The Night Glasgow Burned: The Cheapside Tragedy BBC Scotland Investigates


The Night Glasgow Burned: The Cheapside Tragedy

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This is the site of Scotland's worst peace time fire disaster,

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the Cheapside Street Tragedy.

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On a spring evening 50 years ago today, 19 men lost their lives.

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It was the night Glasgow burned.

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It was horrendous.

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It was massive balls of fire roaring right out of the building

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and roaring right up to the third floor.

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I never saw these chappies again. That was it, killed instantly.

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There were all these fellows lying under this rubble.

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Today it's derelict, but 50 years ago,

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this was at the heart of Glasgow's commercial and industrial district.

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Tall buildings crowded in on the narrow streets

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close to the city centre and the Clyde.

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15 years after the end of the Second World War,

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Glasgow's economy was booming. But many of its Victorian

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industrial and commercial buildings had outlived their usefulness.

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The fine facades hid tinderbox premises

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where fires were a regular occurrence.

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In 1958, the City's Fire Master, Martin Chadwick, asked the question,

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"Why the increased fire losses in industry?"

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He blamed management failures to appreciate the value of

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fire prevention but also pointed out one of the biggest problems.

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"By far the greatest proportion of industrial and commercial buildings

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"were not specifically built or designed

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"to accommodate their present occupancy and are in

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"most cases old buildings adapted to satisfy their new occupancy."

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Fire-fighting equipment in the fifties wasn't as sophisticated as today.

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Some of the few machines which remain are lovingly restored in a warehouse in Renfrewshire.

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They recall a time in the 1950s and '60s, when Glasgow was nicknamed "tinderbox city."

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Glasgow suffered relatively little damage compared

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to other major UK cities in terms of bomb damage,

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and that was why the city still had a lot of these buildings

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close to the city centre. Old factories, whisky bonds.

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A much larger stock of these old buildings

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which didn't have fire alarms all crowded together.

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Not much elbow room for the fire brigade to fight such fires.

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Calls to the Glasgow Fire Brigade rose steadily

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in the post war years, and with them the number of fatalities.

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Fire was a huge problem and losses in commercial properties were mounting.

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The city was the second city in the Empire.

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Glasgow obviously built to suit the manufacturing needs

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and property didn't change.

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Nothing was replaced, it stayed there. It escaped the wartime damage.

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It was still in existence after the War,

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there was very little building taking place and the properties were being

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adapted for whatever purposes they felt they needed to use them for.

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It all came together to disastrous effect that spring evening.

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At 7.10 that evening, George Pinkstone, depot superintendent

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of the Eldorado Ice Cream Company, stepped into this street.

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He noted nothing unusual, but a few minutes later

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when he went back inside, he smelled burning wood.

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He came back out into the street and saw smoke billowing

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from the second floor windows of the Arbuckle and Smith whisky bond.

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Things developed quickly. Pinkstone made a 999 call at 7.15.

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We got the call to Cheapside Street,

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and on the road I asked our officer where we were going, and he said,

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"We're going to Cheapside Street."

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All we knew was it was a whisky bond and of course senior firemen

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in these days would wind you up,

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meaning, you know, this is a job, Raymond.

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We had already been to two bonds during the day, in the afternoon,

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which were both bell faults, so there was nothing.

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I said, maybe it will be something this time,

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but I hope not, because I wanted back to finish my dinner.

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At 7.18 the first appliances arrived,

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two pumps and a turntable ladder as well as the new fire boat

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and a tender from the Glasgow Salvage Corps.

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At 7.21 a radio call was made, "make pumps five,"

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an indication more fire tenders were required.

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You could see it was a fire then because there was quite a lot

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of smoke billowing about. No flame but plenty of smoke.

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James Dunlop, a newly qualified fireman on his first full shift,

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was part of that back up.

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The thing was to surround the fire by fire appliances.

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That's why two streets were used to approach the situation.

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At 7.47, the Assistant Fire Master, who was now in charge, sent a call

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for yet more reinforcements, "make pumps eight."

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The building this side and the building that side were

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closing in on me a wee bit and I was a wee bit, I don't know,

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it was a feeling you just don't know what's going to happen.

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So I said, "I'll turn round about". Which was a good job.

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A minute later, a massive explosion took place,

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blowing out the walls of both sides of the building.

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I was facing the building at the time and I turned round.

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EXPLOSION

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Whoomph!

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Then that's when the explosion happened.

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I don't remember anything after that.

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I turned round and the whole building had blown out.

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Oh... absolutely horrific.

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It sent sandstone blocks and bricks crashing

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into Cheapside Street on one side and Warroch Street on the other.

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Four firemen were trying to get in the window.

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They made a dash for it into the middle of the road.

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Obviously they were killed instantly, you know.

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CRASHING

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They'd no chance, the building just came down on top of them.

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They were buried under about five or six feet of rubble,

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big heavy blocks of stone. There was nothing you could do for them.

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That was it. And it was burning as well, the rubble.

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It was just mayhem after that.

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Whisky barrels all over the place.

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At 7.50, fire brigade control received a new message,

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"make pumps ten." Inside the building, the fire intensified.

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I was stationed in Govan at the time and it was a make-up from Govan

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which meant it was a larger fire than normal.

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Driving along the Clyde side we could see,

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and we knew we were in for something.

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By 8.12, Fire Master Martin Chadwick,

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who had arrived on the scene,

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called, "make pumps 15", but even that wasn't enough.

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At 8.20, just over an hour after the 999 call, he radioed,

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"make pumps 20."

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It was one of the biggest call outs for the fire service in peacetime.

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My mum and I were watching television.

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We were watching a western on ITV called Wagon Train.

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It just went direct to a newsflash. There was a disastrous fire

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in Glasgow with four firemen killed apparently, and 17 trapped.

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And in the north-west fire station,

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then the station just lit up like a lantern.

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My mum, she was screaming, "Your dad, George, your dad!"

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At one in the morning, another explosion.

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Underground whisky storage vats exploded,

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bringing down another wall of the bond. No-one was injured this time,

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and firefighters could begin to recover their dead colleagues.

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My first thought was anger. What was happening here?

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Not anger at anything, but at the situation.

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For all these fellows lying under this rubble,

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whisky barrels bouncing on top of them, bursting into flames.

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There was not much we could do about it.

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We had the added danger of the barrels of whisky exploding,

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going on fire in the street. And the street was just aflame.

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It was as if some giant was throwing them, throwing out the barrels.

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And they were landing on top of the rubble and bursting.

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Miniature bombs going off with these barrels coming out. Bang!

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Bursting into flames.

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It wasn't until 6.18 in the morning,

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exactly 11 hours after the first appliances had arrived here,

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that the fire brigade said the blaze was finally under control.

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Even so, it was March 30th, two days after the explosion,

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that the final body was recovered.

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By dawn on the 29th,

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the enormity of what had happened overnight became clear.

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Apart from the shocking loss of life, the estimated cost

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of damage was more than £3 million, £45 million today.

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It's now confirmed that 19 men died in the fire.

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I have never a blaze like the one in Glasgow last night,

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and I doubt many of you have, except in the Blitz.

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Between seven and eight o'clock in the evening

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somebody saw smoke coming from a big warehouse on the banks of the Clyde.

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Suddenly, and without any warning, the warehouse exploded

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and burst wide open and tons of masonry came crashing down

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on the men and the fire engine in the street below.

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That was how the worst peacetime fire in Glasgow

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began to kill the men who had come to fight it.

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More or less blown literally under the turntable ladder.

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'If you hadn't turned your back?'

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Oh, I think I would have got the full blast. I would have went as well

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with the laddies that were in front of me, you know.

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Literally. I still say somebody up there liked me. That was it.

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Firm believer in that. Totally, you know, that way.

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The next day, the stories of heroism began to emerge in

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the morning newspapers which showed the horror in graphic detail,

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photographs appearing on breakfast tables even as the ruins smouldered.

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Daily Mail reporter, Stuart McCartney,

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had been one of the first journalists on the scene,

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and is still amazed the death toll hadn't been higher.

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I can see the fire tender, to this day, on fire.

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I'll never forget the fireman and the tender and the fireman up there,

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and I thought how brave, how brave a man he was.

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And I was very surprised that he lived,

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because I couldn't see, I couldn't see him getting down

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because of the flames were, had engulfed the engine.

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The man who wound him down,

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look at the flames round him, a very brave man.

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James Dunlop's George Medal was one of two awarded that night.

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It's the highest civilian honour for bravery.

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But at the time, he had no thoughts of heroism, just duty.

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It was a 100 foot ladder, fully extended.

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Willie Waters was on the platform on the turntable ladder.

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He was thrown off the platform, and blown about,

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and was hanging by his belt.

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So we were covered pretty much by fire then on the ground.

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He had got his feet back on the platform again,

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and was holding on with his hands and his belt.

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We were told to clear out because it was a dangerous situation.

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I couldn't leave Waters up there.

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I had put him up, I was going to have to bring him down again.

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But at the rear of the appliance where I was,

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there was an emergency button controlling the engine,

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so I pressed that, and the engine fired and started up again

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and managed to get power on.

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I saw Jimmy Dunlop bringing Willie Waters down,

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which he won the George Medal for.

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Willie Waters was also commended for his bravery.

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Among the other stories of heroism was a police officer who pulled

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a trapped fireman from the rubble of the collapsed building.

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The death toll was made up of three firemen who died

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when their turntable ladder was buried in Cheapside Street

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in the explosion there. Its crew hadn't even been able

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to raise the ladder to begin fighting the blaze.

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But in the narrower Warroch Street,

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where Jimmy Dunlop's turntable ladder stood burned out in

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the middle of the road, the majority of fatalities had occurred.

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Five Salvage Corps and 11 firemen.

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I went down to Cheapside Street. It was horrendous.

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Massive balls of fire roaring a good five or six feet out of the building.

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Roaring right up to the third floor or the fourth floor.

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And whisky barrels falling out at that time, too.

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It was just massive inferno.

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A colossal number of jets of water everywhere.

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I've never seen a fire in my life like it.

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Amid the stories of heroism,

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the night was also heavily tinged with sadness.

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All the men got out of the car.

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Eddie took off his collar and tie, white collar and tie,

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and laid them on the dashboard of the vehicle. He said,

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"You keep these clean now, don't get them dirty

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"and I'll get them when I come back."

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I feared for the worst, that they may have been caught, so I went back,

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and Eddie's tie was hanging on, it was swinging back and forward,

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and I was on my own. And I couldn't understand this.

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One minute there was a full crew, the next minute I'm on my own.

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I didn't know that Joe, of course, had been found at that time.

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I assumed that they were all gone.

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The next thing I remember I was lying among bricks and rubble,

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and there was an iron post over my legs and a terrible pain in my back.

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They got me onto a stretcher and took me down onto the Clydeside

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and from the Clydeside the ambulance took me to the Western Infirmary.

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I kept asking, "Are you sure there isn't anybody else here?"

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I felt sure there was going to be more there, you know.

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I went down Cheapside Street and met a fireman who stayed

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in the northwest fire station, Gordon Keith. I said,

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"Mr Keith, have you seen my dad?"

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"No, I don't see him, son, he might be down at the bottom.

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"You'll need to go right down to the Clydeside."

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But I wasn't allowed down then.

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My next door neighbour, Jimmy Mungall, he was killed.

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The chap who lived up the stair above me, Willie Oliver, was killed.

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And when I came back that night,

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of course, the women were all in the back court.

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And, of course I could hear all the women shouting, "Where's my man?

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"What's happened, what's going on?"

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And I sneaked out, I sneaked out the side door.

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I went up, up to my own house rather than meet any of the wives

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because I couldn't tell them anything at all.

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The deputy firemaster came to my mum's house, Mr Swanson,

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and he just dissolved into tears. He just totally broke down.

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He was a wonderful neighbour and he stayed next door to us for years.

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He was a lovely gentleman and a wonderful fireman, too.

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And poor Mr Swanson, he just dissolved into tears when he

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came to my mum and said he was sorry for losing my dad.

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He said, "I've lost the cream of my men tonight."

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And he just broke his heart in my living room.

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In the aftermath of the Cheapside Street blaze,

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a collection began for the families of the dead fire and salvage men.

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There were 18 wives and 31 children left.

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The collection raised a total of almost £200,000,

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the equivalent today of £3 million.

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BAGPIPES PLAY A LAMENT

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Glasgow provided what amounted to a state funeral

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for the 19 victims of the fire.

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It was attended by firemen from all over the UK.

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The bodies of all the dead men had been taken to the Ramshorn Kirk,

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the traditional firemen's church.

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On the day of the funeral it was just very poignant

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and so stressful day of sadness.

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One of my colleagues, Tommy Renton, the piper,

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played The Flowers of the Forest. I remember that.

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I know was there were thousands there, certainly hundreds,

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-lining Ingram Street.

-Firemen from all over Britain were there.

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What was going through my mind,

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was I really going to the cemetery for my young brother?

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I just couldnae take it in.

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So sad, totally sad.

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You know, just tragic.

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I couldnae cry then because I had to look after my mother then.

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You just needed to mention his name, you know, she'd just go into tears.

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A requiem Mass for the four Roman Catholics

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took place at St Andrew's Cathedral,

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but as all the men had died together,

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it was decided they should all be buried in a common vault

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in the Necropolis.

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MUSIC: "How Great Thou Art" by Carl Gustav Boberg

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The coffins went up the High Street

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and we made our way to the Necropolis. It was very stressful

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for young people, my brother and myself, my older brother.

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I was one of the pall bearers at the funeral and you felt

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as if you were being watched all the time, everything you did.

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Certainly, the people were amazing that they all turned out for this.

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There was a lot of pride, obviously, definitely a lot of sadness.

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Sadness for the wives, the families, the kids.

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This was the people that were left.

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We lost the guys and that was it. We couldn't do anymore for them.

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The families were very close-knit families.

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People lived in the stations

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and got to know one another so well.

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Pretty sad. Not nice.

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It must have been hell on earth for men like that to survive it.

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It must have been a terrible shock to their systems that their comrades

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had gone to a fire and go back to the station with an empty appliance.

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It must have been dreadful for these men.

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I know it was a dreadful situation in the northwest,

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a terrible gloom went over the place.

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The coffins were passing.

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It was just unbelievable really, you know...

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that I had lost him.

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But when the rawness of the grief had subsided, the hunt began

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for answers to the many questions posed by this disaster.

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Here in the Glasgow Archives in the Mitchell Library, ironically built where the St Andrew's Halls had been

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destroyed by fire in 1962, official documents give a clue as to why the scale of loss of life was so severe.

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And what might have been done to prevent such a tragedy.

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We don't know what the cause of the fire was but we do know the building's windows had been

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bricked up, its sprinkler system ripped out, and there was no automatic fire detection equipment.

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Yet no legislative action followed the Cheapside Street tragedy.

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The scale of the disaster shocked the nation and questions were asked about how this could have happened,

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even as demolition workers moved in to clear the site.

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Politicians were keen to be seen to be acting. But they didn't,

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and there would be several more disastrous fires in Glasgow before the laws finally changed.

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There's a lot more than Cheapside Street, there's been a few deaths since then.

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Picture one fireman at the top of a tenement building,

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his head out of the window, shouting down to the rest of us,

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"I've got a woman up here, but everything's OK." Fine.

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And we shouted back that the fire's under control, we'll see you shortly.

0:21:350:21:39

And we did see him, he was dead.

0:21:390:21:42

He had given his breathing apparatus to the woman.

0:21:420:21:45

In England, law changes followed fire disasters much more quickly.

0:21:480:21:52

Most of the guests were regulars, coming here

0:21:520:21:55

every year to celebrate Christmas in this 16th century coaching inn.

0:21:550:21:59

Just before 2am, the hotel was a blazing inferno.

0:21:590:22:04

11 people died in this hotel fire in Essex in 1969.

0:22:050:22:09

After that, a new act required hotels to have a fire certificate.

0:22:090:22:14

There were ten fatalities in Woolworths in Manchester two years later.

0:22:140:22:19

Polyurethane foam in furniture was banned after that.

0:22:190:22:23

And after 56 people died in the Bradford City football ground fire,

0:22:230:22:28

new legislation on sports ground safety was enacted.

0:22:280:22:31

Following another horrendous fire in Glasgow, this time in 1968,

0:22:310:22:36

MPs were still complaining fire brigades in Scotland

0:22:360:22:39

couldn't inspect premises uninvited.

0:22:390:22:42

22 people died when a furniture factory in James Watt Street caught fire.

0:22:420:22:47

Many of the victims had been trapped behind barred windows.

0:22:470:22:51

But most recently, following deaths of 14 elderly residents

0:22:510:22:53

of the Rosepark Nursing Home in Lanarkshire,

0:22:530:22:56

Holyrood passed the Fire Scotland Act to change the way brigades can inspect premises.

0:22:560:23:02

But virtually nothing changed as a result of the 19 deaths in Cheapside Street.

0:23:020:23:07

The Arbuckle and Smith bond contained more than

0:23:100:23:13

a million gallons of whisky and 31,000 gallons of rum.

0:23:130:23:17

The DCL bond was across the road, and in Warroch Street

0:23:170:23:21

an engineering works where thousands of gas canisters were stored.

0:23:210:23:24

The windows of the stricken bond were bricked up,

0:23:240:23:27

so once the fire started it was a pressure cooker waiting to blow.

0:23:270:23:31

Back at the Mitchell Library, documentation prepared for a negligence claim reveals

0:23:310:23:36

the fire brigade was ill-prepared for such a cataclysmic event.

0:23:360:23:40

Fireman after fireman, questioned by investigators, said they'd received

0:23:400:23:45

no specific training for whisky bond fires.

0:23:450:23:48

"No references to bond fires in any circulars, pamphlets or manuals."

0:23:480:23:53

"I've looked at all manuals and circulars back to 1940 -

0:23:530:23:58

"no reference to fires in bonds."

0:23:580:24:01

A third says no specific training is given in firefighting in bonds.

0:24:010:24:06

It was obviously a tricky question because each man's evidence contains an addition, stating that such fires

0:24:060:24:12

were a matter for training, and that no such training was given.

0:24:120:24:17

Progress through the door to the left hand side and deal with the fire conditions. Are you happy with that?

0:24:170:24:23

-Anything you want to ask before you head off?

-No.

-OK.

0:24:230:24:26

The room opens to the left. Go through the door and move to the left hand side.

0:24:300:24:35

Have another go, see what else I can see.

0:24:350:24:37

Today's firefighters have infinitely better equipment than 50 years ago.

0:24:410:24:45

Their understanding of the mechanism of fires has improved, too.

0:24:450:24:49

But, crucially, the training for all eventualities has become more rigorous.

0:24:490:24:54

Even for highly unusual events such as Cheapside Street.

0:24:560:25:00

This memorial to the Cheapside dead in the Necropolis

0:25:070:25:10

where they are buried was unveiled a year after the fire. Perhaps the disaster had been a one-off.

0:25:100:25:15

There has been no similar blaze in a whisky bond since the Cheapside disaster.

0:25:150:25:21

But that was of little comfort to the bereaved families of those who died that night.

0:25:210:25:26

This memorial provides a permanent reminder of their sacrifice, but today there are those who

0:25:260:25:33

are wondering if, as a result of a lack of official action, that sacrifice may have been in vain.

0:25:330:25:39

Did we learn lessons from Cheapside Street?

0:25:390:25:43

Thinking back.

0:25:450:25:47

Not a great deal.

0:25:470:25:48

I don't think. Unfortunately.

0:25:500:25:53

Today, the fire service remembers its heroes,

0:25:530:25:56

with a new book just published.

0:25:560:25:59

And one of the points that I make is that organisations that lose their sense of history,

0:25:590:26:05

their sense of identity, often lose their way in the world.

0:26:050:26:10

We have never lost that sense of history.

0:26:100:26:13

It may have taken 50 years, but a plaque is finally being completed

0:26:130:26:17

to mark the disaster in Cheapside Street.

0:26:170:26:20

And younger generations are now also remembering what happened, with a mosaic for the area.

0:26:230:26:31

The young people have been fantastic, they have really got involved.

0:26:310:26:35

They really understand the reasons behind it and why we are doing it.

0:26:350:26:40

And they are all working really hard to get it finished.

0:26:400:26:43

For those who were actually there, and saw terrible sights

0:26:520:26:55

and lost friends and comrades, the most important things are to learn and never forget.

0:26:550:27:01

We still go up there every year to pay our respects at 11 o'clock on the 28th.

0:27:070:27:12

Hell or high water, we are always there.

0:27:120:27:15

It was very much a sort of John F Kennedy kind of occasion

0:27:160:27:20

that people would remember for the rest of their lives where they were.

0:27:200:27:25

Especially in Glasgow, they would remember. They could have lived miles away, even outside the city.

0:27:250:27:31

People as far away as Stirling could see the glow of the fire.

0:27:310:27:35

Let's face it - we were young,

0:27:380:27:41

and it was an exciting job we were in.

0:27:410:27:43

It's all sad. Totally sad.

0:27:450:27:47

It was tragic.

0:27:470:27:49

It was a wake-up call totally for me.

0:27:490:27:51

The Salvage Corps was never the same. Never the same.

0:27:590:28:03

I really felt sorry for the families and especially the children.

0:28:030:28:07

A lot of them were about four, five.

0:28:070:28:10

I suppose

0:28:110:28:13

for those of us who managed to escape the blast,

0:28:130:28:18

it was...thankfulness really.

0:28:180:28:23

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