Today two mothers will make a pilgrimage to the port of Dover, as they have done for nearly a quarter of a century.
There, under the Norman arches of the church of St Mary the Virgin, they will commemorate the 25th anniversary of Britain’s worst peacetime maritime disaster since the Titanic in 1912.
On Friday, March 6, 1987, the MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in just 90 seconds as it set sail from Zeebrugge, Belgium, towards Dover with the bow doors still open.
The disaster claimed the lives of 193 people, including Evelyn Pinnells’ two daughters and Judith Powell’s son Michael who was posthumously given the George Medal for bravery.
The tragedy sparked the toughening of corporate manslaughter laws, a redesign of roll-on-roll-off ferries and the introduction of safer operating practises for passenger vessels.
But these have been hard-earned lessons for Evelyn and Judith, whose emotions remain red raw to this day.
For Judith, nothing will ever compensate for the death of her son Michael Skippen, 30, a head waiter who saved many passengers.
“It is important that people remember what happened so that it does not happen again,” said Judith, 75.
“The medal and the changes in the law are just a small comfort.
“I’m glad that people are now safer travelling on ferries, but Michael was always a brave boy. He was lovely. He didn’t have to die.”
Evelyn, who was on the Herald when it sank, has also struggled with the aftermath of the tragedy which claimed the lives of daughters Fiona, 20, Heidi, 13, and Fiona’s fiance Jonathan Redland, 19, while she survived.
The non-swimmer, of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, almost drowned in the freezing water that filled the ship.
Trapped inside the pitch-black hull for more than an hour, she endured the moans of those slowly dying from hypothermia and the anguish of not knowing where her children were.
She bears the psychological scars to this day. “I haven’t been on a ferry since,” she reveals.
“I can’t go on a pier. I cannot even bear walking over water.”
Toll: Some victims were not found for monthsGetty
Grim: Freezing water swept through the shipRex
Judith, from Canterbury, Kent, also has a fear of water.
It is so intense that she could not bear to watch the recent TV news footage of the sinking of the cruise ship Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy.
She adds: “I relived it all when the Concordia sank. When they show underwater scenes, I cannot breathe.
“I’ve never been able to watch the film, Titanic. I cannot even put my head under water.” Both women’s lives were very different 25 years ago. Evelyn, now 61, took the fateful decision to treat her family to a day-trip to Zeebrugge as part of a £1 a ticket offer. They returned to the harbour to board the Townsend-Thoresen owned Herald for the 7pm return sailing.
Once aboard, Evelyn, ex-partner Chris Leach and daughters Fiona, Amanda, 18, and Heidi all gathered in the ferry’s lounge area with son Wayne, 12, and Jonathan.
Recalling the events that followed, she says:”After settling down we decided to go to the cafeteria to get something to eat and drink. We left Fiona and Jonathan behind to look after our seats and our belongings. While we were queuing up Heidi said she’d had enough and was going back to the lounge.
“Shortly afterwards the ship started to rock a bit and then appeared to right itself.
“I didn’t think anything was wrong but all of a sudden the lights went out and we just went over. It went very, very quickly and everyone started sliding down the floor into the water.
“It was so quick that you didn’t have the chance to hold on to anything. It was pitch black and I found myself in the water.
“I must have gone under a couple of times and I thought ‘Oh God. This is it’. “Somehow I managed to come up again and I grabbed hold of a table leg and pulled myself up.
“I just stayed there and watched people sliding into the water. There was screaming all the time.”
After some time Evelyn heard the sound of glass smashing above her head as rescuers broke windows in a desperate attempt to haul those inside out.
She says: “They started lowering down ropes and I thought ‘I don’t have the strength to hold on’. I saw other people trying to cling onto the ropes and just falling back into the water.
“Everyone was screaming for help to get out. I stayed there until everyone had been taken off. I was very calm and then decided I would grab the rope.
“I just remember being hauled up and trying to hold on so I didn’t fall back into the water like the rest of them.”
When she finally emerged from the hull she was met by Wayne, who was being comforted by other passengers.
They crawled across the slippery hull on their hands and knees before stepping onto a fishing boat when Evelyn slipped and broke her left leg.
Despite the pain and freezing cold, her spirits were boosted when she saw Chris and Amanda on the boat. She said: “I was overjoyed but Fiona, Heidi and Jonathan were still missing.”
Evelyn was taken to a local hospital for treatment to her leg that evening with Chris. Even then, she was still confident that her two missing daughters and Jonathan would be found alive.
She says: “I wasn’t too worried because they were all good swimmers and I thought they would be OK.”
Close: Judith cherishes memories of her sonDaily Mirror
Family: Evelyn (front right) and partner Chris with son Wayne and daughters Heidi (centre) and FionaSpecialist Picture Service
Grief: Evelyn lost daughter Fiona and her fiance JonathanSpecialist Picture Service
After two days passed, Chris was asked to go to a makeshift mortuary on the outskirts of Zeebrugge in case he could identify their bodies.He found both girls.
Jonathan’s body was not recovered for another month.
In the months after their deaths, Evelyn spiralled into depression and her relationship with Chris crumbled.
“It was crippling for me emotionally. We didn’t get any help or counselling whatsoever. I had no support and then there was the stress of the inquests and taking the ferry company to court,” she says.
Today Evelyn finds comfort in her regular visits to the cemetery near her home where Fiona, Heidi and Jonathan are buried side by side.
”It’s important to remember them,” she says. “People should be grateful that other people’s losses have made travelling safer for everyone else.”
It is a sentiment, echoed by Judith, although her story is very different. Her son Michael had just turned 30 when he took up a job as head waiter on the Herald.
She describes her relationship with him and twin brother Steve as “exceptionally strong” because she raised them on her own since they were small.
At around 8pm on March 6, she got a phone call to say there were TV news reports that the Herald had gone over.
She said: “At first I was not worried because I thought my son was invincible.
“He’d had so many small accidents when he was a boy that he was always at the hospital having stitches.
“But he always survived everything and he was a strong swimmer.”
Five weeks later, police rang Judith to tell her that her son’s body had been recovered. She adds: “I later heard that Michael has saved quite a few people before returning inside to help others.”
Michael was awarded Britain’s second highest decoration for civilian bravery.
Judith has never seen the silver George Medal medal which was given to his wife Lynda, now 48. Her relationship with Lynda fell apart the night he died and they have not spoken since.
She said: “The problem was that Lynda was the next of kin, but as his mother I was not told anything or entitled to be told. It was intolerable and the law should be change to include close relatives.”
Today Judith will remember her son and all those that perished with him.
She adds: “Even now I wonder what Michael would have looked like. He will be for ever young.”
The man known as the Human Bridge
Of all the survivors, Andrew Parker’s name is the one that is most inextricably linked to the disaster.
The former bank manager, then 33, became known as the Human Bridge after an extraordinary act of courage for which he was awarded the George Medal.
Andrew used his 6ft 3in frame to bridge a gap between two metal barriers and allowed wife, Eleanor, daughter Janice, 13, and 20 other passengers to crawl across his back to safety.
For months, the world’s media mobbed his South London home and he rubbed shoulders with royalty, politicians and celebrities.
But when the euphoria finally died down, he found himself abandoned and alone.
He struggled with depression and with what now is commonly recognised as post traumatic stress disorder. Eventually, his marriage suffered.
He moved away and changed his job and has since remarried. Today, Andrew insists that he has “nearly recovered” and refuses to allow himself to be labelled as a victim.
“The disaster taught me that in life and adversity there are two types of people. There are victims and survivors. I am a survivor,” he says.
“There are some people who just get on with life, and if things go wrong, they just deal with it.
"Then there are people who are victims who are negatively affected by everything. I make it my business to get on with life.
"The disaster doesn’t rule my life, and hasn’t ruled my life for a long time.”
Andrew, now 58, who works as a property manager, adds: “My life changed on that night in every way possible.
“There is a tendency for those not involved to think that Zeebrugge was just another accident.
"I was a normal bloke, married with a child, a job and a big mortgage. But I cannot even begin to say to what extent my life changed that day.
"It destroyed my family, and it has continued to have a very negative effect on my daughter, in particular.”
Andrew will join other survivors and relatives today for the memorial service.
He says remembering the tragedy is an important part of his “journey”, adding: “My journey started on that day and here I am 25 years on, but I am nearly there.”
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/zeebrugge-disaster-25-years-on-752501
