Fire

I drive (an awful lot) to and from Granny Buttons.  On Sunday night I was passing through Wisbech, and saw a car aflame and a fire engine arriving.  By the time I was able to park the flames were almost out, but I stayed to photograph the aftermath.

I stayed well back, thinking perhaps the firemen would treat me as a nuisance and an impediment to safety.   Even so, I wondered if they really saw me in the dark.  But one of them finally approached, and said:

"If I give you my email address, can you send me some of those?" - adding, pointing to another blazing car a couple of fields away: "there's another one to photograph over there, y'know".

I don't know what surprised me most:  that I was actually welcome at the scene, that it was the first time that someone (whom I didn't know) assumed that if I was to send a photo, it was by email, or that cars were being burned in pairs, like a synchronised Al Quaeda attack.

If I'd known they didn't mind me being there, I might have approached closer and got something really spectacular.

It led me to thinking about fires on canal boats.  There's a greater tragedy about those than about stolen cars, since they are often homes.  Think, for example, of Narrowboat Emerald (story here).

But if it had to happen to Granny, I'd like to be there on the scene, prepared and recording the spectacle.  And preferably in the dark, illuminated by the fire engine's headlights.  That's very theatrical, and in tragedy that always more bearable than the mundane. 

It reminds me of the playwright Sheridan, who owned the Drury Lane Theatre and watched it burn down one night:   

... whilst seeing his own property in flames, sat down with his friend Barry in a coffee-house opposite to a bottle of port, coolly remarking, in answer to some friendly expostulation, that it was "hard if a man could not drink a glass of wine by his own fire!"

If Granny was to burn, I'd hate to be phoned up about it afterwards, when the steel was scarred, bent and cold - or worse still, have to watch my camera (and wine) go up in flames inside. I'd like to be there to have a drink - helping me to panic a little less - and to record the scene.

Comments

[Ellie Byram]

When we lost our boat North Star (in December 2005 at Marple) to fire the ultimate insult was to see the hull sold on, for the boat to be renamed (yes you've guessed it) Phoenix and to be used as a day boat!

[Brian]

Somebody should have complimented you on the photo of the two backlit fire fighters! Well, I guess that I will have to do it! :-) Great shot!!