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| The Night Great Homer Street Caught Fire; Another tales from Con 72D Bill Pimlett | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 5 2012, 08:45 AM (232 Views) | |
| bobswoo | Jul 5 2012, 08:45 AM Post #1 |
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The Night Great Homer Street Caught Fire A long time ago, when I was a policeman, I was walking along Great Homer Street at about 2.00 o clock in the morning. I was on the left hand pavement walking towards Stanley Road. All the streets on the other side of Great Homer Street had been demolished. All the York stone pavings had been taken away and the pavements asphalted. What I saw next I could not believe. The whole of the pavement on the side opposite to me was glowing a beautiful phosphorous blue. As the breeze blew the blue colour waved back and forth like ripples in sand. When I got closer I saw it was hundreds of small flames, like the flames on a gas cooker. I guessed that we had an underground gas main that had ruptured due to the activity of the demolition vehicles across the pavements. I telephone the station from the police telephone at the end of Great Homer Street and asked them to send the Fire Service and the City Engineer to the scene. The bridewell patrol laughed his head off. He did not believe what I was telling him and thought that I was having a huge joke with him. There could be no such thing as a pavement on fire! It took me a couple of minutes to convince the bridewell patrol that I was serious. Even so the first thing he did was to phone the night inspector and tell him what cats eyes Pimlett had phoned in about. After 10 minutes the Inspector and Sergeant arrived in the Inspectors car, which fortunately had a C/H Radio in it. The Sergeant called C/H and asked for the Fire Service and the City Engineer to attend the scene as the pavements for three blocks were on fire. Total silence! After a minute or so there was a muffled voice on the radio asking the sergeant again what exactly was on fire. The Sergeant yelled back that the flaming pavement was on fire! This was followed by a stony silence and then the night Inspector came on the radio asking again for confirmation that three pavements were on fire. At this point my inspector took charge and pointed out that I had been trying to get help from them for 25 minutes. At that point everything started to swing into motion and the Fire Service and the City Engineer were called out. Three months prior to this point the Liverpool Corporation (now Liverpool City Council) had three streets demolished to make way for the start of the Everton Park Sports Centre. All the York stone pavements were taken up and replaced with tar Macadam. With corrugated iron fencing put up the houses and shops were demolished and skipped away. The heavy vehicles had broken the gas pipes under the roadways and so gas had been leaking for some time. When it got dark enough it could be seen all along the pavements as tiny dancing blue lights which ebbed and flowed about one and a half inches high as the breeze blew. Probably ignited that night by a discarded cigarette. |
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| Ken Rose | Jul 6 2012, 10:16 AM Post #2 |
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A Great story Barbara. Thanks for sharing it. regards, Ken. |
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| caernerch | Jun 6 2013, 01:00 PM Post #3 |
New Member
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Happy days. Back when the beat bobbies had to submit a report (on form 25[I think] or was it F12?) when they had a defective street lamp, footwalk or any other utility on their patch. Acting unpaid Surveyors for the LCC. That's gone - now everyone in uniform is a social worker. caernerch |
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1:19 AM Jul 11