It was a chartered coach trip, a pleasant outing for the Women's Royal Voluntary Service from the mill towns of West Yorkshire. The destination was the picturesque market town of Grassington in the Dales. The vehicle, a double-decker, was full of pensioners. The road, the B6265, winds and drops sharply at a point called Dibbles Bridge.
Witnesses described the coach simply leaving the road. It did not collide with another vehicle. It did not overturn on the tarmac. It sailed over a low stone wall and cartwheeled down a 30-foot ravine, coming to rest on its roof in the stream below. The violence of the tumbling destroyed the structure. Rescuers from the nearby quarry found a scene of almost incomprehensible devastation.
Fifty-one people were on board. Thirty-three died, all women, most over the age of sixty. It remains the highest death toll from a single road accident in the United Kingdom. The official cause was a combination of brake failure and a possible missed gear on the descent. But the event exists in memory less as a mechanical failure and more as a stark, random tear in the fabric of an ordinary Tuesday. A community of grandmothers, gone in the time it takes a vehicle to clear a wall. The bridge still stands. The ravine is green and quiet. The record, thankfully, remains unbroken.