Crossroads: Bonfire night Motel fire

Anyone with a certain nervousness around bonfires and fireworks will have taken little comfort from the 1981 bonfire night episode of Crossroads.

As families prepared to set out for the nearest bonfire, the evening's episode of Crossroads played out. Motel staff were at their own bonfire party in the Motel grounds when disaster struck. As Jill Chance turns around from the bonfire, she sees the Crossroads Motel going up in flames.

"Oh my god! The Motel. It's on Fire!! Muuuuum...!!!"

And with that, the credits roll as the flames lick around the famous Motel reception.

Star character Meg Richardson/Mortimer (Noele Gordon) was originally thought to have been killed off in the fire. However, it later emerged that she'd done a runner and was found shacked up on the QE2 instead.

But, safe though Meg turned out to be, quite a few of us kept just that little bit greater a distance between ourselves and the bonfire that fireworks night..

First aired: 5 November 1981, ITV.