Hampshire And Dorset Survivors Remember Clapham Crash Victims

12 December 2013, 11:08

Memorial services have been held in London, to mark exactly 25 years since a train crash which killed several people from Dorset and Hampshire.

Huddled against the cold and with heads bowed, a small congregation remembered the Clapham rail crash. 35 people in total lost their lives when the Bournemouth to London Waterloo train went into the back of another, stationary train.

It was at 8.13am on 12 December 1988 that the devastating three-train collision happened close to Clapham Junction station in south London.

On Thursday, at that exact same time, survivors observed a two-minute silence at the crash memorial site close to the scene of the accident.

One of those attending was 71-year-old chartered accountant George Gillon, from London.

Travelling from Winchester in Hampshire, he had been in the third carriage of the London-bound Bournemouth train that was in the accident.

Standing by the memorial stone high above the railway line, Mr Gillon said:

"I was one of the lucky ones. A number of my friends on that train were killed.''

Others at the memorial service included those who lost loved ones in the disaster.

Linda Ship, 47, and her sister Diana O'Carroll, 44, travelled from Hampshire to remember their father Arthur Creek, 48, who was killed on the Bournemouth train.

Mrs Ship said:

"Dad was a train driver and was in the train cab travelling to work as he knew the driver.''