Fire Service officer awarded as Welsh learner

May 30 2008

By Steve Stratford

North Wales Fire Service presented a member of its staff with an award for his contribution to the Welsh language at the Eisteddfod maes this week. Mark Jones, who is currently working on a project to procure and implement a Fire Safety and Operational Records Management System, has been learning Welsh for six years. He has attended a number of courses since joining the service as a firefighter at Deeside fire station in 1978. Mark lives in Wrexham with his wife and two children. Mark says: "I am very proud to have won this award as I feel very passionately that the Welsh language should be promoted and encouraged to grow. I would like to thank all my work colleagues for their support and encouragement over the years and the service for giving me the opportunity to learn Welsh in various classes and courses. Although I would never say the Welsh language is an easy one to learn, it has given me great enjoyment and enabled me to spread our fire safety messages across all the communities in North Wales." Colin Hanks, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, said: "We in North Wales live in a bilingual community, and we as a service believe it is extremely important that as many of our staff as possible can converse with residents in their chosen language. "We thoroughly agreed with Mark's nominator that he showed real commitment to learning the language and determination in using his new skills in the workplace - congratulations and well done to him. This is the first year the award has been presented, and we look forward to continuing with this new tradition by making this an annual competition."