Woman, 100, flees flat fire

MARJORIE Nevill knew exactly what to do when - six days before her 100th birthday - she found her flat was ablaze.

Miss Nevill, who lives alone, got out of her home at the Tobago flats block on West Parade as fast as she could and asked a neighbour to call the fire service.

By the time firefighters from Bexhill and Hastings had raced to the scene an explosion had blown her bedroom window into the grounds. The double-glazed unit landed on the grass intact and without smashing the glass (pictured).

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Because a seven-storey block was involved, East Sussex Fire and Rescue service brought in an aerial ladder from Hastings and ordered the evacuation of the block. The secretary of the residents' association later praised both the fire service and Egerton Park Indoor Bowling Club. Evacuated residents were given cups of tea in the warmth of the nearby clubhouse until allowed to return after firefighters had put out Monday evening's blaze.

Retired surveyor John Davis' flat is next to Miss Nevill's.

The smell of smoke still hung in the corridor of Tobago the following morning as the residents' association secretary said: "I was sitting watching television at about nine o'clock when I heard a scratching at my door."

Miss Nevill told him: "My flat is alight!"

Mr Davis said: "She said 'I have locked myself out.' I said 'You have done the right thing' and led to the front door of the flats. It was pretty smelly out there (in the corridor). You could see the front door so the smoke was not too bad.

"We sounded the block's fire alarm. There are 29 flats in the block. The majority of people went over to the bowls club. They made them tea and were very welcoming - a lot of the people are members.

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"The chairman of the club, Peter Gunston, was there and he welcomed them in. They were only too pleased to accept them."

Mr Davis said Miss Nevill had told him she was walking from her lounge to her kitchen when she saw smoke coming from the bedroom.

Miss Nevill was shaken but unhurt. She was given accommodation for the night by her friend and neighbour Mary Hunt, herself a centenarian.

On Tuesday she went back to the nursing home from where she had only recently returned after hospital treatment.

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John Davis said Mary Hunt's action was typical of Tobago residents.

"There's a very good community spirit here. We try to keep that going. We believe it is very important that you have good community spirit."

Watch Commander John Owen, from Bexhill Fire Station, later described the fire as having had the potential to have been very serious.

"The elderly lady was shortly going to bed. If the fire had started while she was asleep the outcome could have been very different...

"At 9pm we had a report of a fire in the flats at Tobago.

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"When we got there we found a ground floor flat alight. The fire was in a bedroom. There was a lot of smoke and there had been an explosion.

"At first we thought the explosion was caused by gas.

"Later, we found a broken perfume bottle. The bottle had been near to the seat of the fire and had heated up and broken. We believe the vapour from the perfume had ignited, causing the explosion.

"We evacuated the whole building as a precaution. Just a few people chose to remain. Four firefighters wearing breathing apparatus went into the flat.

"They found it heavily smoke-logged.

"In total, it took about an hour to put out the fire. But we were there till 12 making a fire investigation.

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"It would appear that clothes or a curtain had come into contact with a convector heater and caused the fire.

"The bedroom itself is quiet severely damaged. The entire window was blown out by the explosion. The ceiling has been brought down. The flat is smoke-damaged."

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