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MOTHER AND DAUGHTER GIVE THEIR LIVES IN FRUITLESS ATTEMPT TO RESCUE SEVEN-YEAR SON
MOST TRAGIC INQUIRY, SAYS CORONER
STORIES OF HEROISM BY RELATIVES AND NEIGHBOURS WHEN THE ICE BROKE

“This inquiry is into the cause of the deaths of three members of one family, living at Skegness which all occurred on Sunday afternoon last at a field at the rear of Lincoln Road on the brickpits there, when the ice gave way and the three were drowned.”
The above comment was made by the Deputy Skegness Coroner, Mr. J. C. Walter, who conducted the inquest at Skegness yesterday, into the deaths of Mrs. Annie Simpkin Key, aged 40, her daughter Beryl Rebecca, aged18, and her son, Raymond Phillip, aged 7.
The boy had fallen through the ice and his mother and sister lost their lives in trying to save him.
The father, Bert Coulsey Key, who with difficulty restrained his tears, said they lived at 9, St. Clements Road, Skegness, and he was a transport supervisor.
He added, “About 3 p.m. on Sunday, I was with my family listening in to the wireless, when a small boy came to the door and said Raymond was in the water.

ALL RUSHED OUT
“We all rushed out, my wife following on, and when I got there I saw my son’s head above the water. Margaret and Beryl, his sisters, both rushed on to ice and as they got towards him I saw the ice give way and they went in the water.
“They dashed on without hesitating and never stopped in any way. Mr. Collinson, a lodger, was with me and he rushed forward with my wife.
“l was also in the water, but almost collapsed at what was happening and was helped out. I shouted for help. The ice was thicker at the sides than further in.”
Witness continued, ” I saw Beryl get hold of the boy and I think that he must have dragged her down with him. By that time other people had arrived.”
Witness said his small son had been playing snowballing with another boy and were making a snowman in the yard. “We did not know that they had gone off to the pond.” Witness said he had since identified the bodies.

REGARDLESS OF SAFETY
The Coroner: From what you say, neighbours did everything possible to get the boy out ?-I am sure they did.
The Coroner: Quite regardless of their own safety?—Yes.

Harry Hillard, a bus driver, of Lincoln Road, said his wife told him that a man had passed with a prop towards the pond and he at once ran there.
He noticed that there were several people in the water and a dog there. A man named Hayes and he both attempted to go on the ice and one of Mrs. Key’s daughters ran on the ice, but it collapsed, and they pulled Mr. Collinson to the side.
Someone then brought a rope and it was flung to the daughter, Margaret Key. Witness said that he was sticking in the mud and when they got a prop he and another man pulled one of the girls to the bank.
He added, “We were all trying our best to get them out. We tried artificial respiration, on the mother, and Margaret was still alive”. The bodies were later recovered with a clothes prop and Margaret was also brought to the bank.
Hector Ernest Andrews, joiner’s labourer, said he rushed to the pond with a clothes line. He saw Margaret go down in the water and the others in it, but did not see the boy.
When he arrived the mother was doing all she could in rescue work on the edge of the thick ice. The next girl was in the water. Beryl had gone down as he arrived.
CONGRATULATED BY CORONER
There was a space between the two girls. “I threw the clothes line to the youngest girl and it landed across her shoulder and she got hold of it. It was a lucky shot and I was able to pull her in with the assistance of Hayes and Hilliard. We got Mrs. Key out with the prop and we were all trying to get them out as quickly as we could.
The Coroner: I think you are to be congratulated for thinking of bringing the clothes line.
Witness: I don’t take any credit. We were all doing our best.
The Coroner: I feel the clothes line was a great help in saving a life.
FIELD WAS FENCED
P.c. Owen said he informed the fire service and ambulance and went to the pit where there was a crowd round and artificial respiration was being applied to the mother. He was told that there was still a boy and the girl Beryl, in the water, and he made arrangements for dragging operations to begin.
He got Margaret and Collin-son off to hospital in the ambulance.
The brickpit belong to Mr. W. Tagg, in a field used as a camping ground. It was large and very deep and the ice at the edge was three inches deep, but became thinner.
There had been no skating on it. The field was properly fenced. The girl was first recovered and later the boy.
Dr. M. B. Fox said Mrs. Key was dead upon arrival at hospital. Upon examination, he found that all three had died from drowning.

1955 Skegness News article

EXPLOSION -LIKE A BOMB
CARAVAN WRECKED IN MIDNIGHT DRAMA AT SKEGNESS

GIRL HOLIDAY-MAKERS’ PLIGHT
It was approaching midnight on Sunday as three girls made their way to the caravan in Walsh’s Camping Site, Skegness, which was to be their home for the next week. There was a slight mist, but that was forgotten, for they were on holiday, and everything was bound to turn out fine.

They had just seen a variety show at the Derbyshire Miners’ Theatre, and, as the lights from other caravans winked out all around them, their plans for the immediate future were to make themselves a cup of tea and go to bed.

A few minutes later, their frantic screams brought other caravanners leaping from their beds as two explosions resounded through the camp, shattering the caravan side and one end. Flames burned the girls’ legs and singed their hair.

HUMAN CHAIN
Activity around the caravan reached fever pitch as pyjama-clad holidaymakers formed a human chain, passing along buckets of water to quench the flames in the caravan, sleep completely forgotten.
Soon the fire tender and ambulance arrived, first aid was rendered to the girls and the flames extinguished.

A little later they found accommodation for the night with friendly holiday-makers, and a householder.
The drama started as Evelyn Haywood (18), of 353, Mary Street, Langworth, near Mansfield, struck a match to light the gas in the caravan. Her sister Doreen (19), and their friend Barbara Collier, of 22, Bevin Estate, Cresswell, near Worksop, stood in the doorway ready to step inside when the light gleamed.

But they were not to get inside, at least for some time. The lamp lit, Evelyn moved the match towards the stove. There was a roar and flames leaped out.
Evelyn leaped for the door, as a second explosion shook the caravan.
Inside, flames quickly took a hold on anything and everything, destroying the girls, clothing, much of which was new.

1955 Skegness Standard news story

SKEGNESS Pier is in imminent danger of collapse after high tides ravaged the support stanchions causing them to slip by two feet.
Workmen were hurrying to move fairground rides to a more secure position as the structure was declared unsafe.
A 30 foot section of the stump of the pier, which remains after the 1.978 high tides broke it in two, had its supports left dangling. The sea had eroded vast amounts of sand, causing the slip.
The drama started at 7 pm on Thursday night. But it was not until the tide went out at midnight that the nightwatchman realised something was wrong.
The rides are owned by the Skegness Pier Company and on Friday both the police and Company Director Belinda Taupin warned sightseers to stay away.
“The structure is unsafe and anybody coming to have a look should not go under the pier because there is a possibility of its collapsing,” she said.
The extent of the problem was highlighted by the position of a number of white marks which had been painted on the pier to show the sand levels. These indicated that the level of the sand had dropped by about four feet since the end of last season.
This Wednesday a consultant engineer came to take a look at the pier.
R. G. Mitchell’s finance director. Mr Mike Greenhalgh said: “The engineer advised us to lengthen the piles and re-jack them to their original level. The cause seems to have been the new sea defences to the north of the pier accelerating the sand erosion.
But Mr Greenhalgh assured summer visitors to the resort that the pier will be open again complete with fairground rides. “The weight of the rides did not really have any effect on the slip,” he added.
All of the rides on the pier, which incude dodgems, electronic shooting gallery, Star Wheel, Astroliner and radio-controlled boats, will not be affected by the slip.
The latest chapter in the Pier’s demise attracted a great deal of interest among townspeople. Many of them reminisced sadly about the halcyon days of the 106 year old structure.

Picture left: Decking on the Pier collapsed and support stanchions were left in mid-air.

Picture right: Steps leading onto the Pier were lft dangling above the ground and concrete platforming broken up.

1987 Skegness news article

AN auctioneer’s office was burnt out and all records of recent transactions destroyed in a 5 am fire at the Pavilion in Tower Gardens, Skegness, on Monday. Residents in Rutland Road were awakened by explosions as the flames shot through the asbestos roof and ft took 18 firemen, some wearing breathing apparatus, an hour to get the blaze under control.
Three young men were later helping the police with their enquiries into the cause of the fire, which also closed down the adjoining day nursery and caused residents of flats at the back to be evacuated.
The fire is believed to have been discovered by a Co-op milkman on his round. The alarm was raised by phone from a Rutland Road flat at 5.06 am and Skegness fire brigade sent two appliances to the scene. Later they were joined by a third.
They confined the fire to the office at the western end, the rest of the timber building suffering only heat damage.
ADO Alex Lawrence, acting deputy divisional commander, was in charge of the operation, in which four main jets, two hose reels and four sets of breathing apparatus were used.
“All that end was well alight when we got here,” he said. “A gas intake meter had disintegrated and we had a huge gas jet alight in the corner.”
They could not put this out as the gas would then be escaping and might explode. The gas board attended later and the supply was turned off.
He said he was very pleased at the way the first crew had stopped the flames from spreading into the rest of the pavilion.
The police evacuated tenants of the pavilion flats, including Mr and Mrs John Dennis and their baby daughter.

LIKE FIREWORKS
About 40ft of the roof was completely destroyed but the facade of the pavilion, which was built about 90 years ago, remained intact and even the windows were unbroken and furniture undamaged in the eastern half.
“It was like Guy Fawkes Night with rockets and things flying about,” said Mr Wilfred Spearing, of 25 Rutland Road, who was awakened by the sound of crackling wood and exploding asbestos.
One of his neighbours, Mr Frank Webster, said: “When I woke up I thought it was someone letting fireworks off and it got louder and louder.”
It was still dark and snow was falling, he said. There was a series of minor explosions and the flames were leaping over 20ft into the air.

The Rutland Road day nursery had to turn their 14 children away and close down for the day because the play room roof had large holes in it and had been flooded. The floorboards had to be taken up to stop the water spreading to the rest of the building. The electricity was also cut off.
The building was in the process of being redecorated.
The matron, Mrs E. Lapthorne, who has been there for 23 years, said she planned to open as usual the following day without the use of the play room.

CANCELLED
“The parents were all very nice about it,” she said. “They all understood. I think they were sorry for us.”
The auctioneers who occupy the main building under lease from the East Lindsey District Council, are William Bacon, of Grimsby.
The resident partner, Mr Alan Wright, said they had had to cancel the gun sale due to be held there on 18 March. All the office equipment and records had been destroyed together with the safe and its contents, which were to have been auctioned.
The old files were in the other part of the building but they had lost their more recent records covering the last six—nine months and were trying to build them up again with the help of their clients and solicitors. The phone was being transferred to his home in Roman Bank and the Louth office would deal with enquiries from out of Skegness.
We hope it won’t have any detrimental effect on our business,” he said.

The firm took over from another auctioneer, Mr Harold Bayes, in 1972. He had used the pavilion as an estate office and saleroom for 17 years.
Originally it contained dining rooms, a concert hall and ballroom and was one of the resort’s foremost places of entertainment with a bandstand immediately in front of it.
Between the wars it became known as the Pavilion Refreshment Rooms with accommodation for 800 at one sitting and specialising in party catering.

Photo above: Undamaged chairs in the foreground show how well the fire was contained in the western end of the Pavilion. This was the scene on Monday morning, looking out to Rutland Road through the gaping hole and charred timber.

1976 local news story

House hit by lightning
CHILD UNHARMED
In the heavy thunderstorm which hit Skegness on Monday evening, a house in Wainfleet Road suffered some damage by fire, but an eight-yearold boy who was alone in the house at the time of the incident was unharmed.

The house, No. 6 Wainfleet Road, is the home of Mr. Alan Berry, of Berry’s garage which is next door. Mr. Berry had left the house for a few moments to go to the garage when the lightning struck, and returned to find his son Adrian there unharmed, but the basement on fire.

The lightning had torn two holes in the roof and had gone straight through the building to rip open a gas pipe in the unoccupied basement and start a fire there.

Skegness Fire Brigade were called and were able to limit the damage to the building.

“LIKE A ROCKET”
Although no one was harmed, a number of people were scared by the loud flash and explosion which accompanied the strike.
Near neighbours felt it worse, among them Mr. and Mrs. Jack Day who live at No. 8 Wainfleet Road.
Mrs. Day said : “It was like a rocket. It lifted the cot in which my year-old baby was sleeping right into the air. It was frightening.”

No other storm damage was reported.

1958 local news story