MFR's Dan misses show to respond to 999 calls

Storm Henry has a lot to answer for. Just ask MFR's Home Run presenter Dan Gilchrist.

As well as being on air from 3pm - 7pm every day Dan is a retained firefighter and was called out a number of times on Monday - meaning that he MISSED his show.

The Met Office's 8th named storm, Henry, is moving in from the Atlantic and caused a number of restrictions on bridges across the MFR area. Lorries were overturned on the Cromarty Bridge and on the A82 in Glencoe.

And worse weather is still expected overnight.

Fireman Dan called into his own show to explain where he'd been. He told Ryan Borthwick, who had been drafted in at short notice: "As well as sitting behind the microphone presenting across the North of Scotland, I'm also a retained firefighter.

"I really didn't expect to be not in work today because I knew the storm was coming but it wasn't really meant to kick in until later on this evening.

"I've been out dealing with incidents today. I've been down the A82, I've been away up to the Isle of Skye road.

And while he's hoping to be back on air tomorrow, Dan knows that his pager could go off at any time.

"We are all on call tonight. We know we could be out dealing with stuff on the roads, we could be dealing with flooding. There's a whole range of things we could be dealing with tonight."

In any other situation, not turning up for work would get you in a lot of trouble.

But Dan's boss, MFR's content director Davey Walker is going easy on him. He told mfr.co.uk: "At MFR we are here to serve the communities of the North of Scotland no matter what the weather - but usually we get to do it from a warm studio.

"Dan and his retained firefighter colleagues do an amazing job not just serving our communities but saving lives, often in really tough conditions, so I think we'll let him off this time!"