills, lectures, going through operational notes, doing school visits or visits required under legislation. Don’t forget, under the old fire regulations it was the fire brigade’s responsibility to do those inspections.

There was always a popular perception we were behind doors playing snooker all day – that was never the case 30 years ago.

I think firefighters are now doing more community work. Most new London fire stations are built with some sort of community facility so they can have events to educate people.

I think firefighters probably do more fire safety work. You can just phone and have someone come and fit a smoke alarm – that’s new.

CT: Do you think you got out at the right time?

CT: I sometimes think about what would have happened if I served 30 years. But I can’t say I regret not doing that, because it didn’t happen.

The change came when it came. I moved on.

I’m still very much involved in the fire service world. People call me. I happened to be away when Grenfell happened but I still get calls from other bits of the BBC for my opinion on things.

I suppose it took until the Paddington train cash in 98/99 to bring the two careers together in a meaningful, useful way.

“Grenfell feels like Kings Cross felt 30 years ago – that there had to be sweeping changes”

IG: We’ve discussed the myriad fire safety improvements implemented since the mass casualty events of the 1980s and early 90s. But is there now a sense that progress had stalled owing to complacency and that Grenfell will be another trigger for major change?

CT: I didn’t feel the need to shoehorn something in about Grenfell because we were in the final stages of editing when it happened. There comes a point in writing where you have to stop.

I’d be reluctant to comment directly on policy. There are people far way and above my level of experience and there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said.

All I would say is that it’s another wake-up call. Grenfell feels to me like Kings Cross felt 30 years ago – that there had to be sweeping changes.

But Kings Cross didn’t make hundreds of people homeless. And Grenfell is the biggest loss of life since World War Two. It’s unprecedented. And because it’s unprecedented we can’t answer the questions before we properly look at them.

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