Secret Squirrel

by Secret Squirrel

  I thought that I may have blown it with my hostess, but about half way back on the return journey, she pulled the car into a service station and drove round to an extremity of the service area. She jumped into the back of the car, stripped off and said, “Let’s have one for the road”.

  My next trip with this sex goddess was to Austria. We had a very nice hotel, but the food portions were not to my liking, so I began chatting up the waitress as I spoke reasonable German. My host was again not pleased with my less than 100% attention to herself and absolutely furious when my food portions increased. Given the choice between fish and chips or sex is tough for me, but there is only one winner.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Changing Roles

  Back to work, back to comparative boredom. One of my duties at work was to supply all operational equipment, which I had wrestled away from nonoperational personnel who did not know what they were buying and did not operate any form of evaluation. I had to spend quite a lot of time with equipment manufacturers’ representatives. I quickly earned a reputation for my no-nonsense approach. I did not have time to waste. Quite often, the equipment that we needed had not been invented yet. Equipment was available for general application and for multiple purchase. My message to manufacturers was that, although we were a niche or specialist market, we were a prestige market and if it was good enough for us – it was good enough for anyone. If ever you needed anything testing for robustness, give it to firemen. To give you an example – an Irishman and a fireman were both locked in a padded cell and issued with two ball bearings. After half an hour they were released. The Irishman had been playing marbles with his ball bearings but the Fireman had lost one and broken one. Knowing firemen’s reputation, I introduced a system whereby if any equipment was damaged, broken or it simply did not work, it had to be sent to workshops with a label attached indicating what was wrong with the item. A battery had been run over by a twenty-six-ton truck and the battery was sent to workshops with the requested label bearing the words ‘flat battery’. After a while, and because I gave manufacturers a hard time, I did become a member of several British Standard Institute Committees and was horrified to learn that conforming to British Standards did not mean that a product was good (up to a standard). What it meant was that the product bearing the kite mark conformed to the standard set by manufacturers. In other words: “the piece of wood must be 30 mm long and be 25mm thick.” If the task could be completed more successfully by a 2mm piece of plastic – that would be irrelevant. It would not meet the standard. One manufacturer listened to me and said that he would develop his equipment to meet our needs. Music to my ears.

  I was invited to Holland by an equipment supplier to visit a manufacturer. A selected group set off from the north east and drove down to Hull to catch the ferry. We stopped for quite a few beers before reaching the terminal, boarded the ferry at 5pm and then drank more beer and spirits and continually ate food until the early hours of the next morning. After buffet breakfast, we set off for the outskirts of Amsterdam, where we had more food and coffee, courtesy of the manufacturer. We had a good chat about the requirements of the equipment and then went outside to check their equipment’s performance. It was the best available but was the twice the price of its nearest competitor. We stopped for lunch and were treated to a range of local food dishes, the likes of which I had never tasted before. I could imagine a Dutch milk maid eating this stuff; I wasn’t that impressed, but it would be rude not to polish off their tucker. After more discussions and a workshop visit, we headed on to an hotel to check in for the evening. We pulled up outside this city centre hotel and parked the vehicle outside. After instructions from the reception, the vehicle was parked within four bollards and then a four-digit number was pressed onto the buttons of what looked like a ticket machine. Then the vehicle disappeared below ground and was automatically moved into an allocated bay. The ground was then reinstated. I wondered if the vehicle would be retrieved soaking wet. After a shower and change, we were picked up by the factory owner in his large Mercedes and driven to a posh restaurant, where we had to endure more food and drink. Then it was off to a nightclub with lots of available women. I stuck to the food and alcohol, as I did not wish to pick up any free gifts from the much-used women.

  The next day involved a look around the city and also The Hague, followed by lunch and a final visit to the factory. Then it was back to the ferry for some more serious eating and drinking before heading home the following morning. On return to work, I made a case for changing and extending our extrication equipment. This was because of the big price differential. Pretty soon the rest of the region and eventually most of the other UK brigades changed over to this kit. It made sense because of the reliability, the superior performance and the fact that common equipment removed any problems with interchangeability and training implications.

  My exploits in Amsterdam were well publicised, particularly in relation to eating and drinking. Many company representatives were now calling and offering to take me out to lunch. In fact, a group of representatives had got together and organised a wager on my eating prowess. They had arranged for me to attend a well-known eating establishment for an arranged challenge. Apart from their private wager, they had promised to donate a substantial sum to the Fire Service Benevolent Fund, should I complete the challenge. The challenge was to eat a bin lid full of food. The bin was of the corrugated metal variety with a handled lid. The bin lid was then turned upside down with the lid handle facing downwards. I must state at this point that the bin and lid was brand new and therefore, comparatively clean. The base of the lid was covered in chips, followed by peas and carrots, layered with four steaks, twelve beef burgers, (each topped with a fried egg) and a whole chicken placed on top. I didn’t particularly like the peas and carrots and asked for these to be changed to beans or something else, but eventually agreed to go ahead.

  I started on the chicken first. When I used to work nightshifts, I was in the habit of eating whatever was supplied by the mess, plus my own additional supper which could be anything other than what the mess supplied. It could have been a fry-up or several fish and chips or even a catering container of jelly. Before turning in for the night, I always used to eat a whole, well-cooked chicken as my reward for working nights. Eating a whole chicken was nothing to me, so I disposed of it and started on the burgers and eggs. They soon went and then it was the steaks’ turn, followed by the liberally salted chips and veg. The whole lot was gone in the time it would take a normal person to eat a normal sized meal. The landlord jokingly quibbled about me leaving the steak fat. I told him that you have to cut down on some things for health’s sake. We had many pints and much cash was handed over. Funny, I was not often invited out again. Well, I suppose I was not the sort of person to invite out to tea. I could not eat a normal portion. I had to supplement any meals by having others beforehand. I remember on a past New Year night shift, when I was driving the fire engine, and therefore avoiding alcohol while the rest of the crew indulged. We had prepared a huge buffet and I was dying to get started on it. The rest of the crew were more interested in the drink, so I kept threatening to start without them. Eventually, I got really fed up with waiting and I announced that I was going to start without them and so I did. After a minute or so, panic set in, knowing my reputation. A stampede rushed into the dining room and they were shocked to see that a substantial proportion was already gone. I did warn them. One of them exclaimed: “The locusts have been.”

  A short while later, I had the opportunity of representing the Fire and Rescue Service at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. This I did, which involved travelling down to London and staying in an hotel in Russell Square on Saturday evening, with breakfast at 5:30am. We were then transported to a drill yard near to the Cenotaph and we met up with the Commanding Officer of the Irish Guards, who conducted the quickest practice of squad drill ever known. We were dismissed and it still wasn’t 7am, so we had lots of time to fill. You can only drink so
much ‘dishwater’ coffee.

  We walked to the Cenotaph and were positioned right in the front row. Damn, I thought, my mug shot is bound to be on T.V. I had planned ahead, knowing that there would be lots of spare time and there were no lunch arrangements. So, I had planned ahead and I had the usual five steak pies housed in my patch pockets attached to my tunic. I was also wearing an overcoat and gloves, as November at the Cenotaph is notoriously cold and also, we had to stand virtually motionless for hours. The pies were a safety; a comfort arrangement to fend off hunger pains and any light headedness due to temporary malnutrition. So, I was all prepared. However, the trick was going to be how I was going to be able to get these life-saving pies into my cake-hole without being caught on camera in front of an audience of millions across the world. I practised sliding my hands out of my gloves to see if I could get them up my overcoat sleeve, then down the outside of my tunic to the patch pockets housing the treasured pies. Then I would be able to slide the pies, one by one, up the inside of my overcoat to my tie area. Then there would be the considerable challenge of transporting the pies in open air to my mouth. This was the risky bit. Alas, I had to concede defeat. The enormous embarrassment of pie munching in front of millions was just too great a risk. I had to stand to attention, which seemed to be half a day, with these pies preying on my mind like some form of Japanese water torture. Even after the ceremony was completed, we were the last row to be dismissed. It was about 12:30pm before I could instigate the pie cramming ceremony into my mouth with some sort of anonymous cover.

  The years moved on and I continued to attract the women. I don’t know if it was the uniform or my loveable rogue image or couldn’t care less reputation, but I now had a new nick-name: Velcro. Women seemed to stick to me. By now I was attending the Home Office in London for various meetings and I always picked up very interesting women during my overnight stays. I had a group of regulars at home but I always seemed to go back to the stunning businesswoman, who travelled the country and the world extensively. She was just as outrageous as I was and everyone who looked upon her fancied her, but she was so busy travelling that she did not form a regular relationship with anyone. She also did not do one-night stands, which attracted me even more to her, although she was never short of offers. She liked to be woo-ed, wined and dined before there was any chance of any further activities. She certainly was the exact opposite of boring and had never been tamed. We had some wonderful adventures around the globe, all at her expense. She was an extremely confident person and everyone listened when she spoke. She had a wonderful voice and could have been a television announcer, although she would have made a better stripper. We were once sat on an hotel balcony in Tenerife into the early hours of the morning, drinking, chatting and laughing, gradually removing our clothing and on the verge of getting it on where we sat, when I noticed that we had quite an audience watching. We saw husbands being dragged back into their rooms by their wives. So, we had a good giggle and moved inside for an all-nighter.

  A few days after returning home, I received a phone call from the sex goddess, telling me that she was coming up to my area and would I like to accompany her to Scotland as she was negotiating a contract with a well-known distillery. This I did and we had an absolutely fabulous time everywhere we went. We ate lots a salmon and game and, of course, drank lots of whiskey. We stayed and ate at the best places and I loved my morning porridge with cream with a liberal cup full of Famous Grouse stirred in to help cool the dish. I was expected to satisfy her very great sexual needs, which was a hardship, if you will pardon the pun. She secured a deal to introduce a new brand of whiskey and we crammed as many cases of the stuff as we could into the car.

  My next phone call from her was to tell me that she had been travelling around the country giving out samples of the whiskey and gaining product feedback. She again told me that she had never made so many men happy without going to bed with them (she had told me that one once before). I do like a lady with a sense of humour. She was beginning to fill a hole in my life (have I got that the right way around?). I looked forward to our meetings and bonking and, I suppose, she was a female version of me. I never trusted her and she never trusted me which added a bit of spice. She was always testing me out with her outrageous public behaviour, often referring to me as her personal trainer or man-servant. We continued travelling and bonking around the country with frequent trips to Europe and the United States. Life was never dull with her around. A totally un-tamed pet.

  My movements were the subject of great interest to my control staff, with countless unnecessary ‘fishing’ phone calls and updates. As if they were collecting blackmail data. I was always being invited out to parties and social functions by them. I, of course, attended one or two in order to foster a good working relationship. I had lots of blatant offers, but I had a rule never to mess with anyone on the same payroll (remember that). During these social functions, I was relentlessly interrogated so that they could build up their dossier. They did, in fairness, receive lots of phone calls from females trying to get hold of me, including ones from a couple of loonies with suicidal tendencies. I am quite certain that lots of my phone calls were listened in to. A couple of these control operators even offered to watch my back for me, shielding me from some of these sex pests. My response was that I expected nothing less from them. I seemed to have been down this road before. This was because there were four shifts of these KGB-like operatives. I did once end up in bed with another two of them and they were both fighting over my meat and two veg, and while they were fighting, common sense prevailed and I made my escape. This lucky escape served as a great warning. I was again severely tested with the arrival of a very tasty and intelligent forty-something year old, who had obviously been around the block once or twice. We both attended a Fire Brigade retirement function and we began chatting. She said that she had a very interesting friend that we would like me to meet. I went along to her friend’s house and we were introduced. The friend’s intentions were very obvious and I whispered to our new typist that her friend was not my type (a bit too portly). As I bid them both goodbye, the new work colleague invited me to her house for a work-out. This I declined sticking to my new rule, however, she said to me: “I’ll tell everyone that you couldn’t manage it,” knowing that this mischievous act would dent my reputation. I held firm and declined once again.

  My next adventure involved meeting a girl who I had known some years earlier and who I considered to be quite tasty. I picked her up one night when I was on call and we went out to a local hotel for a drink. I always drank coffee when on call, but I told her to fill her boots. After a short while, I received a call about an incident which required my attendance. Rather than leave my guest, I suggested that she should come with me. I rushed her outside to the car, buckled her up, put my blue beacon on the car roof, jumped inside and said, “Just sit back and enjoy the flight.” I really made that car move and nearly ripped the tyres from the wheels as I tried to straighten out the corners. My passenger was terrified and excited in equal measure. I could see the effect of the endorphins working. After I had visited the incident and was due to resume our little get together, I could see that she was gagging for more, so I gave her another demonstration of driving on the edge. I said that I must call into the nearest fire station to contact control by landline to sort a few things out relating to the incident that we had just visited, so I took her with me. Rather than keep her waiting in the car, I took her into the fire station with me. I was greeted by the station officer who was one of the ‘old school’. I told him the purpose of my visit and he invited me to use his office. “Would your lady like a cup of tea?” he asked. I told him no and that we would not be long. I began my telephone conversation and bellowed out orders and my guest was very enthralled by all of the excitement that she had just witnessed. She was also more drunk than I had realised. While I was on the phone engaged in deep conversation, she began unzipping my trousers as if to challenge me to keep a straight f
ace. This was quite difficult as she pulled out my old man and pushed at least half of it into her mouth. She then began sucking for all she was worth and kept looking to see if she was having any effect on me. This was very challenging. I put my hand over the phone and told her to lock the door because I did not want the embarrassment of the station officer coming in and catching me in an awkward position. This proved to be a prudent move, as he did attempt to come in, shaking the door handle shouting, “Sir, Sir, are you still in there.” This reduced my guest into uncontrollable, muffled laughter, which made the station officer more energetic in his attempts to open the door. I had to end the telephone conversation as quickly as I could and put an end to the whole embarrassing episode. I dragged her out of the office and reported to the station officer that I was having an important conversation with Control and that my guest was having trouble opening the door and suggested that he get workshops to have a look at it. We exited pretty quickly.