THE story of the blaze at St Michael at the Northgate Church in Oxford brought a reminder of another serious fire in the city.

The interior of the ABC cinema in George Street, formerly the Ritz, was wrecked after the evening performance on March 11, 1963.

Investigations showed that the likely cause was a lighted cigarette or pipe dropped by a cinemagoer setting fire to a seat.

Firemen called from the fire station just a few yards away found the heat inside the building unbearable and were able to fight the blaze for only five minutes at a time.

Wearing breathing apparatus, they worked in pairs, joined together by lengths of cord in the dense smoke.

Five fire engines and a turntable ladder were used, and the fire was under control in an hour.

The £600 screen collapsed, the back stalls, where the fire is believed to have started, were burned out and the circle was severely damaged. Heat and smoke blackened the walls and ceiling.

Damage was put at more than £30,000.

The alarm was raised by a policeman and a passerby, both of whom saw smoke coming from the building late at night and called the fire brigade.

They were later praised for their vigilance – but for them, it was said, the fire could have assumed “major proportions”.

The blaze, however, did have a silver lining. The owners decided to take full advantage and provide Oxford with a fully- modernised cinema, which opened later that year.

The fire broke out almost 10 years after St Michael’s Church was wrecked in a blaze (Memory Lane, August 6).