I helped rescue eight people from burning members’ club

A FORMER firefighter recalls the rescue of eight people from a private members’ club almost
50 years ago.

Ivor Gosby, 77, who has lived in Henley his whole life, was abruptly woken at about midnight on Christmas Day 1976, to be told Phyllis Court was on fire.

Cyril Butchart, who was living there, had raised the alarm after hearing the sound of breaking glass and saw the bar area ablaze from his bedroom window.

Fire engines from Henley, Wargrave and Sonning arrived on the scene within minutes.

Mr Gosby, who served for
23 years, reaching the rank of leading firefighter, operated the pump during the five-hour mission.

He recalled: “Around five firefighters and two machines turned up from Henley. Off-duty members who didn’t catch the machines got their kit and came down in their own cars.

“We put up wheel escape ladders and wore breathing apparatus to reach the top of the building.

“I had to make sure I was delivering water on the hoses for the people inside the building who relied on me to keep the flow going so they could put the fire out safely.

“Because it was the middle of the night, the people there were dazed in the smoke, panicking and worrying. Fortunately, everyone was accounted for and we got all the people out. It happened a long time ago but it’s the kind of job that you remember.”

The blaze was started by Jefferey Leonard Barnett, the club’s porter, who was 35 at the time. It caused £100,000 of damage.

Forensic experts sifted through the charred remains to discover that the fire had started when Mr Barnett set light to the curtains in the back of the ground floor river bar.

The lounge and ballroom were also badly damaged and the “Thames Room” and bedrooms above were also blackened by the fire.

Four of the eight rescued residents gathered on the flat roof at the rear of the building and an elderly couple, an 86-year-old man and a woman who had taken sleeping pills and couldn’t be woken, were safely brought out of the building.

Mr Gosby himself rescued a
62-year-old woman who was brought out of the building unconscious and later treated in hospital.

He recalled: “We went into the room and there was an old lady on the bed who had heard nothing.

“We had to wake her up to get her out and down on to the balcony but she had no idea what was going on.” Mr Gosby remembers being unable to sleep or relax after the event due to the adrenaline rush. He said: “I got home around 7am and didn’t go to bed, otherwise I would have been tossing and turning as I still had the adrenaline pumping through me, so I stayed up and had a cup of tea.”

Mr Gosby said the servicemen were “honoured” when the team received a certificate of commendation from the Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service in June 1977.

He said: “It’s not something we expected but everybody felt quite honoured and appreciated but it’s just a job that we had to do.”

Ms Gosby said that the trauma of attending some incidents can stay with you but the crews he worked with had always been supported.

He said: “You do see traumatising things but you put them in the back of your mind when you’re there because you’ve got a job to get on with. It’s how you react afterwards and find a way of coping.

“I can’t remember much about my first fatality but there are times now when I will drive past a place where there’s been a road traffic collision and it all comes back to you. It’s the sadness for the people who were involved.

“It catches up to you at times but, if it got too bad, you could go to the doctors and get in touch with the [Fire Fighters] Charity, which supports current and former members and their families.”

In joining the service, Mr Gosby continued the family tradition started in 1966 by his brother, John, 85, who served for 35 years and reached the rank of station officer.

He said: “When my brother was in the service, I used to come along when I was younger and I was eventually voted in by the crew members.

“We used to have some great evenings down here when there was a bar at the back, it was less like a social club and more like a family. Even the locals used to come until it all got ripped out in the late Nineties.”

His sons Mark, 53, and Andy, 38, also became firefighters. Mark, served for 12 years, reaching the rank of leading firefighter, and Andy has served for almost
20 years and is currently the watch manager of Henley.

Andy said: “I remember hearing the pager going off and seeing my brother and dad run around the corner to catch a lift, miss it and come back to grab one of the push bikes, so as soon as I turned 19, I was up at the door at the station.

“My youngest daughter says she wants to be a firefighter now to carry on the Gosby tradition.”

After struggling to balance firefighting with his main job as a council housing maintenance foreman, Mr Gosby left the service in 1992 and later worked for Stuart Turner, returning part-time after retirement until he fully retired.