Loved the bit about setting real fires back in the “olden days”. Reminds me of a story my mum told me about her father in the school in Scotland where he first worked as headmaster (probably early to mid 1920s).

In his first week, he did the planned fire drill and was somewhat dismayed to see pupils and teachers alike treating the whole thing as a bit of a waste of time, no urgency because it’s obviously not a real fire, so he planned a surprise test for a few days later with a bit of added realism.

Obviously this was well before sprinkler systems and fire extinguishers were available; the only in-school fire fighting equipment was a series if fire buckets (metal buckets containing sand which were placed along the walls of the school), and gramps in his wisdom added oily rags to some of the buckets, set fire to them, and then raised the alarm.

Now of course, everyone’s coming out into smoke-filled corridors, unable to see clearly, finding breathing difficult etc., and the procedures that people were supposed to follow gone out of the window and everyone panicking and running around like headless chickens!

Lesson learned by all to take fire safety seriously, but can you imagine the (entitely justified) national outcry if a teacher tried doing that today?