Flixborough 1974 Memories – Eddie Hotchin
I was born and bred in Scunthorpe. I was educated in Scunthorpe at John Leggott College. I worked in Scunthorpe. I went to Salford University for a couple of years and started work as a chemist. I started with British Steel, as most people did, and ended up working at Nypro. I hadn’t been there that long. I started working for Nypro just before Christmas 1973. It was quite a nice firm to work for and paid a little bit more than British Steel. The training was considerably better than British Steel. The only thing is they expected a little bit more work for the money, but Iquite enjoyed my time working there few for the short time I was there.
As to what happened on the day – obviously 1 of June, Gala day, that meant a great deal to me. It would be approaching 5 o’clock time. We were still squaring round ready for snap time and then one or two things started to happen. I seem to recollect a bit of a rumble for a start. Where I was working, I was quite possibly the closest person to what actually occurred. Unless there was anybody out on the plant. I had a pretty good uninterrupted view of what actually happened.
There was this rumble. Looking out and all of a sudden there was rather a large release of gas vapour. Then the alarm bells started ringing. Our shift chemist just said, “Right, that’s it, lads. Whatever you’re doing, stop. Leave the building and make your way to the rendezvous point.” We left and I would say I certainly wasn’t running; we were all jogging. Then all of a sudden, there was a rather loud bang. Basically, all hell let loose. I remember ending up on the floor about 50 yards away from where I was when the explosion started. I had a sheet of aluminium on top of me, a big one, but shift chemist threw it off me and said, “just run!” And we did, we ran. We got as far as the boundary fence, and basically looked behind us. Basically, it was flame and smoke.
It was obviously pretty grim. We walked around the boundary fence and ended up on the Trent bankside, British Steel Wharf, and we walked our way round to the main gate there. By this time, all the emergency services had started to arrive. Basically, we were all right. I had cuts and grazes to my legs, cuts on the arms. But we were sort of like walking wounded, and various ambulances stopped and asked if we needed any help. And it was a case of “no – go help that lot out.” Bearing in mind that it had been about 5 o’clock time that the accident or the explosion happened, I think it would be about half past 6 time when somebody finally bundled me into an ambulance, and I ended up at the hospital.
Obviously, by this time, the adrenaline had sort of like started to wear off and I started to ache a little bit in various places. I ended up with stitches in both elbows, and dressings on my legs. By which time I’d managed to get in touch with my family. I lived at Thorne at the time. I’d just actually got married. And my adopted father he came up to the hospital and basically took me back to Thorne.
In the hospital it was organised chaos. They coped extremely well. Obviously, they were a little bit busier than normal. I don’t know how many were from the works. There wouldn’t be that many because unluckily many died. When the explosion happened, it was a Saturday after 5 o’clock. There were far fewer people than what there would be normally during the week. I don’t know actually how many got out alive. All our shift in the chemist side were OK. One or two were obviously injured. Obviously, there were one or two members of the public who got injured, so the hospital coped extremely well.
Afterwards, it’s a bit of a difficult one. Originally, I used to wake up screaming at night. I remember the first time it thundered I was outside. And, apparently, with the first clap of thunder I just screamed, and I was busy cleaning the car at the time, and apparently I went underneath it. It was semi amusing, but frightening at the same time. It certainly affected me. I had two months off work after that, but obviously there was no work to go to. We did get at the time treated pretty well by Nypro themselves. They basically came round, visited us. They did quite a lot to try and help, but obviously they were a little bit limited to what they could do. And I wasn’t particularly in need of anything, shall we say. Anything that I did need they would try and help.
The only thing was that I was living out of Thorne and reliant on transport. I do remember I lost a very nice car in the car park which I hadn’t had for that long. That just basically got bulldozed. I was reliant on transport, obviously living out at Thorne. And my only priority then was to get another car, really.
Subsequently, I must admit I had something like two months off, and then I think I went back to work the once. The chemists were doing safety checks. It was a very, very strange sensation to go into a basically a pile of rubble which at times still seemed to be smouldering. And I remember we had to do a safety check on top on the ammonia spheres there. I got halfway up it and just froze. I couldn’t go any further. I couldn’t go up or down and somebody had to come and help me back down one step at a time. And I just said, “that’s enough, I’m off home!” I left and went home. Bearing in mind I’m a local lad, for a long, long while I couldn’t even drive past the site. Even now, on the site I can still get a bit of a shudder at times. It was a very, very strange sensation.
So, I got a job in the chemical industry again and I ended up with a rather good job at the time as a plant manager out at Knottingley on the chemical works there. It certainly got to me, the fact of the explosion. I was always very, very wary. The first time I was there, my first thing was to plot an escape route. The first time that the fire alarm went off I was running like a lunatic and what they hadn’t told me was it was just the normal test. And everybody was shouting, “come back, Eddie!” I stuck that for about more two and half/three years but came very, very close to having a bit of a breakdown, I think. I was just getting a little bit worse and wanted out of it. I stayed working for the firm, but I went as a salesperson rather than the plant manager there. That didn’t last. They were long hours. And we had a bit the disagreement over policy. I left and I set up my own business.
Now, I’m still scared of thunder. I don’t like flames in unexpected places. Bearing in mind I started working on cars because that was part of my hobby, and welding and flames. I’m a pretty good welder but I don’t like flames. I’m still wary of things in that respect.
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Flixborough 1974 Resource Pack
To assist local schools with this topic, Arts and Heritage Learning have produced a number of teacher resources that are available to North Lincolnshire schools.
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