CHEF Graham Griffiths has signed up as an on-call volunteer with Coll firefighters.
Griffiths, who has worked at the Coll hotel for the past ten years, was motivated to join the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service (SFRS) after seeing the devastating effects of a house fire on the island last year.
“I feel I am one of the younger members of the community and felt I could contribute,” he said.
“I had thought about it for a while, I spoke to my employers, and they were full of encouragement.
“We had a chat about how we could make it work in the event of a call out.”
Three members of staff from the SFRS visited Coll from the mainland to give Griffiths two weeks of training.
Griffiths, 38, is originally from Glasgow and used to holiday on the island when he was a child.
When he was a student, he worked at the island’s hotel.
Julie Oliphant, owner of the Coll Hotel, said: “On Coll, it’s more than just work – it’s about investing in the community.
“We want to keep the younger ones here and staff retention in the hospitality industry is a major issue.
“Once we get great staff it is vital we hold on to them.”
She added: “Graham has been our chef for ten years and it’s quite [rare] to keep a chef that long.
“Our staff need to have a life out-with work and it makes complete sense if we have staff becoming on call firefighters, we encourage it and we are thrilled Graham got into the fire service.”
Read more stories on Scottish Field’s outdoors pages.
Plus, don’t miss Guy Grieve’s column in the December issue of Scottish Field magazine.
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