Peter Walker's Motorway memoirs
Peter Walker (Ex Pc 518 (County) Pc 1318 (Combined) - retired as Inspector in 1991
"It was interesting to see the comments that the ‘Track’ was a dangerous place to be stationed and I suppose it was but I think to most of the Section during my time (1969/71), it was another work place with additional bouts of ‘interesting situations’.
It (thankfully) seems a thing of the past but those were the days of the ‘fog’ accident, particularly in the Stanton hollow between junctions 25 & 26 south of Trowell Services.
Those were the days when due to thick fog there could be seventy to eighty plus vehicles involved in pile-ups – they were the days before the central barriers were erected, not that they would have made much difference. If Thos Bowler was on duty of course, he would claim there were far in excess of the reported numbers – over 120! - Tony tended to exaggerate at times and with every telling the number got larger!
People who have never witnessed the scene of such an accident cannot fully grasp the mayhem and general chaos. There were vehicles of all types involved; lorries, vans, buses, cars, etc, etc, across both carriageways, up the banking, down the banking, on top of other vehicles, under other vehicles and of course the drivers and passengers dead, injured or wandering about desparately.
The big problem of course was the speed combined with the fog, since those vehicles ‘tramming’ down into the fog didn’t realise there was an accident waiting for them to join.
At these sites it was interesting to witness the various breakdown men who were scrambling to chalk their names on the wrecked HGVs so that their firm could tow them away and repair them in due course – it was big money for them and in some instances they came to blows arguing the rights of their ‘HGVs’.
I came down to the Motorway Section from Retford Traffic Section where Tony Bowler had been the Traffic Sergeant, prior to his moving down to take charge of the Motorway Section. Tony was certainly a character but no-one could argue that he did not know the ‘Con & Use’ law and I personally learned a lot from him both at Retford and on the Motorway."
