He said: "It's a real thrill to be mayor of your home town."
It is a lifestyle that many inside the service admit is becoming harder to pair with the demands of modern life, shift work and childcare.“At first you sign up to it because you’re keen,” said Nat.
“But then the realisation kicks in that this is 120 hours per week. That’s a lot of hours to give.“At first it seemed doable. I was at college studying so in the day it was fine, but then I’d find every night and every weekend I was on call and it just became too much really.”Nat said after four years she finally decided she could no longer continue after accepting a new job working at an off-shore wind farm.
Her rota meant she was off-shore working for a week at a time, followed by a week of rest.But in order to meet the minimum hours required for her local service, Nat would have needed to agree to be on call for almost all the time she was back on the mainland.
“You can’t even walk very far [when on call] because if you go for a walk you have to be close enough to attend [the station],” she said.
“If you go, ‘oh I want to go for a walk’, you have to know that you are capable of running back to that place within five minutes.Running my blog and social media has helped create a community, who have been there for me through difficult times.
They're so supportive whenever I talk about my experiences with friendship, my eating disorder and more recently, they supported me through myI was told I had an 88% chance of developing breast cancer, which led to me having a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction aged 31.
I will also need to have my ovaries removed by the age of 40 to reduce my risk of developing ovarian cancer. Whilst it's a scary thought, I know it's for the best and my community will always have my back.As well as continuing helping them through my recipes, I want to keep raising awareness for the gluten-free and coeliac community beyond that.