Glasgow firemen refuse to attend Gay Pride event…

30-07-2006

… in spite of good turn out from traffic cops, red indians and construction worker.

Pete Millington writes...

It was reported the other day that ten Glaswegian firemen are to be disciplined for refusing to attend the Pride Scotia parade which took place in Glasgow on June 24th. Opinions for and against range from “disciplinary action against these men is unbelievable, since when was handing out leaflets at a gay event considered a firefighter's core duty?” (Scottish National Party MSP Fergus Ewing) to “the firefighters have treated lesbian and gay Scots as second-class citizens” (Stonewall Scotland).

When I first heard the headline rather vaguely on my car radio whilst driving in noisy traffic with the windows open, I misinterpreted the news item as being about 10 firefighters who are being disciplined for having been on the parade against the wishes of the brigade. I therefore instantly created an image in my own mind of the boys wearing selected items of their official uniform and equipment, such as the boots, helmets, lengths of hose pipe, etc, perhaps complemented by unofficial items such as… well maybe not, I think you get my gist. The important point being that I was already thinking “hey, fair play to the firemen, bloody homophobic institutions yet again, leave the gay fireman alone!”

I was quite surprised then to hear in the full news item a few minutes later that it was the brigade who told them they should attend the parade whilst the objections had come from the men themselves. This threw me, I always like to take the side of the underdog but for once the authorities had taken the moral high ground.

My next psychological reaction was to start making excuses for the firemen and I genuinely believe that my reason for going along this particular route are based on my, perhaps misguided, loyalties to fellow members of the working class, not on my own homophobia.

Certainly the ‘guys in uniform' stereotype springs to mind straight away. It may be a sweeping generalisation which belongs in the 1970s, but having gone along to Gay Pride parades in Birmingham I'm not convinced that a significant part of such celebrations doesn't still have a strong overtly-camp and theatrical theme.

It's a bit like St Patrick's Day, and I can say this as a second generation Irish person, we all know that girls in ringlets doing the Riverdance and old men dressed as leprechauns swigging Guinness on the back of construction lorries is hardly representative of the Irish community in Britain, but come on, it's a parade for God's sake, that's what people do on parades!

So, going back to our firemen, one could sympathise with the feeling that they're going to turn up to the parade with the intention of raising community awareness about leaving chip pans unattended only to find they were running a gauntlet of people wolf whistling them and shouting out double entendres concerning hosepipes and shiny helmets.

Personally, I can never relate to the fireman fantasy thing as a whole but have observed that it does seem to be a bit of a big thing with women in particular (not sure if that transfers across to gay men). We've all been there when the fire alarm goes off in the office and everyone in the whole building troops reluctantly out into the pouring rain to await the disgruntled firemen attending their 5th false alarm that afternoon. It's then you become aware of the cluster of giggling 50 year old women, often including your own boss who you have had down as a feminist male-hating tyrant for the past 10 years, all saying things like “oooh, I hope they come soon” and “we all know it was you who set off the alarm Beryl just to get the firemen here”.

The thing I find most difficult to comprehend is how women marry up their fireman fantasy with the fact that they always stink of smoke. Most women I have ever known would banish you to the spare bedroom for having dirty finger nails, let alone smelling like an inferno at Fort Dunlop. But anyway, in the words of Ronnie Corbett… I digress.

What I am trying to flag up here is that, for whatever reasons, firemen do seem to generate an unusual sexual response in people generally that say, postmen or grocery shop owners don't.

So my question therefore is, were the firemen being asked to do the thing they usually do at community events, i.e. the old chip pan and damp tea towel routine? Or were they being asked to join in the parade, in which case would they have a genuine right to be concerned about their professional dignity? And I can already hear the Stonewall militants shouting me down on this one, but then, who is it that actually started off all the ‘guys in uniform' stereoptypes in the first place?

Having said all this, the majority of gay people and lesbians I have known in my own life, rather like the Riverdancing leprechauns, are a million miles away from the populist image of the cowboy in leather hot pants. So I hold my hands-up if I'm inadvertently perpetuating the stereotypes myself.

The bottom line for me then is this. If asked to go and hand out leaflets at a Gay Pride parade, would I personally do it? And without any hesitation whatsoever, the answer would be a 110% resounding “yes”. Perhaps I would feel differently if I was a Glasgow firefighter, although if I was, I can't help feeling that my rationale would be along the lines of “och no Jimmy, you won't get me walkin' along with a loada bloody poofters”.

Though presumably they'd put out a fire in a gay person's house?

Glasgow firefighters…. It's got to be Room 101 I'm afraid fellahs.

What do you think?

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