Файл:The Fireman A Sociological Profile.pdf

English: This research was started by me Henry Joseph Deakin (also known as Harry Deakin ) in 1974 but was not completed as an M.Sc. thesis till 1977. It developed out of an undergraduate project I started whilst at the University of Leicester in 1971 where I had briefly looked at the effects of shift working on groups of firemen working in the local Leicestershire Fire Service. At Salford University I developed this research further by using more detailed questionnaires and tape recording the results of the interviews I conducted with The Fire Service personnel at the Salford City Fire Brigade . These tape recordings were then transcribed back to separate questionnaires for each individual fireman . The idea was to combine the benefits of a standardized questionnaire with the participations and contributions of the individuals themselves.It was thought that this approach gave a good chance of obtaining useful and original material from the participants. It did however take quite a long time to process and write up this material . I also toyed with the idea of whether the emergencies that the Firemen attended had any relevance within a wider consideration of human disasters but this approach was eventually dropped in favour of concentrating solely on the original material from the interviews. The work was finished in 1977 around the time on the national Fire Service strike. One area I also looked at was the effect of shift work on the work-leisure relationships and family life of these firemen. As Harry Deakin I wrote a brief article for the Magazine "New Society" on 1st December 1977 page 465 called "Firemen on the Job" which gave an overview of this research project. As well as looking at the work-leisure relationships and attitudes to work , there was also an opportunity for me to look at the effects on the firemen of this small Salford Fire Brigade being integrated into a much larger Greater Manchester Fire Service : this was because these interviews were carried out at the time of the local government reorganization of 1974.I was awarded my M.Sc. in December 1977.