![]() ![]() The fumes breathed in by the first four firemen to arrive at his blazing toy firm were so toxic they were violently sick and required hospital treatment. Thinking his car was being vandalised he ran out, presumably to confront the vandals, only to find glass falling from the top two floors of the three-storey Douglas Mills, when he reportedly raised the alarm and called the fire brigade. On Tuesday 8 November 1977, the front page of the Telegraph & Argus reported that Heginbotham was still at his desk around six the previous evening when he heard the sound of breaking glass. I thumbed through another decade’s worth of newspaper archives before I found another fire involving a firm owned by Stafford Heginbotham. Again, 50 firemen and 11 appliances were needed to bring the blaze – visible for miles around – under control. When the managing director went to investigate he found what he described as a “fire going like a bomb” in the neighbouring building, also occupied by Tebro Toys and, the Argus stated, “Genefoam (Bradford Ltd) rubber manufacturers whose managing director is Mr Stafford Heginbotham, the Bradford City chairman”.īy the time the fire brigade arrived a 500-gallon fuel tank had exploded, bringing down the factory’s 40-foot walls and roof. Then, on Good Friday 1968, overtime staff at Tebro Toys looked out of their windows as an “awfully black” pall of smoke drifted towards their premises from a three-storey factory at the opposite end of the industrial estate. At a time when the average national UK house price was £3,700, the fire caused £25,000 of damage, with a stock loss of £10,000 (the equivalent, in terms of house-price inflation today, of £1.6m and £600,000 respectively). ![]() The young Bradford City chairman was surrounded by scores of boys watching the inferno and the police, mystified as to how a fire might have started in the factory, with no employees at work and no sign of a forced entry, announced their inquiries would continue with the children who were playing outside. Fifty firemen in all, deploying 14 jets, eight pumps and a turntable, were needed to bring it under control. I read how on a Sunday afternoon,, fire engulfed a three-storey factory and its two-storey loading bay as a 200ft pall of toxic smoke temporarily overcame two firemen in Cutler Heights Lane, near Bradford city centre. But even more staggering was the sheer number of them. In a nutshell, they all spread incredibly quickly, produced an unbelievable amount of toxic smoke and devastation, and they all caught the firefighters unawares. The whole process took two months, during which time I discovered there was a pattern to Stafford Heginbotham’s fires. I’d have to get to the British Library Newspapers archive for 9am each morning, fill in the slips for the maximum number of items I could order – usually four bound volumes of the Bradford Telegraph & Argus, dating from January 1965 onwards, the year Stafford Heginbotham became involved with Bradford City – and sit at a desk, scanning each article until I’d covered 20 years’ worth of newspapers. ![]()
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