AFTER-DANCE TRAGEDY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21716, 3 February 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

AFTER-DANCE TRAGEDY

COUPLE DROWNED IN THAMES CAR GOES OVER BANK VAIN STRUGGLE TO ESCAPE A patch of oil on the surface of the River Thames, halfway between Laleham Ferry and Chertsey Bridge, led on December 21 to the discovery that a young couple motoring homo from a dance had been drowned when their two-seater car plunged into the river at a bond in the road. The victims were: Max Barrington Hollam, aged 20, a former Sherborne schoolboy, only son of Mr. H. Hollam, of Ashford, Middlesex, and Hetty Sadler, aged 19, daughter of Mr. H. R. Sadler, solicitor, of Ashford. Mr. Hollam was found at noon in the car, which was 15ft. from the bank and in 10ft of water. Miss Sadler's body was recovered some hours later more than 100 yards from the spot where the? car had sunk. Mr. L. Weston, a garage proprietor, of Ashford, who found the car, stated that the first he heard of the affair was when Miss Hilary Hollam asked him to drive her to Addlestone to inquire about her brother, 'who had not returned home from a dance at Claygate. At Addlestone they learned that Mr. Hollam and Miss Sadler had left at 1.30 a.m. " Miss Hollam and I went along the bank," said Mr. Weston, " and after a while I saw a patch of oil on the water. 1 threw a piece of rope with a handle on the end into the water. The handle

stuck. I called the lock-keeper, and we went in a boat over the spot. We could clearly see the car under the water." When the police hauled out the car Mr. Hollam, in evening dress, was in a kneeling position on the seat with his head and shoulders, hunched as though he had been trying to force the roof off the car. There was no sign of IMiss Sadler. It looked as though ho h:id first pushed Miss Sadler out through a window which had no glass in it, and had then tried to force his own way out. After dragging for several hours the police discovered Miss Sadler's body in mid-stream. A woman's shoe was first discovered, and then the body. The spot at which the ear had plunged into the river has been the scene of several accidents. In a somewhat similar fatality at Richmond on November 16, Miss Joan Blakeney, aged 25, the daughter of Brigadier-General R. B. D. Blakeney (retired), lost her life.