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Memorial bench for Susan Harris unveiling. Cllr Brian Dalton, Victor and Helen Flute, Mary Spry, Ron Tothill and Mayor and Mayoress of Salisbury Kevin and Jan Cardy. DB3899P1

FRIENDS and family of young heroine Susan Harris shared their memories at a poignant ceremony in Salisbury.

They stood with heads bowed in the sunshine on the Town Path at Harnham as a prayer was said at the unveiling of a commemorative bench and plaque to the trainee teacher who lost her life 42 years ago trying to save a drowning boy from the river.

Some were fellow-students from Sarum College, now retired from their teaching careers but reunited in her honour. They had come from as far afield as Bideford and Cambridge.

There were her cousins, Mary Spry from Ford and Ron Tothill from Cornwall.

Her fiance Victor Flute and best friend Helen, who met up again the year after the tragedy and subsequently married, had travelled from Suffolk and were presented with a copy of the plaque.

There, too, were the other central figures from the drama. Anthony Gallagher was the nine-year-old boy who had fallen into the torrent by the Old Mill, and Chris Gray - now a Fordingbridge businessman - was the teenager who eventually rescued him.

All had been brought together by district councillor Brian Dalton, who explained how he had recalled the story while walking across the path with his brothers after a family bereavement of his own and researched it in the Journal archives.

There is already a memorial window to Susan in the Cathedral, but he decided to organise a tribute at the scene.

Susan's aunt Joan Griffiths, now 88 and living in a nursing home in Cornwall, was contacted and gave the project her blessing.

With the Town Path resurfacing work only just completed, the council's parks department installed the bench in the nick of time on Thursday morning.

The Rev David Scrace, Vicar of Harnham, said a prayer expressing hope that people who rested on the bench would remember Susan's self-sacrifice.

Susan was out riding her bike when she was alerted to Anthony Gallagher's plight. She was a strong swimmer, Mr Flute remembered, and would not have hesitated to plunge in. She reached the boy but both were sucked under the weir and Susan did not surface again.

Mrs Flute recalled raising the alarm at college when her friend failed to return for supper. "But they didn't find her until the next morning," she said.

Mr Gray said: "It was a very rough river here in those days, much more turbulent than it is now.

"I came round by the Mill and kids were shouting that there was a boy drowning. Instinct kicked in, and in I went. I didn't see Susan. All I found were her bike and shoes on the bank. It's something you never forget."

9:29am Tuesday 15th April 2008

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