Prior to becoming an operational firefighter, Liam was a team leader at the sports centre at Edge Hill University. He completed his 15-week recruit course in December 2020 and will complete the remainder of his level 3 apprenticeship whilst working at Southport Community Fire Station as part of Green Watch.
I wanted to become a firefighter because I'm passionate about helping my community. As somebody who isn't originally local and who has felt nothing but warmth and acceptable from the people here, I feel strongly about giving back to the community of Merseyside, my home now for the past six and a half years. My great grandfather was also a firefighter on the Isle of Wight for 27 years so it's nice to continue a bit of family tradition.
The thing I enjoy most about being a firefighter is learning new skills, the high standard expected, the sense of achievement and teamwork, job satisfaction and helping my community. I personally would have liked the training course to have been longer, but I very much enjoyed it and massively value the experience and connections I made with people during it.
I'm only five weeks into the apprenticeship but I have worked with apprenticeship schemes previously and what I would say is, the level of detail and depth required to work your way through it will definitely force a level of understanding onto participants. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the apprenticeship and using it as a tool to help me settle into my new role.