Trip to Eastbourne 22 Feb. 2003

Julia and I went down to Eastbourne with the kids and then traveled on to Hastings where we had a traditional Fish n Chips experience. On the way home there was a car crash where a car lost control as it came round the bend towards us, it started to spin and collided with the car in front of me, I managed to stop in time but did worry that I too might be part of it. A mile before this happened I remembered a dream I'd had last night where my car's brakes weren't working properly and as I tried to stop the car I spun in to the path of the oncoming traffic. Remembering this dream made me pull back fro the car ahead of me and within a minute the crash happened. Nice coincidence? As with most of these things it seemed to happen in slow motion. I noticed a car horn beep, then a loud bang. This was followed by an explosion of glass into the air and then it showered down. My first thought was can I stop in time and slammed the brakes on, the car stopped about 25 foot away. I looked in my mirror to see a car behind me doing an emergency stop, I thought it might hit us but didn't. I then pulled forward and onto the verge. The driver of the white car got out and staggered a bit, like he'd lost his balance, then all the others got out and started talking, partly with recriminations but the driver of the white car kept insisting he wasn't drunk and that he'd lost control on the corner. The red car owners said they'd only got the car that day. Julia gave the person looking after the injured boy an antiseptic cleaning cloth, meanwhile one of the passengers from the white car went into shock, and was laid down and covered with coats, he'd injured his back and was quite out of it. Meanwhile the traffic had built up and wasn't dealing with the obstruction well. I asked the crash victims if they wanted me to take photos, they did so I did. I gave them my contact details then drove off.

Here's the photos from our day out.

Posing as the devoted daddy

"Yes darling that is a very interesting stone"

Looks like a warm day, however by this point our ears were just about to fall off.

The smile is a frozen relic from 10 minutes beforehand.

Young English men learning how to sun-bathe in sub zero temperatures, oh yes we start them young here.

"Mummy look here's another interesting stone!"

Wasn't religiously inspired.

Isn't jumping off things fun when you're a kid and just painful and scary as you get older,
hence Julia's mimed version of a jump.

NOW TO THE ROAD CRASH

The man on the floor was in shock, the kid had split his forehead open but was OK

Mobile phones to the rescue

Later the police phoned me, they said that no one had been drinking, no one was seriously injured and the blame was clear.

ENDS