A Whitchurch firefighter is celebrating after reaching four decades of services.

Watch manager Simon Griffiths notched his 40 years of service on Tuesday, November 20 and was commended by his colleagues at the station in Bridgewater Street.

Simon says the enjoyment of the job is just as strong as it was when he first started and even found time to illustrate how much the world has changed in the same time.

Here is what he has had to say on this milestone.

“Forty years ago today, November 20, 1978, I walked into Whitchurch fire station as a young firefighter and I'm still enjoying the job today," he said.

"I was promoted to Leading Fireman in 1984 and then in 2012 became Watch Manager, and then in 2013 I joined the service full time as a Retained Support Officer in the Group Support Team.

"In the 40 years of service I have worked with some wonderful people past and present,

"During my service I have attended hundreds of incidents, some major incidents include the 1989 bomb attack at Ternhill Barracks; a major fire at Cox's Chemicals in Wellington and a 20-pump fire at Peckforton Castle in 2011.

"One of the major changes in the service has been our prevention work, this has significantly reduced the number of accidental and fatal fires year on year.

"Now just to put things into perspective things that where happening in 1978: James Callaghan was Prime Minister, Frank Lampard was born, actor Robert Shaw, best known for his role in the movie, "Jaws" passed away; Ipswich Town won the FA cup beating Arsenal 1-0, and Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest won the First Division for the first time in their history,

The average house price was £13,000, a loaf of bread was 31p and a pint of beer was 96p.”

Simon's colleagues paid tribute to their watch manager in a Facebook post at Whitchurch Fire Station, stating more than half of his colleagues may not have been born when he started.