Flixborough 1974 Memories – Heather Barczak
My dad, Denis Lawrence, died that day. I had spent the morning with him. He was in a great mood as he had paid off the last instalment of his bankruptcy and was in the clear. He repaired my car tyre and we had breakfast together. Mum was due to go out shopping with Aunty Brenda and Beverley, my youngest sister. The other two sisters were at work.
I decided to go home, and Dad left to go buy tea and sugar for the shift, it was his turn. He loved the job. It was clean and modern. He had started to play golf with Jim Doherty and had mates that he socialised with.
It was a sunny day and the App Frod Gala was on.
His shift started at 3.
Soon after 4, I felt restless, I was pregnant with my second baby and thought I’d go see Mum. Dad had been talking about a leaking pipe on the plant at work and Mum was always worried.
I had only just arrived at the maisonette and gone into the kitchen when a gust of wind blew the curtain in and there was a whoosh followed by an eerie silence. There was a noise of neighbours outside and doors banging, when the phone rang and it was my sister Jackie, who worked at the telephone exchange, she said we think British oxygen has blown or the Steel works. I’m getting off the line, but Jimmy’s dad is at work.
Mum walked in and calmly said that’s Nypro, your Dad is not coming back. I told her not to be stupid.
We all sat in silence and waited and waited. There was talk of shop windows breaking and chaos in the streets.
The kettle went on, the radio, TV and someone kept trying to ring the police.
It was awful. I assured everyone that as Dad was a part time fireman, he would be needed wherever and that he was fine.
Of course, it became clear that it was Nypro and I was even more sure that he was fine. The house soon became full of friends and relatives. Some of whom formed a search party to go round the streets and visit the police, hospitals or anywhere to find out what was happening.
My toddler was ill and we called the doctor, someone took the dog for a walk and we tried to carry on.
By now it was after 11 and I was still expecting Dad to walk in the door.
Midnight and nothing from any of the search party or any phone calls. In the early hours some of Dad’s work colleagues visited to ask if we needed anything and to say there was a fire. They had calculated that about 28 men were missing. It’s fair to say that I remained the only one convinced that he would walk in after firefighting.
The next day or sometime in the following days, which were a blur, as more and more ideas were being thrown around, one of dad’s close work mates came and said that Dad was supposed to have been up, the water tower, but he had sent someone else as he was going to make the tea in the control room.
The person who went up, the tower had been blown across the Trent and survived, that’s how they knew where Dad was.
Of course, the miners were coming to get them out and the horror of the fire had yet to dawn on me, as I clung to the hope that he was still safe.
As the week passed realisation dawned and life was never the same. We all followed the miners with gratitude and waited to hear if any of our identification evidence yielded a positive, it was nearly three weeks before they brought Dad out.
One of the ambulance drivers was his friend and he knew before all of us. His funeral was on 21 June.
It was a terrible accident, and I could not understand why they, everybody, wanted to blame a freelance fitter. It never made sense that one man could be responsible for all the devastation. There must have been shortcuts made somewhere. Weeks before this happened, Dad said they had shut down part of the system because there was a leak. It’s gonna blow, and it did.
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Flixborough 1974
An exhibition to commemorate the Flixborough Disaster of June 1974.
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Flixborough 1974 Memories – Dave Butler
Memories of the Nypro disaster recorded by Dave Butler who worked at the factory and was involved in the clean-up.
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Flixborough 1974 Memories – David Adams
Memories of the Nypro disaster recorded by David Adams, who worked as Shift Chemist in the laboratory.
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Flixborough 1974 Memories – Debra Harding-Morris
Memories of the Nypro disaster recorded by Debra Harding-Morris, who lived at Stather Road, Flixborough.
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Flixborough 1974 Memories – Eddie Hotchin
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Flixborough 1974 Memories – Jacquie Carter Irving
Memories of the Nypro disaster recorded by Jacquie Carter Irving, who was on the way home to Ferry Road from the Appleby-Frodingham Gala.
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Flixborough 1974 Memories – Liduina Beckers
Memories of the Nypro disaster recorded by Liduina Beckers, daughter of Nypro’s then General Manager.
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Flixborough 1974 Memories – Tony Clark
Memories of the Nypro disaster recorded by Tony Clark, part-time Leading Fireman at Scunthorpe Station.
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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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