The Star: November 23, 2017

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10 Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi News Thursday November 23 2017 Local News Now The Star Fire rages, homes at risk Ballantynes survivors uncanny The 70th-anniversary of the Ballantynes fire was last weekend. Reporter Bridget Rutherford speaks to two survivors who have had an uncanny reunion LOIS WHEELER and Marion Hooykaas have been going to card making classes together for a decade near their Parklands homes. But it took another eight years for the friends to discover they shared another thing in common – both had escaped New Zealand’s worst fire tragedy. Forty-one people perished. Mrs Hooykaas said it was unbelievable she and Mrs Wheeler took so long to click. “It was really because being together for so long and only finding out then, it was strange.” Mrs Hooykaas said she had been at class discussing a controversial book about the Ballantynes fire written by Steven Eldred-Grigg, when Mrs Wheeler piped up and said she was in the fire too. “She’d been sitting next to me for so long.” Mrs Wheeler, who was 22 at the time, was working as a shorthand typist, while Mrs Hooykaas was a 17-year-old apprentice tailoress. Many of their friends and colleagues died. Mrs Wheeler, now 92, said every year, she can recall down to SURVIVORS: Lois Wheeler, 92, and Marion Hooykaas, 87, both escaped the Ballantynes fire on November 18, 1947, although they did not meet until years later. PHOTO: MARTIN HUNTER the minute what happened that fateful November 18, 1947, day. At 3pm she was having afternoon tea with a friend who worked in the china department. Twenty minutes later, they both went back to work. Mrs Wheeler never saw her friend again. She said staff did not know the danger they were in when a fire broke out in the cellar of one of the store’s eight central city buildings at about 3.30pm. “Ballantynes was Ballantynes, and nothing could ever happen to Ballantynes.” She said initially, her boss had been instructed to tell staff to keep working. But they later evacuated onto Lichfield St, only to go back into the building three times to collect typewriters and filing cabinets. “We were like sheep. We were only doing it because our boss was doing it.” The last time she went upstairs, the ceiling started coming down and they ran down the stairs to safety, she said. “The whole thing [building] combusted and was going up in flames and the roof was gone. Because I got out, I thought everybody else had.” Mrs Hooykaas said when the fire started, they were told to evacuate and take their scissors. Mrs Hooykaas said they must have been some of the last to get out. Both went back to work at Ballantynes shortly after the tragedy in temporary facilities nearby. Mrs Wheeler stayed for a few years before moving to Hay’s for more money. Mrs Hooykaas stayed until she was 23, when she got engaged. Ballantynes, the city council and Fire Service were criticised for the disaster, during a Royal Commission inquiry into the blaze. But neither Mrs Wheeler or Mrs Hooykaas feel any anger. They still shop at Ballantynes. “When I hear a siren the hair goes up on the back of my neck. It is as though it’s back to the Ballantynes fire,” Mrs Wheeler said. The cause of the fire was never determined. The Royal Commission recommended changes to fire prevention and firefighting, including evacuation drills and the installation of fire alarms.
The Star Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi Thursday November 23 2017 11 News meeting decades after blaze Typewriters, adding machines and company records were put in a safe strongroom by some of the people killed. The inquiry found they were probably following orders which wasted “vital time” in escaping the inferno. There was no evacuation plan. Evacuation orders were made by individual department heads. There was even evidence of some staff returning from their afternoon tea being sent back to work upstairs after smoke had been seen. “Thousands of horror-stricken spectators saw two [other] girls leap from a third-floor window and crash on a ladder and veranda,” the Press Association reported at the time. “From there, unconscious, they were dragged by firemen. Their condition in hospital is satisfactory.” At least 680 people were in Ballantynes at the time of the fire – 430 staff and 250 customers. Recalls Mrs Hooykaas: “Our boss came in and he said that he was getting us out. “One of the old tailors stood at the door, held the door open and he said: ‘Take your scissors because you can’t replace them’.” It was after the war and it was hard to get scissors. “He said: ‘Just pick up your scissors and go’. We did. We took our pay too – it was in our bags. I had a blazer; I left that. “We were quite calm when we went out of the room, but when we got down to the stairs to the cafeteria that’s when you kept saying: ‘Hurry up’; they were walking so slowly, but it was dark.” Earlier they had stood at the windows and waved in reply to a man waving from across the street. He later told them that the roof had collapsed soon after. Ballantynes comprised eight buildings covering about 4000 sq m between Colombo, Cashel and Lichfield Sts. Some of the buildings and their basements were connected INFERNO: Two hundred firefighters and 20 appliances battled the Ballantynes fire, 41 people were killed. by unauthorised openings. Fire protections were inadequate. Stairwells and lift shafts acted like chimneys, drawing hot gases into the upper areas, which rose to three levels above the ground floor. Although the cause of the fire was never established, it is known to have started in a basement at around 3.30pm. A female employee had noticed smoke. There was a delay in calling firefighters, who arrived at 3.47pm; they were poorly equipped for the coming conflagration. Just before 4pm, the fire erupted in a flashover of hot gases. At 4.10pm Kenneth Ballantyne, a joint managing director, was the last person to escape. He climbed out a widow and scrambled down a ladder. Window panes broke, flames shot out and a cloud of black smoke rose high above the buildings. Some 200 firefighters battled the blaze, using 20 fire engines. In a 1997 television documentary, Scorched Memories, witnesses told of the heartache of seeing people at the windows. “I spotted my father in the people at the window,” said Alf Brown. “I whistled out to him but couldn’t get his attention.” At a roll call in the evening at the city’s King Edward Barracks to work out who was still missing, Mr Brown saw a Ballantynes manager. “He pointed at me and said ‘That’s Alec Brown’s son’. That’s when I knew that Dad was dead.” •Additional reporting Martin Johnston SANTA CAN’T WAIT to meet you Celebrate Santa’s arrival at Northlands and join the fun and games, here this weekend. northlands.co.nz #shopsocial
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The Star: November 23, 2017

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