So, with the Met Office promising gales of up to 50mph, we headed off in the glorious sunshine on Sunday morning, with the remnants of last night’s torrential rain still making it’s presence felt on the heads of the valleys road. Down on the Gower, the wind was gusting uncomfortably high, so the pneumatic aerial mast was only raised a little and control was set up. Tasked with leading a party in an area of fields the police needed covered, we headed off and spent the next few hours making our way through fields of …well knee-high (or occasionally higher) meadow grass – that is, grass with a random spattering of wild flowers and grasses in it. In other words, hayfever hell.

Nevertheless, onwards we plodded working our way through the fields and hedgerows. In searches like this, where there’s a real possibility that the person you’re looking for is dead, you have to look under hedges and in undergrowth in case they’ve crawled in there to seek shelter and died. It’s not a particularly joyful kind of searching and, heartless though it may seem to onlookers, we joke and laugh amongst ourselves, sometimes with exceedingly black humour to try and keep our spirits high.

By 1400 I was slowly collapsing in a sneezing lump of streaming mucous and with everyone’s stomachs grumbling we headed back to the pub for a lunch of sausage and chips. It’s amazing just how good simple food tastes after hard work. With the masses fed and watered, the afternoon’s plans were outlined and with a few changes of plan as more information about the morning’s searches was acted upon, I ended up staying around the control vehicle – good for my hayfever at least!

By 1700 it was decided that we’d done enough and the long job of packing up and making the vehicles ready for the next job, whenever that may be, was started. No sooner had I taken the cap off the generator to check the fuel levels than the pagers went off – area call in the Swansea area. What luck – we were already in the Swansea area. So, hurriedly repacking everything, mobiles, radios and police radios blaring all around us as more information rapidly came in, we jumped into Alpha and headed off – our destination was north of Swansea, in Glais.

The journey through Swansea was rapid – combination of sirens and two-tone air horn works well to clear traffic on what had been a very busy day in Swansea with the Race for Life on. It didn’t take us long to clear the traffic and as we arrived on scene the full details were apparent. Two men had fallen 25m down a cliff face – ambulance and fire brigade on scene, 169 en route in.

A complete contrast to the gentle start to that morning’s activities, helmets and harnesses were thrown on and within minutes the area was empty of personnel as people headed up to the casualty site. I stayed behind to man the radios and start the paperwork. It soon became apparent however that they desperately needed more personnel up on scene. Leaving the incident in the hands of a senior member who couldn’t go onto the hill, I headed off.

169 had already winched the first casualty out as I arrived on scene to help with the second casualty. Helimed was providing some medical assistance along with the paramedic winchman from 169; the fire brigade was helping us with the technical equipment and they’d already cleared a few trees to allow 169 to winch clearly. It didn’t take long for the chap to be packaged properly and his stretcher was soon being passed the 20m up to the winching point hand-over-hand, his IV bag following him. The usual clatter of rotors overhead soon drowned out any conversation and within minutes, the casualty and winchman were on board and rapidly making their way to Morriston hospital which was only a few minutes away, leaving us to clear up and get everyone out safely. Reversing down the track was interesting, and we passed Pete our team leader giving a TV interview at the bottom of the hill on our way out.

It was a good job for what was a long and fruitless search – always nice to end the day on a high note.

First of all my car died. I ended up renting one for a week, followed by borrowing one from a used car dealership that was able to get me out of a very difficult situation, but that’s a different post. Finally, I managed to find a new car – a nice shiny red VW Golf estate which has impressed me a lot. I’m loving it.

So in my nice new car I was heading to base this morning, not to work and for once not to a callout. Meeting at base at 1000 we set about to prepare ourselves and the base for today’s event – a royal visit.

At about 1400 today, a number of cars pulled up outside base and out stepped Prince William. As the news reports, he was visiting a number of places in the valleys and stopped off to see us as his final visit of the day. We had some fun prepared for him – some hobnobbing with the local dignitaries, a light lunch and then change and head up to Morlais Quarry where we took him to the top off the cliff and he got to lower someone down a cliff – I don’t think his protection detail would have been too amused by my idea of lowering him off the edge of a cliff, but nevertheless, we had some great photo opportunities. It was a great day with fantastic weather and we all thoroughly enjoyed.

That’s when it all went downhill though, because on the way home, some drunken twat drove into my nice shiny new car and drove off without stopping. The damage isn’t too bad, it was a glancing blow but it’s knackered one of my wheels (it’s bent the actual metal bit) and twatted my rear door and rear wing, and after a drive tonight, I think it might have done something to the suspension or thereabouts. I only managed to grab a partial index – “S633…”, and I know it was a pale blue or silver hatchback – a large one, quite wide. Beyond that, the prick didn’t even slow down – no brake lights. I’ve just got home after filling in a police report which was gratifyingly easy and quick, though the nice young PC didn’t hold much hope of catching the turd, and reckoned he was probably drunk anyway.

Great.

I’ve not really been responding with the First Responders recently because of something that happened to me that has caused huge repercussions through my whole life – my car died. Now, I believe in Bangernomics – running cheap cars with higher maintenance costs instead of newer more expensive cars who depreciate quickly. However, I was expecting my little Rover to last another year or two, so it was a little bit of a shock when the head gasket blew and I had to get towed back from halfway to London. I have a temporary fix and I have someone looking for a more permanent fix for me, so I’m not too bad for now but it does mean that I’m not really able to respond for now.

We have had a job with Mountain Rescue – apart from a standdown after a request for assistance for a search in Redditch that is. It was a call to New Tredegar to assist the fire service with two youths stuck on a rock face. They were in a pretty nasty little gully, lots of loose rock, very unstable and we had a bit of a job getting them down. It was nice to be at the sharp end of a fairly technical job for a change, so I was happy with that.

Right now, I’m sat in a fantastic flat in Battersea in London getting Sean and his Dad ready for his Dad’s wedding. It’s going to be fun event I think, I’ve even got a reading to give and I’m taking the groom to the wedding in a rental car. The first of four wedding-type events of this year so far, Sean and I are going to be all weddinged-out by the end of the year I think.

Right, time to wash the car I think.