Story of the Fire

The Hexagon

During the last twenty years I've been building a three story hexagonal tower, and landscaping the old railway cutting around it. The plan was to make a base for Head For The Hills and any other project too. Each floor was conceived as a flexible space with a set of key facilities. I moved onto the top floor in 1998, finally leaving the Recreation Hall, a semi-derelict shed, now garage and workshop, and in need of replacement. The middle floor, my son, Tamlyn's, space, was fitted with a temporary arrangement. Only the top floor of the hexagon was actually finished.

It was a great place to live and was zoned into an office/study, a library, a lounge, a bedroom and kitchen. A triple arched feature led into a bathroom and laundry. The spaces were defined by built-in units made of recycled materials and reclaimed artefacts. Sanding machines and routers ensured a high quality finish full of design and detail; references ranged from a Welsh dresser to a mosque. It caught the sun throughout its passage. There were still a couple of areas to complete and since the end of the Head For the Hills walking season I had concentrated on these.

The Fire

On the evening of November 14^th I was feeling very good. The work was done. The skylights and dormer windows were wide open to ventilate the room from the fumes of linseed oil. A balmy breeze wafted through. I left the house to borrow some tools from a friend and was away less than an hour.

I returned and, walking past the shed towards the house, heard crackling and saw smoke and sparks pouring up to the sky, lit by flames darting from a dormer window. I ran up the stairs but scorched my head on the flames lapping over the bookcase that lined the stairwell. The entire upstairs was ablaze. I rushed to a neighbour to raise the alarm.

Helplessly standing while the firemen smashed holes in the roof to the music of glass falling from windows I watched disappear a lifetime's collection of things: resources galore: books and books and books reflecting interests and activities over the years, and indeed, the very resources for those activities.

The map collection, music collections, instruments, equipment for the outdoors, for entertainment and for feeding; photographs and archives of my life as a student, a teacher, in Canada and Mexico, in theatre and Head For The Hills. And the many gifts Tamlyn has made me throughout his life. On the desk were several notebooks and files of current work. On the computer masses more. I have always catalogued my life. Now my mind was listing with surreal clarity the hundreds of things being destroyed. It felt like it my very identity was in the flames.

It took the firemen five hours to put out the fire by which time the top floor and roof were destroyed and the stairs and hall gone too. All the internally finished bits in fact. All my possessions were on the top floor apart from tools and the horse-box in the shed. Being the only part occupied (and warm and dry), I also stored there tentage and stuff that would eventually be in other parts of the building. Tamlyn, at college in Hereford, didn't have much in his room and what was there was soaked, not burnt, and has dried out well.

I was left with only the clothes I stood in; not an address book, a telephone or a toothbrush. I was, however, completely unharmed and that made it even more unreal.

Neither the Fire Brigade nor I have a clue how the fire started. What is more, because I was occupying an unfinished building not yet with its final inspections, nothing was insured. This had long been an anxiety. I was glad this winter was to be the final phase when the interior would be finished and insurance bought. This year I will be 60. I was also determined to replace the shed with a compact workshop, free up the space, have a party and, at last, begin to use and enjoy the place. From it I would create my future.

In this watershed year, I would weave the strands of several plans, projects and proposals, all connected with walking, to develop a livelihood more suited to my years. The completed hexagon was central to the plan.

Instead I was homeless and felt destitute. Those strands are all severed. Nor can I simply carry on building at the old pace. I have neither the time, patience, resources, the strength, nor the inclination.

Friends rallied round. The support has been wonderful. Utterly stunned, unable to sleep, I was, nonetheless, always warm and in comfortable houses sharing meals. People gave me money; people gave me sets of clothing, a washbag, a phone. Friends I'd made from the Community Play were offered the catering concession at a Christmas Fair to raise funds for my recovery. We had tombola and Hook the Duck too! A collection was made amongst the young crowd at a party (they had all been to Tamlyn's parties at the Hexagon). A £100 from the Builth Wells Rotarians. As the news travelled, cheques arrived from many people. To realise I had connected with so many people was like seeing the crowds never witnessed at one's own funeral. It was a rare privilege and encouraged me to own once again my crumpled identity.

Friends shovelled out the debris - it filled two big skips. The firemen reckoned a heat of 1500 degrees had been generated. Precious little survived. But some really important things did - especially photos. There were hundreds recording moments on walks, dozens of groups; many more of family and friends and Tamlyn growing up. They were buried under other stuff and, despite being burnt around the edges, most of the images have survived. Friends took piles home and dried them out. Drying photos was the first task I engaged in. Separating in bowls of water the pages and bundles welded and stuck together to release technicoloured flashes of memory. So many familiar faces. Now IÌve sorted them and put them away. Two filing cabinets kept the flames away from valuable documents which merely cooked inside: crispy, burnt at the edges, but. for the most part, readable if not edible. Amongst them are the building plans.

For some weeks I was unable to go into a shop. As I now had nothing I didn't know where to start. My first purchases were a pencil and a lighter! And I was exhausted! A friend offered me the flat above his shop, which he is not presently using; equipped and heated, a wonderful gift. It was some time before I was able even to spend a night there alone. It was even longer before I could make a proper meal. Now it feels like home. I was given a good computer too. Tamlyn pointed out that before he'd moved out, 18 months earlier, I'd backed-up my files on his hard drive. This is a big piece of the Jigsaw of the Future. From the recovered Head For The Hills database I am able once more to contact previous participants.

The Future

Where do I go from here? Do I cut my losses and walk away with the ease one leaves a beautiful campsite? Do I try to get back to where I was and carry on: put together another home? But why live the life I'd planned with so many of the elements gone that gave it meaning? On the other hand all is not lost. The landscaping, which has taken as much time as the house itself, remains intact. I'm intact. The house simply needs a new roof and top floor. Money would sort it out: buy the stuff, pay the builders!

And herein lies the greatest irony.

The Past

When, in 1980, I bought the shed and freehold for less than two thousand pounds it was to escape the property trap. I would share the property with others; we would pool our skills, and build together, share the cost and the responsibility. We would live creatively, unconditioned by debt, our self-sufficiency balancing a low income. It's another story how I ended up on my own. However, I stubbornly stuck to the project and it took a very long time. Too long. After five years it became a burden which is exactly what I sought to avoid. Although I was always happy building and learning, I did resent the time it was taking. Each year, in order to build, I was sacrificing the period I wanted to develop new ideas with the walks, to travel, stay with friends, allow relationships to grow. Moving in (in 1998) was a triumph. Not long after, in 2000, Tamlyn came to live with me, to attend Builth High School and do his GCSEs. This banished all tedium and when in the summer of 2002 we took down the scaffolding, the light at the end of the tunnel shone at last. Sticking doggedly to my resolve I had created a unique asset. The end was within grasp . . . then this!

Reconstruction

About two weeks after the fire Barney put a proposal to me. (He and Tamlyn, both children on the walks on which their parents worked, had themselves become a brilliant anchor team in '01 and '02). He offered to raise a team to come in May and raise the roof. I am to have the materials ready. This incredible offer has been a pillar to which I have clung throughout the period of recovery from the shock of the fire. It has defined a direction.

About a month before the fire my mother was visiting and enthused over the prospect of moving from Worthing to Builth Wells. The fire has hastened this decision and she has kindly offered to put some of the money released by the move into reconstruction. So piece by piece a framework emerges, each piece set in place by someone other than myself, but a frame by which I can climb back to solid ground.

Just before Christmas I threw the I Ching and, in the mysterious way of divination, the hexagram I threw was Li - Fire (with no changing lines). The advice is to accept offers of help but retain one's independence and let integrity set the course.

It is through the support and help of others that I have come through this trauma thus far. The distance I get from here will be determined by that too. My plan is to maintain progress reports via e-mail and the Website. At this point I can't see quite how to organise working parties but in time this should become more apparent. One gesture I at least am able to make is to offer regular rambles to anyone wishing to come. I'll announce them through e-mail and the web.

All other plans are on hold while I organise the reconstruction.

Replacing the roof

• First a fairly small landscaping job that will free up some scaffolding.
• Erect the scaffolding once more.
• Strip the roof of the slates.
• Dismantle the charred roof.
• Clean back the burnt timber remaining in the structure beneath.
• Replace the roof, the windows, the skylights, the lantern and re-slate.

Finishing the Hexagon

• New plumbing throughout.
• New electrics throughout.
• New staircase.
• Complete the floor downstairs including fitting a bathroom/toilet. (Moving into the ground floor would be the quickest way to live there once again.)
• Insulate and plasterboard the rebuilt top floor.
• Floors, doors and skirting boards.
• Plaster throughout.

Replacing the Shed

• Secure plans and permission for a workshop.
• Dismantle the front half of the shed leaving the back half as a temporary workshop.
• Dig foundations
• Erect the workshop and dismantle the rest of the shed.

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