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| A cutting from the Fifeshire Advertiser showing the crowds that gathered to watch the blaze. |
Firemen unable to reach a poor wee girl caught in an inferno – now there’s a Fife tale worth rediscovering and re-telling.
Moreso because it happened in an area and I knew well, but it was a story I had never heard of before, happening on the edge of Innerleven and Lower Methil.
Although I grew up in Leven by the time I was in my teens I had pals in Innerleven, Methil and Aberhill, and we used to regularly play football or cricket in Kinnarchie Park by the ICI filling station, opposite Central Farmers.
Often I’d take the ‘low road’ to Aberhill, crossing the railway line and bridge by the power station, then head along past the Innerleven Hotel and up the Waverley Steps to Aberhill.
My ‘Auntie’ Bunty, bestowed with that title because she was a friend of my mum’s, worked in the dry cleaner’s in a wee shop on the oppiosite side of the road from the steps and I’d pop in just to say hello.
But now I’m wondering if the shop where she worked had risen from the site of that blaze 20 years previously.
That happened at 124 High Street at the premises of Wizard Dry Cleaners. On Sunday, September 25, 1949, proprietor Gordon Hartley was working in the shop with his sister-in-law Jean Porteous while his seven-year-old daughter Kay played. Suddenly, the building was rocked by an explosion.
Mr Hartley tried to tackle the ensuing blaze but, injured and unable to quell the flames, he raced to summon the fire brigade.
Within three minutes firemen, under the supervision of Company Officer Thomson, were on the scene, and a large crowd had gathered in the street and packed the Waverley Steps.
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But now I’m wondering if the shop where she worked had risen from the site of that blaze 20 years previously.
That happened at 124 High Street at the premises of Wizard Dry Cleaners. On Sunday, September 25, 1949, proprietor Gordon Hartley was working in the shop with his sister-in-law Jean Porteous while his seven-year-old daughter Kay played. Suddenly, the building was rocked by an explosion.
Mr Hartley tried to tackle the ensuing blaze but, injured and unable to quell the flames, he raced to summon the fire brigade.
Within three minutes firemen, under the supervision of Company Officer Thomson, were on the scene, and a large crowd had gathered in the street and packed the Waverley Steps.
According to the newspaper coverage from the time, the Fifeshire Advertiser and Leven Mail reported that it was believed little Kay was still trapped in the blazing shop.
“On entering the premises the firemen noticed a scorched child-like figure lying on the floor,” said the Advertiser. “The word went round that Kay had been playing in the shop prior to the explosion.
“Sheets of flame drove the firefighters from the shop.”
One can only imagine the desperation of the firemen and the horror that rippled through the crowd of hundreds at this apparent tragedy.
One person unperturbed by it all though would have been wee Kay who was watching the fire from the other side of the road, and no doubt wondering what had happened to her doll that she’d left in the shop when she went out to play seconds before the explosion.
“It was a relief to hear the child was safe,” said Coy Officer Thomson later.
With the dry cleaning chemicals reacting with the fire, the shop turned into a blazing inferno with telephone lines destroyed amid rising pillars of smoke, and neighbouring houses’ windows cracked.
The firemen, using foam, eventually managed to bring the flames under control leaving Mr Hartley with damage estimated at £2000 for the business he’d started just two months before – and a lot of Methil folk with cremated clothing that had been put in for cleaning.
“On entering the premises the firemen noticed a scorched child-like figure lying on the floor,” said the Advertiser. “The word went round that Kay had been playing in the shop prior to the explosion.
“Sheets of flame drove the firefighters from the shop.”
One can only imagine the desperation of the firemen and the horror that rippled through the crowd of hundreds at this apparent tragedy.
One person unperturbed by it all though would have been wee Kay who was watching the fire from the other side of the road, and no doubt wondering what had happened to her doll that she’d left in the shop when she went out to play seconds before the explosion.
“It was a relief to hear the child was safe,” said Coy Officer Thomson later.
With the dry cleaning chemicals reacting with the fire, the shop turned into a blazing inferno with telephone lines destroyed amid rising pillars of smoke, and neighbouring houses’ windows cracked.
The firemen, using foam, eventually managed to bring the flames under control leaving Mr Hartley with damage estimated at £2000 for the business he’d started just two months before – and a lot of Methil folk with cremated clothing that had been put in for cleaning.
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