Trevor ‘Chumbly’ Leighton
December 1969 Trevor trained at Gipton and after a distinguished, full and varied career retired here as well in Oct 1999 after 30 years of service. He was Station Commander for 18 months before illness forced him into retirement. Trevor started his scrapbook when he first joined and has continued ever since.
Trevor is as passionate about the fire service as he was the first day he joined, amongst many achievements his delivery of health and safety to both fire stations and civilians alike saved numerous lives. Before he started delivering training 30 civilians and firefighters died each year in Yorkshire alone so Trevor was drafted in to risk assessment and teach health and safety, after 3 years the death rate in the service dropped to 20 and now it is down to 10. To his credit there were 600 people trained under his tutelage as fire marshals.
His duties also included attending fires to assess the forensic information, why they had started? were there any lessons to learn?
Other duties included training firefighters around the world. For 18 months Trevor was seconded to Hong Kong, Jeda in Saudi and all over Britain.