IN The Northern Echo’s photo archive is a packet of pictures entitled: “River Skerne”. To illustrate the articles we've posted in the last couple of days about the ducking of women in the 17th Century, we thought we'd look in there, and out tumbled a couple of amazing, and awful, pictures from 1965.
They show “an inflated and moss-covered man’s body” being retrieved by fireman from the River Skerne between the Priestgate and East Street bridges on August 14, 1965.
Quite shockingly, the emergency services have a coffin which they lower into the water and put the poor fellow in.
We’ve come across this coffin before in pictures of 1960s fatal road accidents. It seems that the brigade, knowing death was always just around a corner, carried the coffin with them in their engine.
Having retrieved the body, a Durham County Police spokesman said: "All we can do at the moment is check our missing persons list."
Two days later, it was announced that it was the body of Thomas Kirby, 49, who came from the Gateshead area and had lived in the Salvation Army Hostel on Haughton Road until August 2. He had been last seen alive on August 5, but police were unable to fill in the nine days before he was found in the river. They also struggled to trace any relatives.
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