THE man with his foot on the accelerator of the speeding fire appliance, weaving its way through the riot wrecked streets, was a former mercenary soldier in the Belgian Congo bush war, who regularly ate raw meat and was apt to suddenly roar like a lion for no apparent reason. But it made Brian Rush feel a lot safer than if he had been riding with Captain Flack and his Trumpton crew of Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub.

“When our driver said he wasn’t going to slow down or stop for anyone, I presumed this was merely bravado,” said Brian.

“But when I got to know him better, I was absolutely certain he would have mown them down if necessary. He was the sort of man who seemed used to death.”

These weren’t the riots that scarred the face of Britain last August, but the violent clashes which broke out in African townships during the turbulent years of the Republic of Rhodesia, following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom in 1965.

Pitching up in the middle of all this were three lads from Liverpool, who in 1971 decided to seek adventure, if not fame and fortune, in this disappearing corner of the former British Empire.

By then Brian Rush, who was born only a few streets away from John Lennon’s home, had already served five years in the LIverpool fire brigade. When he returned to the UK in 1974 he joined the Hereford and Worcester brigade, putting in a 25-year shift as a fulltime firefighter.

He originally wrote about his African experiences for the force magazine, but now in a longer version they can be downloaded for 77p on Amazon Kindle under the title of My Passage to Africa.

When Brian and his two mates Ed Williams and Len Hawkins arrived in Salisbury, Rhodesia’s capital, on Christmas Eve 1971, they had no great masterplan. Other than to experience the country and its cultures. But they needed money and this meant they needed jobs.

The other two were trained engineers, so Brian made the most of his expertise and on the advice of the clerk at the employment office, headed for the fire station. He said: “After a short interview with a station officer, I was instructed to report for duty on New Year’s Day.

It was really that simple.”

Salisbury fire and ambulance service was a whole brigade contained in one station. Brian explained: “There was a chief and an assistant chief officer, and each of the two watches (red and blue) had a divisional officer, three station officers, two sub officers, two leading firemen, about 10 white firemen and about 20 black firemen. Then, on each watch, there were six white and 20 black ambulance men.

“They worked a 24 hours on, 24 hours off system which totalled 84 hours a week, but to enjoy a whole weekend off it was necessary to work all of Thursday and Friday. A 48-hour shift.

“The monthly wages were higher than in British brigades at the time, but certainly not on an hourly rate. Whites started at $150 (£93) rising to $250 (£155). The black Africans started on $50 (£31) rising to $100 (£62). A very good wage for the average black man at that time.

“Also on the station was a fire prevention department, a workshop with two mechanics, and an accounts department because every fire or ambulance call was chargeable. A modest little kitchen fire could set you back several hundred dollars for the fire brigade alone, with a price to be paid for every appliance, every mile travelled, every man, and every piece of equipment used.”

Bearing that in mind, you wonder what resulted from a fire at a house in the city’s Greendale district one day. Brian went ahead with a black colleague, discovered it was in fact a smouldering compost heap and the pair of them put it out. The water tender, which should have been following set off, but got lost and never made the scene.

“The tender eventually returned to the fire station with a police escort after nearly five hours,” he said. “It had clocked up an astonishing 68 miles for a fire that was five miles away. I often wonder if the householder was charged for this huge mileage and five hours for an appliance and crew, which never even arrived.”

Brian’s Rhodesian fire service career had started on a rather more scary note. “On the night of my second shift, there was a riot in an African township,” he said.

“Operation Lockout immediately came into force, where a steel shutter came down over the main entrance of the station and watch room window, the side gates were locked, wire-mesh guards were fitted over the windows of the appliances and ambulances and certain officers were issued with a gun from the station armoury.

“I was riding a frontline pumping appliance and our first call was to an overturned van well alight and from that to a blazing bus. There were bricks and debris all over the road and we had to weave through an obstacle course of wrecked vehicles. Fortunately, we had the mercenary soldier as our driver and he really gave it a go.

“Next we were sent to a shopping street where every shop was ablaze. What a contrast to my days with Liverpool fire brigade where two or three appliances would attend one small shop. On this occasion it was one man to two or three shops. Incidentally, my parents recognised me on the BBC news before they’d received my letter telling them I’d joined this brigade. We received many more calls and no sleep that night. I’d forgotten just how exciting and satisfying it was to be part of a brigade again.”

Away from the action and adventure, Brian’s book is a real insight into the ingrained attitudes in this racially segregated country and why it was inevitable that change was going to come.

Although again it rather depends on who you are as to whether the present is better than the past.

Zimbabwe, as it is now, remains a socially tortured soul.