Former pupil, Paul Hodges, joined Studley High School in 1957.
My headmaster, Mr Harper, was very strict. I enjoyed cross-country and road running back in those days.
I left school in ’62, joined the Royal Navy but an injury prevented me from being posted. I joined the Fire Brigade in ’64 and worked full time until 1996.
When I retired, I started driver training and find myself now training Studley High School staff, how to drive a minibus.
Paul began his career with Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service as a retained firefighter at Studley in 1964. He then went to full-time in Leamington in 1966, before he moved onto Bedworth in 1968.
Following his retirement in 1996, Paul applied to become a specialist driving instructor for the Service. Whilst in that role, Paul was keen to get involved with voluntary youth initiatives which supported young people with behavioural and emotional issues.
Before that, in 1993, Paul had played a crucial role in forming a new voluntary group within the service, the Critical Incident Debriefing Team.
The primary role of this group is to support operational personnel who have been through traumatic experiences. The first debrief was the M40 minibus crash in 1993 in which 13 people died. One of the worst situations he had to manage was supporting firefighters involved in the Atherstone-on-Stour tragedy in November 2007. This involved supporting over 400 individuals from 16 different locations across the county.
Paul was awarded an MBE 3 years ago, for his services to the Fire and Rescue Service. He went to Buckingham Palace, with his family and received his medal in 2015.
