At the time of the incident it was only Tanya’s sixteen year old daughter Gabriella who was at home, while she and the other children Rocco, Renz and Ralphi and husband Phil were out.
“My daughter, who is 16, was in and was just about to go in the treadmill downstairs and had put her earphones in ...,” says Tanya, reliving the terrifying moment her daughter could have been unaware of the fire ripping through the house.
“Gabriella rang me; she was in the street in her pajamas shouting ‘fire, fire, fire.’ I was just like ‘what do you mean?’, you don’t expect it. I thought it was a little thing. I told her to ring our caretaker but she was like ‘no mum, the house is ON FIRE.’”
“We have lost everything, but I am not even bothered about that. I was just so so grateful that my daughter was alright,” she continued. “Everyone kept saying about the house, but I was like ‘it doesn’t matter, it's fine.’ “We’ve only lost material things, no sentimental stuff. So we are lucky in that way.”
Tanya reveals that the incident has affected the whole family, particularly affected her youngest son Ralphi who has since started wetting himself. After the fire, her children went to stay with her mom, while she and husband Phil went from hotel to hotel.
“She’s 16 so they just bounce back at that age. But all of us, even now we can still smell burning, it’s weird,” she explained. “The other children were really upset, just hearing the word fire,” she says. "We thought the little one didn’t have a clue but then he kept wetting himself and he never does that. But once he got back with us and was settled, he was fine.”
“Phil was devastated because he designed the house and had it all built from scratch, it’s his baby.”
The family have since then reunited and are renting a house from one of Phil’s footballer mates, but it could still be another six months before they get back into their own home. Despite the loss of their home caused by the fire, Tanya is surprisingly upbeat and reveals it has really changed her outlook on life.
“I actually feel strangely fine,” she told The Sun. “I am just thinking about what we have and how grateful I am. It could have been so much worse. Because of the heatwave there was another house fire the day before and someone died so I am just so grateful that my daughter is safe,” she added. “Since the fire, I don’t cling onto stuff, I just think life’s too short.”
Photo Credit: ITVBe
