An extract from my book, 'London’s Firefighters' an anthology. The Hills Hotel fire. 1971.

The Hills Hotel fatal fire.

Kensington Gardens Square

 (Annex to the Langham Hotel.)

Arthur Nicholls; OBE. QFSM. was just as much an accomplished writer as he was a highly acclaimed fire officer. He was a frequent contributor to the London Fireman magazine. His powerful account of the New Langham (Hills) Hotel fire won him a prestigious writer’s award from a panel of national journalists. His account of that challenging, and tragically fatal, blaze is recalled here. Somethings grow in the retelling and the courage of London's firemen that night remains inspirational to many.

Divisional Officer Arthur Nicholls.

Arthur was born in North London in 1921. Educated at Tottenham Grammar School he joined the army in his late teens and during World War two served with the Army in China, Burma and then Italy. After the war he became a police constable in Palestine before returning to the UK and in 1948 joined the newly created Middlesex Fire Brigade. Serving at Wood Green, Tottenham and Edmonton this intelligent young man rose to the senior rank of Assistant Divisional Officer in Middlesex before it was absorbed into the new Greater London Council’s London Fire Brigade in 1965. His talents were quickly recognised and in 1967 he was promoted to Deputy Commander of London’s “A” Division, covering the West End of London, Chelsea, Kensington and Paddington. A year later he was promoted to be the Commander of that Division. He would eventually rise to principal rank, and in 1974 he became an Assistant Chief Fire Officer. Now sadly no longer with us Arthur's words live on...

“At varying times before six o’clock of the evening of 10^th May 1971, according to the distances that had to travel, a number of men left their homes in and around London. With a nod, a cheerio, an affectionate kiss or just a friendly pat on the arm, they took their leave of their families and set off on their journeys to the fire stations at which they would be on duty for the coming night.

Arriving, they dressed in fire gear ready for the roll call. The usual exchange of banter, the voicing of complaints, “Not my turn. I was on the pump last night as well.” “Not my turn in the mess, what about Harry, he hasn’t done it for weeks”. “Me? Stand-by. Has he gone sick again? I ought to get some of his bloody pay!”

After the roll call and allotted to their various appliances, the men check the equipment, test the BA sets. Replenish petrol/diesel, oil and water as necessary and stand ready for what the night has in store.

The work programmes are arranged; drills, lectures, equipment maintenance, hydrant tests, visits to risks, each station according to the pressing need of the time. But already at some stations the programme is disrupted before it is even under way. 

The urgent ringing of the fire bells sends the men running to their appliances, which in turn roar out of the station in response to the urgent call for aid. On through the evening the calls mount. Time and time again at fire stations here and there all over Greater London appliance bay doors crash open and the big red fire engines sally forth carrying their black-helmeted crews. With warning horns, or engine bells sounding, they are cursed for their noise by all but those in trouble and anxious for their aid. The radio wave, carrying the message from the appliances reporting the situation they were meeting, were seldom stilled:

‘Stop for Commercial Street. Flat of five rooms. Half damaged by fire. Two hosereels, BA.’

‘Stop for Southwark Bridge Road. Unoccupied factory of four floors. 40 feet by 50 feet.  50% of third floor, 25% of top floor damaged by fire. 3 jets. BA.’

‘At Under Croft, Westcombe Park Road. Smell of smoke on second floor, Crews investigating.’

‘Stop for Chapell Farm Road. Sports pavilion of one floor. 20 by 60 feet. 25% damaged by fire. One jet.’

‘Priority….From Station Officer Vaughan at 23 Croydon Road. Persons reported.’

‘Stop Kingston by-pass. One car and one bus in collision. One person trapped, injured, released. Five persons injured. All removed to hospital by ambulance. Police in attendance.’

The variety was unending. A small fire here, petrol spilled on roadway there, a false alarm caused by burning rubbish, fire and explosion in a cable tunnel etc. Then, soon after 10 p.m. in Commerce Road, Brentford, a fire in a paint manufacturers that was only to be quelled by the combined sweating and gut straining efforts of the crews of 25 pumps and two turntable ladders. While the fight to control this blaze is still at its height an urgent (priority) message comes for reinforcing pumps to help deal with a fire at Friern Barnet Hospital, in North West London.

London fire brigade's PADDINGTON fire station. Harrow Road.

 

The city quietens.

Still the score of other incidents mounts, although the rate slows down as life in the capital city quietens and people turn to their beds to sleep. To sleep, they hope, in peace, until the morrow. For most, this is to be. For some, the night will hold its terror. For some, it will demand the ultimate - life itself.

But first, the men at Croydon are called to a warehouse in Selsdon Road. Again the fire is of such proportion that they ask for more assistance pumps and once more the men of the LFB sweat and toil in blinding heat and choking smoke to combat the scourge of mankind.

In London’s West End it was an average night. The men at the stations had only snippets of news about what was going on elsewhere. Some of their appliances had been involved at the Brentford fire, indeed some were still so engaged. But generally the pace was normal. The clock passed midnight and ticked on.

As Paddington the fire station grew quiet, some men talked over a cup of tea, others reclined to rest. In a hotel annex, less than a mile from the station, staff and guests settled down for the night. Destiny would have it that these two separate groups of people would meet this night to play out a drama together. A real life drama of fire, death, destruction, pain, agony and courage, rarely to be met outside the realms of fiction. For those in the hotel, the drama began when fire flashed through the corridors and stairways of the hotel in minutes to mushroom through the upper floors. For the firemen it began at precisely 00:48 hours when the silence of the station was broken by the harsh sound and continuous ringing of the call bells. Automatic lights flashed on throughout the station and in the watchroom the teleprinter clacked out its cryptic message: “Fire. Hills Hotel, Kensington Gardens Square.

A red angry glow.

Away they went, these men, some young, some not so young. Ordinary men who are dad to their children, “son” to their parents, “uncle this” or “uncle that” to nephews and nieces. Who are “dear” to their wives or “mate” to the man next door. Away they went to Kensington Garden Square. Their journey was short. One hundred and twenty seconds in time as they sped along Bishops Bridge Road and on into Westbourne Grove. Over the tops of the tall buildings that they passed en route there could be seen a red, angry glow reflected against the night sky. Inside and outside the hotel the drama was already being enacted. Some of the residents, frightened but unharmed, had made their way out safely. These were the lucky ones. Others, not so lucky, had crawled along a wide ledge at fourth floor level into the window of an adjoining house. They suffered burns and shock but were safe. One man, trapped at a ground floor window, and prevented from escape by a deep basement area surrounded by heavy iron railings, was helped by passing policemen, who bridged the gap by pushing a wooden plank to him. A woman, caught on the upper floors, made her way via a metal fire escape at the rear of the third floor, which led her via intervening buildings to an adjoining house. Badly burned in making her escape, she fell and sustained other injuries en route.

A young girl, clinging desperately to a window sill on the upper floors, driven by heat and smoke lost her grip and fell to be impaled on railings surrounding the property. At windows at the front of the hotel men and women stood crying desperately for help. A crowd, already gathered, called encouragingly. “Don’t jump, they are coming”, for in the distance could be heard that most delightful of all sounds to those in peril from fire, the urgent sound of two-tone horns as fire appliances speed on their way.

 

Thus it was as the first appliances turned the corner. Flames spewed from the windows of the two upper floors at the front of the building, thick smoke spilled from the windows of the lower floors. A man and a woman called excitedly from the second floor, below them on the first floor another man and woman screamed their distress.

The pump escape pulled in first. Its doors opened and men leapt out before it slowed to a halt. The escape ladder was slipped, turned and extended as only a well drilled crew, working as a team and reacting automatically, can do. The appliance itself then moved on to clear the area of operations. Its driver, acting on instructions, radioed the priority message. “Make pumps six-persons reported”. As background to his voice as he transmitted the message could be heard the cries of the crowd and of those in distress.

Now the other appliances from Paddington, the ET and TL, halted at the scene. One man raced to the escape and began mounting it as the top of the ladder crashed to rest at the second floor window. He was closely followed by a second fireman. As the first man reached the top, the trapped woman was already on the ladder. He moved aside to let her pass and went on into the room where the man still waited and then helped him on to the ladder. Both people were assisted down to the ground by other crew members. While waiting until the ladder was clear of people, the attention of the fireman, still in the room from which the man and woman had been assisted, was drawn to an adjacent window. There he saw an elderly lady standing in the thick smoke. Clambering along the top of a narrow balustrade, which fronted the windows, he made his way into the room to comfort the woman.

A crew from Kensington fire station, arriving with a pump, pitched its thirty foot extension ladder to them. Its head rested two feet short of the window of the room. With difficulty, and assisted by a fireman on the ladder, the lady was helped to it and down to safety; and none too soon for the heat and smoke was worsening rapidly, and fire was breaking through the door to the room. Meanwhile the escape ladder had been re-pitched to the first floor and the man and woman trapped there were brought to safety.

By now a clearer picture of the fire situation was available. The hotel, taking up a corner site, was comprised of two and five floors. It was alight on all five floors. Flames were roaring from a doorway at the side of the building and had engulfed the two storey section and was licking from the windows at the side of the hotel. At the back, the windows of one half of the building showed red with the fire inside. Already the roof had collapsed, flame licked skywards, and myriads of sparks shot high and the whole scene reflected the angry red glow.

The raging fire….

 But more, much more, remained to be done. A survey had shown more people trapped on a top floor at the rear of the hotel. A TL, extended over a projecting flat roof, reached a window and a woman was helped on by others inside. But the TL was at its maximum safety limits. The woman was afraid and could not be left to make her own way down the ladder in the choking smoke and past the raging fire. Quickly the ladder was housed and a fireman this time raced up to the woman and led her down. Again the ladder was extended. This time a man was helped on to the ladder and again it was housed and the man helped down. But yet another cry for help was heard and, below the very window from which these two rescues were performed, in the thick smoke, another man could be seen at a window, calling, pleading for help. Once more the ladders were extended. Now the smoke was so thick that the operator of the TL could not see the head of the ladder he was controlling. Coolly, magnificently, he persisted, and although the projecting flat roof prevented a direct pitch to the window at which the man was trapped, a pitch to the flat roof was achieved.

The fireman at the top the ladders jumped off on to the flat roof and then crawled to a parapet at the side from where he was a little above, but only two to three feet from the trapped man. Here he was joined by another fireman. Together they reached over towards the man. Struggling and holding his arms, they helped him on to the roof. By now the man was almost hysterical. “My wife is in that room”, he cried out frantically, time and time again. One fireman climbed the parapet to enter the room, but could not make it without help. The other fireman tried to calm the man, but recognising the difficulty got him to the ladder, assisted him down and ran back up to rejoin his colleague.

Conditions on the flat roof were atrocious. Flame belched from windows overlooking it and the heat and smoke from the fire beneath them made the atmosphere scorched. Yet again they tried to enter the room. Helped by his team-mate, one of the firemen got over the parapet into the room. The heat and smoke made it impossible to move far into the room, but reaching down he felt a bare ankle of a woman and, pulling her towards him, managed to get her head near the window before having to get back out into the air for respite.

Now they were joined by a BA fireman, summoned by the TL intercom, and they felt the cooling, refreshing water from a jet directed at them from ground level to protect them. Over the parapet and into the room went the BA man. Fire was actually curling round the door edges of the room, but though the heat was intense the BA man lifted the woman until her head and arms were out of the window. Then his two colleagues, reaching over the parapet, grasped her arms, swung her out over the drop beneath and pulled her on to the roof. She was unconscious and had to be lifted on to the back of one of the men who had already mounted the ladder to be carried down to safety. Subsequently, it is pleasing to note, she recovered completely.

For this particular act there is only one sad note to record. One of those who had worked so hard on the roof to effect this rescue complained; “I was so glad they put the jet on us ’cos I’ve never been so hot outside a building before, but they wet my last four bloody fags!”

Hook ladders. 

Hook ladders saved many lives.

While these rescues were going on yet another old lady had been seen sitting on a window sill, clinging desperately to a drainpipe at first floor level. Beneath her was a drop of some thirty five feet to a rear basement area which was enclosed by a one-foot wide, twenty feet high brick wall. Crews with hook ladders made their way to her. Negotiating adjoining premises, intervening roofs and a variety of minor hazards, they reached the top of the basement area wall. From here they pitched their hook ladders to the window and, mounting them, helped her on to the ladder. With two hook ladders pitched side by side so that a man on one could assist the other man with the woman, she was gradually helped down to the top of the wall. Then, it all proved too much for her and she collapsed.

     Now the real struggle. Somehow they got her off the wall, then precariously inched their way along the top to the rear. A distance of no more than ten feet, but every foot fraught with difficulty and no little danger. Hesitating none, they pitched a hook ladder. One of the men put the woman across his back and, assisted as much as possible by the others, carried her up the hook ladder to the roof. From there she was carried through adjoining premises to safety.

The deeds, as must be, are described in isolation, but of course the general operations were now in full swing. Reinforcing appliances were arriving in their numbers and jets were increased. Escapes and extension ladders festooned the faces of the building and crews struggled upwards with heavy hose, moving into the windows to begin extinguishing the fire.

In the main entrance crews attempted to use the stone staircase and narrowly escaped serious injury when, en-bloc from the ground to fourth floor, it collapsed with a resounding crash. But the staircase was replaced with scaling ladders built up gradually to each floor in turn and jets were taken in. From adjoining roofs jets of water were directed through the collapsed roof of the building involved into the holocaust beneath. A TL, in use as a water tower, added its power from the side street. At the front of the building one of the saddest tasks of all had been accomplished. After a prolonged struggle the unfortunate girl who had fallen on to the railings had been cut free. Showered with sparks and falling debris, the crew had stuck to their task and, aided by a medical team, hoped their effort would be rewarded with success. But now, with the girl en route to hospital, they joined in the general fire-fighting.

Smoke to steam.

An hour or so had passed and then the flames were beaten. Here and there a little flicker, a glow. Smoke has turned to steam. Inside the building the men carefully pick their way, avoiding weakened sections of floors, bridging the gaps where collapse has occurred. Cold, wet and so bloody tired now that the adrenalin has drained from their systems they push on. Damping down a smoldering ember here, a burning mattress there, they seek and search for those who may have perished and, finding them, wrap the sad remains in sheets to carefully lower them to the street outside where ambulances wait to receive them.

Crew by crew they are released from various tasks and given short respite at the canteen van parked in a nearby road, where a steaming cup of tea or Bovril, a biscuit and a quick smoke helps put the world back in shape. Then, back again into the now cold, dank, steamy atmosphere of the building, the depressing smell of charred wood tinged by the occasional whiff of acrid smoke in their nostrils. For ages, it seems they work on until a new, fresh crew of men come to them and say; “We’re relieving you”.

Outside again, dawn is beginning to break. In the light the tall gaunt walls of the hotel look forbidding and the black scorch marks above the window openings bear witness to the rage of the fire that once tormented it.

Days after the fire and Paddington's TL showing its rescue position.

Still, elsewhere around London, all is not at peace. The calls still come in. F Division, in the East End of London, now take their share when a paper warehouse is involved in fire and a priority call for more assisting pumps comes over the air; and the night’s totals mount as the operators in the controls receive the calls and dispatch the necessary aid. But with all things there is an end. At nine o’clock in the morning a new watch reports for duty. The men who have worked throughout the night go home, unless they happen to be out on a call or with one of the many relief pumps still attending the scene of the night’s major fires. Even these will go home soon. They will walk indoors and the wife will say, ‘Have a cuppa?’ and then tell of Alfred’s cut knee.

A little later home than normal will be the few casualties among the firemen of the night’s battles. They will have had their treatment at hospital and not been detained, but will be late enough for families to have been told so that undue worry will not arise. Soon, however, they will all be there. Back with the missus, the kids, the people next door and they’ll worry about the rent, about food prices, about the holiday. Then at varying times before six o’clock on the evening of the 11^th May, 1971, according to the distance they have to travel………oh! and if they are lucky they can buy the evening newspaper and see a picture of a fireman lying injured on a stretcher. The caption read: “A policeman, having played his part is carried away”.

Footnotes:

1.     The ‘stop’ message:

“Hotel 2 and 5 floors and basement, 50 by 80 feet, all floors damaged by fire, roof off. 12 jets, Breathing Apparatus. 1 woman jumped before arrival, 1 person rescued by extension ladder from 1^st floor, 2 persons by extension ladder from second floor. 2 persons by escape ladder from 3^rd floor, I man and 1 woman via escape ladder from 1^st floor, 2 men and 2 women rescued by TL from 3^rd and 4^th floors. I woman rescued by hook ladder from 3^rd floor- burned-overcome. 7 bodies found. All persons accounted for.”

2. The Gallantry Awards;

The highest accolade for bravery in the London Fire Brigade then, and still is, is a Chief Officer’s (now Commissioner’s) Commendation. The Chief Officer, Joe Milner, issued ten Commendations following the serious and fatal fire at Hill's Hotel, Kensington in May of 1971.

The commended men were; Temporary Station Officer David Ellis and Fireman Bernard Cannon of North Kensington fire station.

Temporary Sub Officer Colin Livett, Firemen Leslie Austin and Thomas Richards of Kensington fire station. Leading Firemen Ray Cleverdon and George Simpson, Temporary Leading Fireman Howard Winter and Firemen Ken Salmon and William Willis of Paddington fire station.

 Leading Fireman Simpson and Winter brought a man and woman down an escape ladder from the second floor. After climbing along a narrow balustrade Leading Fireman Salmon reached a trapped woman on an adjacent window ledge and brought her down to safety via an extension ladder.

 Leading Fireman Cleverdon brought down separately a man and woman from the window sill of the fourth floor. Then with Firemen Richards and Willis he rescued a man and wife from a third floor room in extremely punishing conditions. Having assisted the man down the ladder Fm Willis returned to the room wearing BA, where conditions were very bad, and managed to drag the overcome wife to the window. Fireman Richards carried the woman down the ladder to safety.

Temporary Station Officer Ellis & Temporary Sub Officer Livett and Firemen Cannon and Austin, using hook ladders together brought down a woman trapped on an upper window sill at the rear of the hotel and having collapsed had to be carried down.

 Fireman Salmon skillfully operated a turntable ladder, even beyond its limits of safety and made possible a number of rescues.

Leading Fireman Ray Cleverdon and Fireman William Willis, and Fireman Thomas Richards were subsequently all awarded the British Empire Medal for Gallantry.

The Chief Officer congratulated all the crews that attended the fire on their efforts.

3. Nine people died as a direct result of this fire. However, although the conditions were appalling, ten were brought out to safety by the Brigade.

4. The fire was started deliberately, an arson attack.