The longest-serving firefighter in Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service is set to retire next month. Sixty-six-year-old Kelvin Chell is hanging up the boots after almost half a century of work across various stations – including Longton, Burslem and Newcastle-under-Lyme.The longest-serving firefighter in Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service is set to retire next month.
“It’s going to feel strange. It’s all I’ve known since I was 16-years-old” said Kelvin. “You have to go back to September 1972 for the beginning. I joined as a junior firefighter straight after leaving school and joined Hanley red watch two years later.
“One thing I picked up straight away was the desire across the service to help people who were less fortunate, particularly with charity fundraising. It’s something which I believe is deeply rooted into the culture and ethos of everything we do.”
Since then, Kelvin has championed various causes and charities across north Staffordshire – including the Royal Stoke University Hospital cancer ward and Cardiac Risk in the Young, raising over £75,000.
“We received hundreds of donations, all in the act of complete kindness and compassion. We were able to send people on holiday, auction caravans, clothes, cars – you name it. It was incredible.”
Kelvin and his colleagues were also responsible for the birth of the ‘Stokie Christmas Market’, which raised thousands for the local community over the course of six years.
He said: “We were sat having breakfast and I just made a flippant comment about starting up a market to fundraise for the community. We raised at least £15,000 every single year from then on.”
Following the proceeds raised, Kelvin and his colleagues managed to donate £12,207 to the Firefighter’s Charity, £7,300 to Cardiac Risk in the Young, £5,000 for Air Ambulance, £3,500 to Dougie Mac Hospice and £2,064 for the Port Vale Christmas appeal.
