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I don't remember very much of the fire that destroyed our house in the High Street and my father's photographic business because I was only four when it happened, but I know something of it from my family's accounts of it, reminisces Barbara Wickett.
It was in 1925 and the fire started in Nurse Haggard's Temperance Hotel next to us. My parents awoke to hear screams coming from next door and let Nurse Haggard's family into our house through a glass flat roof in the hotel. They were cut from the glass.
I was picked up in a blanket from my cot and taken down the street to Sanders, the butchers, where we stayed for the night. I was laid on a couch and can recall hearing someone say that the fire was spreading fast and we may have to move on again soon.
We stayed at the Lamb Inn for a few weeks after that, then the Rendells made a house available for us in Long Street until we could find somewhere to live. A town fund was set up to collect money for the families who had lost their homes in the fire and over £200 was raised.
The burnt buildings were left as they were for a long time after the fire and I can remember the smell of them. John Chivers, the photographer reputed to have said, of the fire, that it was an act of God to reduce the competition for his own business! He was at this time behaving in an eccentric way and soon afterwards gave up his business and moved into a caravan to conduct a sort of religious campaign.
Ironically, my father took over his business in Sidmouth Street and continued to operate there for the rest of his career.
 | From:
Devizes Voices compiled by David Buxton
Tempus Publishing
ISBN 0 7524 0661 2
£9.99
For a complete list of local history books published by Tempus Publishing visit: www.tempus-publishing.com |
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