Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2017 | Page 44

Interview
Left to right: Bob Rice,
Steve Redrup, Martin
Poynter, Leighton
Bryant, Martin Warrillow
and Matt Sainsbury of
Bluewatch in the 90s
firefighter:
A life on the front line
He admits it wasn’t his first choice of career, but as soon as he got his first
taste of being a fireman, Matt Sainsbury was hooked – which is why, 39
years later, he’s still doing the job he loves. The firefighter role has changed
beyond recognition though, as he explained to Jackie McCarrick.
It was the dramatic national strike by
firefighers back in 1977 that indirectly led
Islander Matt Sainsbury into the service.
Rattly old Army ‘Green Goddess’
vehicles had to be called in to provide
emergency cover for the strikers, who
were demanding changes to their shift
patterns. The industrial action led to a
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big fire service recruitment drive in 1978,
which was exactly the time that the 19
year-old Matt was looking for a direction.
After leaving school, he had joined the
Merchant Navy and made a few trips to
South Africa before deciding that wasn’t
the job for him. Back on the Island, he
worked for a while as a tree surgeon
and then went to Canada to work as a
lumberjack – but admits he didn’t have
much direction.
“I didn’t seem to know what I wanted
until my parents pointed out an ad in the
County Press for firefighters and I applied”
he recalls.
He was taken on with six others and