One dark night in Dublin, a fire started inside the local chemical plant. In the blink of an eye, it exploded into massive flames. The alarm rang in all surrounding fire departments. When the firefighters arrived on the scene, the chemical company president rushed to the fireman in charge and said, "All our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved. I will give 50,000 pounds to the fire department that brings them out intact."
But the roaring flames held the firefighters off. Soon more fire departments had to be called in as the situation became desperate. As the firemen arrived, the president shouted out that the offer was now 100,000 pounds to the fire station that could bring out the company's secret files. But the firefighters still couldn't get through.
From a distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came into sight. It was the nearby rural township volunteer fire brigade, composed mainly of old men over
65. To everyone's amazement, that small run-down fire engine roared right past all the new sleek engines that were parked outside the plant. Without even slowing down it drove straight into the middle of the inferno.
Outside, the other firemen watched as the old timers jumped off right in the middle of the fire and fought it back on all sides. It was a performance and effort never seen before. Within a short time, the old timers had extinguished the fire and had saved the secret formulas. The grateful chemical company president announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to 200,000 pounds. He walked over to personally thank each of the brave firefighters.
The local TV station caught the thank you on film and asked the chief, "What are you planning to do with all that money?"
"Well," said Paddy, the 70-year-old fire chief, "the first thing we're going to do is fix the brakes on that bloody fire truck."