We’ve got a late lecture so you can wait here or the Glanrafon.

I’ll hitch out to Caernarfon and come back with the boys –in Tom’s mini-van.

We never saw Lindsay again. On the journey back from Caernarfon to Bangor there was an horrendous car crash. No seat belts in the sixties. The steering wheel bisected Tom, the driver. Spiv, a martial arts expert and all-round sportsman, was in the passenger seat. He had to be extricated. One of the firemen called to the scene was Spiv’s best friend. He suffered from what we now call PTSD for many years after. Lindsay was thrown through the windscreen,. Her, boyfriend, Sweeney (Joe) had serious back injuries. The other two girls had comparatively minor injuries.

The injured were taken to Bangor but Lindsay was quickly transferred to Liverpool. We knew then her injuries were life threatening. She died on the operating table, the brain damage was just too great. Her ashes lie in a churchyard in Llanfairfechan.

We were at a Church Training College. I intended to be a missionary. When the vicar in charge stopped to offer Christian platitudes let fly with what I thought of his god. I’ve never found any god since.

Two years later Sweeney died. He was riding his motor bike from Bangor to Caernarfon, a journey he’d done many times. He failed to take a bend under a railway bridge and slammed into one of the stanchions.  Evidence indicated there had been no attempt to brake. His death was officially recorded as accidental. We believed otherwise.

A few months ago I was, finally, able to voice my feelings which had lain dormant. It took the form of a poem.

Lindsay

I rejected God that day
in His house
when the man brought the box
into His house

A young girl flying through glass
a face destroyed
brought into His house
in that box

A speeding car
a moment’s distraction
three dead young
brought into His house

Was He waiting
was He smiling
when they were brought
into His house

Submitted by Mary Irvine, 75, Alexandria