Derbyshire Police: Lucky escape as crusher cliff destroys homes

(Redirected from Matlock Bath: Lucky escape as crusher cliff destroys homes)

JOHN Edwards was a rookie PC, with only a year’s experience in the job, when he went home to Matlock Bath for a winter weekend in 1966 and found himself involved in a near disaster which could easily have wiped out his family and their neighbours.

John was 23 and living in digs in Belper and had fancied a bit of his mother’s home cooking prior to going on night duty.

George and Peggy Edwards and their other son, seven-year-old Stephen, were delighted he would be with them for Sunday lunch, even though Peggy had a bad cold and had had a lie in that morning.

“Suddenly, we heard rumblings in the distance as though a thunderstorm was approaching. As it got louder, we felt a tremor. My father and I went outside to investigate and soon realised something was going to happen,” he said.

Behind the row of two semi-detached houses and a cottage, known as Hazel Bank on Dale Road, above the main A6 Derby to Matlock road, was a mighty limestone rock face.

Realising that the noise was coming from there, George promptly told his family to evacuate while John dashed off to warn the neighbours and make sure they, too, had gone outside.

He told Bygones: “We all stood in the road and waited. It was quite eerie. No-one dare go back inside. We just watched in amazement as, suddenly, the rocks began to fall.

“They came down on No 4, then No 3, completely flattening them. All we could do was just stand on the A6 and watch. We had no idea how far the rocks would fall so we stopped the traffic.

“Some were pretty big but the last one was enormous. It hit the Knapp’s home at No 2, which adjoined our house, and it collapsed like paper. I had never seen anything like it.

“The last huge rock came down into our back garden and stopped just by the back door. There was a lot of damage but it didn’t collapse, so we were lucky. We were able to retrieve our belongings later, whereas the neighbours lost everything and had nowhere to go back to.”

The council put the families into temporary homes and all the houses, which were owned by a local quarry company, were decreed unsafe and later demolished. Eventually, Mr and Mrs Edwards were rehoused.

For John, who had only been in the police force for a year, it was back to normal within hours of the disaster.

He reported for night duty and was sent back to Matlock Bath where his duties included keeping a watching brief on the cliff, making sure there was no danger to traffic passing on the A6 and guarding his old home.

“It was to keep people from going to have a look and being in danger. In those days, it was the police who were responsible for the protection of the public,” he explained.

“So there I was, looking after our own property, which was pretty ironic, especially as my father, later in his career, was the Civil Defence training officer for Ambulance and Rescue in Derbyshire, which involved dealing with such emergencies.”

For John that day meant keeping a cool head when everyone feared the worst – a lesson which was to hold him in good stead, 22 years later, when he found himself facing a crazed gunman pushing a double-barrelled shotgun into his chest and threatening to shoot.

He was part of a police negotiating team at a siege in a house in Duffield.

The gunman, who was bleeding from cuts to his wrists, held police at bay for an hour and a half. He had been involved in a nightclub glassing in Derby over a woman and gone to the Duffield house.

At one stage, the licensed hunting gun went off and officers were forced to withdraw but eventually John managed to overpower him. Afterwards, he told the Telegraph: “There was more than one occasion when I wondered if I’d be coming out of that house alive.”

At Derby Crown Court, the man was jailed for four-and-a-half years and John was commended for his actions. The Judge, Alexander Morrison, said: “Normally I do not like to distinguish between one member of a team and another. But, in this case, I have to pay particular commendation to the role of PC John Edwards whose courage and perspicacity speaks for itself.”

John received the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct and also received the James Fryer Memorial Trophy, a prestigious award made annually to the Derbyshire officer who has performed the most meritorious act of service during the year. He was chosen, it was said, for his extreme courage and calmness.

John said, at the time: “I’m very pleased but I don’t think I’ll be doing any celebrating – it’s all just part of the job, isn’t it?”

John, a father-of-two who lives at Belper, retired from Derbyshire Police after 30 years’ service and promptly signed up to work alongside his collagues in the Criminal Justice Department at the Derbyshire police force’s Ripley headquarters.

Last year, he received another award for devoting 40 years service to the police.

Pages linking here