Outside and on the Esplanade the force of the blast, whilst carefully designed to shelter the crowded fields, the promenade parking zone was exposed; it was supposed to be empty, and although it was not a large blast, it did enough to disorientate. Mandy, Della and Beryl had been shielded by the car but Jack, as he was heading to look at a screen with his binoculars, was blown into the air and lost in the black pluming smoke.
‘Jack?’ Mandy shouted. ‘Jack, where are you?’ and she started to run into the smoke that clung to the road surface, but Jack was nowhere to be seen. Her phone sounded. ‘Del Boy, what happened?’ she shouted, her ears still ringing.
The phone was still on loudspeaker so they could all hear Del, ‘f**k knows, but one of the drilling rigs just went up. Are you all okay?’
