Around the sun leaving a bright trail behind. For more than
Yüklə 2,03 Mb.
|
A MISUNDERSTANDING One of those misunderstandings which sometimes occurs when the gasman comes to call has brought puzzlement and ultimate good fortune into the domestic lives of two Essex women. Mrs. May Bradbrook and Mrs. Brenda Kerr live in Alton Gardens, Westcliff-on -Sea. Mrs. Bradbrook's home is number 40 and the Kerr residence is number 14. The difficulties began when Mrs. Bradbrook decided that the time had come to purchase a new cooker. She placed her order with the North Thames Gas Board, but the official who took the details misheard her address. Paperwork duly went through for the delivery and installation of a new gas cooker at number 14, Alton Gardens. When the gasmen arrived with it, there was nobody at home. They were relieved, however, to find a considerate note saying, "Key next door.” Mrs. Kerr was expecting a visit from the Eastern Electricity Board that day and had made arrangements for a neighbour to let them in. When the gas board appeared Instead, the neighbour assumed that she had misunderstood Mrs. Kerr and handed over the key. The new cooker was installed and Mrs. Kerr’s old one taken away. Shortly afterwards, an aggrieved Mrs. Bradbrook telephoned the gas board saying that she had waited in all day but the cooker had not come. Inquiries were started. Meanwhile, Mrs. Kerr got home to find the unexpected and gleaming appliance in her kitchen. Clearly, something was amiss but before Mrs. Kerr could get down to deciding how to sort it out, she had an urgent priority. She had to cook her husband's tea. There was no other appliance in the house, so she used the new cooker. The board, having heard from Mrs. Bradbrook and contacted its gasmen, was swift to realise the error. It assured Mrs. Bradbrook that there would be no further delay in getting the cooker to her. After all, it had only to travel a short way up the road. But - Mrs. Bradbrook pointed out - it was no longer the new cooker she had ordered, was it? It had been used. The gas board saw her point and found that it also had a problem at number 14. It had assured Mrs. Kerr that her old cooker would be returned pronto. But it turned out that the cooker had been broken up for scrap immediately after it was taken away. Both women had clearly suffered 9some inconvenience,' as the board acknowledged. The upshot of the affair is that Mrs. Bradbrook now has the cooker originally intended for her, but at a 20 per cent discount of £30. Mrs. Kerr has been given a reconditioned "good as new" cooker worth an estimated £350 to replace her scrapped one. And the North Thames Gas Board is some £380 out of pocket.
47 DOWNTOWN FIRE SURVIVOR 22-year-old Angela Medeiros was one of the lucky ones. She survived the blazing inferno that ravaged the forty-storey Torres building in downtown Sao Paolo yesterday. At least thirty people are known to have lost their lives in the fire that raged for over twelve hours. The final count is expected to be far higher as desperate relatives try to locate missing members of their families. Angela was indeed lucky to survive. She worked on the twentieth floor, just three floors above where the fire is believed to have started As a result of an electrical fault in an air-conditioner. Her first impression that something was wrong was when she saw a column of thick black smoke rising past the window of her office. "There was no sound of an alarm or anything,” she said. "Just the cries of people screaming and running all over the place. It was terrible. My first thought was to cover myself with water, and I rushed to the bathroom. It was a very strange reaction. When I came out there was no one in the office; I was the only one there." What followed was a nightmare. She tried to get to the emergency staircase, but by this time the smoke was too thick and she knew that she could either stay where she was or make an attempt to reach the roof, twenty floors above, where there was a helicopter landing-pad. She decided to stay where she was and managed to open a window and struggle out onto a ledge. It was then that she realised that she was probably safe. The fire had passed through her floor and Although flames were everywhere, she could at least breathe. Her instinct told her to stay where she was and wait for rescue. "Somewhere I had read that the new ladders on the fire engines could be extended to reach the twentieth floor," she explained. "I hoped it was true!" What happened over the next seven hours defies description. She witnessed people desperately throwing themselves out of the windows of the floors above hen She admits that she was tempted to do the same. She was afraid that no one would see her and that she would not be able to hold on. "I just prayed, and thought of my mother and father and the family, and about the holiday we were going to have in two weeks' time." She was rescued after someone in the crowd below alerted firemen to the small flaure huddled against a ledge in a comer of the twentieth storey. "I saw the ladder moving up towards me," said Angela, "but I must have lost consciousness, because that's the last thing I remember. The next thing I recall was waking up in the ambulance."
Yüklə 2,03 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
|