I ran up the main steps to the school and opened the door into the small vestibule and for a moment everything was normal. There was that framed photo on the wall of the first pupils at Sidley House, smiling their baby teeth smiles. (Rowena exceptionally pretty then, Jenny our gawky little duckling.) There was the day’s lunch menu, with pictures as well as words; fish pie and peas. And I was overwhelmingly reassured. It was like coming into school every morning.

I tried to open the door from the vestibule into the school itself. For the first time I realised how heavy it was. A fire door. My hands were shaking too hard to get a grip on the handle properly. And it was hot. I’d had my shirtsleeves rolled high up. I unrolled them and tugged them over my hand. Then I pulled the door open.

I screamed her name. Over and over. And each time I screamed her name, smoke came into my mouth and throat and lungs until I couldn’t scream any more.

The sound of burning, hissing and spitting; a giant serpent of fire coiling through the building.

Above me something collapsed. I heard and felt the thud.

And then a roar of rage as the fire discovered fresh oxygen.

The fire was above me.

Jenny was above me.

I could just see my way to the stairs. I started climbing them, the heat getting stronger, the smoke thicker.

I got to the first floor.

The heat punched me full in the body and face.

I couldn’t see anything – blacker than hell.

I had to get to the third floor.

To Jenny.

The smoke went into my lungs and I was breathing barbed wire.

I dropped onto my hands and knees, remembering from some distant fire practice at my old school that this is where oxygen is found. By some small miracle I found I could breathe.