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From: Peter Armstrong <>
Subject: Re: 1917 Railway Accident, Bere Ferrers, Devon
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 07:27:18 +0100
References: <408EDC11.EF57B9B4@parmstrong20.freeserve.co.uk>


I'm sorry I had a senile moment and forgot that I couldn;t send
attachments. I have pasted the document in here, so orry for such a long
message.

Peter

72 years loyal to Kiwi dead
In 1917, 10 New Zealand soldiers lost their lives far from the front -
in a tiny village in Devon, BERNARD ORSMAN reports on the tragedy and a
recent church service which showed that the residents of Bere Ferrers
still cherish the memory of those serviceman.
Seventy-two years ago, twin sisters Frederica and Clara Liddle were
entertaining the local rector to tea with their mother when news of a
tragic accident reverberated around the tiny village of Bere Ferrers.
Only a few hundred metres away, the bodies of 10 New Zealand soldiers
lay strewn over a section of track. They had got out of their stationary
train only to be hit by another train coming in the opposite direction.
The accident never should have occurred, but from those few fatal
seconds at 3.53 pm on September 24, 1917, a kind of bond was sealed
between the 200 or so citizens of Bere Ferrers and New Zealand.
Now aged 83, Clara Liddle and Frederica Clemo were recently sitting over
a cup of tea recalling the incident to the New Zealand High Commissioner
to Britain, Bryce Harland. He had come to Bere Ferrers for a
rededication service to the soldiers at the 900-year-old St. Andrew's
Church.
As well as the twin sisters, Harland talked to the son of a guard on the
troop train and Ellen Hicks, a 92-year-old woman who was so saddened by
the loss of life that she would regularly travel the 20 km to Plymouth
to tend the soldiers graves.
Harland led the largest group of dignitaries Bere Ferrers had seen in
many years for the service.
The "Friends of St Andrew's" had decided the service should accompany
the rehanging of a brass plaque to the memory of the soldiers. The
rehanging was part of a nine-year restoration of St Andrew's, a tall
airy and cruciform Norman Church.
The Norman connection began when the de Ferrers settled in the area 900
years ago, and life in Bere Ferrers has been tranquil ever since -
except for the event on an autumn afternoon in 1917 which violently
shattered the calm.
Local Historian Gerry Woodcock says it began when a train full of New
Zealand troops, who had just arrived in the country, left Friary
Station, Plymouth, at 3 pm.
At 3.50 the train approached Bere Ferrers. The soldiers - raw, sick,
tired and above all hungry - were on their way to Salisbury Plain for
preliminary training.
They had breakfasted at 6 am and were told that rations would be
distributed on the journey.
The arrangement was that, when the train made its first stop, at Exeter,
two men from each carriage would collect provisions from the brake-van
together with cups of tea and buns provided by the Mayoress' Comforts
Fund.

As the train pulled into Bere Ferrers, the driver braked in response to
a signal, and made an unscheduled stop. It was 3.52 pm.
The train was a long one, and the last carriages had not reached the
platform. Some of the men in this rear section decided they must be in
Exeter and eager to break their 10-hour fast, they jumped down, ignoring
the "two from each carriage" instructions. Some of them spilled out of
the carriage doors on to the down-line track.
The Waterloo-to-Plymouth express had left Exeter on time that afternoon
at 2.12 pm.
It made its last stop at Tavistock. At 3.52 pm, as the troop train came
to a halt, the express made its approach to Bere Ferrers station.
The driver sounded the whistle in the normal way, and, seeing the
stationary train on the other track, prolonged the blast.
The track takes a sharp corner on its entry into Bere Ferrers and the
driver and fireman had little time to react as they passed through at 64
km/h (40 mph).
At 3.53 the engine of the express passed the rear of the troop train, a
split second before the fireman, Charles Thorn, shouted "Whoa! Soldiers
on the track."
The driver, John Skinner, immediately applied the brakes and the train
pulled up about 400m beyond the station.
There were blood marks on the side of the engine and the first coach.
One of the survivors later described the moment of impact: "We never
thought of express travelling at 40 miles per hour. They don't travel at
that rate in New Zealand.
"It was a wonder more of us were not killed. I saw the coat-tails of the
man in front of me fly up, and I picked his body up afterwards some
yards down the line."
Nine men were killed instantly and a 10th died in Tavistock Hospital the
following morning. They were aged between 20 and ??? Years. Several
others were injured.
An inquest revealed that the men hit got out of the train on the wrong
side simply because they assumed the door of entry was the correct door
of exit. A verdict of accidental death was recorded.
Bere Ferrers, which along with the nearby town of Bere Alston, lost 41
men in the First World War, went into mourning. A tablet was put up in
the church recording the names of the victims and memorial services were
held.
William Voaden, whose father was guard on the troop train, remembers the
day. Now aged 81, he can recall his father coming home: "he wasn't his
usual self and mother asked him why he was crying. He told us what had
happened."
At the service, the local rector, the Rev. Allan Wakefield, told a full
congregation sitting on finely carved Elizabethan pews: "Those senior
citizens who can remember the tragedy know the sadness which
overshadowed the whole of this parish."
After laying a wreath to the dead men, Privates William Gillanders,
William Greaves, John Jackson, Joseph Judge, ??? Warden, Sidney West,
Chudleigh Kirton, Baron McBryde, Richard McKenna and William Trussell -
Harland said: "The men who died in this frightful accident 72 years ago
died because they were showing their loyalty to what they thought of as
the mother country.
"I think that must have touched the people of Bere Ferrers at the time.
It touches me that the people of Bere Ferrers remember them 72 years
later.
"I think their loyalty to their mother country is matched by this
community loyalty to them."

Peter Armstrong wrote:

> Hi List
>
> While researching something else I came across this newspaper report
> which may interest some of yopu.
>
> Best wishes
> Peter Armstrong
> Newton Abbot, Devon


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