A SURVIVOR’S STORY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19539, 25 March 1926, Page 7

A SURVIVOR’S STORY

LITTLE CHANCE FOR INMATES. NOBODY ELSE COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED. [Per Press Association.] STRATFORD, March 24. ‘ ‘Nobody else could have been saved,” said William James Calder, one of the survivors, to an Eltham “Argus” reporter in the course of a story of his experience. Sleeping upstairs were:— John McQueen, lorry driver employed by the Eltham County Council, one of the first to escape uninjured; Mrs Crenfeldt and Miss Harrison, in one room, burnt to death. George, Nielsen, grocer’s assistant, Eltham, burnt to death. E. E. H. Stone, employed temporarily at the Gasworks, Eltham, escaped by the fire escape, the rope breaking in the descent, and he sustained superficial burns and shock. Davidson brothers, in the one room. George awakened his brother and dived through the window, landing in the garden. He was seriously injured and is in hospital. Victor, evidently dazed, did not follow, and his body was found in the debris.

William Mancer, butcher, Eltham, escaped uninjured. Downstairs were two occupants, Mrs Taylor (proprietress) and Calder (an employee of the Eltham Dairy Company). Out Of The Window. “I do not know what wakened me,” said Calder, “but the room was full of smoke. I helped Mrs Taylor to get out of her bedroom window. The whole place was then burning, and shortly afterwards a number of explosions followed. I wakened the other occupants as far as I could, but was unable to get upstairs for flames and smoke.” Calder said he did not know how long he lay awake before he realised the place was on fire, but when he came to his senses he jumped out of his bed* threw his clothes out of the window, and followed. Alarming The Inmates. When he first opened the window the draught caused a burst of flame in the room, and as he assisted Mrs Taylor to escape he thought her clothes would catch fire. He then threw stones at the upstairs’ windows. After a moment or two a couple of portmanteaux were thrown out on to the street, but these proved to be empty. Practically nothing was saved from the place, although Calder said he got his clothes and gold watch, which was a keepsake from his mother. Airs Taylor was prostrated by her experience, and is confined to her bed. In connection with the death of Victor Davidson, the circumstances are particularly distressing. George had come on a visit from the South, and Victor, an cx-Army lad from England, spent the evening in the company of his brother, sleeping in the same room. A Roaring Furnace. Deputy-Superintendent Alurray said the building was a roaring furnace when the brigade arrived. There was no possible chance of getting into the building to effect the rescue of anyone inside, or get at the scat of the fire. He set the men to subdue the flames with the object of saving the adjoining building. J. AV. Harrison’s shop, on the east side of the fire, was only about twenty feet away, and the western side wall was badly scorched and the brigade was kept busy effecting the i save. That they did splendid work was evident this morning, an inspection of the inside of the shop showing that rolls of wallpaper were scorched. The Walls Collapse. Three-quarters of an hour after the brigade arrived, the walls of the board-ing-house collapsed, the western one, on Railway Street, falling outwards and breaking the telegraph wires, while the eastern wall fell inwards with a crash. The outbuildings at the southend side of the house caught fire, but the brigade’s efforts were successful in preventing a spread of the flames. The building was erected twenty-five years ago for the Bank of New South Wales. The origin of the fire is a mys-. lory. A fire was burning in the sitting room last evening. An inquest will be opened to-morrow afternoon, and after indentification of the bodies, will be adjourned.