Forget it

Switzerland never will

“Fergheh’t,” the guy on the door of the nightclub in Victoria Street said to us four young students as we hoofed it half-cut up the street from the lower town on the Grassmarket, Edinburgh, late on a Friday night, or early on a Saturday morning.

The Grassmarket was often our stomping ground for a night out with a few haufs an’ heavies (whisky and dark ale). Charlie would stand atop the walls of the wynd that leads up to the Castle, and pee imperiously like some splendid water-spouting monument, and as we whistled and encouraged him with catcalls, he’d calmly look down at us and say, “Excuse me, would you mind not peeking?” We’d call in at the chippie next to the Burke & Hare and buy deep-fried Mars bars, deep-fried pizza or just chips smothered in salt and sauce. Robert was once outraged at his maladroit consumption of this street repast, as he dropped a saucy chip on the flagstones of the Cowgate. “Bloody hell, not wasting a damned chip!” said he as he stooped to retrieve it and dangled it into his mouth like some lemon-drenched oyster.

This particular night, we were a little the worse for wear. We were rarely heading homeward before at least the fifth pint, which went partly to explain the need for Charlie to relieve himself on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle.

On the night in question, we made our bid to have a last one for the road (the remainder of which was only about 200 yards long, to our halls at Edward Salvesen on the Royal Mile), but the bouncers had other ideas, which is when they uttered their dismissive “Fergheh’t”, which is Edinburgh-at-three-o-clock-on-a-Saturday-morning-ese for “Forget it.”

Hugh was from Wiltshire and had attended Marlborough School, and only needed a monocle to have done a fine portrayal of Wodehouse’s Jeeves, or Frank Richards’s Lord Mauleverer: “I say, old chap, no need to be so dismissive. We’ve been kicked out of better places than this dump, I can assure you!” which pretty much sealed our exclusion for the night and probably for ever more, though I can’t recall us ever putting it to the test.

A decade and more later I was being admitted to nightclubs somewhat more readily. Sometimes I was scantily clad; and sometimes the shenanigans that went on inside these clubs would likely have made your toes curl. They were filled with sweaty bodies and trays of shots and probably plenty of little baggies of white powder. The beat would thump. Thump, thump, thump, thump. I remember being at Jails in Mannheim once, just watching the throbbing mass of flesh on the dance floor, lost in the magic of euphoric trance music, one Greek god in particular just grooving endlessly to the rhythm, transported away in his euphoria. Conversation entailed yelling, screaming what few words you could transmit at all, directly into the ears of the person you were talking to. Most communication was done with the eyes and body gestures. Vocal communications were for the telephone numbers afterwards, if that. From the laser shows on the dance floor to the relative quiet of an upstairs bar, off which would lead a dark passage, a narrow staircase, and the lighting would dim, and dim, and dim, until, the music’s droning now but a distant thud, finally pitch blackness was reached and, as it was, a strange sensation would come over me, something like “What the hell do I do now if this place goes up in flames?”

If any kind of danger was on anyone’s mind in a place like that in an instant like that, it would be the possibility of being burned by a carelessly held cigarette, or having gin and tonic spilled on your boots. The truly cautious would be protecting themselves against sexually-transmitted disease. But no one, I can guarantee to you, had the foggiest idea where the nearest fire extinguisher was located, and I include the barman in that.

There has never been a fire in any bar, nightclub or even hotel in which I have stayed. Not whilst I was there. Not to the best of my knowledge. But, being a tour guide, it was always one of my briefing points to tell everyone wherever we bedded down for the night to ensure they knew where the nearest fire exit was; and it’s a habit I have to this day. I look for fire exits, wherever I am: on aeroplanes, in hotels, in office buildings, even in courtrooms. My house has five fire extinguishers in it, which I have never needed, and intend never to need. But intention is not always the deciding factor.

By Unidentified eyewitness - Original publication: Various European media, this copy was taken from a Der Bund article linked to below.Immediate source: https://www.derbund.ch/crans-montana-loesten-wunderkerzen-den-brand-aus-577658435824, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82016573.

The Swiss town of Crans-Montana, as well as the entire Helvetic Confederation, are in deep mourning, and I am in deep mourning with them. So many young people who simply wanted a night out, celebratory fun and excitement, among others of their kind, of their generation. To celebrate a new year of living, and a new year of life; to have it all end within a few hours in eternal death. Another tragedy of the young, to add to a litany of such horrors: Cocoanut Grove, Boston, 1942; Club Cinq-Sept, France, 1970; Colectiv, Bucharest, 2015.

One common theme in nightclub fires is that many of them start when someone starts a fire in them, be it a cigarette, or a sparkler, or a firework. And it looks as if the disaster at Le Constellation was also caused by indoor pyrotechnics. But, when you’ve have five pints and maybe a snort of something for the weekend, and your spirits are raised in a company of wild friends, which one of you, when faced with the choice of lighting an indoor firework, or poo-pooing the joyous atmosphere, is going to say, be it in whatever dialect, “Forget it”?

I don’t honestly think you can stop people partying in party places. It’s what they’re for, and it’s what people go there for. But you can educate them to know where the fire exit is. And we can educate our fire departments to go in and make sure there is one.

Nineteen-year-old Kenzo Ronnow relates how he learned of the conflagration on his mobile phone and how his flatmate was immediately concerned for her brother. The young brother was thankfully okay. But, like Ronnow and his flatmate, shocked.

“But what has been super shocking for me and a lot of others is that, even though the attention has been on Le Constellation, it could easily have happened elsewhere. When I go to a nightclub it is really common to see bottles with sparklers. There’s now a big push to check safety regulations, but people are thinking: ‘It could have been me.’”

I’ve been to nightclubs. Cramped, crowded, compressed, convivial, complacent, compacted, cocaine-fuelled nightclubs, in London, Lucerne, Lausanne, Geneva, or Florence.

Any one of them could have been me.