I don't mind, though I tend not to talk about it much in real life because it makes a kind of awkward silence fall, and also because my husband doesn't like to think that he nearly killed me.. It used to be my greatest fear as well, and I certainly don't see myself as the kind of person who could have gone to the stake for my faith, if I had a faith.

We had had a new tv delivered and paid Curry's £15 to wire it in, so I have always been a bit cross with them. In the night the wiring caught fire and the fire spread to our curtains etc. We live in a very ordinary two story house, and I had always wondered about people who died in houses like that, because you think - why didn't they get out? But smoke is incredibly narcotic - even though we had a smoke alarm it took me AGES to wake up, and when I did I was like someone who had drunk 8 pints of cider. Also the electricity was off and the smoke was so thick you literally couldn't see an inch, so it was very disorientating.

My husband did exactly what you are not meant to do and went downstairs, got the garden hose and opened the living room door. The hose was far to feeble to do anything, but the fire shot out at ceiling level (so he didn't notice what was wrong at first) and straight up the stairs to where I was dithering. Apparently in these sorts of situations you have about five minutes when your body is so flooded with endorphins that you don't notice the pain - nature's way of allowing you to get out. So I didn't really feel in pain or even scared (though it was fantastically hot; I just stood there in disbelief thinking - "it's SOOOO hot!") Luckily I had a sturdy dressing gown on that protected me from the worst, but I had to walk down the burning stairs and lost all the skin from my feet and ankles, plus a lot from my hands and face. Luckily my face has healed really well.

I got outside and the woman opposite dragged me into her shower and kept pouring water over me. After a couple of minutes the endorphins must have finally worn off and I felt really really horrible, but by then I was safe. I had to have my eyes bandaged for ages, and had no voice at all (and they weren't sure whether it would ever come back at all, which mercifully it did) so it was a bit boring in hospital. It was an odd time and not very nice - I remember my neighbour giving me a shalwar kameez and it kind of hung by my bed, as being the only clothes I owned in the world.

We never did get any money from Currys because there was a mobile phone charger plugged in as well, and their forensic examiner tried to argue that it had been that, and we just didn't have any fight left in us. But oddly enough, I was never quite as scared of fire since.

Crumbs. What a story, wonkey.

I hope you said a sincere thank you to the woman who dragged you into the shower. Like I said before when I kindly volunteered to be on stand-by for Luke to give the kiss of life (oo-err) I've done first aid training (like a lot of people, I know) and cooling you straightaway would have saved you from being much worse because burns continue to burn for a very long time causing more damage if they're not cooled down. I got bad sunburn years ago (the famous hot summer of '76 despite never actually sunbathing so I take a lot more notice than average of how to treat burns.

PS: hopefully the shower was tepid too because very cold water can cause you to go into shock.

I'm so glad you're still around to entertain us on DS, it would be a much poorer and much less friendly place without you

Thanks. I healed up quite magically actually - my face looked massively scabby and disgusting for ages and the hospital gave me contact details for a support group for people with facial disfigurations, which was a bit of a shock. (I didn't even know at first because my eyes were bandaged up, then when I took the bandages off and saw myself in the mirror I wanted to put them back on again). But it just all seemed to heal up, though I can't tan or I go all patchy.

My daughter was in the house as well, but got out with admirable speed and only singed her hair. She actually had an early GCSE next morning and insisted that she had to take it, mainly because she was a huge drama queen and enjoyed going to school looking all sooty and scorched, with her hair burnt, and wearing borrowed Indian clothes. I swear she spun the no-uniform thing out for a full six months, just saying pathetically that she had lost all her uniform in a fire.

My other daughter was staying with a friend, and had the treat of sitting obliviously in a lesson when my husband walked in and said her mum was in a burns unit and all her possessions had gone. If anything, she was the most traumatised of all of us.

Yes, from the sounds of things if you healed up magically well it was due to the neighbour putting you under the shower. She must have had first aid knowledge because I think most people would have thought they were doing the right thing by waiting for the ambulance (and some horror of horrors in the old days used to try butter which in effect fried the skin )whereas in fact the earlier cooling is started the better because it protects the tissues underneath. As I say burns are pretty close to my heart through personal experience, I just have to look at the Sun now and my neck/chest area goes bright red.

Glad it worked out as well as it did, must have been really scary. Funny how kids end up milking these things

OMG Wonkey what a hideous experience - I just cannot imagine the horror of it all. It is amazing how much the human body can withstand or endure and you are living proof of that.

Thank God you survived relatively intact but something like that must leave you emotionally traumatised, although you are remarkably well adjusted.

WD, that must have been horrific .

I'm fine, but thank you.

One thing I did learn: when it first happened I WAS a bit traumatised - I guess I had a bit of post traumatic depression and got fixated on the thought that one of my children might have died (which was a bit unreasonable as one of them was not even in the house, but I just couldn't stop imagining it) and people kept on and on and ON saying to me, "Oh my god, you were so lucky! I can't believe how lucky you were!" - and in my depressed state I heard that as "Either you or your children should be dead, by rights."

So I did learn that people who have just escaped a major catastrophe don't necessarily feel terribly lucky at the time; I used to want to say to them, "yes, but think how lucky YOU are! You haven't even been in a fire at all!"

So I did learn not to say that to people.

Sigh. Twitter. #crossingaline I can't.

Apologies for saying so much about how to treat burns, it's a bit of a bugbear of mine. They talk about first aid and the kiss of life, recovery position etc all the time but rarely seem to mention burns, yet treating a serious burn early by immersing it in tepid water whilst waiting for the emergency services to arrive makes the difference between a minor problem and a serious life-threatening condition so I always talk about it when I get the chance. You can run water into a bowl, basin, bath or as in Caroline's case put them in a shower under running water - remember it has to be tepid not freezing cold.

One of these days, someone I've told about this is going to remember and do it, I may not know about it when it happens but getting the information out there is the most important thing.

Now we can go back to discussing the lovely Luke ... ooh those pictures are gorgeous like the man himself.

Agreed .

Yes, you are quite right. I have to do a first aid course every three years and they are barely mentioned - it is all car crash stuff and CPR (which I swear is slightly different every single time). I am not sure that we have ever had any discussion about burns, though I can assure you that I would not hunt round for the butter dish if I found someone on fire. That is very bizarre.

You're right about the CPR - last I heard was forget about the breaths and concentrate on chest compressions (!) and they wonder why people get confused. In my opinion, you are much more likely to encounter a burn than someone not breathing but they rarely teach you how to deal with them.

Reaching for the butter dish is an old wives' tale but unlike others has NO basis in reality.

Yes! The number of breaths has gone down and down and down. I swear when I started it was five to one. There was some complicated palaver by which two of you were supposed to do CPR at once. Now it seems to be no breaths at all, and the note of optimism has almost disappeared. It's practically turned into 'nothing to lose, you might as well give it a punt." (I work in elderly care, and we just don't do it, ever. We are told that all it would mean is that someone dies in pain instead of in peace).

I did give CPR once, on the floor of a men's toilet. It wasn't like resussie Annie, that's for sure. When the ambulance men lifted him you could hear the grating sound of ribs I had broken. They assured me that this is normal and fine. Still...

As this is an appreciation thread, I thought we should all take a little time to appreciate .... THOSE pictures.

Phew! ... now that's what I CALL sexy ....

Sorry, recalled to duty. He does photograph very, very well.

Stuff on the main forum so bizarrely abusive and horrible that I think I will have to stay off it for a while - it is just turning into baiting.

I can't argue with you on that one .


I've given up on that pointless discussion, some people were obviously watching a different show to me.

Sorry to hear that Wonkey. I was finding the debate quite interesting to begin with, but it got wearing to read , let alone participate in!
I think some of the problem was down to definitions of what 'status' in the house is. Some seemed to take it to be in terms of intelligence and articulacy, whereas I think that you were talking more in terms of a HM's standing in the house. At the time of the rows with Becky and Ashleigh, I think that the Insiders were still in the ascendency, which would have given Ashleigh, and even Becky, higher status overall as HMs than Luke had. Certainly if all HMs had been asked to rank each other as HMs at that stage, Luke would have been lower than Ashleigh and probably Becky as well.

Yes, fair description. People in the house don't see what we see or know what we know (and of course vice versa). So when Caroline was evicted and said she wanted Conor to win ("oh please let him win!") she presumably thought that was a realistic possiblility; whereas to us outside he was by then fantastically unpopular and no more likely to win than she had been.

I was thinking earlier of the 'say yes' task in BB12, and how many of the challenges Luke would have said yes to. I don't think standing back to back with Louise would have been a stretch, but I did wonder about the bungee jump.

I suspect that is the chappie that has just been shown the door there.

Sorry I have only just caught up here, and some very interesting discussions here: WD, ValW and Noisy Oyster deserve a mention ( apologies for appointing myself as a cheerleader )

Wow WD, how awful (the fire). Another thing with burns I learnt : is to wrap them in cling film to prevent infection- though whether this is still the case I don't know

Best wishes with your sons surgery zeebra xx

Yes minkski, our friend is the one who's been shown the door. It's nice to realise lots of other people felt the same way as I did.

You're right about the clingfilm too, as far as I know the advice hasn't changed. After cooling thoroughly you can wrap in clingfilm whilst transporting to hospital.

I don't see it as appointing yourself as a cheerleader and, even if you did, nothing wrong with it. It's nice to hear from you as always

One of the most amusing parts of BB13 was seeing the Insiders come out and realising how unpopular they were and how popular the Outsiders were Until quite late on, they were so clueless!

I wouldn't have found standing back to back with the gorgeous Louise a chore either, but I imagine the conversation would have been a bit lacking!

Have you ever actually seen Louise? - she's even more stunning in person - really tall and elegant. Trust me, I doubt you'd worry about the conversation. Standing next to her and basking in reflected glory would be enough.

Well I did - in between watching the meercats advertisement 2500 times - get to ask him if he would have done a bungee jump, and got an immediate "of course" along with some dubious stuff about dangly bits.

Sadly I haven't. I didn't even realise she was so tall (I love tall women) until the 'Hottest HM' poll. That shows how many tall people there were in the house, as she never stood out as tall in the same way that the slightly shorter Asileyne did in BB7!

Yes well Jay looks to be about 7 feet tall and she looks about the right height standing next to him so she's definitely tall and looks very classy, graceful and elegant. When I saw them I didn't realise it was her, just this tall, attractive girl - that was what made me look at the guy she was with and I thought 'oh he looks like Jay Mckray from BB' so I looked at her face more closely and thought oh heck I've just seen Jay and Louise.