Fire!We were all in my aunt's kitchen at the back of her huge rambling Victorian house. I was only small and had wandered off to go to the loo, but given up after finding the hall full of smoke. "That was quick," my mum said after a few minutes. "Yes - it's all smoky," I replied.
I've never seen adults move so fast.
So, like my cousin who'd managed to set fire to the roof, tell us your fire stories.
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chthonic, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 9:11)
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Yet further boarding school antics...It was a dry autumn night, and piercingly cold. And we weren't ready to go to bed yet.
It should be noted at this point that my boarding house is a listed building. Now, this was back in the day when I shared a room (and consequently didn't have a fridge). This is all relevant; bear with me.
We were on the first floor, and had a windowsill with a flat surface on it, on which I had placed my orange juice to cool.
Ouside this, several metres down (high ceilings and all) is a garden. The first foot or so of this garden, outwards from my windowsill, is a stone gutter. The next 10 feet or so is a pathway with pebbles. After that, it's all grass.
Now, the guys from next door were out there (having escaped through a downstairs window; they were retreiving something) on the pebbly bit. My room-mate and I decided to have some fun. We thought it was perfectly safe, as the grass was a long way away.
We scrunched up several sheets of A4 into balls, set fire to them and shoved them over the edge, calling the names of our victims.
Their faces were absolutely classic. They disappeared back into that window so fast, when confronted with our crazy rain of pyromaniacal death.
And so the fireballs floated gently down to rest on the cobbled path, extinguishing themselves as they landed. Or at least, most of them did.
A select few decided to land in the gutter which, it being a crisp autumn night, was full of dry leaves. I could see dried leaves all the way down the gutter, along which my fire was gradually spreading. I was on the point of laying a fire trench in front of a listed building, which had wooden windows very close to the ground.
How did I avoid expulsion, you ask? Remember that orange juice? I poured it over the fire before it could spread. Close run thing though.
My presence at Westminster School, and possibly my university entrance and the rest of my life was saved by a lowly carton of Orange Juice.
I don't carry one around wherever I go though. That would be weird.
(, Thu 3 Nov 2005, 23:04, Reply)
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