OBAN TIMES REMEMBERS ‘THE FIRE’ 50 YEARS ON
July 24 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most devastating incidents in Oban’s history.
Early that morning in 1973, the Esplanade Hotel in Oban caught fire, resulting in the deaths of 10 tourists. It remains the worst Scottish hotel fire since wartime.
Staying at the 25 bedroom hotel on the evening of July 23 1973, were two families and 42 guests from Cornwall, Devon and Somerset on a Greenslades Coaches tour.
Nine were killed in the fire, while one died in Glasgow’s Western Infirmary after leaping from a third floor window. More than 20 others were treated for injuries.
The five-storey hotel had caught fire around 3.30am on July 24. Flames were coming from the upper floors and the roof.
The town had 14 part-time firemen, all of whom attended the fire. Joe Simpson, then a 42-year-old plumber and station officer at the part-time fire station in Shore Street, told The Oban Times about that night on the 40th anniversary.
“We would have the odd house fire,” said Joe. “But that night was like nothing we had ever seen, or ever would see. People were jumping from the windows. The noise was something I’ll never forget: the flames, windows bursting and people screaming.
“We managed to get a few people out from the back but the stairway had burnt away.
“We were helping one woman down an old ladder when she collapsed. One of the other boys had to go up the ladder to help get her down, but the ladder was only supposed to take two people and it snapped.
“I had seen a man’s face in the same room, so I shouted for another ladder. By the time we got that up, the face had gone. The image of that face, just above the window ledge, has stayed with me.”
The man turned out to be the husband of the woman who the firemen had saved and was one of the nine bodies the Oban firefighters pulled out of the hotel that night.
They were stood down at 9.20am when the full-time crews took over.
Ambulance man John Barbour was just 24 years old and had been in the service for a year, he told The Oban Times in 2013.
“I came down Dunollie Brae from where I lived and straight along the Esplanade,” he recalls. “I didn’t bother with the one-way street in the circumstances, so I was there very quickly. It was a nightmare.
“The Esplanade Hotel fire was horrendous and will hopefully never be repeated
‘That night was like nothing we had ever seen or would see...’
anywhere. It was a very sad and traumatic event for everyone involved.
“The lessons learnt were good from the point of safety but the gruesome part is best left to the history books.”
Eighty-six-year-old Mollie Driver, then a receptionist at the Esplanade surgery, was awoken that night at her Soroba home, where she lived with her husband and three children.
“You hear a phone call in the middle of the night, either it’s a wrong number or it’s somebody in trouble,” she told The Oban Times this week.
It was Norma Campbell, a justice of the peace, who ran the Heatherfield Hotel.
Mollie said: “She said can you come down and give us a hand.
“There were lots of people there. In a case like that, people are in a panic stage. We went across the road and were ticking off names. ‘Were there two people in the room? Were there more?’”
Other people had brought blankets, clothes, flasks and food. “It is what happens in a small town,” she said.
The following week, Mollie joined the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS), taking the tea trolley around the wards at Oban’s old County Chest Hospital near McCaig’s Tower.
She is still volunteering five decades later, at the coffee shop in Oban’s Lorn and Islands Hospital, and this month the WRVS is thanking her with an afternoon tea.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, the gutted hotel and affected parts of the neighbouring Park Hotel, situated where the Esplanade Court now stands, were demolished.
The incident also gave weight to the argument that Oban should have a full-time fire service, installed soon after.
The cause of the fire was never confirmed, but it was believed to have started in the reception area. It was suggested the fire started with an ignited cigarette end in a waste paper basket.
According to The Oban Times of July 26, members of the emergency services and civilians who had assisted were praised for their heroics.
Oban’s voluntary services also swung into action. Organisations including the Rotary Club, Inner Wheel, Round Table, Red Cross and WRVS gave clothing, food and money to survivors of the tragedy. Help was also given by Argyll County Council social work department.
At the instigation of procurator fiscal Graeme Pagan, a Fatal Accident Inquiry was held at Oban Sheriff Court in October 1973. A jury of five men and two women sat with Sheriff principal James MacKay, QC - later Lord Chancellor, Lord MacKay of Clashfern.
They found that no fault or negligence whatsoever could be attributed and that all reasonable precautions were in hand, but the inquiry made recommendations that would shape the future of the emergency services and hotel safety.
If you have memories of the fire, and would like to share them for the record, please contact The Oban Times at editor@obantimes.co.uk or call 01631 568000.