FIREFIGHTERS have said farewell to a colleague who has clocked up three decades of dedicated service - and a reputation as a first-class practical joker!

Jim Kenyon, 52, finished his final shift yesterday after 31 years on Red Watch at Blackburn fire station.

Over the years, he has played a huge role in protecting the people of Blackburn and keeping up station morale as a prankster.

Station officer at Blackburn Peter Fraser said Jim would be sorely missed on all counts.

He said: "He's spent a tremendous period of time working in Blackburn and has built up a lot of skills and a lot of local knowledge that has proved invaluable over the years. He has a real grasp of the topography of Blackburn.

"He has a cracking sense of humour and is a real practical joker but always in an appropriate way. He was always able to come up with the right jokes at the right time to keep up morale.

"His experience was vital as well when we've had new officers on the pump. For them to be serving side-by-side with someone like Jim was a tremendous asset. He was skilled at every part of the job."

Jim, born in Accrington, originally served an apprenticeship as a mechanic at Walsh's on Montague Street, Blackburn. One day in 1972 he was test driving a car past the fire station and was intrigued.

He said: "I had a look inside the doors and thought 'that looks a really interested job'. I pulled over and filled in the application and started a few weeks later.

"It's been a really worthwhile career, every call is different, and I could recommend it to anyone.

"The camaraderie with the rest of the lads is always brilliant and one of the best things about the job. We like to have a joke although you can't get away today with some of the things we used to.

"Quite often we'd go out on a night call, pull on our boots to find them filled with water. Or when the chief visited for an inspection someone would've filled your helmet with boot polish and you'd take it off and your head would be black."

"The hardest part is attending road accidents and it still beggars belief that some people refuse to listen to warning about speed and drink driving."

Over the years, 25 of which were spent as the Fire Brigade Union representative in Blackburn, he has experienced both fire strikes, in 1977 and last year, and the reorganisation when Blackburn was absorbed into the county's service in 1974.

He said: "Overall things have improved for the better in terms of pay and conditions but it's a very uncertain time. We're all watching closely to see what reforms the Government comes up with."

With time on his hands, Jim plans to spend more time on his wedding car business, Cars by James, which he runs with his wife Carol. He has two sons, Gordon, 25, and Graham, 27.

Jim's top pranks and funny stories:

Crews were once called to an elderly lady who said she could hear her cat meowing, stuck behind her fire. The leading officer instructed Jim and colleagues to remove a row of bricks from the chimney breast to locate the forlorn feline. After about 45 minutes of painstaking work, the lady had gone to make a brew, and the firefighters heard the meowing for themselves -- except the cat was stuck under the sofa!

The chief officer picked up the white cat and dipped it into the hole in the wall, covered it in soot and handed it to the woman, just as she emerged from the kitchen with the tray of tea.

Jim said: "I think the chief was a little fed up we'd spent all that time carefully removing this section of wall but in the end the woman was very grateful."

Jim and the lads once decided to play a trick on a crew member who was off to Darwen. They emptied a tube of hair removing cream and filled it back up with mashed potato and bristles from a hair brush! They pinned the unsuspecting victim down and then rubbed the mixture into his head.

"We said 'oh no, your hair's coming away here mate', showing him the bristles. He went absolutely mad, broke free and everyone scarpered. We had to assure him, from a hundred yards away, it was just a joke!"

When firefighters from Darwen came to Blackburn on detachment, Jim and the lads would tell the story about the ghost of ex-firefighter Bob Hockey, who was made redundant and threatened to haunt the station when he died.

They would then make them sleep in the downstairs quarter, feed a piece of nylon fishing line through a hole in the wall and tie it to their blankets and hide in the engine room

Jim said: "They'd already be spooked but we'd wait till they'd slept for a while and give the blanket a little tug. Then we'd rush in asking them what was wrong. They'd say 'my blanket just moved' and we'd say 'come off it!' After doing it a couple of times gently we'd finally pull the entire blanket off. One lad went running out of the room and went to sleep in the kitchen and refused to go back in."

Often when fire crews attend a house fire they have to check properties either side.

Jim said: "It can sometimes be in the early hours and you knock on the door and people look through the curtains. One night a woman half asleep opened the curtains and had nothing on. She came to the door apologising."