Bending down, I leant forward, grasped the green top leaves of the carrot and pulled.
‘They’ve done well this year,’ I beamed, holding the vegetable up to show my youngest son, Nikil, 17.
He often came with me to
help in our allotment – it was
one of our favourite places.
I loved growing vegetables, and that autumn’s crop would give us some tasty meals.
Being out in the fresh air
also lifted my mood.
A month earlier, my dad had suffered a heart attack, and although he was recovering,
I was still worried about him.
Shaking the soil from our harvest, we placed our home-grown fare into bags and set
off back home.
Soon we were walking along the street where we had lived
for the past 16 years.
We had moved there soon
after Nikil’s first birthday.
He was the only one of my three boys still living at home,
as our eldest, Kusal, 25, shared with friends, and our middle son, Sith, 21, was at university.
Later my husband, Don, arrived home from his shift as
a bus driver.
‘Smells good,’ he said, coming into the kitchen as I was cooking.
Our gorgeous kitten, Gigi, just two months old, weaved in and out of my legs, seeking attention.
I leant down and ruffled her ears.
After tea, we went into our conservatory and settled down
to relax.
Days later, we waved off Nikil. He was going away on a school trip.
But Don and I weren’t going
to be on our own, because Kusal was coming to stay.
Sure enough, I heard the wheels of his e-bike turning into the path moments later.
‘Hey,’ he cheered, as he walked in and propped his bike up in the conservatory.
Don looked at his watch.
'We need to get out! There's a fire!'
‘Time I was going,’ he said, grabbing his things and heading off to his night shift.
I yawned, gave Gigi one last stroke and headed up to bed.
Dimly, I was aware of Don returning home in the middle
of the night.
The next morning, I woke with a buzzing headache.
I looked at the time – it was 8am – and padded downstairs
to feed Gigi.
Still feeling a bit groggy, I made myself a cup of coffee and headed back upstairs.
There were no sounds coming from Kusal’s bedroom.
I reasoned he was likely still in bed because he’d been out late with his friends the night before.
As I relaxed in bed with my drink, Don got up and went downstairs.
I continued to snooze for a bit, but then, I heard a distant alarm and the clattering of Don’s feet up the stairs.
He banged on Kusal’s door.
What is going on? I wondered, as Don ran into the bedroom.
‘We need to get out!’ he panicked. ‘There’s a fire!’
Without time to think,
I scrambled out of bed.
I realised the alarm was coming from our house.
We all hurried down the stairs.
But as I reached the bottom, plumes of grey smoke mushroomed up before me.
The smoke hurt my eyes and then I began to gag as it hit the back of my throat.
Don and Kusal ran out of the door as more clouds swirled around the hall.
I was about to follow them, but I suddenly remembered Gigi.
Where was she?
Frantically, I turned my head this way and that, trying to see
if I could spot her.
I ran into the kitchen, but by this time the smoke was so
thick and black that I could barely see anything.
Desperately, I patted the litter tray to see if she was there and then I felt along the floor.
‘Gigi! Gigi!’ I called.
But she wasn’t there. Could she be in the living room?
From outside, I could hear
Don shouting for me.
‘Get out! Get out!’ he yelled.
But I couldn’t bear the thought of losing our little furball.
Feeling my way, I went into
the living room. I felt around the furniture and the floor.
But there was no sign of her.
My throat constricted and I could hear Don and Kusal calling for me in desperation.
I took one last feel of the sofa.
She wasn’t there.
Heartbroken, I stumbled out of the house and sank into Don’s arms.
Minutes later, the fire brigade arrived.
But as I looked
up in despair at our home, I could see that the inferno
had completely
taken over.
Within 10 minutes our home had gone.
How on earth had this happened?
When the flames were eventually dampened, a firefighter came over to talk to us.
‘The fire started in the conservatory,’ he explained.
Stunned, I listened as he informed us the blaze had been started by the lithium battery
that had been charging up
my son’s e-bike.
The battery had exploded.
My head reeled.
We were provided with emergency accommodation,
but later that day I returned
to the house, still in a state of total shock.
I looked up at our home, thinking of my poor little Gigi.
But then I spotted something move under a nearby parked car.
A flash of black fur.
It was her!
Gigi had survived!
I scooped her up and held her close, nuzzling her.
‘My brave girl,’
I cooed.
We soon found out that the conservatory
had been fully destroyed, along with half of the ground floor and part of the
upstairs as well.
‘All our photos gone,’ I wept
to Don.
Baby pictures, baptism certificates, school photos, wedding photos… even my wedding ring was gone.
But there was more bad news that followed.
'We're going to repay it and live in it again'
We discovered that our house insurance hadn’t been renewed.
In the midst of our worry over my father’s health,
it had somehow slipped through the net.
Now we would have
to pay for everything ourselves.
Our funds were limited.
Would we have to give
it all up and start again somewhere else?
‘This is our home,’
I said, determinedly. ‘We are going to repair it and live in it again.’
My employer gave me an interest-free loan and we used our credit cards to pay tradespeople to make the structure safe.
Scouring Facebook Marketplace, we bought cheap second-hand furniture.
Then we moved into the
top part of the house and loaded up three skips of our burnt belongings.
‘Give me that,’ I said to
Don, taking a paintbrush.
The pair of us began to decorate the house.
Bags of clothes were donated to us and a GoFundMe page brought in much-needed and much-appreciated funds.
‘People are so kind,’ I said, with tears in my eyes.
It turned out my son’s bike was second-hand and had been converted into an e-bike.
The lithium battery charger was not compatible and had exploded while the bike was
left charging.
We learnt the hard way
how e-bikes are one of the fastest-growing fire risks.
Thankfully, we all survived because our smoke detector
was working.
But the toll has been heavy.
At work, when the fire alarm was tested, I began to shake uncontrollably as I remembered when ours had gone off.
I urge anyone with e-bikes to charge them in a shed or garage, but if you have to do it in the house, don’t leave them unattended
or charge them while you’re asleep.
Make sure you shut the door and have a smoke detector and an escape route as well.
And be wary of ‘bargain buys’.
We’re so lucky we escaped.
Now, I’m determined to raise safety awareness.
Anoma Hettiarachchi, 48, New Malden, SW London