Denmark Place: London's forgotten fire that killed 37 people

In 1980, the area in London's Charing Cross Road near the junction with Oxford Street where the new Tottenham Court Road station stands, was a hotbed of unlicensed drinking clubs. The police were always closing them down, but they always seemed to open up again under new management.

On Monday 18 August, they were due to close down a South American club named Rodo's and a Spanish night club, El Hueco, the Hole, which occupied the upper floors of a building in Denmark Place, behind Denmark Street, 'Tin Pan Alley', once the heart of London's rock scene.

Just after 3.30 in the morning on Saturday, 16 August, Soho fire station, just a few hundred yards away, got a call to say the Denmark Place building was on fire. The fire brigade had not even known of the clubs' existence. There were about 150 people inside, what should have been escape routes were locked, and the fire had spread so fast that some people died with drinks still in their hands.

As for those who got out, some were illegal immigrants and melted away into the night, including quite a few who seemed quite badly injured. A man was later convicted of deliberately starting the fire, and died in prison. For more, see my book London's Disasters from Boudicca to the Banking Crisis (The History Press).

Quoting the book and an interview that I did in 2015, the Daily Express has just published an article marking the 44th anniversary of the fire

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1945243/John-Thompson-uk-biggest-mass-murderer-denmark-place-fire

A couple of caveats about the article. The title of 'Britain's biggest mass murderer' has surely now been taken by Harold Shipman, while Grenfell now has the unenviable record of being London's worst fire since the Blitz.