FROM 6pm today your life will be in the hands of an inexperienced crew and a 50-year-old fire engine.Not the modern gleaming red engines stocked with the latest equipment for firefighting emergencies, but an antique Green Goddess that has been in mothballs for a quarter of a century.

FROM 6pm today your life will be in the hands of an inexperienced crew and a 50-year-old fire engine.

Not the modern gleaming red engines stocked with the latest equipment for firefighting emergencies, but an antique Green Goddess that has been in mothballs for a quarter of a century.

A machine that can only travel at 35mph, that carries no cutting equipment, that is not even equipped with a radio.

A machine that is crewed not by well-trained professional firefighters, but under-prepared RAF and army personnel.

So think twice as you drive home from work tonight or drop the kids off at school tomorrow morning – especially if the expected rain storms arrive.

Because if you have an accident there will be no fully equipped, professional full-time firefighter to come to the rescue.

He or she will be standing outside their fully equipped modern fire station demanding a 40 per cent pay rise.