Day a pub was ripped apart

THEY called it Black Friday. And no-one was more devastated by a tremendous gas blast which ripped apart a town-centre pub than barmaid Carol Johnson.

It happened to be her 22nd birthday on that fateful Friday the 13th, and less than 24 hours earlier, her celebrations had been marred by heartbreak news of her grandmother's death.

Grim memories of that nightmare episode have come tumbling back for Carol and her mother after reading my account of that massive explosion in January, 1978 which tore through the old Railway Hotel, just off the St Helens town centre.

Carol, now 42 and living Anglesey, had been helping out in the pub that evening. She had hoped, by busying herself there, to ease some of the deep grief felt by the loss of her beloved grandma.

Her first hubby, David Gaunt, was also in the pub helping to comfort her and planning to take her for a birthday meal when she'd finished work.

By an ominous coincidence, Carol had actually been born on a Friday the 13th, precisely 22 years earlier.

She still bears the faint physical scars of that blast - and the sheer horror of the experience refuses to fade from her memory. "It was like an Hiroshima experience for those inside the pub,"she says. The blast was ear-splitting and blinding in its intensity.

Yet, miraculously, the staff and all the customers on that busy evening somehow cheated death.

Despite the collapse of an upper bedroom on to a ground floor temporary stockroom, the blasting-out of all the pub windows and the upending of the solid mahogany bar, only about 20 people suffered minor injury. Carol was among them.

Recounting that harrowing episode she says: "Funnily enough, one of my immediate concerns was over a car that David and I had bought only three weeks earlier."

It had been parked next to the pub - and just as she'd feared the vehicle had been severely damaged by flying debris and shock-waves from the explosion. Despite the pain from cuts and bruises, Carol had been more worried about whether this was covered by the car insurance.

When the ignition keys, which had been left lying on the bar, were finally retrieved from a devastated lounge ripped down to bare brickwork, they were found to have become bent and twisted by the blast.

Carol recalls that the police had at first suspected that it was a terrorist bomb attack and she was among those questioned as to whether any strangers with Irish accents had been on the premises that evening. In the end, the blast was traced to a gas leak in the pub cellar.

Carol's mother, Pauline Harrison of Hard Lane, Windle, also paints a graphic picture of that heart-stopping day.

Her daughter had at first decided to abandon all thoughts of her birthday, because of her grandmother's death - but in the end she decided to try to take take things off her mind by reporting for duty at the Railway.

Pauline and other family members had arrived at the Fingerpost flat of Carol's granny, sorting out belongings and making arrangements for the funeral.

"Next thing, we heard the sound of emergency sirens from police vehicles, ambulances and fire engines racing past," Pauline recalls. "I was so alarmed that I switched on the radio. To my horror I heard the news of the pub explosion."

Fearful for her daughter's life, Pauline immediately telephoned St Helens Hospital, seeking news of any casualties. The person at the end of the line could hardly hear Pauline speak because of the chaos and noise all around her. "In the end, she put down the receiver to go and make enquiries," adds Pauline, "while I kept my ear to the telephone." Then, to her immense relief, Pauline was able to detect the unmistakable sound of her daughter's voice amid all the babble of background noise, describing to someone what had happened while she was working in the pub bar.

For her daughter it was the worst birthday nightmare imaginable. "We'll never forget it. But at least no-one was fatally injured," says Pauline.

"Carol had turned out that night looking like a model," adds her mum, "but she returned home looking as if she'd been down the pit. She'd suffered cuts and abrasions, her tights were in shreds and her hair in a tangle.

"She peeled off her clothes, took a shower and we sat up half the night talking. She just needed to get it all out of her system."

Another who had a close brush with death in that hotel blast was W. Dingsdale of Priory Gardens, St Helens. "I was in the bar, sitting near the window with my mate, J. Parr," he writes.

Among those at the bar, he recalls a fellow named Maurice who worked on the railway, just across from the pub. He remembers, too, that when the explosion occurred, at about 8.20pm, they had been watching an episode of 'Porridge' on television.

And he signs off: "I had the tops of my socks burned off, receiving burns to my ankles."

Another correspondent, who wished to be identified only as 'Ex-miner', recalls that the fire brigades of Merseyside were locked in dispute on the day of the explosion.

Green Goddess appliances, manned by army and RAF personnel, operating from the local Engineer Hall and from Knowsley, tackled the blast and its fiery aftermath.

Local firemen offered to assist but were unable to man their own appliances.

A TRULY amazing story! My thanks to all who have contributed to this earth-trembling theme.

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