Herald of Free Enterprise

On this day and at this time, in 1987, a 432ft long car and passenger ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium heading for Dover, Kent sank because its doors stayed open as she left port. 193 people died.

Her name was the MS Herald of Free Enterprise.

It has been hailed “the highest death-count of any peacetime maritime disaster involving a British ship since the sinking of the RMS Empress of Ireland in 1914.”

I have never heard of the Empress of Ireland.

There is another passenger ship who sank due to flooding and negligence, just two years previous to the Empress, that we have all heard of. It is because I’m having a Titanic season that I am remembering this disaster – one that I can literally remember.

I recall sitting at school on the parquet floor, being told by our headmaster that there had been some terrible news. I recalled that the roll on/roll off ferry had just left Felixstowe in Suffolk, a town I knew. Asking family recently, we had both recalled wrongly. It is strange how events get into your mind, and can even form facts, but which are inaccurate. I’m interested in how memory forms.

I want to think about parallels and if there could be a deeper meaning to the sinking of a ship called Free Enterprise in 1987.

I may come back with further thoughts.

But for now, I want to stay a moment with those who suffered: those who died, but also the survivors, the bereaved. I even feel compassion for those whose actions – the lack of door closing – which led to the ship sinking.

Join me for my Titanic themed Lent-tide reflections each week, culminating during Holy week 10-17th April