Roseville Road Fire

[mhoulden]

The thread about the Woolies fire reminded of another building fire. In the early 80s my mum was a playgroup leader and was involved with playgroups around Harehills and Chapeltown. I was actually the right age to attend playgroup in my own right, which is probably one of the reasons my mum took the job so she could work and look after me at the same time. From what I remember quite a lot of them were in temporary places like disused theatres and under-occupied offices. One in particular was at a community centre of some kind on Roseville Road. I was there one day when the fire alarm went off and we all went outside thinking it was a fire drill. Later it turned out that it was a real fire and the place had burned down. This would probably have been about 1981-2, before I started at nursery. Because I was so young I don't remember a lot about it, except that the building was a relatively new single storey place with quite a large yard/car park and there were a few businesses there as well as our playgroup. I also vaguely remember it probably wasn't too far from Thomas Danby college. Not a lot of detail but I'd be interested to know if anyone has any details about the fire or the building. Evacuating a load of kids from a fire that razed the place to the ground must have been a pretty major event.