All hands to the pumps!

All have been taught basic firefighting skills during their time in the navy but responding to potentially life-threatening shouts armed with dated equipment in Green Goddesses is an immense challenge that few would have envisaged taking part in.

Echo reporter Guy Woodford spent a night with the Royal Navy recruits from HMS Manchester, HMS Exeter and HMS Invincible to find out first hand how they were coping with being stand-in firefighters on the front line...

"IT'S kids that have done this. They're ruining everyone's lives around here and I'm sick of it, just sick of it."

Alex Gibbs, 33, of Chettle Road, Thornhill, Southampton, is standing at the front door of her council house block at 12.50am this morning watching a team of stand-in Royal Navy firefighters dealing with flooding in a neighbour's property.

"I think the Green Goddesses and their crews are doing a great job, but they aren't firefighters are they.

"The government should give them a 40 per cent pay rise and then we can get back to how things were."

Ten minutes later Phil Cupples, commander of the Green Goddess called out from Blighmount House Territorial Army HQ in Millbrook Road East was instructing his crew to put away hoses and other firefighting equipment.

He says: "It seems a youngster was having a bath using too much water and some of it spilled out on to some electrical sockets.

"The electrical sockets have been turned off and council engineers will attend later on."

Rewind back much earlier in the evening to the scene at the makeshift fire control room at Blighmount House. Three hours without an incident to respond to had led to petty officer Adrian Walker, 30, and HMS Manchester colleagues Ryan Cane, 23, Chris Howarth, 28, and Claire Chant, 27, competing to see who had visited the most countries during their naval service.

"I've been to 38 countries," says Chris. "Some of yours Ryan aren't even countries." Ryan Smiles. "Yes they are. Hawaii is a country."

Each day 64 navy personnel work alongside a breathing apparatus response team who also carry cutting equipment, two policemen and a Ministry of Defence duty of care fire officer who is on hand to offer expert advice and support - particularly welcomed by the navy teams on trickier fire shouts.

A further ten Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers personnel tend to Green Goddesses in between call outs.

"We had one man phone up on Monday night saying that his car had caught fire so he pulled into a petrol station off the Chilworth roundabout to call for help. How daft is that?" says Adrian sporting a wide grin.

"We get our fair share of hoax calls, automatic fire alarms and bin fires too. Hoax calls are dealt with by our command centre in Netley and during the initial 48-hours firefighters strike we had a lot."

Each fire call is received and logged in the control room before an air horn is sounded alerting one of four Green Goddess crews. The crews are then briefed on the detail of the particular call-out before the Goddess follows a police escort to its intended address.

It's 10.10pm and the control room and the rest of the TA base is alive with the sound of rushing bodies.

A call has come through about a possible fire at the University of Southampton.

On arrival at the Highfield campus the Green Goddess crew is directed by security staff to the Mountbatten Building in Salisbury Road - home of the Optoelectronics Research Centre.

A frantic hive of activity sees the Goddess crew unravelling hoses and opening water hydrants before waiting for further instruction.

Don Hamer, 43, the Ministry of Defence duty of care fire officer, is right in the thick of things.

"There has been a small electrical fire in a cabinet in one of the laboratories which has discharged gas fumes into a nearby vent which has triggered the alarms.

"All power to the lab units has been isolated until the university engineers can sort things out.

"We are calling out the breathing apparatus team as a precaution.

"Given the amount of scientific equipment in this lab block, if it blew up I think the whole of Southampton would know about it!"

Almost as soon as one Green Goddess crew had returned from the university, another was being dispatched to a van fire in Blakeney Road, Millbrook.

The van was severely smoke logged but the fire had not spread to nearby properties.

People appeared at windows watching the navy men and women at work, with the last puff of smoke extinguished just ten minutes after their arrival.

The cause of the fire was being referred to as "suspicious", but there was no obvious culprit in sight.

After a quiet start, the night was beginning to hot up - pardon the pun - but, so far, there had been no major incidents to deal with.

Back at HQ, the talk had turned to how to make best use of time off from fighting fires.

"I like Southampton. There's a lot of good bars to visit - particularly the Varsity," says one of the 'most countries visited' contestants Chris Howarth.

"When you go out in Portsmouth it's amazing the amount of places where the Navy is not made that welcome.

"When I'm not working I try to go to the gym as much as possible or just out for a run or a long walk. You could go crazy if you stayed here for 24 hours in one go."

Lieutenant Commander Andrew Block, 31, in charge of the Royal Navy operation at Blighmount House, is preparing to stand down after a long day - that had included a major callout to a bus engine on fire in Portswood that had luckily ended without any passengers being injured.

"I'm immediately proud of my team," he says. "They have shown great enthusiasm and remained motivated during what is a difficult time. We have been averaging a ten-minute response time to each call and got to one in just three."

During an earlier conversation with Andrew, his mobile phone rang to the tune of What Should We Do With A Drunken Sailor much to the amusement of those within earshot. Given their work to date in the Southampton area, the Navy has earned the right for its officers to display the odd satisfied smile.'