DEEPING SOS
The house that Deeping built by Dave Turner
On the night of 8th August 2020 little did we know that when we went to bed at around 11.30 pm, just four hours later our lives would be thrown into absolute turmoil. This was when a fire broke out on the wooden decking at the rear of the bungalow and within an hour our beautiful home and everything inside it was totally destroyed; despite the best efforts of the local voluntary fire service the bungalow could not be saved. The Red Cross Emergency response team arrived in the early hours of the morning and were amazingly helpful, providing us with an emergency loan to buy some clothing as well as caring for us in the Red Cross ambulance. As well as the Red Cross we were so grateful for the immediate help the Deepings Lions gave us with an emergency mobile phone as well as clothing and various other items we were so desperately in need of. I have been a member of The Lions for over ten years and never have we needed their help and support than that first morning. The following few weeks were very painful as we hunted through the charred remains of our home looking for any items that may have survived the fire and the fire services hoses. Amazingly we did recover a few items: some photographs of our travels and family, and our passports amazingly survived as did a box containing a lot of religious artefacts, medals and rosaries belonging to my late mum.
items of furniture , clothing and kitchenware were donated to us, the local Scout hut being the centre for collection. As well as this, local tradesmen and companies began to offer their help in rebuilding the bungalow, and a Just Giving page was set up by Joe Wray with an initial target of £1000; the sum eventually raised was a magnificent £5500, on top of which a local company, You Garden, donated a cheque for £5000. It completely floored us that people who knew nothing of us could be so kind.
We spent the following night and a further three weeks at my partner Olwyn’s brother’s house in Langtoft where we then spent the following days doing the necessary paperwork for insurance etc., only to find to our horror that we had let the house and contents insurance lapse… we were devastated.
The autumn and early winter months were extremely frustrating as we waited for planning permission to come through which it eventually did on 3rd December, my birthday. It was the best birthday present I received that day.
This is when the local community came on board to help us. Our next door neighbour, Mim Slater, who had been the first on the scene of the fire, set up the Facebook page ‘SOS Donations for Beech Close couple’ and the response was utterly amazing;
January 2021 and early February brought very cold wintry weather which once again stopped any building work from starting, but start it eventually did in mid February when Colin Virge, Steve Evans and Andy Spridgeon commenced the building of the bungalow. Despite working during the week on their everyday house building jobs they kindly gave up virtually every weekend in March and April to rebuild the outer walls up to the roof level; needless to say we owe those guys a huge amount of gratitude for their amazing efforts. continued >
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