YOU could tell it was a well-practised gag that came from the father as a fire engine, with piercing horns turning heads, sped along Glasgow's Maryhill Road.

The chap turned to his open-mouthed son watching the engine race by and told him: "They'll never sell any ice cream going at that speed."

It could have been the joke-teller's own house that was burning down for all he knew, but he wasn't going to pass the chance of using a favourite line. For in truth, we love fire engines. Maybe little boys still dream of growing up to be a fireman - now called a fire-fighter as more women join their ranks. Considering it's one of the few jobs-for-life still around, perhaps they should be encouraged.

At the weekend, Paisley's County Square was awash with red as classic fire engines were put on display for children to clamber over, and for fathers to admire as they stood beside them, sadly too old now to put on the yellow plastic fire helmets handed to their children and sit in the seats pressing horns, but you knew they wanted to.

The real classics were there - the red Dennis fire engines with shiny brass bells that you recognise from fifties British films. Oddities as well, such as the little fire engine from the Morris car company factory which was based on the Morris Minor car. And all were red. Aberdeen once flirted with white fire engines as it was cheaper keeping them in their factory delivery colour, arguing that white is an easier colour to spot. But even they became red eventually. It just wouldn't be right otherwise.

The children in County Square were getting on well with the crews, but that hasn't always been the case. There were spells in Glasgow when bored kids in far-flung housing schemes would summon fire engines with fake 999 calls then pelt the machines with rocks. Perhaps computer games, where they can throw bombs at entire cities, now have the edge over fire engine pelting.

That somehow reminds me of the fire-fighter giving a talk on fire safety at an east end primary school who asked: "So why do you not touch a cooker or toaster?" He was not expecting the reply from the first lad to put his hand up. "Fingerprints."

Like all emergency workers who can face grim sights, the fire-fighters themselves rely often on humour. When three fire engines from a south Glasgow station went on a call and came to a junction, the leading engine turned right. The second driver thought he knew better and turned left. Totally confused, the third driver went straight on. From that day on that particular watch was known by colleagues as the Red Arrows.

Former journalist, now an artist, Sandra Ratcliffe, was leaving her flat in Ayrshire with a pile of canvasses she was taking to an exhibition, when she got stuck in the lift. The fire brigade was summoned, and when the man in uniform prised the doors open and saw Sandra surrounded with paintings, he merely asked: "Just how long have you been here?"

Even the great Chic Murray could laugh when the hotel he ran with wife Maisie in Edinburgh went on fire, and Maisie tried to tackle the blaze before the fire engines arrived. "It's the first time," declared Chic afterwards, "I've ever seen the wife take a bucket."

Proof of the high regard that fire-fighters are held in was shown in the seventies when the Fire Brigades Union did the unthinkable in Glasgow and went on strike. It could have meant a serious threat to life as enthusiastic, yet hopelessly poorly equipped, soldiers took over in their Green Goddesses - trundling fire-trucks with the speed of a go-kart and the water power of a pea-shooter. Yet the public backed the fire-fighters, even stopping off at picket lines to hand in children's presents so the fire-fighting families wouldn't miss out on Christmas.

The biggest casualty was Reo Stakis's Grosvenor Hotel in the west end which seemed to burn down in slow motion as the Green Goddesses ineffectually sprayed some water in its direction over a number of hours. But no one died, and the hotel was rebuilt in a sympathetic style.

Yet there have been deaths in the fire service. Just yards from The Herald office is a flagstone commemmorating four firemen who died in a chemical works explosion in Renfield Street in 1898. In a few days' time there will be a service in the Necropolis at the fire service memorial to mark the 41st anniversary of the Kilbirnie Street warehouse fire which killed a firemen - and the six fellow firemen who had gone in to rescue him. Cheapside Street fire, with a heart-renching 19 deaths, was a decade earlier.

Fortunately deaths from fires have dropped in the city. There used to be the classic chip pan fires as folk after a wee drink would suddenly feel the need for sustenance, put on the chip pan, fall asleep, and be overcome by smoke in the inevitable fire.

The campaign to install smoke detectors has helped reduce that problem. But perhaps the rise in kebab shops to assuage late night hunger has also helped the drop in self-immolation. Change is a strange thing at times.

But the name Tinderbox City, once applied to Glasgow, is now confined to yellowing newspaper headlines in libraries.

Mention Tinderbox in Glasgow now and folk think instead of a couple of trendy cafes.

Now that really is progress.