A Selsey Blaze – Bognor Regis Post – 28 August 1925

A Selsey Blaze- On Saturday morning, about 4.20 am, a disastrous fire broke out at the Pavilion, High Street, Selsey. Mrs A Hobden of ‘Bryer’, High Street, discovered the fire and her elder son went quickly to call Mr Maidment, who, with the help of his two sons, fetched the Selsey Parish fire appliances, while her younger son went to arouse Mr F W Phipps, who, accompanied by Mr C E Smith, and the help of PC Osman, Mr Maidment and his sons, immediately tackled the situation. In spite of the falling slates, melted lead, plaster and timber, they forced their way to the balcony, with the fire raging a few feet above their heads, and were successful in their efforts to extinguish the main outbreak before the arrival of the Chichester Fire Brigade, efforts being unsuccessful to cancel the call, as they were already on their way. On their arrival, they found very little work to do, except for the matter of seeing that there were no further outbreaks. Great credit must be given to the following who willingly helped to extinguish the fire and thus saved serious damage being done to the surrounding and adjoining properties: Mr L Maidment sen., Mr L Maidment, jun., Mr P Maidment, Mr C E Smith, Mr J Bilson, PC Osman, Miss Homer, and members of the ‘Delight’ Concert Party. The front part of the building was very badly burnt, including the box-office, right hand side staircase to balcony, and more than three parts of the roof destroyed. During the evening there had been the well-known Concert Party ‘Delight’, in their performance from 8.15 to 10.15pm, and from 10.30pm until 3am a dance was in progress organised by the Selsey Golf Club, and attended by a large number of people. It is thought that a cigarette end had been dropped or carelessly left on one of the upholstered seats or a window ledge in the balcony, caused the fire. The concert party were fortunately able to save all their effects without damage, except for being badly smoke-stained, and by the kind permission of the Right Rev. Bishop T C Twitchell, they were able to give their final performance in the Church Hall on Saturday evening. We understand that the property was covered by insurance with the Phoenix Assurance Co. Ltd. Much sympathy is felt locally and by the visitors with the owners, especially Mr E D Phipps, part owner and manager, who since taking over the building has provided Selsey residents and visitors alike with varied, enterprising entertainments, far superior to those given in larger towns, such as cinema performances, dances, whist drives, high class concert parties, orchestral and minstrel entertainments, socials, home of the Selsey Women’s Institute, for meetings, etc., and available at any time for charitable entertainments of any description, with novel items always at hand from suggestions made by Mr Phipps, who never seems tired of making any enterprise a success. Although the Pavilion is a tiny building, Mr Phipps has somehow been able to bring star attractions from the London Coliseum, etc., such as G P Huntley and Co., Nelson Keys and Co. , on two occasions, the Russian Ballet, Harry Tate and Co., Gwen Farrar and Billy Mayerl. The Pavilion is noted for record bookings time after time every seat being booked in the house. We trust Mr Phipps will soon recover from his injuries received during the fire, and are certain his efforts will now be redoubled to get things going again.