Marchioness 30 years on
‘I was the last survivor’
Every August, Andrew Sutton is haunted by a vision of the Bowbelle. “It becomes a bit more acute at this time of year, like the body has a self-timer mechanism,” he says. “It comes to me as funny little shapes and visual interruptions, or sometimes just in the form of a migraine. But I know when it’s here. I live with it.”
It is 30 years today since Sutton first locked eyes with the dredger. In the early hours of August 20 1989, he was out drinking with a friend – the now celebrated portrait photographer Chris Garnham – in central London, when they decided to join a birthday party on the Marchioness, a pleasure cruiser that had been taking tourists up and down the river Thames.
Sutton wasn’t feeling it: he’d spent the day in bed with flu, but Garnham convinced him that a night of summer revelry would do him good. He reluctantly agreed, so with their girlfriends, Helen and Gillian, and another friend, Tony Loh Manyem, they arrived at Embankment Pier just before 1am. None was technically invited: they didn’t know Antonio de Vasconcellos, whose 26th birthday the private party was in aid of. But Garnham knew the organiser, Jonathan Phang, who waved them on board.
“It’s funny,” muses Sutton, “there are so many people I’ve spoken to subsequently who say, ‘you know, I was meant to go to that party but couldn’t make it…’”
Now 58, he spends much of his time in Spain, or travelling for his work as an underwater photographer. When he looks back on that night, he says, “It’s all there in my head, in glorious colour and surround sound. The moment of impact is as clear now as it was then. Of course, I know now that’s post-traumatic stress disorder.”
He credits the flu with saving his life. At 1.25am, once all 131 passengers and crew were aboard, the Marchioness set off downriver and overtook its sister pleasure cruiser, the Hurlingham. Nursing a beer and unwilling to dance, Sutton stood on the bow with Helen and Loh Manyem, while Garnham ventured inside.
A few minutes earlier, Bowbelle – three times the length of the Marchioness and more than 1,800 tonnes heavier, but travelling at twice the speed – had also overtaken the Hurlingham and was behind the Marchioness when they both approached Cannon Street bridge.
For reasons that have never become clear, the paths of the two boats began to meet in the darkness. The crew of Bowbelle – which included skipper Douglas Henderson, who wasn’t at the helm at the time and had earlier drunk six pints of beer – didn’t see the Marchioness, and the pleasure cruiser couldn’t get away quickly enough. At 1.46am, Bowbelle collided twice with the Marchioness, instantly separating the wooden party boat’s deck and forcing it underwater. In 30 seconds, the entire saloon had been submerged. Sutton, meanwhile, was still on the bow.
“I heard the crack of the deck splintering and then I could see it – the two big hawseholes of the Bowbelle staring at me. One minute I had my hand on a railing, then before I knew it I was in the water holding on to Helen, who sank like a stone because she had a velvet coat on,” he recalls. Sutton was a strong swimmer. He was able to put his girlfriend in a hold and kick off the side of the boat.
“I was aware that something was attached to my leg, and reached down to find it was Tony,” he continues. “He came nose to nose with me, before being dragged down… I have a bit of guilt that I didn’t do more to save him, but he must have been caught on the railing or by his clothing, because he was so forcefully pulled down. I have that memory of his face next to mine like a Gothic painting now.”
Sutton and Helen were left alone in the quiet. He didn’t know exactly what had happened, but knew they couldn’t stay where they were – Bowbelle was still thundering forward. “Pulling away from the hull of the dredger as it went past was another one of those moments that saved our lives,” he explains.
Over the next 20 minutes, they were swept back upstream – as far as the National Theatre, opposite where they’d boarded the Marchioness. Sutton was delirious, but remembers seeing an individual in chef ’s trousers hit the stanchion of a bridge and sink without a trace. The next thing he knew, policemen were hauling the couple on to a boat.
They were the lucky ones. That night, 51 people drowned: 24 found below deck and 27 in other parts of the Thames. Among them were Garnham and Loh Manyem, as well as de Vasconcellos, captain Stephen Faldo, and 19-year-old Francesca Dallaglio, the youngest person on board and sister of future England rugby captain Lawrence.
Sutton and Helen may have been the final people pulled from the water alive, since many of the survivors were rescued quickly by the Hurlingham. Sutton was taken to St Thomas’s hospital but had no major physical injuries, so discharged himself after a few hours. He returned to work after three days, and received no therapy for months. Public sympathy was in short supply, too. Since many of the
‘Before I knew it, I was in the water holding on to Helen, who sank like a stone’
partygoers were young and involved in the fashion world, while the birthday boy was a banker, the suggestion was that they were an elite, reckless crowd.
Sutton is angry that he and his fellow passengers were portrayed as Thatcher-era yuppies.
“We were demonised by the media. It was our fault, they said,” he explains. “My neighbour’s brother died at Hillsborough, and we often talk about it – the same year, only a few more died, and they’re still fighting for justice. But the Marchioness? Some new regulations came about, but in terms of real justice? Nothing.
“Fifty-one people died in central London, it’s outrageous. There were some rich people but most of us weren’t wealthy at all. We were young… I had clients turn me away as if I was damaged goods by association with that crowd.”
The attitude of the authorities was criticised by the Marchioness Action Group, set up by the victims’ families in the aftermath. Sutton remembers the police suggesting that Gillian and another friend, Rachel (now his wife; he and Helen split soon after the disaster) be the ones to inform Garnham’s mother that her son had died.
The lobby group did succeed in affecting change: more training for police, the introduction of four lifeboat stations on the Thames in 2001, and new laws on being in charge of a vessel under the influence. Allegations of manslaughter against Henderson, the Bowbelle’s skipper, and the ship’s owners were brought but dismissed for lack of evidence in 1992.
The dredger was sold to a Portuguese company and sank off Madeira seven years later. In 2008, Sutton and two diving partners visited the wreck to photograph it. “I had a strange urge to,” he says. “When I saw it I felt angry and sad, but like I was in control. I was distressed all the way back on the plane, as if I’d been beaten up. At the same time, it was very satisfying – as if I had achieved something against the vision in my head.”
Sutton wasn’t aware of any memorial ceremonies this week – a fact he says that illustrates just how little the survivors are looked after – but later this afternoon, a Eucharist and Act of Memorial will take place at Southwark Cathedral. Inside the Gothic church, close to the accident site, a permanent tribute to the 51 victims reads: “Many waters cannot quench love.” Thirty years on, those touched by the disaster will remember that love today.
‘We were demonised by the media. It was our fault, they said. It’s outrageous’