Up in Smoke

My mum-in-law's house went on fire on Wednesday night and within half an hour she lost everything - except the most precious thing of all, herself. She showed remarkable presence of mind for an old lady and dialled 999 as soon as she saw the smoke and then got herself out of the house. With two fire engines, police, ambulance, the gas and electricity boards and most of the neighbours in attendance, she then watched her whole life go up in flames.

Fortunately my husband's cousin stays round the corner and was able to take her in and look after her, and let us know what had happened. We were just on our way to bed when we got the phonecall - that heart-plummeting moment when the phone goes late at night - you just know it's bad news. Our first instinct was to drop everything and go to her, but living with ferries has its disadvantages and we soon realised it wasn't an option at that time of night and neither was driving up the peninsula since the car had about 5ml of diesel in the tank, so we had to stay put until first thing next morning.

How do you tell an old lady of 86 that she has nothing left but the clothes she stands up in? It just doesn't seem to have sunk in and I must say it's pretty hard for the family to take on board as well. At least Rob abd I knew what to expect having been through this before when our son's flat went up several Christmases ago. But it's hard to be prepared for the awful blackness and the smell, not to mention the contents of the house being in a sorry heap in the back garden.

The fire seems to have been started by the electricity meter (which mysteriously disappeared after Scottish Power came to disconnect the supply). The meter cupboard at the front door held coats and a couple of Hoovers. All that's left of them is a puddle of melted plastic. The forensic fire investigator is busy doing a reconstruction job to back up his assertion that the meter was to blame. That's pretty scary, considering all the fail-safe devices that are supposed to be in place there.

So we took her out and bought her some toiletries and some new clothes to be going on with, but at the age of 86, she has to start all over again. The insurance assessor has written everything off - the smoke damage was incredible - but we've managed to rescue her jewellery, her silver tea-set and her jelly pan (her most prized possession) and twenty pounds of assorted jams and marmalade might be salvagable although I think they're probably a little over-cooked.

I hope that if I live to be that age, I'm as sanguine and composed as Mum. I know it's only stuff, and I know she still hasn't grasped all the facts and implications, but wow - she's one tough old bird!