Annie Price relieved to learn truth of horrific fire

The mixed-race daughter of an Irish Traveller mother has told how she grew up believing her mother set fire to her as a tiny baby because she was born after an out-of-wedlock affair with a black British man.

Tue, 08 Aug, 2017 - 01:00

Lynne Kelleher

In a BBC documentary, Annie: Out of the Ashes, 30-year-old Annie Price goes on a search for the truth behind her horrific burns three decades after the fire which engulfed her as she lay sleeping in a caravan in Mitcham, London, in 1986.

After the fire, the badly burned baby defied all expectations by surviving the incident and was taken into care and later adopted by a white, non-Traveller family in England.

The personal trainer, who suffered third-degree burns to most of her body, resulting in a lifetime of operations, wanted to find the truth before marrying her fiancé Sam in the coming year.

“I was born into a gypsy family. My mum was white and so was her husband and I came out black,” she tells the BBC Three documentary. “The story I was told that my mum put me into a caravan and set light to it so I guess she didn’t want me around.

“I wanted to look into my past. I’ve had so many other things to take on board, adoption, being burned, mixed race, I feel like a bit of a blur.

“People always ask me questions: ‘What happened your face, you look tanned, oh but you’re black, oh but your Irish, oh but your family are white,’ there are so many little bits and bobs.”

She says she didn’t blame her mother for what had happened to her as a baby and had a remarkably resilient attitude to her life in the aftermath of the burning.

“I kind of just felt bad for her and I don’t what kind of life she must have had,” says Annie.

“I grew up in a very happy house and very strong house in a way you would always be proud of who you are. I could have grown up with a lot of anger but what a waste of life. To be sad and angry, it would have been ridiculous, there would [be] no point in being saved at all.”

The documentary follows her emotional journey as she finds the fireman who was on the scene 30 years ago who gives her a very different account of the horrific fire which almost killed her.

It had been widely suspected by the gypsy community and the social worker that Annie’s birth mother, described as an “Irish gypsy”, left her alone in a caravan and set fire to it.

Her adoptive mother, Maggie, tells Annie in the documentary: “Social services always said if we thought we had grounds for prosecution we would be trying to prosecute but have no witnesses, no proof, but they never really believed it was a total accident.”

Another document by social workers says: “Biddy has, on two occasions, requested that Annie be placed for adoption on the grounds that a mixed race of uncertain parentage would not be accepted by the family and that both mother and child would be ostracised. She recognises her infidelity is of a most serious nature.”

But, after much searching, Annie finds a report saying she was in the caravan with her grandmother, Bridie — both asleep — when a gas fire set light to cushions in the caravan. When she finally tracks down the fireman, John Backers, he confirms her theory that it was an accident.

“It was expected by all accounts that you would not survive more than 24 hours or possibly two days,” he tells Annie.

“Your grandmother was taken to hospital with burned hands and you were taken elsewhere to a burns unit. As I arrived, the whole of the trailer van was alight and you had already vacated the van and been removed to hospital.”

Although the official investigation is lost, John believes the account in the local newspaper is correct.

“That information is normally obtained from the local fire station,” he says. “What I suspect happened is, because your grandmother’s hands burned, she obviously lifted you and carried you out from the van.”

Annie is also told that, in the 1980s, there were an average of 2,000 caravan fires in the UK, many of which were fatal. In fact, during the the documentary, it emerges that her birth mother died when Annie was 13 in a house fire after falling asleep in her flat.

She rang 999 and asked them to save her but died a week later in burns unit due to multi-organ failure because of 65% burns.

“It’s a very strange coincidence she died through third degree burns, the percentage I’ve got myself”, says Annie.

Annie’s granny died in 2005, taking her tale of what happened to the grave.

But at the end of the documentary, Annie is much more convinced what happened was a tragic accident.

“In light of everything that has happened, the bet is in my birth mother’s favour now. I’m glad I’ve done this. Never judge a book by its core, never just presume. Give everyone a chance.”