BLACK-OUT DRAMAS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21554, 17 January 1940, Page 5

BLACK-OUT DRAMAS

FALSE STEPS TO DEATH Shrieks heard from the river at Yarmouth, Norfolk, gave the first indication of an alarming series of black-out dramas. In these, two people, Charles Frith, aged 38. a Grimsby trawler skipper, and John Randall Ablett, aged 21. soldier, of Thurlton, near Beccles, lost their lives. Ablett was drowned when he and 19-ycar-old Miss Phyllis Watson, of Great Yarmouth, walked down Baker Street, Gorleston, and over the quayside into the river. Coxswain C. J. Johnson, of the Gorleston lifeboat, who lives in a near by tavern, and other men, rescued the girl with a boat-hook, but the soldier was swept away. Shortly afterwards, at almost the same spot, another soldier, Private Derek Filby, walked into the river and was rescued with the same hook. At midnight Frith was returning to his boat on the other side of the river when he, too. fell in. His mate plunged after him, and had got him to some steps when the skipper’s struggles compelled him to let go. Frith was carried away, and was not seen again. The Baker Street accident occurred at the spot where there was a double trapedv a few years ago.