Scorched Memories

The building had been illegally modified and was a firetrap. Delays in the call to the fire brigade, fatally aggravated the situation.

– Presenter Brian Edwards

...the fire brigade then were trying to react to something that one minute they deemed to be a fire confined to a basement, and the next minute they had a fire moving at terrifying speed through a complex which occupied an acre in the central city.

– Historian Tony Phillips

Behind this facade of luxury, comfort and pampered elegance, laws were being broken.

– Presenter Brian Edwards

Everyone in Canterbury was devastated. They all knew someone, or knew of someone, or somebody who was on the staff, and it just affected the whole of Canterbury. It was an absolute disaster, there is no other way to describe it.

– Ballantynes' customer and eyewitness Anne Davison