Free Bloody London: Shocking Tales from London’s Gruesome Past and Present by Declan McHugh Page B

investigators after the disaster found 18 scorched areas under one of the other escalators, meaning that 18 different fires had begun on other occasions but had not developed …
    There had been a no smoking rule on the entire London Underground network for the previous 2 years, but it was frequently ignored, especially by smokers who had just endured a non-smoking journey and who were too impatient to wait until they had completely left the station before lighting up.
    The frightening speed with which a smouldering matchstick/cigarette butt developed into a ‘tiny’ fire initially regarded as not very threatening and a bit ‘like a campfire’, but which then turned in an instant into a raging inferno in the ticket-hall, meant that previously unknown factors were at work. Subsequent research did indeed reveal some new aspects of fire behaviour in certain circumstances, including unusual wind effects in the Underground system caused by trains arriving. The new phenomenon became known as ‘the trench effect’.

    King’s Cross station shamefully lacked routine evacuation procedures or fire-fighting procedures and when the fire brigade screeched to a halt outside the station and rushed in to tackle the fire they were told staff did not know where the fire hoses could be plugged in. People were being too casual and were severely underestimating what was happening because no one had ever died before from a London Underground escalator fire.
    Downstairs, fireman Townsley was just making his way towards a woman whose clothes and hair had been set on fire, shouting to her that she would be ok, when the ‘campfire’ instantly changed to a colossal fireball of death. Thirty-one people were dead within seconds. Some were burnt to death, some choked to death on fumes and some were poisoned by the cyanide released from the special ceiling tiles.
    The massive nature of the fireball was never properly explained but the ‘trench’ effect and anti-graffiti paint were probable factors.
    People who lived through the ordeal described it as ‘unreal’ or ‘surreal’. One minute they were travelling home from work like a thousand times before, in very familiar surroundings; the next second they were fighting to stay alive in the place that they thought they knew so well but was now a hell.
    Survivors of such an event often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Shocking images recur to the mind as it tries to process them to be able to move on. Many survivors fell into depression, common among survivors of disasters, because their sense of personal security had been violated so badly. The physical scarring caused by the fire also caused depression.
    A feeling of guilt at surviving when friends and loved ones had died was extremely common – the other side of ‘why did I nearly die?’ is ‘why was I chosen to survive?’ Then there were the years of painful rehabilitation, the forced abandonment of careers, the toll on relationships and friendships.

    ‘My dreams and my aspirations had been put in a bag and thrown out of the window.’
    Mariella Santello, King’s Cross fire survivor.

    At least one person managed to gather strength from the disaster that had befallen her:

    ‘Now because I have experienced a greater degree of repression and pain I can also experience greater joy.’
    Rosalind Leech, King’s Cross fire survivor

    The King’s Cross fire report made 157 recommendations and the management response on the night was attacked as utterly inadequate.
    One mystery was never explained – three different doctors who were on the station to see if they could help, all spotted human remains, a thirty-second victim, and yet the pathologist could find no trace of that person.

2) St Pancras Old Church

    St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, London, NW1 1UL. Tel: 020 7387 4193 Open: all day from approx 9a.m. until dusk. Tube: King’s Cross.

    Leave King’s Cross station by the main Euston Road exit. Turn right and walk