A Rye’s Own photographer was the first news man on the scene when a double decker bus carrying a party of school children on an Easter holiday outing swerved and overturned into a ditch four miles out of Rye on the Brookland road. Pictures of the accident, which took place on Wednesday 20 April, were rushed to London and appeared on the front page of the following morning’s Daily Express.
Rye’s Police, Fire and Ambulance services were called to the scene to assist the units from Kent who were first on the spot, the accident occured just over the Kent/Sussex border line. A fleet of ambulances carried the children, most of whom were not badly injured but suffering from cuts and bruises and shock, to hospitals in Ashford and Hastings. Fireman had to cut one adult from the twisted metal work, she was trapped under the stairs.
Most of the children were discharged from hospital the same evening and returned to their homes at Sturry, near Canterbury. They are all pupils from the Sturry Secondary Modern School and had been on a holiday, arranged by the school, to the Isle of White.
From “Rye’s Own” June 1966
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