Jon Le Page was taken by surprise when he learned that he would be receiving the King’s Fire Service Medal in this year’s Birthday Honours.
Mr Le Page retired from the Guernsey Fire and Rescue Service earlier this year, after a career spanning 33 years.
He told Express that he thought that his involvement with the fire service was over – but “it just keeps giving”.
“I had a call from the Home Office in England about eight weeks ago to inform me they had received a nomination for me for this award,” he explained, adding that he was told “nothing was was for certain, and I had to keep an eye out in the in the Gazette, the Buckingham Palace newsletter, to see if I’d received it.
“Since then, I’ve had a few phone calls from media outlets like yourself, so I’m assuming I must have been successful! It is a bit of a surprise, and to be honest with you, now that I’ve retired from the Fire Service I thought my fire service career was over, but clearly it just keeps giving. So yes, I’m over the moon,” he said.
Mr Le Page joined GFRS in 1992 and was appointed Chief Office in 2012.
In that time he has been at some of the most notable incidents in Guernsey’s recent history.
“I think it’s a nice sign off to my career, and I look back with immense pride at what I achieved for the Fire Service, and this just tops it off,” he said.
“I didn’t realise that somebody felt so positive about my career that they could put a nomination forward like this, because I do appreciate it is a lot of work to nominate somebody for an award so I’m very humbled that they’ve done so.
“I’m really honoured to receive it, because it’s not about me, it’s not about the career I’ve had, I’ve just done the best job I could, and I couldn’t have done it without the team around me so really, this award is for the whole of the Guernsey Fire and Rescue Service in my mind and I’m gutted that I can’t be in Guernsey to receive it on their behalf, so to speak.”
Mr Le Page is currently on an extended holiday in Canada where his son lives and is due to get married.
Mr Le Page said his thoughts are with all those who supported him in his career, as he celebrates with his family.
“As I said before, I tried to do the best job I could, I tried to make the right decisions. Of course, half the time I’m not doing it in isolation, I’m doing it with a lot of good people around me giving me advice and guidance, and not just from the Fire Service, but from from our other supporting agencies and the other emergency services.
“It is a collaborative team effort, and I don’t know whether it’s good luck or good judgment that the decisions that I made during my career came out with some positive results, and I’m just pleased that they did because at the time when you’re making these decisions, you don’t know what the future holds. You try to predict what’s going to happen, and you do the best you can with the information you have available to you, and I just feel so fortunate that everything seems to work out okay, because certainly the recycling fire (in 2018), it could have gone sideways, quite literally, and it was a very, very stressful time. I’m glad that it resolved itself, with not too much damage.”
Among the notable incidents that Mr Le Page worked on, as well as the recycling centre fire in 2018 that he references above, were numerous fires at residential and commercial properties, road traffic accidents, and other emergency situations over the past three decades.
As Chief Officer, Mr Le Page was responsible for GFRS during an extended time of increased financial scrutiny.
He has also been credited for his work leading the GFRS through the covid pandemic, and through the creation of the Joint Emergency Services Call Centre.
Mr Le Page has been described as playing a “key role in the development of the Service, assuming responsibility for cliff rescue in 2018”.
The volunteer cliff rescue team now trains with GFRS personnel and operates closely with the RNLI and Guernsey’s Marine Ambulance.
Under Mr Le Page’s watch, the GFRS launched new education initiatives, and he led the programme of events marking the GFRS centenary in 2022.