How did you first find out about the fire?
At 4:50am on the 4.4.13 my friend Anna
texted me and I woke up to it thinking that the flat would be okay-just a bit
smokey. My mum was desperate to find out more but I was still half asleep so
was like ‘Nooo its fine mum it’ll be alright!’ Then later on I was doing some
uni work as exams were coming up and got a call from my flatmate Claire saying
that her diary had been found smoking in the remains of the flat so the fire
brigade had rung her who then rung me pretty much saying our house was gone-I
thought she was exaggerating. Then I did nothing but burst into tears.
How was the fire actually started?
I’m not entirely sure because I probably
shouldve rang the police to check-but it just never got done because I was
trying to sort everything else out. But basically as far as I know squatters
had got into a derelict building next door and they were being evicted. So then
they had some kind of rave and set the place on fire
What did finding out that youd just lost everything
really feel like?
My stomach just dropped-it didn’t feel like
it was really happening. I had to wait 2 days before I could go down to Bristol
to see the flat and even then we were only allowed in certain parts because it
was so unsafe to go in. In my head I still thought it wasn’t that bad and that
I’d still be able to salvage some of my stuff. I don’t know-I just couldn’t
deal with it and thought it’d still be fine!
What are you most upset about losing?
Sentimental stuff-It had just been my 21st
birthday and id taken all my presents to the flat. I had 2 shelves on my
wall-nicknamed ‘The Shrine’ which is where I kept photos of like my childhood,
birthday cards and pretty much all my favourite things that I now cant replace.
Those shelves were one of the main areas the fire hit so I lost it all. Clothes
you can replace but photos you cant-even though theres still 1 jumper I really
want back!
What was it like for it all to happen in
your final year of uni-just before exams?
Luckily id just handed in my dissertation
before easter which is why I had gone home and wasn’t there to stop the fire. I
was only going home for a week so hadn’t taken much stuff home with me-the
annoying thing is I packed a huge suitcase then unpacked it again because it
seemed stupid to be taking so much for just a week. For uni I has two 3000 word
essays to do plus exam revision for 4 of my final exams. Trouble was I didn’t
bring any of my exam notes home with me because I was only working on the
essays so I lost all those too. I basically had to start from scratch-id been
to every single lecture and written some really good notes so I was gutted.
Even if they hadn’t got burnt they would’ve been ruined because the fire
brigade just went in and soaked everything because the fire was that bad.
Did you find anything in your flat half
burnt that made you really upset?
Yeah. My room didn’t fully
disintegrate-everything ended up as a mush. Like when I looked in my wardrobe
all of my coathangers had melted into my clothes and theyd all turned black.
The smell was probably the worst-it was unbrearable I cant even describe it.
With the lack of exam notes situation everyone was really nice though, they
tried to help me as much as possible and lend me theirs but of course they were
trying to revise at the same time, it wasn’t easy.
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