Car Crashes into Bungalow Living Room

Car Crashes into Bungalow Living Room

Written by Angela Gooch on February 29th, 2008 in Accidents.

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SKEGNESS COUPLE’S ESCAPE
CAR CRASHES INTO BUNGALOW LIVING-ROOM

MR. AND MRS. B. B. JAMES, of ” Sealands,” Burgh Road, Skegness, sitting quietly in the living room of their bungalow, received a very unexpected visitor just as they were contemplating going to bed at approximately 9.30 p.m. on Friday evening.

The car was being driven by Warrant Officer J. L. Roberts, U.S.A.F.—the only occupant—who was returning from the American Air Base at East Kirkby to his home at 352 Drummond Road. It had skidded on the grass verge on the opposite side of the road approximately forty yards from the house. It then careered across the road again, plunged through a wire mesh fence, over some fifteen yards of garden before striking the wall of the house.

Fortunately, neither Mr. and Mrs. James nor Warrant Officer Roberts were injured in any way, although Mrs. James was partly buried beneath a large kitchen table behind which she had been seated.

THOUGHT IT WAS ‘PLANE
Mr. James said that when the car crashed into the wall he and his wife thought that it was a ‘plane that had crashed.
They were just thinking of going to bed, and were sitting, one each side of the fireplace. Luckily they were some distance from the bay window, which took the full force of the crash.
When the car came to rest, Warrant Officer Roberts climbed out, apparently shaken but otherwise unhurt, and asked if they were all right.
The car remained half-in and half-out of the wall for the night, but was removed in the morning by a break-down gang.

The hole in the bungalow, which measured approximately ten feet long and eight high, was covered by a tarpaulin.
Damage to the house and furniture was estimated by the tenant to be somewhere in the region of £300.
Damage to the car included broken front suspension, extensive damage to the radiator grill, smashed headlamps and a splintered windscreen.

1955 Skegness news article