Welcome inn as pub rises from the ashes after blaze

IT WAS just a normal night in a normal Welsh pub.

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James Tanner and his wife have run the Smiths Arms in Foelgastell for 17 years

The landlords locked up at closing time, their children asleep upstairs, and prepared for another day.

But after they'd switched everything off and made their way to bed, something terrible happened downstairs.

A basket full of cloths caught fire. Smoke built up, and soon flames crackled, as the family of four slept soundly in their beds.

"It was a Sunday night - October 22, 2023," recalled James Tanner, who along with his wife, Jay, owns the Smiths Arms in Foelgastell, a village 10 miles east of Carmarthen.

"We closed up at around 10.30pm and went to bed as normal. My wife woke at around 4.45am and realised there was no power in the building. She just thought something had tripped a fuse, but when she got to the bottom of the stairs she noticed all the smoke. She then ran back up the stairs screaming."

James' and Jay's first thought was the safety of their daughters, so they got them out of bed and helped them escape from the two-storey building via a window which backed onto a flat roof at the rear of the property.

The two children had at that point spent their whole lives living above the Smiths Arms. Suddenly they were standing in the car park in the darkness, waiting for firefighters to arrive.

With his wife and daughters safe outside, James sat on a window ledge while talking on the phone to the emergency services.

"My mother, who lives locally, came down with a key because my next priority was saving our cat, Tigger, who lived downstairs," said James. "A fireman who lives in the village also made his way down. I wanted to go in and get Tigger but he warned me about going back into the property.

"The flames had taken hold quite severely by the time the fire service arrived and obviously we feared the worst for the cat, and by the time firefighters found her inside she had died.