In 1977 I produced a radio documentary for its 20th anniversary & interviewed 15 of the survivors. Many were people we know today, including a well know Catholic priest. He wasn’t at the time & was on the excursion with his girlfriend. The crash killed her and the trauma and things he saw the next day brought him to the priesthood.
Spoke with first-responders like the doctor who was on duty at Hargreaves Memorial hospital in Mandeville & a nurse. The train driver wanted to be interviewed then he died the week before. Everyone I interviewed said they were still haunted by the memory even though it happened 20 years before. Couple broke down and cried. Some we contacted refused to be interviewed & there were others who said it was the first they had talked about it in 20 years even to family.
A man who said he was the first photographer at the scene, turned up at the office one morning and showed me a stack of 8x10 black & white photos. I've never seen anything as gruesome but he was very proud of his work. Still remember the look on his face and ghoul comes to mind. Don’t know what became of him or most of the photos because they aren't in the Gleaner archives far as I know, & I don’t think he was a Gleaner photographer. The Gleaner published the ones we've seen but others he showed me couldn’t be published in any newspaper.
Oh my goodness!!! Your sharing this made the tragedy all the more real and present. I could never even imagine an experience that could hold the survivors in such crushing terror so so many years. Thanks for sharing this.
I LOVE those images! It was indeed a terrible tragedy. We have never picked up anyone near Kendal... didn't know there was a mass grave, though. That is really sad.
Then there was the Eventide fire. That was a mass grave too... So, so sad...
Indeed - quite sad. We seem to have a thing with mass graves. I remember for a long time, the mound of dirt on the corner of West kings House Road and Waterloo was known to be a site for victims of Cholera... so when they started building Fontana there ...there was outrage....
Oh goodness yes, I remember. First of all I think it was a used car lot for a while, and then... It was absolutely not good at all. Quite wrong in my view, I was one of the outraged ones!
Sharing my experience with the crash & survivors.
In 1977 I produced a radio documentary for its 20th anniversary & interviewed 15 of the survivors. Many were people we know today, including a well know Catholic priest. He wasn’t at the time & was on the excursion with his girlfriend. The crash killed her and the trauma and things he saw the next day brought him to the priesthood.
Spoke with first-responders like the doctor who was on duty at Hargreaves Memorial hospital in Mandeville & a nurse. The train driver wanted to be interviewed then he died the week before. Everyone I interviewed said they were still haunted by the memory even though it happened 20 years before. Couple broke down and cried. Some we contacted refused to be interviewed & there were others who said it was the first they had talked about it in 20 years even to family.
A man who said he was the first photographer at the scene, turned up at the office one morning and showed me a stack of 8x10 black & white photos. I've never seen anything as gruesome but he was very proud of his work. Still remember the look on his face and ghoul comes to mind. Don’t know what became of him or most of the photos because they aren't in the Gleaner archives far as I know, & I don’t think he was a Gleaner photographer. The Gleaner published the ones we've seen but others he showed me couldn’t be published in any newspaper.
Oh my goodness!!! Your sharing this made the tragedy all the more real and present. I could never even imagine an experience that could hold the survivors in such crushing terror so so many years. Thanks for sharing this.
I LOVE those images! It was indeed a terrible tragedy. We have never picked up anyone near Kendal... didn't know there was a mass grave, though. That is really sad.
Then there was the Eventide fire. That was a mass grave too... So, so sad...
Indeed - quite sad. We seem to have a thing with mass graves. I remember for a long time, the mound of dirt on the corner of West kings House Road and Waterloo was known to be a site for victims of Cholera... so when they started building Fontana there ...there was outrage....
Oh goodness yes, I remember. First of all I think it was a used car lot for a while, and then... It was absolutely not good at all. Quite wrong in my view, I was one of the outraged ones!