Train crash ‘made me a better person’, says survivor from Pangbourne

Pam Warren, aged 47, was on board the Paddington to Bedwyn train when it crashed head-on at Ladbroke Grove in to the Cheltenham to Paddington service at 8.11am in October 1999.
After her carriage was engulfed in a fireball, the image of Ms Warren’s charred face in a plastic mask became one of the most recognisable images in the aftermath of the tragedy in which 31 people. died
Now, 14-years later, she has written a book, From Behind the Mask, in which she talks for the first time about her life and how the crash affected it.
She was originally asked to write a book for the 10th anniversary of the crash but said what she came out with was a very unemotional account, and so she burned it.
However, this time around she said she put her heart and soul into the book. “Eventually I got something that I’m really quite proud of.”
In the wake of the crash, she formed the Paddington Survivors Group, which offers support to those affected by the crash.
“When I was the ‘lady in the mask’ I had to be very careful not to give away any of my private thoughts because I felt it would distract from the campaign.
“What I feel now is within the book – I have been able to lift the self-imposed restrictions.
“I have put myself back there to tell people what I was thinking and how I was feeling.
“I get to tell people what was happening behind the mask.”
The book takes the reader on a journey from the financial advisor Ms Warren was at the time of the crash – a person she did not like – to the one she has since become – a change which she puts down to the crash itself.
She said: “I really was the product of that time – we worked hard but also played hard.
“And because we were that way, our family and friends tended to come last. We always put ourselves first.
She said she was very grateful that she wasn’t that person anymore and if the crash hadn’t happened she would have ended up an older version of that person.
“When you go through something like the train crash, you re-assess your life and what role you should be fulfilling.”
Of course Ms Warren’s book would not be complete without her recollections of the crash and a chapter is devoted to this in the book, which helped to further ease the post traumatic stress disorder she still suffers from.
She said: “Even though it was over in a few seconds, it was like life completely slowed down.
“And because I was fully conscious the whole time, I was still able to replay it – even after all this time.
“I put into the book exactly how it happened, how I felt, what I could see and what I smelt.
“I didn’t want to terrify people but I found it quite cathartic.”
Although she stepped down from the Paddington Survivors Group in 2004, during her time, the group successfully campaigned for better rail safety, helping to transform standards.
She felt that the lessons she learned from this battle made her the “happy and content” person she is today.
“It would have been so easy to jump up and down as the Paddington Survivors Group. If we wanted to make a difference we had to stay calm so that we could get the message across.
“We had to learn to talk their language rather than being the hysterical survivors.”
From Behind the Mask, published by Biteback Publishing, is out now.