WEEK 42

John M. Mollekin

John Malcolm Mollekin (1931 to 2015), born in Listerdale, Wickersley, is my uncle and son of John Gilbert Mollekin and Edith Mary Pinder.

Below is a newspaper article pertaining to a car accident that John was involved in, in 1960 or 1961. The eye injury mentioned caused John many problems and it was removed in 1996.

The photo below, included with this entry, relates to another accident that John was unfortunately involved in.

Driver banned, fined £25 for winter crash

IN the worst hour of snow during the worst night of the last winter, two cars collided in Bawtry road, Tinsley, injuring three people, it was said at Sheffield today.

Accident at Whiston, Rotherham

One of the drivers, 42 year-old railway clerk Reginald Eric Blackwell, of Valentine Road, Sheffield, was banned for a month and fined £25 with £11 costs for dangerous driving,

Mr. I Thomas, prosecuting, said Blackwell overtook a lorry moving at 25 m.p.h. and got into a skid, then collided with a car carrying two passengers coming in the opposite direction.

EYE INJURY

The driver of the other car, John Mollekin, lorry driver, of Melsis Road, Rotherham, had halted on seeing the car come towards him. He suffered a serious eye injury in the crash.

Blackwell told the court he had passed the lorry, but when he turned into his side of the road again, his car began to skid.

It skidded from side to side as he tried to correct it and then crashed into the car on the opposite side.

Mr. Roy Barlow, defending, said freak conditions existed on the road at that time.

He claimed Blackwell was safe in overtaking the lorry as the road was wide and his vision adequate.