Robb Johnson 1987
193 passengers & crew (a third of those on board) died in 1987 when the cross-Channel ship went down. Many of those on board had taken advantage of a promotion in The Sun newspaper offering cheap trips to the continent. The ship left harbour with her bow door open, and the sea immediately flooded the vehicle deck; within minutes, she was lying on her side in shallow water. The immediate cause of the capsizing was found to be negligence by the assistant boatswain, who was asleep in his cabin when he should have been closing the bow door. The official inquiry, however, placed more blame on his supervisors and a company culture of poor communication.
Nancy Kerr & James Fagan: https://kerrfagan.bandcamp.com/track/the-herald-of-free-enterprise
https://kerrfagan.bandcamp.com/track/the-herald-of-free-enterprise
The sun goes down now ‘cross the sea We’re homeward bound now, and on the duty-free The harbour’s quiet and the kids asleep Tired out from Europe on the cheap Chorusÿ The ship we sail, and the flag she flies It is the Herald of Free Enterprise (x2) There are no poor now, we all have cars They’re parked down below now, we took off the stars On television, if not the sky The ocean moves us, we don’t ask why We feel the ship slip out from the land We’re pleased our trip went just like we planned We see the lights along the shore Not the overworked crew, not the open door And in the cruel dark sea our lives go down In Zeebrugge Harbour all night we drown Now the owners grow old while we all die young With the blue murder stuck in our lungs And they can salvage our ship up from the bottom of the sea Recycle pop stars to sing Let it be Sell lorries for scrap, whitewash the company But they can make no more money out of me And each life lost, much loved, much missed And all of our lives’re on some passenger list It’s too late for ‘Mayday’, you sink too fast When profits come first and people’s losses come last