2017 off to a fiery start
200 evacuated as blaze rips through hotel on Ne’erday
AROUND 200 people were forced to flee a fire that ripped through a Highland hotel hours into the New Year – amid fears the blaze was caused by a rogue Hogmanay firework.
Revellers and staff escaped on to the street after flames were spotted tearing through the roof of the 138room Fishers Hotel in Pitlochry, Perthshire, at 5.30am yesterday.
The town was packed with visitors attending the venue’s festivities, which promised a dinner-dance and fireworks display.
The annual New Year’s Day street party held outside the hotel, on Pitlochry’s main street, had to be cancelled to allow fire crews to dampen down the flames and investigate.
More than 50 firefighters and nine trucks arrived just after 6am and used hose lines and aerial platforms from the street and the hotel’s rear courtyard to tackle the blaze.
Witnesses woke to the sounds of shouting and saw hotel residents – some elderly and in their nightwear – fleeing the burning building.
A video posted on Twitter showed a huge blaze ripping through the roof.
Resident Jackie MacLellan wrote on Facebook: ‘Woke to shouting and the smell of burning and thought the house was on fire. Looked out and saw the Fishers Hotel on fire.
‘All staff and guests accounted for but fire still burning in the roof. Roads closed for the rest of the day and street party cancelled. There are 200 plus
‘Big flames coming from the roof’’
guests without accommodation now, lots still in nightwear!’
No one was injured and locals fear the blaze may have been started by a firework from the hotel’s Hogmanay display.
After spending an hour in nearfreezing temperatures, the guests were taken to the nearby Scotland’s Hotel for tea and toast before being transferred to Fishers’ sister hotel, the Atholl Palace, while staff tried to arrange alternative accommodation.
Jim Crighton, 77, and his wife June, 65, had travelled from Dundee to bring in the New Year.
Mr Crighton said: ‘We had a fantastic night at the Hogmanay event the hotel put on. We watched the fireworks and went to bed shortly after the bells.
‘The fire alarm went off at 6am and we were all told to go outside. We didn’t bring anything with us. Now we’re here but all of our phones, tablets, clothes and medication are still at the hotel.’
Mrs Crighton, who was still wearing her pyjamas, said: ‘We definitely won’t be forgetting this Hogmanay in a hurry.’
Phil and Aileen Smith, from Carnoustie, Angus, had planned to spend two nights at the hotel.
Mr Smith, 52, said: ‘There were a lot of big flames coming from the roof. Some people were out in bare feet and it was about an hour before we were moved to a different hotel. We’re supposed to be staying another night but right now we’re not sure if we’ll be allowed back in.’
Graeme Strachan, general manager of the Atholl Palace, said guests were being allowed back into Fishers in supervised groups to gather belongings.
He added: ‘We will be housing as many as possible here. The rest will be placed locally.’
Mark Wood, who owns the Wee Heilan Cafe opposite Fishers, said: ‘Rumour has it that one of the fireworks from the display set part of the roof on fire but it wasn’t noticed until well alight.
‘It’s very sad for the town and a real disappointment that the street party had to be cancelled.
But the main thing is no one was hurt.’
The fire was put out shortly after midday. A Scottish Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said it was ‘well alight’ in an attic space in the four-storey hotel.
She said: ‘We received the call around 6.04am to a building fire in Pitlochry. The fire was found in the roof space and the hotel was fully evacuated by staff. At the moment we can’t comment on what might have caused the fire.’
Meanwhile, organisers of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay hailed the celebration as a ‘major success’.
The sell-out party, which brings in some £42million to the local economy, was attended by 75,000 people from across the world.
The countdown to midnight lasted longer than usual due to a ‘leap second’ to compensate for a slowdown in the Earth’s rotation.
Police Scotland had ‘reviewed’ safety plans for the party after the Christmas market truck attack in Berlin, but early figures reveal there were only two arrests for minor disorder. Chief Superintendent Kenny MacDonald said: ‘Edinburgh has again welcomed the New Year with great flair.’
Scottish ambulance staff handled 2,184 calls between 7pm on Hogmanay and 7am on New Year’s Day – 1.6 per cent up on last year.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 hardy souls braved freezing temperatures for a dip in the Firth of Forth in the annual charity Loony Dook – a New Year’s Day tradition for three decades. Others braved the icy waters of Stonehaven Harbour, Aberdeenshire, to raise funds for the RNLI.
Elsewhere, the first babies of 2017 gave families cause for joy.
One of the earliest arrivals was Violet Gromett, born seven minutes after the bells at University Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. The first child of Sheryl Bell and David Gromett, of Ayr, she weighed 8lb 14oz. I weep for today’s young women –
‘Very sad for the town’
THE bitter concern is that the NHS is being turned into the ‘National Hangover Service’ as reeling casualties of drink pour in.
‘At a time of year when hospitals are always under pressure,’ says health chief Simon Stevens, ‘it’s really selfish to get so blotto that you end up in an ambulance or A&E.’
‘The paramedic called to a drunk partygoer passed out on the pavement,’ he added, ‘is an ambulance crew obviously not then available for a genuine medical emergency.’
It’s a pretty drastic picture the head of NHS England paints, of a health service hamstrung by drunks.
And yet these images of paralytic revellers causing mess and mayhem in our city centres on New Year’s Eve show precisely that: a society in the grip of a binge-drinking culture.
A bunch of alcohol-sodden, helpless and hapless wrecks, so out of it they appear barely able to control their bodily functions.
Even more depressing, however, is the fact that these are not the usual suspects – thuggish male louts or football hooligans – we see brawling and barfing their way to destruc-
‘They won’t be ashamed the next day’
tion; but young women. One, a girl in red, has a huge wet patch visible on the back of her indecently short dress.
Another, tightless and legless, is being held upright by an exasperated looking young man. Another sits shoeless and seminaked in a doorway, her head between her legs as her friend stares wearily into the middle distance.
Others lash out in drunken fury, or stagger barefoot through the streets, vertiginous heels in hand, make-up streaked across their faces. Asleep on rubbish bags, drooling on stretchers: it’s like a cross between Animal House and The Walking Dead.
And you know the worst of it? When they regain consciousness the next day, long after the street cleaners have washed away the vomit and other unmentionables, long after the ambulance crews have packed up and gone home, long after the last Jäegerbombs have been necked and the many empties put out for recycling, they won’t be embarrassed or ashamed.
They won’t wince at the mortifying humiliation of it all, the ghastly, dehumanising shambles; they won’t be filled with remorse or self-loathing.
They’ll just congratulate themselves on a great night out, hoot with laughter at the state they got themselves in, maybe even share their snaps on social media, swap hangover horror stories with friends. It makes me want to weep.
The number of alcohol-related deaths every year among women has increased from 1,334 in 1994 to 2,838 today.
And of these, one of the biggest increases was in women aged 20 to 34, with a rise of 130 per cent.
Because incredibly, unbelievably, getting ‘wasted’ is a badge of honour among today’s generation of ladettes.
And just like so-called ‘slutshaming’ (criticising a woman for being promiscuous), judging a woman for being drunk to the point of incontinence is not the done thing any more.
These girls have grown up in a post-feminist society that tells them anything a man can do, they can do better. And that includes getting monumentally, catastrophically bladdered. Even before they leave the house they’re half cut, thanks to the ‘pre-lash’, ‘pre-loading’ culture that now exists.
That means getting tanked up before you go out, partly to save money in the clubs and bars, partly to add to the ‘fun’.
A couple of bottles of cheap vodka and some Red Bulls, and you’re up, up and away, free of all inhibition and ready to dance up a storm on that dance floor.
Well, all I can say is that if this is equality, you can keep it. Because while I yield to no one in my fondness for a glass or three of high spirits, the idea of intentionally getting so intoxicated I can no longer stand is all wrong. But then I’m lucky. I didn’t grow up in the brave new world of discounted supermarket booze and sugary sweet alcopops specifically engineered to appeal to young girls.
In my day alcohol really was a conyou
‘A gaping hole in their lives’
trolled substance: it was a) expensive and b) pubs closed at 11pm, and after that it was the devil’s own work finding a drink.
And because there was no Uber, either stuck to tonic water or walked it off. People drank, of course, and got drunk. But it was more by mistake than by design.
In fact, being drunk was seen as a sign of weakness, a source of some embarrassment. If you had a hangover, you hid it the next day in the office. You certainly didn’t discuss it with co-workers or allow it to affect your performance.
That is why these images are both so shocking and so sad. These women – young, attractive, well-dressed, with their expensive fake tans and glamorous hair extensions, perfect manicures and complex and costly tattoos – have intentionally got themselves into this state. Which begs the question: what sorrows could they possibly have that need such comprehensive drowning?
Could it perhaps be that, despite all the opportunities available to young women today, there is a gaping hole in their lives they cannot fill?
Or is it simply the case that if you remove the social stigma of drunkenness and make alcohol cheap and readily available, this is what you get? Or maybe it’s just as Mr Stevens says: they’re just really selfish.
Either way, it’s a sobering sight.