SPECTATORS who stood watching a huge fire at Abingdon didn’t realise they could have been in danger themselves.

The fire broke out at May’s Stores in West St Helen Street in October 1961.

Staff at Pearce’s decorating shop across the road in Lombard Street thought they were standing far enough away to see the blaze safely.

What they had forgotten was that a few hours before, Pearce’s had had a huge delivery of paraffin which had been pumped into tanks in the basement below them!

Fortunately, firemen managed to prevent the fire spreading and the onlookers survived.

This is one of the many memories of Gladys Carter, now nearly 90, who has lived in Abingdon all her life.

Mrs Carter – known to everyone as Auntie Glad – grew up in Edward Street and left the county council school – now Carswell School – on her 14th birthday to start work at Duce, the greengrocers in High Street, at 10 shillings (50p) a week.

During the Second World War, she worked in a laundry in Wilsham Road, then after the war, joined Pearce’s, where she was paid £1 a week more. She worked there well into her seventies.

In her younger days, she recalls spending her spare time ballroom dancing at the Corn Exchange – Victor Silvester and his orchestra once played there – seeing silent movies at Thatcher’s cinema – known locally as the fleapit – and playing tennis at Albert Park.

During the war, she and her family made frequent visits to the air raid shelters near their home – Abingdon airfield was constantly under threat of enemy attack.

Wardens would tour the streets and if they saw any light through windows, they would bang on doors and shout: “Black it out!”

Mrs Carter, whose maiden name was Johnson and who now lives at Mayott House care home in Ock Street, Abingdon, remembers seeing the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 with 20 other people on a nine-inch TV screen at her sister’s home in Exbourne Road.

She also recalls street parties to celebrate the Coronation and the end of the war.

Another memorable occasion was seeing the giant R100 airship passing over Faringdon Road.

It crossed the county twice in January, 1930, but the concept of airship travel was shortlived. Its sister ship, the R101, crashed nine months later near Paris on its maiden flight to India, with the loss of 47 lives.