Zeebrugge : Herald of Free Enterprise : 25 years ago today.

[TalkinPeace2]

I was working in Dover.
People I worked with lost their menfolk among the crew.

Several months later they towed the ship past the port - painted black - in the middle of the day.
THAT was the bit Dover never forgave them for.
P&O

www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/newsarchive.aspx?articleid=31212

from the 20th Anniversary

I worked in the docks during the P&O strike - interesting times

Families, babies, young people just going out into the world, couples who finally had some time for themselves...
Thinking of them all

LeeCoakley, my neighbours were on the 'Sun' trip too (think it was £1 per person or something), the wife hadn't wanted to go as she was terrified of water but her family persuaded her as it was so cheap and said she would be fine. She and her husband drowned, I could only think of how terrified she must have been. Their two children were lucky to survive because they had gone off to get something to eat, but they'd lost both their parents.

Oh Pixel, how awful. Those poor children. And, yes, how terrifying for the mother.

pixel yes it was a £1.00 thing with tokens,

I never realised so many people died :(

Whole families wiped out.. How unutterably awful :(

RIP

My exFIL used to work for TT, though wasn't on that ship. He claimed PTSD after that night and never worked (on the ferries) again. Took an early pension and set up his own gardening business. I was always a bit

Such a terrible disaster.

Thank you for posting this thread so that we can remember.

Sparkling- There was no girl of around that age on the list. I know it doesn't make it much better as so many did lose their lived including 3 toddlers/babies but it is nice to know that it seems that that lady did save that little girls life

Another Dover girl here. I was 13 in 1987. My mum worked on Sealink at the time , my dad was a tug driver down the docks & I went on later to work on the boats for several years. My next door neighbour died that night, but I also knew survivors. I remember seeing my friend the next morning, he had lost his dad & uncle - literally overnight. It was a horrible & shocking time. TT never recovered, the strikes followed and many people simply hated TT/P&O and still do to this day. A sad time indeed.

That is the thing that does not come across from the list of raw surnames - several of those crew were parts of extended families - married to sisters etc
who were just devastated by it.

And yes, the strike. Miss Dover that year was a P&O employee. It made the carnvial rather tense.

I missed all the strikes - I moved away for Poly that year and didn't come back til the end of 89. I worked in the Docks for 4 years after that though. Whenever we get the ferry home and they make the "vessel secured for sea" announcement, I never fail to remember that night though.

It was a shockingly unlucky set of events. They didn't leave the doors open as a matter of course on those boats. Iirc - the HOFE was set up for the loading docks at Calais and Dover, and not Zeebrugge so they had to pump in ballast so that it sat lower in the water and they could load the cars. They didn't pump out the water afterwards. The guy who was supposed to close the doors was asleep and no-one checked to see that it was done. The captain had no way of seeing/knowing that it wasn't done - and no alarms went off.

The penny pinching ways seem to have continued though - the ferries were always seen as a good, reliable industry when I was growing up - I have know many, many people who were employed by them - twas Dh's first ever job even. You don't see so many locals working on there now though.

The Kings Cross fire was the same year iirc? I went through the week before....coming home for a visit.

another local here - Folkestone though - I remember it vividly and knew several people onboard that night - my best friends dad , her cousin and another friend - two never came back
Was the beginning of the end for the ferries at Folkestone and Dover ..

My friends dad WAS the navigator and had fairly recently transferred off. Even those sort of nearly misses really traumatised people . Sad times

Photos done and huge questionnaire filled out!! They want response tomorrow. Argh

Oh dur wrong thread!!