FROM the scars on her wrist and ankle, Alison Clark knows she was badly trapped in one of the trains involved in the Clapham rail disaster.

But 20 years on she’s still not entirely sure what happened in the horrific accident which killed 35 people.

“I’d been commuting for six months and I don’t remember any of it,” said Alison, from Bransgore.

“The three people sat with me died. I have no idea if they were friends of mine, it’s just gone, which I’m really grateful for, because who knows what nightmares I could have.”

A Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food cataloguer, Alison was on the Bournemouth to Waterloo train on Monday December 12 1988 when it hit the back of a stationary Basingstoke train near Clapham Junction.

Faulty signalling was blamed for the collision and an inquest into the deaths of the victims returned a verdict of unlawful killing by British Rail, which was fined £250,000 after pleading guilty to failing to ensure the safety of employees and passengers.

Alison was unconscious for three weeks, had two stomach operations, extensive plastic surgery on her face and three months of physiotherapy.

Now a media services technician for Bournemouth University, her life has changed completely.

“I don’t know where it was going,” she explained.

“I was working in London, I probably would have been earning more. I went back to work for about three months. I commuted and hated it.

“I haven’t been on a train in this country since I finished that bit of commuting. If I see a train I shake.”

Alison, 44, is attending a memorial service at Clapham’s Emmanuel School, near where the accident happened, tomorrow.

But she’s not looking forward to it.

“The tenth anniversary one was by the memorial on the embankment. Trains were going by our feet and I couldn’t hack it.

“People kept coming up and kissing me, saying they were pleased to see me, but I didn’t know who they were.

“But that’s why I’m going – not because I want to, but because everyone’s so appreciative. It’s one way of giving back.

“I hate the way I look and the left side of my face is still a bit numb, but I just have to appreciate each day how lucky I am to be alive.”

Unlike Alison, the events of that day are ingrained in Lee Middleton’s memory.

Lee, 59, lived in Lymington and commuted on the Brockenhurst to Waterloo train to his civil servant job.

“That day I only just got that train. It would have been a lot different if I’d caught the next one.

“I fractured my leg, but I really thought I was a goner because part of the carriage ceiling came down and pinned me by the neck.

“The firemen managed to take the pressure off and get it off my neck. They took me out an hour or so later.”

While he waited, Lee, now living in Winchester, was only able to look up at the hole in the carriage roof.

“It was a dry, sunny day. I heard noises, but didn’t see anything, so I was lucky in that I didn’t suffer the nightmares that a lot of people did.”

Lee needed a bone graft and was off work for nine months. He was one of the lucky ones.

“We were in the back of the front carriage – 29 people died in that carriage and six in the second carriage. Two people sat behind us passed away and the guy opposite passed away.

“I’ve got over it I suppose. But I’m very reluctant to travel in the front carriage of a train.”

Chris Owens, from Wareham, walked away from the accident uninjured.

Now Borough of Poole’s head of customer services and communications, Chris was working for Lloyds Bank at London Bridge and was a passenger on the Basingstoke train.

“Like most commuters we used to go to the same spot on the platform every morning. The really bizarre thing, and I really don’t understand why we did this, that morning we decided to go to the front of the train.

“Because of that, we avoided a lot of the carnage. We were very close to Clapham station and there was a bridge a bit further down which shielded the full impact of the crash.

“We were thrown out of our seats, but had no appreciation of the scale of it. One of my friends stayed in the same carriage and came to work covered in blood later that day.”

It wasn’t until much later that Chris, now 44, realised the full impact of the crash.“The memory that sticks in my mind is coming back to the station in the evening and seeing a lot of cars there and thinking ‘I wonder how many of those people haven’t made it back’.

“There was a change of atmosphere at the train station. For some time after people wouldn’t go in the front or rear carriages, they’d wait for the next train. To this day I won’t sit in the front or rear carriages.

“But I was very fortunate, I had a lucky escape.”