Emergency services attend a house fire in Willow Avenue, Stoke on Thursday. He jumped in the car and halfway home, saw the smoke change from black to white, which he knew meant the house was being doused with water. “I turned up, watching my mates trying to put it out, it is pretty devastating actually. “I got here, there were still plumes of smoke, firefighters had only just made entry by that stage, there was only so much they could do.” The house was gutted and Rees, his partner Sian Kerr and their flatmates lost everything in the fire, apart from some jewellery that survived the heat, a few momentoes and some melted pieces of Lego, “that might sit on a shelf one day”.