🔥 Fire Safety Lessons
Lessons to keep you and your family safe in an emergency, West African folklore restored, Yendy Skincare offer & Discounted event tickets
I deleted the first version of this intro to my monthly email.
The day I’d planned to edit that email, an alarm woke me up round 5.30am.
I tried to ignore it. I’d slept badly for a few nights with one or the other twin waking in the night, but when I reached for my husband and realised he wasn’t there, I knew I had to deal with the alarm.
Sometimes my husband goes for a swim or a prayer walk after his morning coffee, so I called him on my watch to check if he was in the house.
“You okay?” he answered.
“Can you hear the alarm?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s a car alarm. Don’t worry, it’s not ours. Try to get some rest.”
I tried. But then 2 minutes later, the unmistakable odour of burning reached me. I called again.
“Babe, I can smell something burning, can you check?”
“Sure.”
I listened in silence, all senses heightened as he put down his coffee mug and opened the living room door.
“CALL 999,” he yelled, “get the kids, GET OUT OF THE HOUSE.”
I jumped up and immediately grabbed my phone and called the emergency services. As I called I flung open my door then panicked and shut it as a dementor-like wall of hot, black smoke came at me.
The stench of burning had whispered go investigate, the smoke screamed this is life or death.
I stood by my door trying to steady my breathing whilst giving our address to the call handler. Explaining the situation was more reality than I could process; our 4 tiny children were asleep in a home that was on fire.
I managed to push past the fear and run to each of my children’s bedrooms through the dark, smoke-filled house. When we rushed out of the front door and the fresh air filled my heavy lungs, I could have cried for joy that everyone made it.
We were lucky. We got everyone out. My husband managed to extinguish the worst part of the fire so the kids and I could escape and the fire engines arrived just 6 minutes after my frantic call. An ambulance followed shortly after. The damage was manageable.
As I stood outside my smoke-filled house clutching my twins with my older two children clinging to me as we all shivered in our pyjamas, I thought of Grenfell.
I thought of the 72 avoidable deaths and of the terror those who lived there must have faced when they felt their own searing smoke dementors arrive with the toxic fumes that would claim many lives.
My heart aches for those affected so I’ve donated to the Grenfell foundation, which you can support here.
In this month’s email:
Project Updates: Tough Mum Dem Lessons 💜
What I'm Learning: How to Survive a Fire 🔥
What I'm Loving: Yendy Skincare Offer 😍
Short Stories: The Day A Stranger Visited Adanko 📚
Events & Opportunities: More Free tickets for Masters of Scale at UK BBShow, 15% off Sat Tix & 15% off Southbank’s Evening with Sarah Koenig 🎙️
Project Updates
I have learnt so much about podcasting the hard way.
Honestly, some people make it look easy, but it isn’t.
For Mum Dem Pod, we record in bulk and in one of our early sessions we rented professional mics in a studio and recorded the video on our phones. Three devices for different angles and for backups. We took every precaution, just in case something went wrong.
It turned out everything went wrong.
That day, the mics stopped working after our test recording. Trains were delayed so some of our guests were behind schedule. For each episode, something malfunctioned with a different phone so there was no consistent video footage. It was almost enough to put us off completely.
Thankfully we had a great editor who pulled together audio from one phone with visuals from another, but it was so disappointing to have our hard work not come together the way we’d envisioned it.
Listening rates were high with little effort for our pilot, but then tapered off as we began to release Season 1 and we were unsure as to whether the audio quality (fixed for the rest of the season) had an impact…
We’ve had amazing feedback and we know people love the pod, we’ve planned a Season 2 and begun to talk to sponsors… but if I’m completely honest, there is a chance that my co-hosts and I may give our all to podcast... and it may not work. And that is okay.
It feels hard to type that, but also a relief. We can work hard on projects with good intentions, but we can’t know for sure what will work out and what won’t.
I hope this one works.
Here’s the latest:
All episodes are available on Youtube, Spotify and Pocket Cast and our links are here. If you haven’t already, please do give us a follow, a like and a share!
(More on the secret project in a month or so… now there are 2, but one is a spin off.)
What I'm Learning
In the days since the house fire, I’ve learnt a huge amount about fire safety and I recorded a video with some of those tips.
Other things the fire brigade told me are:
Never sleep with a phone under your pillow, lithium batteries have been known to explode.
Always shut all doors at night – it’s the smoke that kills in a fire and a closed door with a rolled up towel or jumper used to block the bottom will keep you safe in a room for around 30 minutes, giving the fire services enough time to rescue you through a window.
Clear corridors every night and switch off lights and sockets not in use. This should be a normal part of your bedtime routine and will make it easier to escape quickly in an emergency whilst also reducing the risk of a fire.
What I'm Loving
My skin has been extra dry since the fire. Apparently this is normal as fire dries out the air in your house and compounds released by burning aren’t the most skin friendly.
Before it happened I started testing some skincare gifted to me by Yendy and I have a new favourite moisturiser.
I’ll record a review soon, for now let me just tell you that my eczema prone skin loves this moisturiser… I have tested so moisturisers (and hated most of them) but this was love at first touch.
The Super Shea Moisturiser sinks into the skin and feels like a soothing balm but without being greasy or sticky. Hours later I still want to stroke my face as it’s so soft and hydrated. Absolute keeper.
Use code RAE15 for 15% off all products and bundles
Short Stories
I started writing African folklore when my son became obsessed with Peter Rabbit and I wanted to introduce him to Brer Rabbit, the true “inspiration” for Peter.
The first one I wrote was a retelling of the Brer Rabbit tale I grew up being most familiar with; The Day A Stranger Visited Adanko is a story dear to my heart. I hope you like it too.
Events & Opportunities
Last month I announced that I’ll be speaking at the UKBBS (all welcome, whatever your background!) I gave away some free tickets and they went in a couple of minutes, in fact I had to get more to meet the demand.
The team at UKBBS are super generous, so if you missed it, I have a few more free spaces using code: MOS100
The free tickets will be available until next week or whenever they run out, so book quickly.
My talk is a small part of a much, much bigger event. To celebrate UK Black History Month, UK Black Business Show will be taking place 14-19 October, at their biggest venue yet: ExCel London.
The show will highlight the achievements and contributions Black businesses have made to the economy. Come along for cutting-edge insight and advice in entrepreneurship, leadership, soft skills and cultural development from some of the UK’s leading Black business owners.
Through exhibits, deep-dive workshops, interactive panels, and seminars delivered by industry pioneers, UK Black Business Show 2024 is a great opportunity for personal, professional and corporate development alongside over 15,000 attendees.
Please come along to support the future of Black Business. Get 15% off using code: UKBB15
*offer only applies to the Standard day Pass for UK Black Business Show on 19th October*
Tickets available on: https://www.ukblackbusinessshow.co.uk/
Very excited to have an exclusive offer from the Southbank Centre for a special part of Imriel Morgan’s International Women’s Podcast Festival. Use code: Rachael for 15% off.
Celebrate the 10th anniversary of Serial with Sarah Koenig, a podcast which changed the face of podcasting forever, in London Southbank Centre as part of the International Women's Podcast Festival.
Use code "Rachael" for 15% off tickets.
Ticket link: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/an-evening-with-sarah-koenig-10-years-of-serial/
For podcasters and creators looking to up your podcast game, discover what's on offer here from the free to access Global Voices virtual festival and the creators day with workshops and panels: https://festival.contentisqueen.org/
Hope to see you soon! And please, check your fire alarms. They could save your life.
That is very shocking, so glad to hear your family are safe and well. Please do take care. And thank you for the link to the charity.
I'm so happy you and your family made it out ok. Hope you're doing well Rachael :)