I was brought up with a healthy respect for fire. I grew up in the depths of North Coldshire where the only source of heating came from the sitting room fire, coal was carried in from the outhouse from 1st October until 30th April (no matter how cold it was either side of those months) and by the age of 5 I could clean out and lay a fire as skilfully as the next chap. I withstood a thrashing at the age of 10 having been caught with matches in my coat pocket: so ingrained were the perils of playing with fire, I chose to be punished for smoking cigarettes rather than for my true crime: lighting a fire in my tree den. It was a tear-streaked face which promised never again to touch a filthy ciggy, while all the time looking forward to toasting barley in my carefully hidden empty battered baccy tin.
Time marched on and I found myself alone in a world of double glazing, central heating and even a tumble drier. What luxury thought I, still remembering the green metal hot water bottle, the eiderdowns so heavy you thought your ribs would break and the thick slabs of ice over the windows in the morning (how we laughed at the thought of Jack Frost leaving his delicate patterns!). One Friday evening, in a state of new-found independence, at the tender age of 23, I left my darling little flat and went off on a jolly, to return on the Sunday evening. I walked into the communal hall, smelled an odd, yet strangely comforting smell, and proceeded to open my door. The odd thing was that even in the hall I hadn’t registered that a smoke alarm was squealing, still less that it was my smoke alarm.
The flat was not large (my mother commented on first seeing it that the hall was rather small: she was looking at the sitting room), so it didn’t take too long to discover the cause of the smoke. My bed was pushed up against the storage heater – there was nowhere else for it to go (great design…), but as the little air vents at the top were still reasonable uncovered, I thought no more of it. However… at some point during the weekend the storage heater pixies had got in and done their dirty work. The storage heater had overheated and in overheating had melted its own controls to a fixed ‘furnace blast’ position. The mattress was charring and melting away quite happily, the duvet had caught fire and the feathers glowed red and flickered. I disconnected the fire alarm (it would NOT shut up), threw a pan or two of water over the bed, put the duvet outside, sat in my sitting room and cried. Now, the other problem that I had was that I was proud. I was so proud it hurts me to think of it now. I was also quite poor. The price of my independence was 1 full-time job and 2 part-time jobs, working 7 days a week: and that enabled me to have my flat and run my little white Mini. It did not afford me storage space, spare bedding, etc, etc. Pride stopped me from ringing a friend and asking to stay the night, or from borrowing a sleeping bag… and so I was left in my quite-small-for-a-hall sitting room on two cushions from the armchairs as a mattress and the curtain from the window as a blanket, feeling more than a little sorry for myself.
Of course – if I had known then what I know now (but then Wee1 and Wee2 might never have been…) I would have: called the FIRE BRIGADE! (see part 2).