CHARNEY HALL Fire Practice

Rev 30 Dec 2023 ‘MD loses his Trousers’ added

Fire Practice

The provision of a separate staircase for escape in case of fire was neither considered nor indeed would it have been mandatory when the new school building was built in 1888/9. Running down narrow timber stair flights from the second floor was not an option.

And so one day it was announced that the whole school would attend a fire escape drill....The strange contraption fixed onto the reveal of the window at the end of the second floor dormitory corridor had not really been given much attention until that fateful day. All that could be seen was a slotted, drum shaped aluminium cover beneath which appeared to be wound a thin hemp rope apparently reinforced with steel windings. There were undoubtedly printed instructions fixed to the wall but nobody had taken the trouble to relate these to this primitive machinery.

And so it was that we were lined up in single file down the second floor corridor, some 25ft from the ground and with a master in attendance, a loose sling was pulled over our heads and adjusted under our arms. The sling was already attached to the cable and we were ordered to climb out of the open window, entrusting our lives to a battle of friction against gravity. The reel whirred and the cable moved. It scraped over the stone window cill and we wondered how long it would last. The most difficult part was clambering over the cill because it was the point of no return - whether the machine took your weight or whether you were about to face certain death would only be apparent once you had committed to the abyss. 

I can’t remember slithering down the gable wall but I am positive that I didn’t look down. My main objective was to push my body away from the dressed limestone wall so as to avoid cutting my knees and elbows and abseil like Spiderman past the glazed first floor window below - an achievement in itself. 

Once, one stormy day, some of us were sheltering from heavy rain in the Memorial Hall porch when a bolt of lightning earthed down the conductor which ran down the very gable end of the school where we had once carried out the fire drill!

Stephen Halstead remembers this well!....I wonder whether our parents were informed before this perilous procedure?

Maxwell Duncan loses his Trousers (see Comment below)