Baby joy for Derbyshire cafe owner whose home burned down in freak accident

Phil Eastwood, who runs Grindleford Cafe in the Peak District, and his wife Kirstie lost everything when their house burned down in July this year.

Their house, which was Phil's childhood home, set on fire after the sun shone into a glass on their back garden while the couple were at work during the summer heatwave. The glass then magnified the heat of the sun onto the decking, which set alight.

The blaze destroyed everything in the detached red brick Sheffield property, which was valued at £250,000, the couple were left with just the clothes they were standing up in. They lost everything they'd bought for their daughter Maggie, who was born just 15 days after the horror blaze, including baby clothes and a pram.

And Phil's pain has been compounded by the fact he can't raise his daughter in his childhood home that he inherited from his parents in December 2007 after his dad died.

He said: "I feel deeply saddened and heartbroken that I won't be able to raise Maggie in my family home. I always thought that when I had a child he/she would be brought up there just like I was and it would be their first place to call home.

"It was really scary to be honest because there was about four weeks left of the pregnancy. She was born two weeks after the fire, but at the time there was four to five weeks left of the pregnancy.

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"I was panicking really because I knew the baby was close to being born but I didn't expect it to be that close. I was devastated because I had lost my family home and then everything inside of it. We lost all of the baby clothes, even down to baby grows and nappies which are essential stuff."

Phil, 34, added: "We didn't get a new pram until the day she was leaving the hospital, so it was by a fine tooth comb. We ordered it online and it came the day she was leaving the hospital, so it was good timing really."

The new family are currently living in temporary rented accommodation, as their house will take around 12 to 18 months to rebuild.

Phil added: "We will be rebuilding the house eventually, but it's going to be a long process obviously. "I think the proposed plans will take around 12 to 18 months to get it back to how it was all conditioned. It has literally gone back to bare bricks, there is no roof on it and there is just four walls basically."

A Go Fund Me page was set up to help the couple, and it raised over £2,300 in less than 24 hours. The fundraiser is still taking donations, and now it has reached over £3,500.

Phil said: "It was overwhelming really, I didn't expect people to help as much and how fast it reached that mark. It was overwhelming and unbelievable to be honest. We are very grateful as well, as we didn't expect anything like that."

Visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/phil-and-kirstie to donate to their Go Fund Me page.