RUN off the road by the snow, last week’s column was to have been about Sarah Nattrass, new assistant chief officer of County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service. We mentioned as much back then.

The chat’s rearranged for 10am last Thursday which – probably coincidentally – was International Women’s Day.

Milestone marking the global occasion, that morning’s Echo has a big supplement in which there’s an interview with the self-same Sarah Nattrass. If not exactly pouring cold water on the job – as the first guy off the big red truck might suppose – it seems a bit of a dampener, nonetheless.

Sometimes communicators don’t communicate.

Since I haven’t opened the paper until the train north, the assignment stands. “Are you here for the dementia support workshop?” asks the chap on reception at headquarters on the Belmont industrial estate in Durham.

Sometimes it must just seem that way.

The reception area also has copies of a special issue of the brigade – let’s still call it the brigade – magazine, reporting the winners in its annual Being the Best awards.

They didn’t just go to firefighters, but to a vulnerable persons’ advocate, a communications and governance co-ordinator and a technical services administrator.

Times change. The fire and rescue service responds at speed. And Sarah Nattrass proves lovely.

STUART ERRINGTON, the chief fire officer, had talked of her rise when speaking a few weeks back at the Age UK men’s breakfast in Durham, mentioned that she’d joined as a retained – on call – firefighter at Stanhope in May 1994.

It all rang bells, as might a fire service story, though the archive recorded next-to-nothing, save for a few one-liners about a Weardale darts player of that name.

The explanation’s easy: back then she was Sarah Lyle, 21-year-old daughter of dales’ pub licensees and herself running the Campbell Arms on the precipitous Crawleyside Bank, above Stanhope.

By January 1995, the papers reported that she’d become Durham’s first female firefighter qualified to drive a fire engine.

Between the two, the Eating Owt column had put an incorrigible head around the door of the Campbell Arms. “Probably Britain’s bonniest firefighter,” we wrote.

Most of the cuttings are in scrapbooks in her office cupboard. Probably not that one, though.

She’d hoped to become a police officer, frustrated when the cadet scheme was suspended. “I just had it in my head that I wanted to leave school and join the police,” she recalls. “I think I thought it would be exciting, you could do different things and have a career. When it didn’t happen I was a little bit lost, to be fair.”

She went on a business and finance course, learned that she didn’t want to work in an office, was still pulling pints when customers suggested she work as a retained firefighter. “I’d never given it a thought.”

Accepted, she become only the third female in the county, joining other part-time crew members at Sedgefield and Fencehouses.

“Retained wasn’t like working,” she says. “It was about doing good in the community and in a way you became a role model. That was my drive, it certainly wasn’t the money.

“I already knew most of them. It was pretty quiet incident-wise, but we did lots of other things. A lot of the time it was really good fun as well. I loved it.”

After two years she became a full-time firefighter in Carlisle, still lived in Stanhope, despite the wind-blasted Weardale winters was late for work just once.

Returning from night shift, however, she skidded on black ice, wrote off her car and decided to seek something closer to home. After a few months with the Cleveland brigade, she transferred back to Durham and spent five years on the front line at Bishop Auckland.

In 2005 she took her first step up the firefighters’ ladder. Now, still only 44, she’s joint number two.

SHE’S affable, enthusiastic, diplomatic when needs to be, possessed of a winning smile. She talks of great careers in the fire service, of the need to diversify – “95 per cent of UK firefighters are still men” – not just to recruit more women, but to attract other under-represented minorities.

“You don’t have to be big and strong, but you do have to be fit. It’s quite demanding. I like to think I was accepted because I showed I could do the job.”

She details “huge” changes in the fire service in the 24 years since she joined, talks with pride of the 30,000 safety and wellbeing visits conducted in the past two years, of a marked fall in the number of house fires, of safeguarding, of diversification into awareness of dementia, mental health and alcohol-related issues and, more cautiously, of budget constraints.

They also work much more closely with the other emergency services and other partners. At Stanhope there are tri-responders – crews trained as firefighters, medics and special constables; at Barnard Castle, a base used by all four emergency services, including mountain rescue.

She’s married – her husband, himself a former fire fighter, is 75 – still lives in the dale, plays darts for the Cross Keys at Eastgate, has that morning’s Weardale Gazette on her phone. She’s all over it like a foam blanket.

There are no children, though she insists that having children wouldn’t be a problem – for either parent – in the modern fire service.

So what’s her management style? “The biggest thing people say is that I’m still Sarah,” she says. “I might now be assistant chief officer, but I still want to be approachable. I’m open, friendly, honest.”

A colleague says she’s a really good people manager. “I think people value that.”

Downstairs they still talk of her as Sarah, sometimes even Natty. “I’ve heard me being called that, I don’t mind,” she insists. “They respect the rank.”

Since the promotion path accelerated, she’s seen little of the front line – though the fire fighting kit’s still in the car. Does she miss it? “Yes and no. Everyone knows that you go to exciting, sometimes distressing incidents, but there’s so much else to the fire service as a career.

“I’m now able to respond in different ways, at different levels, support our front line officers, make sure they’re equipped with what they need. There’s so much more to the fire service. Believe me, it’s still exciting.”

SEXISM still exists in the fire service, she admits – “we’re trying so hard to alter that” – England has just two female chief fire officers, in London and Staffordshire. Might she yet ascend the highest rung, be in – as they say – with a shout? “I’ve never really thought about being a chief fire officer, opportunities have arisen and I’ve taken them.”

On this or any other day, however, Sarah doubts that she’s a feminist. “I’m a great supporter of women and of gender equality, of equal opportunity. I want to encourage more women to join, I think that women bring a different angle to the role.

“I don’t say that it’s softer, but we’re female, we’re different from men. Basically I just want to do my job well, to help people. We want to be the best we can be, the best fire and rescue service in the country.”

Not quite as originally envisaged, it’s been a most enjoyable interview. Column still sorted; emergency over.