radical group nominated Horner to stand against Kingdom for election as FBU General Secretary and when Kingdom then unexpectedly resigned, Horner engaged in a confused process, described by one obituarist as ' a left-wing coup', that found him elected in June 1939 as the new General Secretary, aged 27. When the Second World War started a few weeks later, tens of thousands of auxiliary firefighters were called up and flooded into the fire stations. Horner ignored the advice of the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Walter Citrine, that the FBU should ignore the auxiliaries and instead created an AFS section of the FBU that was eventually merged with the regular FBU in 1943. Union membership jumped to over 70,000. During the Blitz of 1940-41, Horner visited every fire station in the country, supporting his members on the front line of the UK's civil defence against the bombs and successfully campaigned for improvement in the AFS employment conditions. When the Government created the National Fire Service in 1941, he launched a high-profile campaign for the Firemen's Charter that included a nationally set wage and other improvements. He enlisted the support of well-known public figures and 400 mass meetings were organised across the country. Not all of the Charter's demands were met but they had won a significant pay increase and 'it was an impressive beginning to an era of increasing success for the FBU'. Horner's landmark achievement was the Home Office's recognition that the Union was a stakeholder in the fire service with a legitimate voice in how it should be organised and managed. As the War drew to an end, the auxiliary firefighters returned to their peacetime jobs and by 1948 the FBU membership had shrunk to around 18000, about ninety percent of the workforce. In the years that followed Horner continued to campaign for shorter hours, improved pensions and better firefighting equipment, although in 1950 he lost the demand for continued parity with police wages. By 1960 he had increasingly shifted his attention to arguing for a technical and highly trained fire service with a significant, additional role in fire prevention. He became a 'relentless opponent of cost-cutting and carelessness' . After twenty-five years as General Secretary, he stepped down in 1964 and later that year was elected as Labour MP for Oldbury and Halesowen. Political Life As a young fireman, Horner had the reputation of