13th September 1906
Soldier is killed picking flowers from a train
Flowers frequently grow alongside train lines, but few are picked because they’re kept safely out of harm’s way thanks to locking doors, sealed windows and fencing along the trackside. That wasn’t always the case and, in 1906, The Leeds Mercury reported that a soldier had been killed in Jersey while attempting to pick flowers from a moving train.
“The feat can be performed with safety on certain English lines,” it explained. However, “the more usual method… is to stroll ahead of the train and, having gathered a bouquet, either to walk back to meet it or wait for it to come up.”
One can only imagine how the timetables would have accommodated the need for trains to pick up such amateur horticulturalists as and when they appeared.
The soldier’s death came four years after a bishop’s daughter had lost her life on Jersey’s tracks.
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Other events that occured in September
The Superb is wrecked on Minquiers
- Despite good visibility and flat seas, the captain of the Superb still managed to drive his steamer onto Minquiers.
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St Helier Weybridge station closes
- Weybridge station stood in what is now Liberation Square. It opened in October 1870 and closed on 30 September 1936
- Read more…
Men are killed by an exploding threshing machine
- Two French workers were killed in Jersey when the boiler of William Lane’s steam-powered thrashing machine exploded.
- Read more…
Journalist George William de Carteret dies
- George William de Carteret was both secretary of the Jersey Farmers’ Union, and a prolific journalist, writing in the Norman language.
- Read more…