Sharing a holiday with an ex firefighter who did service in Liverpool was always going to elicit the odd story, and this one was odd indeed. I’ll retell it as best I can, his own telling of the story was better than mine.

Called to an apartment fire they rescued the elderly female resident and thought they had everyone accounted for until she said “ Where’s Albert? What about Albert? ” ” Who’s Albert” they asked her, worrying that this poor chap had been left in the burning building, “Is he your husband?” “ No,he’s been dead for 20 years, Albert’s my parrot”

They donned breathing apparatus again and went back into the apartment. They found the parrot under the cloth on his cage looking like he’d expired. There was still life in the old beak, though he was somewhat blackened by smoke and grime.

“We tried beak to mouth resuscitation but that did not seem to work” said our storyteller. “So we got this piece of equipment that blows air, and tried that”.

The result was short lived and brief, the parrot blew up and took off like an eagle. His face was a picture of lasting contentment when he unfortunately hit the ceiling of the apartment and fell to his untimely death. There was no more they could do for him. The double shock of the fire and then being attached to an air line piloted him to his demise, and from his blackened smoke stained body they could not even tell if he was a Norwegian Blue.

The fireteam clubbed together to buy the lady a new parrot for her home, and suggested that she call him “ Eagle”

Special thanks to Peter the ex firefighter who told the story originally, somewhere on the Orkneys.