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
Lee Wilson, Gerald Durrell’s wife and co-author, is born
- Lee McGeorge Wilson was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but moved to Jersey after marrying the naturalist, Gerald Durrell.
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Jersey’s Victoria College opens for the first time
- Named in honour of Queen Victoria to commemorate her 1846 visit to Jersey, work on Victoria College was completed with its opening in 1852
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The BBC broadcasts first edition of Spotlight
- The launch of Spotlight, the BBC’s local news bulletin for the Channel Islands, was more of a name change than anything else.
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Medals for a brave lifeboat crew
- A Jersey lifeboat crew was awarded medals for bravery after they rescued the crew of a yacht trapped in rocks.
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