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Fire rages in one of the carriages immediately after the collision

Thirty-one people died and dozens were injured when a commuter service run by Thames Trains passed a red signal - the now infamous signal 109 - and collided with a Great Western express on 5 October 1999. Fire rages in one of the carriages immediately after the collision.

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Fire rages in one of the carriages immediately after the collision

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  1. Thirty-one people died and dozens were injured when a commuter service run by Thames Trains passed a red signal - the now infamous signal 109 - and collided with a Great Western express on 5 October 1999. 1

  2. Fire rages in one of the carriages immediately after the collision 2

  3. Firefighters attend to the smoldering wreck of one of the trains. 3

  4. Rescue workers battle to free trapped passengers. 4

  5. Photographs are taken by the forensic team investigating the crash. 5

  6. A poignant message. At the time, no one knew who was on the train. 6

  7. 31 people were killed in the crash 7

  8. A word from the author: QDid you write the poem at the time of the crash? A “My poems try to be truthful as well as accurately factual. I find the best way to make the poem live is to begin with the here and now. The poem was written, as you see from the details, on a train at about 8 in the morning as the crash was being reported on Radio 4’s Today programme. I was travelling from Manchester to Wales, not, as I often do, from Paddington.” 8

  9. A word from the author: QWhat is ‘the blazing bone-ship’? A“The coach which was on fire, containing an unknown number of passengers.” 9

  10. A word from the author: QWas it an image for a place of death? The station, maybe? A charnel house? A“I wasn’t thinking of a charnel house, though the words suggest it so it’s a possible image. I was thinking of the burning funeral ships the Celts used to push out to sea, containing the bodies of their heroes. I wanted to suggest something noble, tragic, heroic, because real people would be grieving, and deserved no less than the dignity of the noblest image I could conjure.” 10

  11. A word from the author: QWhy do you mention mobile phones? They’re not very poetic. A“I hope I’ve made them poetic. It’s a poet’s job to use real things and make it into poetry. The mobile phone is the modern messenger of love and tragedy as well as chat. They featured too in the tragic events in New York on September 11th. At the time of the train crash the mobile phone’s favourite cliche, ‘I’m on the train’, was suddenly the most important message in the world.” 11

  12. The comments from Gillian Clarke are taken from her website: http://www.gillianclarke.co.uk/home.htm(this is an external link) • The images are from the BBC Acknowledgments 12

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