DEATHS IN FIRE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 54, 26 November 1937, Page 13

DEATHS IN FIRE

Daughters oi Radio Comedian Ten-year-old Moua Gibbons and her •' 1 sister.Molly, seven, daughters of radio „ comedian Alfred Gibbons (Alf, of "Alf and Roy"), lost their lives in the blazing bedroom of a house in Cavendish road, North Oxford, England, reeently. Heroic efforts to save them were made by Mr. Gilbert Dobson, a guest in the Gibbons' house, and by neighbours. Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons were at a friend's house, a quarter qf a mile away. A turn with which Mr. Gibbons was entertaining the party was interrupted by a policeman's knock at the door. "You had better go home," the Ipoliceman told him. "Your house has jbeen on fire." Then he broke the itragic news. Mrs. Gibbons collapsed. Mollie had asked her father if she i could go to the p'arty to do a double jact with him. She was told that she Ihad better go to bed with her sister, I When Mr. Dobson was awakened by smoke and the crackling of flames his first thought was for the children, but on Teaching his bedroom door he found it impossible tq., cross the landing to i their room. He smashed the window of his own room, jumped out, into the front garden, ran a hundred yards to a telephone box to call the fire brigade. On his way back to the house he obtained a ladder. Neighbours joined him in attempts made to reach the children's bedroom with the ladder, but each time they were driven back by the smoke and flames. Mr. Dobson was burned on the head. Oxford firemen also tried to enter the children's Toom, but it was not until the fire had pafetly burnt itself out that they were able to reach the room. The two children lay dead, clasped in each other 's arms. It is believed that they were suffocated by smoke as no cry was heard from the room. Mrs. Dry, who lives opposite the Gibbons' home, said: "The whole of the hall and the bedroom from which Mr. Dobson escaped were a mass of flames." Mr. Alfred Gibbons plays in the B.B.C. farmyard sketches with Mr. Roy Fenton.