FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF ART SCHOOL INFERNO
Locked out of their homes. Left without any personal possessions. And threatened with arrest if they try to go back. No wonder the 67 residents evacuated in last month’s blaze are furious – and frightened for their futures
THE clock had already crept past 11pm on Friday, June 15, when Adrian Nairn’s attention was dragged away from the World Cup TV highlights by a loud banging noise outside his Glasgow flat. He was about to dismiss it as the antics of rowdy drunks who would stagger up Dalhousie Street from Sauchiehall Street before disappearing off behind the Glasgow School of Art in the city’s Garnethill. This time, however, the banging persisted and was soon joined by a crescendo of fire engine sirens.
Peering from his ground-floor window, Mr Nairn’s eyes were met by a conflagration that illuminated the night sky. For the second time in four years, fire had ripped through Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s masterpiece, transforming it from architectural gem to blazing pyre.
‘You could see the flames were already through the roof,’ recalled Mr Nairn. ‘All the noise I had heard was first responders seeing if they could tackle the fire by kicking down hoardings put up round the art school after the last time it went on fire. I couldn’t believe it was happening again. The ferocity of the fire was something else. The firemen had only been there five minutes but the fire was already reaching the roof.’
Farther down the street, other families watched the disaster unfold with growing horror as 100 firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control. Angela Simpson, 54, who had been babysitting two young boys for a friend, said: ‘I took a look out of the window, saw the fire and said, “Oh no, not again”.’
Single mother Rifat Shafiq lives in a third-floor flat with her four children, including an autistic 11-year-old son and a severely autistic teenage daughter. She was roused from her bed by her elder son, Amir, 23. ‘He shouted, “Mummy, Mummy, come quickly, there are flames”. I remember the blaze was so intense you could feel the heat from inside our flat.’
Within minutes, the floors and roof of the 109year-old A-listed ‘Mack’ were consumed by fire; within hours, it was reduced to a smouldering shell along with the neighbouring O2 ABC music venue. Long before then, Mr Nairn and 66 fellow residents had been told to evacuate their homes for their own safety. Most thought they would be away for a night, two at most. None has been allowed back. More than six weeks later, their lives remain on hold.
A ring of steel has been cast around the charred remains of the art school and surrounding streets, preventing businesses and the displaced residents from re-entering their properties while a complex and painstaking demolition process is afforded maximum priority.
MEANWHILE, the 33 affected households have been warned in no uncertain terms that the cordon, which even bisects the famous shopping thoroughfare of Sauchiehall Street like a Cold War checkpoint, must not be breached under any circumstances. To do so would be to risk arrest and a hefty fine or even a prison sentence.
So, as the rest of Scotland’s largest city returned to normality, those caught up in this continuing catastrophe – through no fault of their own – speak of lives interrupted, brought to a shuddering halt while essential documents lie useless in a sideboard or kitchen drawer. Car keys, passports, birth certificates, insurance documents, utility bills, computers and laptops – everyday things few of us can live without, left behind in haste.
A lone car, whose owner was in London when the fire broke out, is still parked in Dalhousie Street, shrouded in protective netting.
Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government have offered each householder £3,000 hardship payments to help with immediate financial costs, but most would trade that in a heartbeat for ten minutes inside their homes.
Being reunited with their treasured belongings would make the uncertainty of the next few weeks and months just that bit more bearable. For Mrs Shafiq’s family, however, watching her 17-year-old autistic daughter Rima’s enforced separation from her most loved possessions has been utterly heartbreaking.
‘Since the fire, things have been very difficult,’ said Mrs Shafiq. ‘We have moved twice and we are due to move again this weekend. My daughter understands nothing of what is happening, she doesn’t adapt well to new places and her behaviour now is out of control.
‘We cannot tell her why we keep moving around, she doesn’t have her comfort blanket with her or her comfort teddy bear. We left her favourite clothes in the flat thinking we would only be out for a night. She has epilepsy as well and we had no medication when we were put out of the flat.
‘It was two days before my care worker was able to get a prescription from the GP. It was very serious and she had three epilepsy attacks during the first two weeks when we were in hotels because of the stress she felt.’
The family spent a night on the floor of the Mitchell Library before being found space at hotels in the busy city centre.
On the Monday, Rima’s school bus came to collect her from the hotel. ‘My daughter’s understanding was not good and she just ran out into the busy road, filled with buses,’ said Mrs Shafiq. ‘She fell into the road and when her two escorts pulled her back, her head was just inches from a bus. They only just saved her life.’
She added: ‘When we move again on Friday, my biggest worry is for my daughter. I don’t know how she will react. I need somewhere we can stay long-term. I can’t make my child feel safe.
‘She runs away because she wants to be in her own house. We can’t go back to live there, I know there’s a safety issue. But it would be so important to be able to get in and get my daughter’s belongings; her favourite clothes, blankets and hoodies, which are a comfort to her. I buy her new clothes but she rips them up. It’s the small stuff we need – I don’t care about TVs or fridges – just the small stuff.’
It is the small things that Angela Simpson misses too, after the uncertainty of three different flats since the fire. Her current tenancy expires on September 1 and she has no idea what is in store next.
‘I miss having a freezer full of food and all the home comforts you gather through the years,’ she said. ‘I’m sick of being forgotten by everybody in charge. That fire ruined more than just a building – there are real families struggling. We are the real victims here.’
For days after the fire, residents were unable pick up their mail from a sorting office because they could not prove who they were.
Having finally sorted out a temporary fix and collected their post, they were shocked to discover police officers had forced entry to their homes days after the fire to ensure they were empty, after one family managed to bypass the cordon and reoccupy their flat.
A contractor was employed to reseal all the properties before sending every household a bill for the work. Incredibly, when police break down a door, residents are expected to pick up the tab and claim back the cost from their insurers if they can. When requests for payment went unanswered, the company sent a late payment notice with a penalty fee attached.
SUCH are the unexpected consequences of major disaster. For Mr Nairn, the lock-out has deprived him not only of life’s comforts but of his livelihood. The woodworker is in the process of setting up a new harp-making business but vital plans remain locked up in his flat.
‘When we left, we grabbed a big holdall of stuff and that was it. I managed to grab my laptop, but I only had one set of spare clothes and one pair of shoes,’ he said.
‘But the plans for my harps that I need for my new business are still in the flat. They are unique and I cannot work without them. I am paying £370 a month rent on business premises in the East End, which is eating into the £3,000 I received from the hardship fund.’
He and his mother Moira spent
their first nights with Mr Nairn’s brother in Faifley, near Clydebank, before moving to a furnished flat in Woodside, organised by their landlords at Charing Cross Housing Association.
He said: ‘The housing association have been a shining light really, organising food and drink immediately and then finding everyone accommodation. I can’t say the same for the council. They’re posted missing in action. They are hiding behind the public safety defence. Who can argue with an organisation that is only interested in protecting lives? We’re being treated like the enemy.’
The affected families have formed the Garnethill Displaced Residents Group and attracted strong support from community councillors and the 50 or so businesses in or near the cordon which have suffered severe hardship and joined the clamour for proper help.
They have written an open letter to Nicola Sturgeon, claiming that the city council has been overwhelmed by the recovery task and urging the First Minister to intervene.
Fresh money emerged last week with the establishment of a £5million recovery fund for businesses affected by the fires at the Mack and at Victoria’s Nightclub on Sauchiehall Street in March.
Along with 100 per cent business rate relief, it spells breathing space for commerce, but cold comfort for those who can only look over a wall of steel to the places they call home.
Naya Koulocheri, whose rented flat on Sauchiehall Street is out of bounds, said: ‘We don’t want to break the law but we need access to our properties. We feel drained – that’s how 99 per cent of the business owners and residents feel. It has been a long time and we are running out of energy.’
But the council is sticking to its guns. It is taking guidance from its own building control inspectors and engineers working for the Glasgow School of Art.
It is expected that the cordon will remain in place until at least early September.
Last weekend, Annemarie O’Donnell, the city council’s chief executive, called for extra police officers to be drafted in after 40 residents announced plans to breach the cordon.
Some of those affected wanted to access their properties for only ten minutes to get vital documents and other items.
But in a strongly-worded warning, Miss O’Donnell said that the art school may be subject to ‘a sudden, unannounced collapse’.
She added: ‘Anyone in any adjacent buildings in the path of falling masonry would be at risk of death. Anyone who has been displaced in this way and reoccupies buildings while it is still dangerous is committing a criminal offence.’
Such stark rhetoric has led to an escalation in tension between residents, businesses and the council they accuse of failing them.
During the protest, a clearly exasperated Mr Nairn, 47, attempted to push through the cordon but was ordered to leave by police. He said: ‘You see workmen standing outside my house. How can I not be allowed in my house if they are standing there doing nothing?’
GILL Hutchison, whose business, Biggars Music, lies inside the cordon, has opened a pop-up shop in Buchanan Galleries in order to continue trading.
She said: ‘It’s a shocking situation when they’re threatening people who are homeless with arrest, in a situation when no danger seems to befall the workers who are wandering around having cups of coffee – and they’re closer to the dangerous building than our buildings are.’
Police Scotland insists that the cordon is legally enforceable and that anyone seeking to cross it would be arrested for resisting, obstructing or hindering a police officer under section 90 of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012. Anyone found guilty of such an offence could face a fine or up to 12 months in prison.
Glasgow City Council acknowledged that the cordon had been ‘very difficult’ for everyone excluded from their home, particularly the Shafiqs.
A spokesman said: ‘We are sorry but it is not possible at this stage of the demolition process to safely enter properties in Dalhousie Street and Sauchiehall Street.
‘We are working with the art school to make the building safe as soon as possible and we are working to get people back in as soon as possible.’
For now, the standoff remains as fragile as the walls of the Mack. The Glasgow School of Art still holds out faint hope of rebuilding it one day.
But it may take even longer to rebuild the bonds of trust between the displaced residents of Garnethill and their council.