Horrie was a fireman at the time I was born, and he became a hero when he saved a whole theatre full of panicky people from burning down. The fire was backstage at the Princess Theatre in Spring Street and the audience blocked all the exits in their crazed efforts to escape, and many would have been killed had Horrie not come by on patrol, taking on the fire single-handed and putting it out. They had been watching something called opera at the time and all wearing dazzling gowns and penguin suits because they came from the richer part of the city which made him a much bigger hero somehow. He got his picture on the front page of all the newspapers, pointing to the place where it happened.
Soon after he fell out with the fire service over some disciplinary matter and stopped being a fireman—all this happened before I was old enough to be aware of it, but I saw the photographs of his moment of glory and immediately fire engines and firemen became my favourite thing in all the whole world. It was only a long time later that I realised that this might have been somewhat hurtful to him at the time.