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maryportfuncity

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Posts posted by maryportfuncity

  1. Posted

    If any of this lot could count for the deathlist it would be Milvena Dean. She did make a - predictably low key - career as a Titanic survivor doing a few of those TV shows where C-list celebs have to guess the secret of the person in front of them. The proof that Milvena was a low grade celeb at best is that she often foxed the celebs who clearly didn't think 'oh here comes that old luvvie from the sinking ship again.'

     

    So, does C-list fifties and sixties TV star count here?

  3. Posted

    Link to a discussion on whether racing drivers died from lung damage due to inhaling noxious hot gases or simply burned to death. Includes a picture of the wreckage of Siffert's car.

     

    http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?s...y=&pagenumber=3

     

    British Pathe News films taken on the day. If you follow the instructions there is a brief low quality black and white clip of the race downloadable for free. Basically tells the whole story, shows the start and then runs some footage of the accident. The race was called off at this point.

     

    http://www.britishpathe.com/thumbnails.php...=brands%20hatch

  4. Posted

    Lawrensen speaks the truth. Peterson's accident reflected badly on the performance of the Italian emergency services but it wasn't in the same grimly pathetic tradition of Tom Pryce, Roger Williamson or one or two others. The other one that caught the viewing public unawares was Jo Siffert. Killed on October 24th 1971 in that 'Victory' meeting for Jackie Stewart.

     

    If I remember rightly Siffert - trapped like the others in a blazing car - had merely broken his ankle and would have survived if the fire had been extinguished. I'm sure I remember a track marshal weeping openly in the footage I saw because he'd tried like hell with poor equipment to save Jo Siffert.

     

    The link below is an extract from an unpublished dissertation on the relationship between the death of racing drivers on television and improved safety in the sport. Recommended for anyone following this lively little thread.

     

     

    http://www.ucc.ac.uk/sportscience/htm/Staf...process_pdf.pdf

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    M.Lawrenson

     

    Thanks for your contribution and respect to your site. I don't know why I couldn't get the link directly to the Williamson accident photos but hopefully those who used my link found the rest of your site interesting.

     

    Are you sure Piers Courage's De Tomaso was made of Magnesium? I thought car builders had learned the hard way at Le Mans and that Courage had an alloy car - with a fair percentage of magnesium - in which the company had gambled he'd have a chance to get out before a fire started.

     

    How much of Courage was left when they'd doused the flames? Judging from the car body he'd have been taken away in a shoebox.

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    Re Williamson's accident, there are videos available online although they sometimes come up as unavailable and/or oblige you to pay for them.

     

    Williamson AccidentShould give you the still images. I couldn't get the link to work directly to the page so you have to spool down the home page to the piece about Roger Williamson.

     

    It was a shocker, the safety at the track was pathetic and the reaction of the authorities and the marshalls made things worse. The worst of it was that David Purley could hear Williamson begging him to get him out.

     

    It's a bit different now. The last two fatalities in Grand Prix racing were marshalls hit by debris from accidents.

  8. Posted

    Further to a post on another thread. Lance Macklin, Old Etonian, gentleman racing driver and - indirectly - involved in 83 deaths when his car was caught up in the worst motor racing accident of all time is - apparantly - still alive. B 1919, I can't find a year of death on any of the statto-heaven F1 sites I've just surfed.

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

    The worst accident - ever - was Pierre Levagh's crash into the crowd at Le Mans in 1955, he died, took 82 spectators with him and maimed another 76 or thereabouts. His magnesium bodied car doused spectators with fuel as it went, exploded on impact and disintegrated as it flew through the air. Several spectators were beheaded by the bonnet, others took fatal injuries from the axle.

     

    An interesting twist - though something I find hard to believe - is that the accident started when Levagh's car hit the back of Lance Macklin's much slower Austin Healy. According to an anorak F1 web site I surfed recently Macklin - b 1919 - is still alive.

  10. Posted

    Indeed Mighty Moose and there is footage of the said accident. Purley putting his own life in danger as the marshalls stand off. Niki Lauda's autobiography includes an interesting twist on the crash. The drivers were criticised for continuing to race past the wreck. These were the days before pit to car radios. Most of them assumed Purley was Williamson, helping the marshalls put out the fire in his own car.

     

    Interesting to see how things went for Purley afterwards. His daredevil ways saw him make the Guinness Book of Records for experiencing the greatest G-force and deceleration of any human when his throttle stuck open and he went head on into a barrier. His leg bones looked like rows of Lego bricks in the resulting x-rays. Predictably he made a miraculous recovery, got back in a car, married a stunning rich woman and died young in a spectacular light aircraft accident.

  11. Posted

    gomaryport

     

    Right Widnes.

     

    Maryport - jewel of the North and online at www.gomaryport.co.uk Hopefully the link above is working.

     

    As for the rest. Mebbe yer doin' History in which case WW1 = World War 1. From which you can work out I've lived a bit, little surprises me these days etc. So the 'stuck a bayonet' is slang for all that I've seen and got involved with.

     

    Never been down South to Widnes mind.

  14. Posted

    The show is something of a departure loungue for ageing thesps. A lazier bunch of Deathlist compilers would simply cut and paste the cast list every year.

     

    Charlie Drake and Patrick Moore would be interesting additions to the cast.

  15. Posted

    Well remembered. That 'beheading' was more of a bludgeoning when Tom Pryce's Shadow car ran close to a marshall and the driver's helmet collided with the fire extinguisher. South African Grand Prix 1977.

     

    Piers Courage collected a few yards of catch fencing in the early laps of the Dutch Grand Prix 1970, not smart when he was driving an alloy bodied car full of fuel. There was bound to be a spark. The resulting fire reduced pretty much everything - including him - to ashes.

     

    Jim Clark - who has some rightful claim to being the best driver ever to step into an F1 car - collided with a tree in a meaningless formula 2 race at Hockenhiem in 1968 in an accident never fully explained. Thankfully the tree - though shaken - survived.

     

    Jo Siffert rather pooped the party when Brands Hatch staged an end of season race meeting in 1971. Officially it was to celebrate Jackie Stewart's second world championship although it had rather more to do with the Kent track wanting a cash windfall because the British Grand Prix was at Silverstone that year. Anyway, Siffert's race ended in a bit of flame grilling as the pathetic marshalling at the track battled for what seemed hours to put out the fire. In all honesty one of the most ghoulish bits of sports film in existence.

  17. Posted

    IYD: Yeah I started another Formula 1 thread but this dust in the lungs news deserves its own little corner. You can't have too many high octane threads in my book.

     

    Thinking of starting another one soon where we relive those great accidents of the heady sixties and seventies, you know: Jo Siffert, Piers Courage, Jim Clark.

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    Those blissful days of bonfires on the track and hapless rescue arriving too late may be long gone but the ghouls amongst us may be in for a boost. Mika Salo - a Finn whose best ever finish was second in the 1999 German Grand Prix - has recently had an operation in which an alarming quantity of carbon dust was discovered in his lungs. The dust had clearly collected as he breathed in flecks thrown from his brake pads during his racing career. As Salo pointed out many drivers had longer F1 careers than him, Michael Schumacher has started about twice as many races.

  20. Posted

    Aye well, it's rainin' outside after a week of scorching heat and all the aged SE England living Deathlisters are still alive. Maybe Claire Raynor's porky carcass will take a lightning strike or succomb to a golf ball sized hailstone.

     

    Think we're due a result soonish from someone on the list.

  21. Posted

    Nobody claimed this was an exact science. Andrea de Cesaris was a seriously sh*t racing driver. I think he still holds the record for the most F1 starts without a win. He pranged cars back in the day when fatalities were still a fairly common part of the entertainment on offer so I'd have gone with him as a good outside bet in 87. David Crosby would probably have made the list in the mid-eighties given his heroic intake of illegal stimulation back then but old racers retire and old druggies clean up. If we limited it just to the old and infirm we'd lose half the fun.

  22. Posted

    You can get help with dyslexia these days, try Citizens Advice.

     

    Personally I find the odd bit of light relief posting about the imminent demise of Charlie Drake helps me unwind after a hard day as Commander of UK forces in Iraq.....oh sh*t, ignore the last bit eh?

  24. Posted

    Re freezing him and giving him to alien life forms, Moore is a confirmed skeptic of many years standing in the area of ET life. For many years he was the predictable 'name' they dragged out to rubbish such claims. Doubt he'd appreciate the gesture of being given to inhuman life forms dead or alive.

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