Woman Believed to Be England's First Female Firefighter Had No Idea She Was Making History

Mary Joy Langdon, believed to be England's first female operational firefighter, has revealed she had absolutely no idea that women weren't in the fire service when she joined in 1976.

The BBC reported that Langdon, now 76, signed up to East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service after seeing a newspaper headline about a shortage of personnel during the famous heatwave of 1976. "The headlines were 'Battle needs more firefighters' and it was just well okay, I'll do that," she told the BBC.

Langdon, who had grown up on her parents' farm in Battle, said she had beaten out small fires at a neighbouring farm and innocently thought that was what she would be doing. She "had absolutely no idea" that many people did not see the job as something a woman belonged to at the time.

According to the BBC, when Langdon knocked on the fire station door, she was welcomed in by a fireman who offered her a cool drink. The ensuing media attention was "horrendous," she said, adding that she would not have done it if she had realised how much publicity she would receive as the service's first female recruit in peacetime. "It was horrendous but I coped with it," she said.