Alex fought fire with fire to stick up for colleagues

ALEX NAPIER, former Scottish secretary of the Fire Brigade Union and Musselburgh councillor, has died aged 88.

Mr Napier served as a Musselburgh fireman for almost three decades in a career which paralleled the growth of the local fire service into the form we know today.

He joined the South Eastern Fire Brigade in 1949, shortly after the UK fire services were returned to post-war local control.

In 1975, as Mr Napier was approaching retirement, the service was renamed Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue and has remained so to this day.

Mr Napier was known as a man who would stick up for himself and others.

As a young recruit he felt unfairly treated during a reprimand and turned to the union for help, beginning a career-long association that would see him spearheading the fight against other such grievances as Scottish secretary of the FBU for over ten years.

His socialist ideals led him to local political office and he went on to serve as a Labour councillor for the former Musselburgh Town Council until the mid-1970s.

Mr Napier lived in and served Musselburgh all of his life after being born in the town on October 18, 1919 to coal miner Alex Snr and his wife Elizabeth.

He attended Newbigging Primary School and Musselburgh Grammar, before going on to become an apprentice house painter in the years before the war.

He was called up to serve with the Southern Highlanders in 1940 as a motorcycle dispatch driver, and later as a Sherman Tank driver in the campaigns in north Africa and Italy.

After the war, he returned to the house-painting profession he had left behind and went on to marry his childhood sweetheart, Janet Tait, in 1947.

Janet, known to her friends as Nettie, was the sister of Mr Napier's best friend Peter, who lived next door to the Musselburgh Fire Station where he was soon to serve.

When the couple's twins, Jim and Elizabeth, came along, he found it hard to make ends meet in the housepainting business and joined the fire service in 1949.

Alongside his council and union duties, Mr Napier served as vice-chair of Lothian Health Board, and following retirement in the 1970s he returned to his old school to re-train as a book-keeper.

Aged in his mid-60s, he was the oldest pupil at Musselburgh Grammar, but his new skills led him to a book-keeping job at St Joseph's School, in Tranent.

He also continued his political affiliation as manager of the local Labour Social Club.

His constant activity throughout his life left little time for hobbies, but following his full retirement he enjoyed photography and bowling.

Around three years ago, Mr and Mrs Napier moved to Campie Court Sheltered Housing together, but Nettie died shortly afterwards and Mr Napier's health deteriorated rapidly.

He died peacefully at St Michael's Hospital on May 15, leaving behind his loving twins, four grandchildren and five great grandchildren.