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It was a major incident that galvanised almost every appliance and crew of Humberside Fire and Rescue Service into action.
A blaze, later found to have been caused by an electrical fault, gutted Hull’s Royal Station Hotel on the night of October 7, 1990. It took 11 hours to bring the fire under control and, miraculously, all 140 guests and staff were safely evacuated.
One of the firemen on duty that night was Paul Gee, then a retained (part-time) firefighter based at Pocklington Fire Station. After spotting himself and colleague Mike Dunham in a photograph published by Hull Live from our archives, Paul got in touch saying: “I have an interesting and amusing story of our adventures on that night if you would like to hear it.”
We certainly did, and this is what Paul, now 66 and running a fire safety training business, told us about an eventful shift that began with a teatime callout to provide standby cover at Beverley. “You could hear over the radio that there was big fire in Hull at the railway station.
“We were redirected to Hull Central but didn’t go there as we were then directed to go straight to the railway station. I think at that time there were 32 engines for Humberside and 30 of them were there. We were told to put on our breathing apparatus (BA) and be ready.”
(Image: Hull Daily Mail)
Paul said: “A station officer came over – we didn’t know who he was – and he picked two people at random who happened to be me and Micky. He said ‘take your BA off and come with me’. We followed this guy round the side and to the back of the hotel where a big ladder had been put up to the third floor.”
The pair were assigned to go in and check every guest room on that level was empty. “We only had hand axes with us and we said, ‘what if the door’s locked?’ We were told to break in.
“So we got through this window on the third floor and laid on the bed was this bride’s wedding dress; it was white, one of those big lacy ones with lots of layers. We looked at each other and said, ‘this wants passing out’, so we shouted down ‘there’s a wedding dress in here, we ought to take it out and save it for someone’.
“The station officer came up and took it from us. Later on, he got all the praise for saving it.”
Paul and Mick got into the corridor from the room and found the first door they tried locked. “We thought, this isn’t good, we’ll have to kick the door in. Now this was a Victorian building with big wooden doors and we had to boot the door round about where the lock was and with a one, two, three it burst open and we went flying into the room in a big heap.
“There was no one in there but there was money and stuff all over the place – it was the same in all the rooms, with stuff left where it was. There were sex toys in one and, well, us two blokes, it made us laugh.”
The firemen continued along the corridor, systematically trying doors and breaking in. “There’d been a show on TV called Name That Tune [it involved contestants alternately bidding against each other as to how few notes they needed playing to be able to identify a certain song] and there we were, saying ‘I’ll kick this door down in three, I’ll kick this door down in two’ as we made our way along.
“When we got to the end of the corridor, there was a fire door with wired glass in it. You could see on the other side there was this really big red glow and we thought, this has got serious.”
(Image: Hull Daily Mail)
A fire crew member wearing BA came upon Paul and Mick, who were now seeing smoke as they tried to find an exit, and said he was sounding an evacuation and told them to get out by the way they had come in – but they discovered the ladder up to that first bedroom had gone. They went up another couple of flights of stairs to try to find a way out – “there was a toilet door with the engaged sign on it, we kicked it in but it was empty, thankfully” – and eventually found an escape onto part of the roof of Hull Paragon railway station.
“It was a 2ft wide walkway with boards across and we went across it really gingerly. There was a door, a fire exit door, which was designed to come out of but we wanted to go in, and we managed to prise it open.
“It led us into a bit of a boiler room with a sink in it and on the draining board was a large jar half-full of mint imperials. We looked at each other and grabbed a big handful each for our pockets and put a couple of them in our mouths and drank a gobful of water out of the tap.
“We got out of this room to find a group of British Rail men sat playing poker and completely oblivious to it all. The room was full of smoke, but it was cigarette smoke, and there was money on the table.
“They said, ‘what are you doing?’ and we said ‘what are YOU doing? There’s a fire, get out’.” Attached to another station officer, Paul and Mike were tasked with putting out small areas of fire that were being sparked from the main blaze in the centre of the hotel building – and it was when they were on a rest break from this that they were photographed by the Hull Daily Mail.
(Image: Paul Gee)
Paul said: “Someone said, there’s a café open, go get yourself something to eat and drink. I can’t remember which café but it was nearby; there was nothing left but a couple of apples.
“We picked them up with a cup of lukewarm tea. The bloke wanted a quid each for these apples – bear in mind this was 1990, a quid for an apple – so we stood there, drank our tea and told him where to stick his apples.
“I think he wanted paying for the tea as well but you don’t carry money in your fire kit. We could have paid him in mint imperials, though.” The firemen were finally stood down around midday.
Paul served with the fire brigade for 20 years, three of them in North Yorkshire. He now runs fire safety courses for companies, and first-aid and fire extinguisher training.
He said: “I don’t see Micky that often – he lives at Melbourne, near York, and I’m near Thorne – but whenever we do meet, we say, have you got any mints left? For a few weeks after the fire, we kept finding them in our kit.”
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