Karen Ireland on Transport

We lived in a small town house in Cowes so our accommodation was upstairs and from the kitchen window I could see across the gardens towards the Park and the garden next to us had two poplar trees next to each other, and I was standing at the sink washing up just after four.

Our son was a toddler at the time, he was 14 months, and these poplars suddenly went right over until their tips almost touched the ground and they did that twice and then this phone rang I suppose about five minutes later and it was my cousin’s husband.

Now I knew that she was in bed with ‘flu and David asked me if could speak to Tony and I said, “No, he’s at work but I think they will have stopped because I’ve just watched these trees at the end of the garden and they nearly touched the ground.”

Five minutes later, they came in the door and told me that there’d been an accident and the Hovercraft had overturned and Tony was on top of it.

Now, they’d seen it on the television and I was so glad I didn’t so, there was nothing I could do and there was no point in trying to get through by phone ‘cos they’d already tried it numerous times, but they recognised his shape on top of the Hovercraft so they were able to say, “He’s OK, he’s out, he’s on top of it” so that was the first thing I heard.

Then it was just a waiting game and my one regret about that day is that there was a knock on the door and I went downstairs and there was our local Vicar and he was a really, really nice guy when I was a Teacher and I used to work with his daughter, and he came to see if there was anything he could do and I said, “No, I’m fine thanks” and shut the door in his face, which I deeply regret to this day and I’ve met up with him again and sincerely apologised but you do, do some very odd things when you’re in shock.

So, then it was really just a case of waiting and you did come home that night … you had that big graze on your head, and he came home wrapped in a red blanket.