‘Good luck James’ – Yorkshire postman starts volunteer ambulance duty

Postal April 20 2020

“We’re all so proud and of him we wish him all the very best,” is the message from Hull & East Riding Branch secretary Andy Parrish to James Tilley, who begins a 12-week secondment with Yorkshire Ambulance Service this morning.

James lives and works in Withernsea – a small town on the Yorkshire coast – and, as well as his job with Royal Mail, he has also served his community as a ‘retained’ firefighter for several years.

In many of the UK’s villages and small towns, the emergency fire service is staffed by volunteers who do the job on an ‘on-call’ basis – although they receive full Fire Brigade training.

And James’s skills, training and experience with the Fire Brigade, combined with his public-service ethos as a postman and determination to do as much as he can to help others made his mind up to volunteer for ambulance driving duty.

“I asked both my Royal Mail manager, and the Fire Station Officer and they both agreed, and so I’m going to be working out of Leeds with the ambulance crews for the next three months.”

James will be working 12-hour shifts on a three-on-three-off rota, and although based in Leeds, his crew covers the whole Yorkshire area and up to Newcastle.

“I’ll be staying away from home while I’m on duty, so I’ll really miss my wife, Caroline and my 11-year-old daughter Scarlett and they said they’ll miss me too, but they both support me in doing this.

“I just want to help as much as I can – and if this is the best way I can help, then it’s what I feel I should do.”

Andy Parrish says that “our whole branch is immensely proud of James – we’re all wishing him the very best, obviously hoping he stays safe and well and looking forward to having him back.

“What James is doing, in my opinion, just really sums up what our members are like – they just keep giving and giving.”