I've just been singing it in the house alone, and I kept having to stop. I don't know how I'll be able to get through it in public - and for you Larry it must be lot harder than that.

I was remembering newsreels of the Blitz, with the fireman holding on to the hoses as the walls came down upon them. And there was a film called Fires were started, a fictionalised documentary about the Blitz, and I remember the scene where one of the characters, played by a comedian of the time Tommy Trinder, dies with his mates as a building collapses, joking all the way.

Firefighters are special. They are always the first to raise money for any disaster - and the strongest in solidarity in any industrial strike. And I remember in CND time the banners of the Firemen's Union was always there on the anti-bomb marches.