After following a link by Bella Caledonia on twitter to this artcle http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/new-food-banks-set-to-be-rolled-out-across-glasgow-123474n.20893925.
As a Maryhill girl myself I was far from surprised to read about the involvement of the local community groups & the police in supporting this project, the tenement legacy of good neighborlynesss is something I am familiar with as girl from Glasgow.
It also reminded me of the rapport local polis often had with the people in the community, and as someone who in recent year has been accuse by some police (not of the Glasgow variety) as being anti police,
which I am not nor ever have been, the article triggered a memory of a certain local bobby fae Maryhill operating out of the Possil branch in the 90's, who I will always remember with gratitude and some fondness resulting from the support he offered me after an incident in my home at the cedar st flats.
The incident was a fire that started in my sons bedroom, (my son then, was very young, still in his cot less than 3 years old, but I used to leave the small portable telly on for him with the volume low as the voices helped settle him , kind of like company i guess, these days i leave the radio on when i go out for the dog for the same reason , daft i know but that's just how I am)
Anyway, it was around 11.30pm ish , I had just had a bath and gone upstairs to do the ironing while watched cell block H, before going to bed.
I had just started ironing still in my bath robe when the dog I had back then became very restless, a bit like in a lassie film, like he was trying to tell me something , so I put down the iron and followed him to see what was bothering him.
As I reached the top of the stairs the smoke alarm came on and I noticed the smoke coming from my baby sons bedroom and belted doon the stairs to find the portable which was on top of the wardrobe in flames,
I lifted the wean from the cot and went to my daughters room opposite got her out of bed handed her the baby and told her to get out the house and go get one of the neighbors to phone the fire brigade, cos by now the smoke was belching and the fire was catching hold , its surprising how quickly it went up.
In less than a couple of minute the room was full of smoke and i couldn't even see the wardrobe.
My daughter was met by one of the neighbors lads, wee Linchie, who was getting of the lift, he ran doon the back stair to get my dad who lived on the 5th floor, to come get the kids, I lived on the 11th floor.
While I attempted to get things under some kind of control. The neighbors opposite called the fire services as I turned off the electrics power, closed the bedroom door to contain the fire as best i could, and threw my bath towels into the still unemptied bath,to wet them and put down along the bottom of the bedroom door as by now it was impossible to go into the room and the whole place was black with smoke.
My was bathrobe was falling open reviling my allofit to the neighbors who were outside my door in the coridor waiting for the firemen to arrive, my dad ,by now had been, white as a sheet, and taken the kids & dog downstairs to my parents house.
I was going no where till I got it under control, wee Jonny, bless him, had returned and ran up stairs before I could stop him shouting to me "wer's yer fuckin cats june I'll get the cats!!!"
He was on his way back down as the firemen arrived, without the cats, cos the whole hoose was now engulfed with black smoke, "I opened the veranda door" he said " I couldnae see the cats, but they'll head oot, cats urnae fuckin stupid..."(he was my hero of the night to be honest, cos right enough, they did, and he undoubtedly saved their lives)
The fire was so bad in the room the firemen had to enter the room with Shields and the widow brew out because of the back-flash, or whatever you call it.
It all happened very quickly, and I can't express enough the importance of fire alarms knowing as I do how fast fires take hold and the importance of early detection.
The kids were taken to Yorkhill to be checked for smoke inhalation and I was taken to the Western for the same and this is where the local polis enters the tale.
Charlie the local beat polis was finishing his shift when he saw the ambulance and heard about the fire and who was involved, I knew him mostly resulting from a dance club I ran for local kids in one of the local community halls.
Charlie made his way to the hospital after finishing his shift, behind the ambulance to see I was ok & sit with me,while the medical staff checked my bloods etc, as my then partner had been contacted at work and was at Yorkhill with the weans.
Charlie was a great support to me at the hospital as I was checked over, worried sick about if the kids were ok, and had I got them out before they had inhaled dangerous amounts of smoke.
They were, but Charlie made the calls to Yorkhill on the phone on my behave, and kept me calm with chit chat while the medical staff did their thing.
He was as I said finished his shift after a long day, and indeed went beyond the call of his duty that night and kept me company, and calm, at a very traumatic time.
The house was badly smoke damaged and we had to stay at my mums for a while till it got cleaned out and redecorated, the support and kind wishes I got from neighbors and the local community was, well frankly, overwhelmingly heartwarming, and my gratitude to my hero of the night wee Jonny who is now all grown up with a family of his own , and Charlie, the polis, for the support he gave me that night, and the firemen who saved my possessions & home, and the medical staff who looked after me, and my kids will stay with me always...
So why am I writing this now 20 years after the event...
fuck me !!!... it's a blog, triggered by a blogg that triggered a memory of a big incident in my life that reflected the spirit of community in my old stumping ground , my home town , my people, my kind of people...
isn't that what the whole blogging thingy thing is all about....????
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