Help Heather after a terrible fire - 4 cats died!

PLEASE HELP

I'm Kathleen and I've set up this GoFundMe for Heather Lennox. Following a devastating council flat fire just before Christmas Heather has lost everything she owned, and four of her six much loved cats sadly died in the blaze.

Imagine starting 2023 having lost four of your beloved pets, every single possession, your mother's ashes and your home.

She’s also very traumatised by what happened and is yet to be rehomed by Camden Council. Heather has so far been moving around temporary hotel accommodation, still suffering from the after-effects of smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning, uncertain of what the future holds.

Heather now needs to start to work her way towards a new future, starting from absolute scratch. She needs to find the strength and support to continue. Her chief concern is and has always been with her cats (whilst she has found two dead cats, she has yet to recover two of the other bodies from the flat), and has been unable to get professional assistance to do this. Whilst determined to keep going back in sadly Heather is not in any condition to do so yet.

Heather lost so much more besides this, including her mother's and a dear friend Jack's ashes, her fish, a 33 year-old antique book collection, all her fabrics, and oil paints, and her beloved sewing machine. For a creator and craftswoman, for someone who gives so generously of her time and is also a warm soul, I'm hoping that her friends, network and anyone who understands just how traumatic house fires can be can please give generously to provide practical assistance.

Your donations will help this wonderful person get herself back on her feet and buy the basics for a new home. But most of all - you will be helping someone who has lost everything so suddenly to gather up the hope and motivation to continue and to get some new security after this awful event. If you are a cat lover, someone who understands trauma, or has sadly experienced anything similar, any size of donation will help and be gratefully received.

Thank you in advance to everyone and not least to the people who are already providing generous acts of kindness to help.

Here’s what happened in Heather’s own words:

“I went across the street to a shop to buy a replacement extension plug as the socket wasn’t working. I came back ten minutes later to a flat entirely engulfed in thick black smoke. I ran into the fire to see where it was in case I might be able to do something to stop it, but realised it was already out of control. I ran to my nearest neighbour and pounded on their window to ask them to call the fire brigade. My phone was in the flat. I ran back into the fire and started shouting for my cats. Mercury! Minerva! Jupiter! Kitties! Come out! I felt Minerva at my leg, I grabbed her and took her to the nearest neighbour asking they take hold of her and keep her safe, as I was going back for my other cats. I ran in again shouting for Fairbairn and Sykes, but their brother Blades was the only one to appear next to me. I grabbed him and ran to the next nearest neighbour, demanding they take this cat right now, so I could go back in for more.

By this point I had been inhaling toxic smoke for between five and ten minutes. I lost track of time, and the space inside the flat I was searching for the cats seemed like an aeroplane hangar. I screamed their names, alone in this black smoke-filled room, but being shy house cats, they hid. Me and our flat was our safe place, and they went to their hiding places as that was all they would know how to do. I crawled across the flat to the living room window with the fire raging behind me and opened the window, hoping to give my other cats at least one more chance to find an exit.

By then the fire brigade arrived and ordered me out. I stood at the bottom of the building with my neighbours and watched a fireball explode out of my flat. Knowing my cats were in there, my heart just broke. My mother’s ashes were in the flat, waiting to be interred back in Massachusetts. She was a midwife and a nurse for nearly 45 years. My best friend’s ashes were also in the flat. He had served in the Special Boat Services and combined operations as a Royal Marines commando in Kosovo, and the Falklands Islands. The pandemic had held back the return of their ashes to America and Cornwall respectively.

I’ve lost my four dear family members, Mercury, Jupiter, Fairbairn and Sykes, my beautiful black and white rescue cats. The apples of my eye. The little beings I was always excited to get home to be with. They were all eight years old. I also lost my goldfish, who was nine years old. I also loved him, and the zen of taking care of him. I suffered carbon monoxide poisoning and nearly died according to my doctor, but at the time it was the last thing on my mind. I lost all sense of time in the fire and then in hospital. I was wide awake for three days, I only wanted to find my cats so I could at least attend to a respectful cremation of them. I’ve been abused and disregarded extensively by my housing authority. Today they tried to throw out all my belongings without even allowing me time to try and find my unburnt belongings. Now I have flashbacks where any room I am in will look as though it is filling up with smoke.”