Candida Charmaine Clark, Strand
On Monday September 2, the day started out in the way only our little nook of Strand in the False Bay area could… spring was in the air and there was a general feeling of new beginnings, spring cleaning, etc.
I ventured out on my nippy scooter with built in air-conditioning, to sort out some smartphone difficulties.
And then the most hair-raising thing happened. From Somerset West where my dad stays, he could see a thick plume of black smoke coming from the general direction of my block of flats, Ottavia Court.
Within seconds I had my dad phoning me to ask if it was our building burning down?
I immediately dropped everything to get back to my building.
Even yelling through a full face helmet for cars to get out of my way, obviously this is immediately ironic, but I was in panic mode.
Finally arriving at my building, I could see that the awful fire was coming from the mechanic’s workshop behind Reliable Motors.
Fortunately no one was injured, and it was a case of it looked worse than it was in reality.
I would like to give a big shout out and sincere thanks to the gentleman who I don’t know, who helped me to get my scooter up on the sidewalk so that emergency services could do their work, and managed, by his calm presence to calm me down too.
At least to the point where I could breathe normally again.
Although the fire was damaging to the workshop, and this is incredibly unfortunate, at least no lives were lost.
Thank you gentle stranger for helping me to calm down amid the chaos, whoever you are, you were my “Super-man” that afternoon.
I’m glad I could at least share my story.
It’s given me a little more hope in a world where people have been so desensitised to crime, tragedy, or even helping a woman on the side of the road.
People look the other way, but this one gentleman chose not to look away, and helped me.
Send letters, news and photographs to the editor, Carolyn Frost, by Fridays at noon, to bolander@inl.co.za
