AN HEROIC police constable who rescued a young couple from Bournemouth’s burning coach station has told his story – 37 years later.

Peter Owen was among the readers who contacted us after an Echoes feature last month about the bus and coach station and the fire which wrecked it.

He was on the scene before the fire brigade in the early hours of July 25 1976 and went into the smoke-logged underground coach station in Exeter Road.

“I was out on the patrol. I think I was driving the panda car and a call came up,” he said.

“I saw from the entrance all the smoke coming out from underneath.

“Another policeman was there already and I suggested he went inside with me. He declined the offer. I don’t blame him for that.”

It was difficult to see anything in the coach station, but Peter knew the building well enough to realise there was a handrail running around the edge.

“I got about 25-30 yards and shouted and somebody shouted back,” he said.

“I made my way to where they were shouting from.”

The young couple had attempted to get out at the other side of the station without success.

Peter remembers that glass was exploding in the coaches around them and the smoke was covering them in black debris.

With his hand still on the rail, he led the couple to safety. The whole drama lasted less than 10 minutes, he said.

“We were taken to Poole Hospital. I wasn’t detained in the hospital. I spent the rest of the night in there and was allowed to go in the morning.

“I don’t remember seeing the fire brigade. We were in and out before they arrived,” he added.

Peter, who retired from the force in 1994, after 30 years’ service, received a police commendation for the rescue.

The only other recognition he received was a letter delivered to the police station by the couple, whose names were Linda and Ross. It said: “Thank you so much for all you did in helping us out of the bus station on Saturday night.”

A postscript added: “I hope your wife didn’t wallop you for the state of your shirt.”

Peter thinks the smoke would have soon overcome the pair.

“The fire brigade could have arrived but I would have thought with the density of the smoke, they wouldn’t have lasted very long in there.”

But he is reluctant to call his actions heroism. “I just thought I’d go in and make sure nobody else was about. It didn’t seem heroic at the time,” he said.

 

• Fireman fought the flames

RETIRED firefighter John Torrent has told of the scene that confronted him on the morning of the bus station blaze.

Mr Torrent, 88, was a watch manager at Redhill fire station. He was on duty at 9am to relieve the crews who had been there since the blaze broke out in the early hours.

“It was a matter of what we used to call turning over and damping down,” he said.

He said the blaze was a huge event in the life of the town. “Everybody knew Bournemouth bus station. People who went on trips out to Bournemouth, that was where they arrived,” he said.

“It was quite a shocking thing at the time. We didn’t have any idea whether it was going to be rebuilt or not. There was quite an amount of damage.”

He lived next door to the fire station – in the same house he lives in today – and remembers his late wife and daughter ensuring the crew had a meal to come back to.

“My wife and daughter went across to the station and started peeling the potatoes and got stuff ready for us when we came back. We used to do our own cooking,” he recalls.

Firefighters had spent much of that record-breaking hot summer dealing with heath blazes.

“In that year we notched up 100 shouts. We all had a little party at the station. Bus station fires don’t break down all the time but the heath fires do break out, as soon as the schools break up.”

 

• Blue coach stands the test of time

TRANSPORT enthusiast Brian Traves became the owner of this Royal Blue coach, seen here exiting Bournemouth’s coach station in 1953.

The 1951 coach used to run from London Victoria to the likes of Bournemouth, Penzance and Ilfracombe After its retirement, the coach was acquired by an ex-Royal Blue employee, but stood in a garden at Queens Park for 10 years before Mr Traves bought it in 1978.

“I was with my chum and we were saying ‘What a terrible thing that lovely old coach is getting more and more derelict all the time’.

“I decided to go round and knock on his door and say ‘We’d like to buy it’. He said ‘It’s not for sale. Why do you want it?’ “About three days later he phoned up and said ‘You can have it’.”

Mr Traves paid £250 for the coach and restored it to its original condition.

He ran the coach for the best part of 10 years, going to vintage meetings and even on camping holidays. The coach – a Bristol chassis and engine with a Duple body – is currently being restored again in Coventry.