Josephine Reynolds
{{Short description|Welsh writer and firefighter (born 1965)}}
{{More citations needed|date=April 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}{{Use British English|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| image = File:Firefighter Josephine Reynolds.jpg
| caption = Josephine Reynolds in September 1982
| birth_date = 28 March 1965
| birth_place = Narberth, Pembrokeshire, Wales
| occupation = writer and former firefighter
| notable_works = Fire Woman: The Extraordinary Story of Britain's First Female Firefighter (2017)
}}
Josephine Reynolds (born 28 March 1965) is a Welsh writer and former firefighter. She has been described as one of the first full-time female firefighters in the UK.{{cite book|author=Josephine Reynolds|title=Fire Woman: The Extraordinary Story of Britain's First Female Firefighter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MISjDgAAQBAJ|date=6 April 2017|publisher=Michael O'Mara|isbn=978-1-78243-700-0}}{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/08/first-fire-woman-josephine-reynolds-1982 |title=Britain's first female firefighter: 'There was no way I was going to be the weakest link' |website=The Guardian |accessdate=June 18, 2018}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=te3bAAAAMAAJ |title=Courage High!: A History of Firefighting in London|first=Sally |last=Holloway|year=1992|pages=239, 242|publisher=H.M. Stationery Office |isbn=978-0-11-701689-7 }}
Life
Reynolds grew up in Narberth, Pembrokeshire.{{Cite news |last=Arkless |first=John |date=2017-10-22 |title=The woman who became Britain's first female firefighter |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-41476928 |access-date=2025-01-09 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}} When she was 12, her family home, where she lived with her mother, brother, and step-father, burned down. In 1981, at age 16, she left school and moved to Norfolk to live with her father.
In 1982 she was accepted on a new training scheme with the Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service aimed at school leavers. After a year of training, she began working with the fire and rescue service in Norfolk in 1983, aged 18. She worked at the fire station in Thetford. Three years later she qualified to drive a fire engine.
Reynolds married a fellow firefighter in December 1986. The following year, they both left to travel. Reynolds moved back to Norfolk in 1990, after the breakdown of her marriage. She later moved to China.
Reynolds published an autobiography, Fire Woman: The Extraordinary Story of Britain's First Female Firefighter, in 2017. As of 2017, Reynolds was retired and living in Cambodia.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, Josephine}}
Category:British women firefighters
Category:People from Pembrokeshire
Category:20th-century British women
Category:20th-century British people
Category:21st-century British biographers
Category:21st-century British women writers
Category:British autobiographers
Category:British women autobiographers
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