I have been putting off reading this book for too long. Not willing or able to delve back into Grenfell Tower so forensically again. But with the final report due in the next few weeks and my own work this summer almost exclusively concentrated on being part of a team of consultants making existing older high rise buildings safer, it was time to take the plunge.

It was a hard but necessary read. Again my heart broke for those who could not be saved and my heart burst for the bravery of my colleagues inside the building in those dark torrid and dangerous initial hours of the disaster.

But the book leaves me disgusted with those at all level of multiple Governments and the Civil service over the past few decades. Those with the responsible for legislating all of our safety who deliberately lied or fudged the truth to keep big business, industry and lobby groups happy, and feel foolish that those of us so close to it all, but in reality so far away had such blind reliance on the regulatory regime that we believed would never knowingly let our citizens down for the sake of money and ‘progress’.

I am also hurt that those just a few steps above me in LFB, knew information that may have completely changed the way us who were Commanders on the ground dealt with high rise fires. Incidents that were all too common in London, yet still chose to look in our eyes, smile and shake our hands as if “all was well” when they met us, knowing we could and eventually did face a disaster like Grenfell Tower.

Peter Apps book is a must read for anyone in the fire or construction industry or anyone with an interest in modern politics and history.

Again, I am sorry for those we never got to, you will always be remembered.