Fire chief gran 'thrilled' by MBE

Published on Saturday 17 June 2006 01:39

A GRANDMOTHER who has run the fire brigade on a tiny Scottish island for the last 18 years said yesterday she was "thrilled" at being awarded an MBE.

Alice Arthur commands a team of ten retained firefighters - including five members of her own family - from a station on Out Skerries in the Shetland Islands.

Mrs Arthur, 46, a mother-of-three, becomes an MBE for services to the community, where she is a retained sub-officer with Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. She also runs a guest house, teaches art restoration at the local school, works in the nearby scallop factory and does the weather reports for pilots before they leave the mainland.

Today she said she was delighted with the honour, which she has kept a secret f for the last five weeks. "I am absolutely thrilled," she said. "My father got an MBE for running the water system on Out Skerries and we went to Buckingham Palace which I thought would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing."

Mrs Arthur joined the fire service in 1986 along with her late father. It was the first service established on the island, which has a population of 75 and is 1.5 miles by 2.5 miles.

Four times a week the fire service are on standby at the airport for the plane coming in from mainland Shetland. The team includes Mrs Arthur's husband, son Alistair, 22, daughter Valerie, 20, and her brother Donnie Henderson. Her other son, Ryan, 25, also works as a firefighter at Tingwall airport on the mainland.