In the early hours of May 12 1996 firefighter John Ogden was in a crew responding to a 999 call. He was a member of White Watch, based at Gorton, in Manchester's inner-city.
His job couldn't have more on the frontline. The inner-city station's number of turnouts was exceptional. In the previous year 3,360 incidents had been recorded with 8000 mobilisations.
A call at 5.02am was the shift's ninth, the previous one being a major fire at a halls of residence in Rusholme. John and colleagues got into a new N-registered Volvo Saxon appliance.
