Sunday 12 August 2012

Harrow and Wealdstone Train Crash 1952

Bournemouth Daily Echo dated Friday October 10th 1952
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This 3 train pile-up happened on 8th October 1952 at Harrow and Wealdstone station when a stationery train waiting in the station was hit by a through express. The resultant wreckage was then hit by another express travelling in the opposite direction. The final death toll was 112 with 340 people injured,

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19 year-old trainee footman Harold Winstanley bought an ex-World War II 9mm Schmeisser machine pistol and some ammo from a friend to hunt rabbits, but instead walked into his employer’s house, Knowsley Hall, and murdered 2 people and wounded 2 others including Lady Derby. He then had a pint at the local before giving himself up to the police. He was found guilty but insane and sent to Broadmoor Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

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Pianist Leslie ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson was one of the World’s biggest cabaret stars during the 1920s and 30s. Finding fame in New York he moved to Paris and then London where he became notorious as the black man who had affairs with various white actresses and even, it was rumoured, Royalty. He died in comparative obscurity in 1969 and only a handful of people attended his funeral.

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You have to remember it was a different age – innocent but cruel.

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Those were the days when throwing an iron bar into a tree and having it land on your head didn’t lead to your parents suing the Local Council for letting a tree grow there in the first place; just a wiser kid.


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“By Gad, Sir! Bopping and jiving in Bournemouth! Whatever next? What’s wrong with the Black Bottom? Never did me and the memsahib any harm. Pass the hip-flask!”

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And what would Wernher Von Braun know about rockets? Well he did design and oversee the building of the V1 and V2 German rockets that killed so many people in London during World War II. Luckily for the US Space Program he was whisked off to America by the OSS before British Military Intelligence could get hold of him and wring his neck.
By the way his prediction was 8 years and about $23billion out.


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The joy! The tears! The spectacle! Who can forget the 1952 version of that agricultural blockbuster (loud fanfare) ‘Soil Fertility’?

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This was before the great boom in TV sales brought on by the Coronation in 1953, so the TV salesmen really had to work at it. But what could they show potential customers to lure them into parting with the equivalent of 6 months’ wages?

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Not a lot! 1 channel, black and white and broadcasting for less than 5 hours a day.

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And only this to watch it on.

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As Francis Urquhart often said, "I couldn't possibly comment."




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