Stories that gripped Croydon in 1989

TRADERS who were five minutes late for work cheated death when an out-of-control car crashed into their shop.

Walter and Brenda Wooller, of the Trailer Centre, Shirley Road, Addiscombe, arrived to find people searching for their bodies in the rubble.

The car driven by Emma Kippax, 20, of Pendridge Road, Bickley, near Bromley, had swerved off the carriageway and ploughed through the plate-glass frontage of the shop. It came to rest by the brick wall at the back.

Miss Kippax was unhurt but suffered severe shock.

Mrs Wooller said: "She was ever so lucky.

"If my husband and I had been sitting in the shop as usual, there's no way we would have survived."

A MAGNIFICENT response to an Advertiser appeal raised £400,000 to help sick children in Croydon.

Three-quarters of the money came from donations and the efforts of the public, while £100,000 was pledged by the Sportsman's Aid Society.

The KiM appeal, which stands for Kids in Mayday, aimed to make life a lot better for children in the town's main hospital, and for their parents.

One little boy at the heart of the effort was Michael Bridges.

His face was used as the logo, appearing on all the letters, the badges and the huge illuminated sign outside Mayday Hospital.

When his photograph was taken for the launch of the appeal, Michael was just over a year old.

He was in Mayday for observation for a chest infection.

A TODDLER escaped death after a fall from a third-floor window.

Billy Dunn, 2, plunged 30ft from a South Norwood flat onto a grass verge.

A passing driver raised the alarm after seeing the accident.

Workman Martin Hatchell, who was on scaffolding at a building site next door, saw the boy lying on the grass and went to help.

"The kid was crying his eyes out but he seemed to have no broken bones. He was very lucky to be alive," he said.

Billy's mother Alison, 23, had just got up and was making a bottle for her three-month-old daughter Carlie when she realised Billy had disappeared.

She saw he had fallen from the bedroom window of the flat in Russell Court, Selhurst Road.

"I just went to pieces," she said.

Billy was rushed to Mayday Hospital, where they found he had cuts and bruises.