This came to mind this morning as I replied to another topic. The Onward Building at Nelson and Colne College in 1980. The fire eventually destroyed the whole of the detached wooden building. Here's what I wrote about it.
"There was a significant event at the Nelson and Colne College in summer 1980. I had called in to see David one evening and we were sat there chewing the fat when the college maintenance man came into the room. In a very calm voice he said something like “Excuse me Mr Moore but I thought you’d like to know the Onward Building is on fire.” David said “Thank you.” And then he did a double take, “What did you say!” We then realised that this was no joke and he was serious, the college really was on fire so we rushed out and went to where the activity was. Sure enough, the Onward Building, a separate, wooden, two storey annexe behind the main buildings, was well ablaze. Evidently there had been some painters working on it that afternoon and they must have started a small fire in the roof space while burning paint off and not noticed. It had spread through the upper floors which were empty at the time and by the time it was noticed, the building was well alight. Noel Kershaw, David’s vice-principal was there and I saw him in deep conversation with two firemen in full breathing apparatus. They went into the building and emerged ten minutes later supporting each other. One had a brief case clasped in his arms which he delivered to Noel. “What was that all about?” asked David. It transpired that Noel had sent them into the burning building for the College insurance policies as this might save time making the claim!
It was an impressive fire and we all stood there watching the firemen do their best but it was hopeless. At one point the fire chief asked David if anything had to be saved from the building, David said they had to rescue the filing cabinets from the ground floor which held the lecturer’s notes or else half of them would never teach again! I overheard one lecturer I knew talking and he said that there was one good thing about the fire, it meant that at long last they had got rid of the squeaky blackboard in room 110. I asked him about it and he said that this blackboard had been a source of annoyance for years as it squeaked terribly when you wrote on it. He had got so exercised about it that one summer holiday he had bought some special paint, spent two days sanding the board off and the rest of the week giving it three coats of paint. When he came back after the holidays he found that the cleaners had polished it with wax polish and it was squeaking worse than ever!
Eventually the brigade got the fire under control and several of us repaired to David’s office. I went out and got fish and chips all round. David found a bottle of wine that Stan Barker had given him, a particularly sweet Barsac as I remember and we were all sat there eating chips and drinking wine when a reporter from the Leader Series came in to interview David. When he had gone I commiserated with David on his bad luck. “Oh, that’s all right, these things happen, the main thing is that nobody was injured and the fire is under control.” I told him I wasn’t talking about the fire but the headlines that would appear in the paper; “College Principal eats fish and chips and drinks wine while college burns!” Just for a moment I had him going, I could see the light in his eyes but he soon recovered, “No, it’ll be all right, he’s a mate of mine.” It must have been all right because the report was simply about the fire. One thing that did strike me at the time was that erecting a wooden building to use as a school wasn’t necessarily the best economy. The Onward Building was replaced by another, exactly the same."
