Captain Mainwaring - Hero.

Frankly, ‘the furnace’ gives me the ‘willies’. It’s huge, hot, hostile and labyrinthine. The floor is carpeted with sharp steel scale flakes, the walls covered in protruding fasteners that ‘catch’ equipment and clothing. If locked in, you could scream, bang and shout as much as you liked, no one would ever hear you.

Captain Mainwaring knows that many thousands of pounds of lost production could be saved if someone heroic were to crawl in the furnace and do a gas burning job now, instead of waiting for it to cool down.

He’s a man who looks after his ‘boyos’ and knows it would be unreasonable to ask one of us.

At these temperatures, one can only kneel on the floor or lean against a wall for a few seconds before the heat becomes too painful. Even the souls of ones boots are eventually penetrated causing the wearer to dance.

He hands me his radio and mobile phone. I hand him my cigarette lighter and the gas torch.

Soon he’s crawled underneath a roll and out of sight, as I feed in the flexible gas hoses.

The torch pops and I see the yellow flicker of reflected light against the wall.

I hear the cutting torch change to a roar, then 'focus' to sharp hiss.

The Captain curses, “Fucking cunting thing!”

“Are you OK?” I shout.

I’m straining to catch his response above the back ground noise.

“Yes…….One of the bastard control knob has just fallen off the burning torch.”

I genuinely empathise with his frustration whilst simultaneously stifling a snigger.