The Hollinwell Incident: What caused hundreds of children to collapse in a field?
Forty years ago an unexplained mass illness suddenly swept through a marching band jamboree in Notts, causing local hospitals to be swamped with young casualties and shocked parents. GURJEET NANRAH spoke to some of those who were there on the day to try a
WHAT started as nausea or a sore throat for around 300 to 400 attendees at a Notts showground 40 years ago quickly resulted in hundreds losing consciousness.
From harmful pesticides to more outlandish theories about UFOS, exactly what happened on that infamous Sunday afternoon at Hollinwell Showground in Kirkby-ashfield continues to divide opinion.
The event which took place on July 13, 1980 is still talked about in around the town and was intended to be a jazz band jamboree for local brass bands linked to the collieries in the Ashfield and Mansfield area.
The Post has spoken to some of those who were there at the moment when children started “falling down like dead flies” in what is now remembered as the Hollinwell Incident.
Clair Brown, who works at Sherwood Forest Hospitals, was a jazz band member back in 1980. She said: “I was only seven years old at the time but remember it well.
“I can remember lots of children crying and fainting. They stopped the carnival and I went home with my parents then started feeling very sick.
“I had something like white foam coming from my mouth.
“The lady that ran our marching band rang my mother and told her to take me to her house as she had the doctor there.
“I was taken to the local hospital in Mansfield and I can remember there were many kids and some adults on stretchers in corridors.
“The hospital couldn’t cope with the big intake of people that had been taken ill from that event and I was taken to Chesterfield hospital and they kept me in overnight.”
In all, more than 300 children and adults simply dropped to the floor. Many suffered sore eyes and throats and nausea before losing consciousness.
Neil Lancashire, a 69-year-old photographer from Sutton-in-ashfield, was at Hollinwell Showground on that unforgettable day.
The press photographer of 53 years said: “I did not think much of it to start with and then the person over the Tannoy said something like ‘don’t eat the ice cream’ as they thought it was causing the fainting. A lot of the children eating ice-cream then fainted.
“Then they said it was the water so everyone who drank it started fainting and after they said the field had been sprayed which caused pretty much everybody to fall down.
“I’m a strong believer that it was mass hysteria. I didn’t see any horses faint like some people have said.
“I don’t think it was anything too sinister because I was there, and I touched the field. Some people have said they could taste something in the air, but not me.
“They sent loads of ambulances to get the children to hospital.”
The chilling incident also goes by another name – All Fall Down.
Neil added: “The event was a jazz band jamboree which were really popular at the time.
“As soon as people started running about and rushing in a panic, the press photographer in me kicked in and I started taking pictures.
“The pictures were used all around the world too.
“I would probably say it was my most memorable job, it was an interesting day for sure.”
Penny Morley, who is 50, was 10 when she was a member of one of the jazz bands set to perform on that day.
She still lives in Kirkby and said: “I can remember everybody falling like dead flies and people being so ill that they had to go to hospital.
“I came home with a stomach pain so I went to the hospital myself but was fine in a couple days.
“It was ages ago, but it’s a day that has stuck in my memory.
“I remember people blaming the food stalls there but not everybody had eaten from them.
“It was scary because it was the last thing you expect to happen, especially so close to home.
“I remember the odd taste in the air and a smell like onions, if I had to compare it.”
Joan Morley, Penny’s mother, was also at Hollinwell in 1980.
The 68-year-old said: “I can remember the grass having an odd blue tint to it and it smelt like bleach.
“Three of my children were in the same marching band and fell ill that day. They all ended up being admitted into hospital for a night too.
“It was more or less all children who were affected, but I do remember seeing one adult being taken away too. It makes you wonder what really happened.”
Four local hospitals were placed on red alert as 259 casualties were ferried by ambulance for treatment. Nine were kept in overnight.
But what caused the mass sickness? The official line, from the experts at the time, was that it was a rare epidemic of hysteria, eclipsing even the peak of Beatlemania.
Ashfield District Council and Notts Police carried out a joint inquiry into the incident at the time which ruled out food poisoning, contaminated water, nerve gas and radio waves as causes, instead concluding that mass hysteria was to blame.
Ron Chamberlain, then Ashfield District Council’s environmental health committee chairman, also backed the “mass sociogenic illness” conclusion.
Speaking to the Nottingham Evening Post after the incident, he said: “We carried out a full, proper and thorough investigation. We followed up several possible theories and there is still no doubt in my mind that it was down to mass hysteria.”
Around 23 years after the incident, researchers at the University of Nottingham’s school of biomedical sciences looked into the incident.
Dr David Ray, from the University of Nottingham’s school of biomedical science told the Post in 2003 that the smell of tridemorph - a pesticide that was banned in the UK in 2000 could have triggered the mass hysteria.
The doctor, who lost his battle with cancer in 2010, said: “It is possible that the children marching could have kicked residue of this chemical back into the atmosphere.
“The weather, the fact that some children had been awake since 3am, could all have been factors.
“It would only have taken one or two of the children to react by panicking and that reaction could have spread very quickly. It’s usually the smell of the pesticide which triggers the reaction.”