Package Holiday

Brendan Murphy

1984

Summer holidays were really important in those days. A whole group of us lads, going year after year to some or other part of Spain. We were 20 years old and it was 1984. It seemed to me then and it seems to me now, nearly 25 years later, that it would have been easier just to number those Spanish resorts, 'one', 'two', 'three' rather than give them the semi-exotic names of 'Benidorm', 'Palma de Majorca' and 'Llorett de Mar.' This year's turn was Llorett, or to be precise, Fenals a built-up suburb outside the town. It was a balmy and hot June day.

The day started as they all did on holiday, not so much with breakfast but with breakfast after lunch as not one of the six of us woke much before 2pm. We had the classic Scottish suntans that consisted of chalk white from too long in the shade or the bright red from too long in the sun; both hot to the touch. We had been out late the night before as we had every other night of the holiday.

It seemed to us that Llorett didn't have any sun; you see we never ever saw it.

The first thing we did each day was light the ancient gas boiler above the sink in our apartment. When I say apartment I really mean a 70s package holiday hotel that had re-invented itself in the 80s and installed a miniscule kitchenette in each room; instantly transforming it into an apartment that we Brits came back to year after year; designed exclusively for the 'Uno Paloma Blanca' mob. It seems strange that we gave up our reasonable sized houses and back gardens for a tiny rabbit-hutch apartment and then spent the next 12 months telling everybody just how beautiful and spacious it was. Anyhow, we took turns at lighting the boiler. We had to, because it was too scary to be left to one person for 14 days in a row. You see it made a loud bang each time we lit it. I don't mean the bang that a gas stove ring makes when it doesn't light as quickly as you might expect, I mean a real bang. We found it amusing; I think you might have too.

We went across the way from the apartments to a local bar; the same journey we made every afternoon for that most Spanish of dishes, the all-day English breakfast. This was washed down with McEwan's beer; because you could get that in Spain in those days and San Miguel wasn't available in Tesco's so we knew no better.

Bang! As we sat on the bar terrace. Then silence. As we looked across to our apartments, just one floor up, in an apartment that had just had its windows washed by a maid, there was silence. There was also smoke, flames and not much left of the window or door. Not two minutes earlier two girls and a woman had entered that apartment and the maid had just walked away. Bang; then silence. We waited and watched in horror. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, two charred and burned figures emerged from that room, covered in a grey ash. They walked up and down the balcony walkway making no noise. Nobody could do a thing. We rushed over with fire extinguishers and I gave others a hand up to the first floor to tackle the fire. We all tried to help. The ambulance came, it took absolutely ages, I think the girls and woman were taken away. We asked to be moved that night; we stood in a queue at the reception desk with all the others.

Nobody got moved; the holiday company didn't have the mass movement of over 100 parties in their costing model for two weeks in the sun. So we slept on the floor in reception; we didn't want to go back to the apartment. The hotel covered the burned-out apartment with sheets and we all carried on with our holiday. We were scared though to light the gas again.

We'd heard it had been a gas explosion caused by a spark when the apartment light had been switched on. The maid was lucky. The others were not.

They were Scottish, from Rutherglen I think.