Early on Sunday morning at around 3 a.m. we were woken by shouting outside and people banging on our door. Then we heard someone shout “get out, the barn’s on fire!!”. We scooped up Jake and threw a few possessions in the car and drove to the farm entrance, where the other holidaymakers were gathered. The whole barn was an inferno and the sky was glowing an ominous orange colour while ash and smoke spiralled up into the sky.
The barn had been in the process of being converted into holiday apartments and was due to be used the following weekend for a wedding reception. We felt very sorry for the owner because a lot of hard work and money had gone into the renovations and now it was all up in smoke. The blaze took several hours to put out and involved 10 fire engines and 100 firemen. All the tenders were emptied of water as well as the swimming pool. Next hoses were taken to the nearby fishing lake and the water was drawn from there.
At 6 a.m. we were all given a briefing by the fire commander and he said it wasn’t safe for the young ones to stay because of the risk of smoke inhalation. We had no choice but to quickly pack and make our exit. The good thing about leaving so early was that we got back to Brockley at the reasonable hour of 11 a.m. Jakey was very good during the whole incident and took the furore and the rude awakening in his stride.