Luna Park tragedy: 36th anniversary of the fire that killed seven riders on the Ghost Train in 1979
A ‘BIZARRE’ craving for ice-cream saved the life of a mother who lost her husband and two young sons in the horror Luna Park Ghost Train fire on this day in 1979. MYSTERY OF THE DEVIL-HORNED MAN
Survivor Jenny Poidevin recalls the night she lost her husband, sons
Fire on 40-year-old Ghost train started by electrical fault
Four children and one adult were killed in the horror blaze
Firefighters hampered by water supply problems
A “BIZARRE” craving for ice-cream saved the life of a mother who lost her husband and two young sons in the horror 1979 Luna Park Ghost Train fire.
Today marks the 36th anniversary of the fire that ripped through the popular Sydney tourist attraction and claimed the lives of seven people.
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Jenny and John Godson lived in the central western town of Warren and had finally decided to bring their two young boys Damien and Craig to the Big Smoke for a much-anticipated visit to Taronga Zoo and Luna Park.
Their timetable was thrown out of whack when a train drivers strike forced them to take a series of buses to Sydney which meant they arrived in the city later than expected.
Despite the setback the family were living it up on their much-needed break.
They visited the zoo and returned to the city for dinner before heading to Luna Park for a night of rides which should have been the highlight of the holiday for the two young boys.
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When it was eventually time to leave the family had four ride tickets left and the boys had their choice of ride to spend them on: The Ghost Train.
It was at the same time Jenny got an overwhelming craving for ice cream — something she didn’t usually eat — and she told the boys to go ahead and wait for her.
“I was just standing at the door of Coney Island and all of a sudden I got this thought that I wanted an ice cream — it was just the most bizarre thing,” she said.
“I asked the boys if they wanted an ice cream and they said no so off they went with their father and that was that — I didn’t meet them there, they were gone.”
When Jenny made her way over to the Ghost Train shortly after she was met with the terrifying sight of smoke pouring out of the ride her entire family had just entered.
Attendants were desperately trying to get people off the train as it came out of the tunnels but there were seven people who wouldn’t make it out alive.
There was much chaos as the inferno took hold and the extent of its grip became clear.
Firefighters who raced to the scene were met with water supply problems as those left in the park were ushered out and stood watching helplessly outside as they waited for news on those inside.
“What I remember is the fire brigade getting there and struggling to get water. They ended up having to get it straight out of the harbour — that’s one thing that’s always stayed in my mind,” Ms Poidevin (nee Godson) said.
Witnesses at the time spoke of people walking around dazed and confused, covered head to toe in soot, as emergency services battled behind them.
Survivors spoke of being confronted by walls of fire as flames as high as 4m engulfed the ride that had been a feature of the park since the early 1930s.
Frank Juhassi told The Daily Telegraph in the days after the tragedy that he and his wife Elena were lucky to make it off the ride alive.
“The car nosed through the doors and we could see 4m flames all around us,” he said.
“We were seconds away from death.”
When firefighters eventually got the fire under control they made the grim discovery inside.
Huddled together in one of the tunnels was John Godson with Damien and Craig. In another section of the doomed ride, four boys from Waverley College were found. They had been friends for life and were visiting the park with a fifth friend who survived the blaze.
Outside Jenny Poidevin was waiting in a daze for any word on what had happened to her family.
“I wanted to stay there and I remember someone standing beside me and until a few years ago I didn’t realise who that was but it ended up being Jason (Holmon), the fifth boy who was with the other boys,” she said.
The pair ended up becoming lifelong friends, bonded by a tragedy others would have difficulty understanding.
“We’re very close. It’s like there’s some kind of web that joins us together.,” Ms Poidevin said.
“We sort of had survivor’s guilt — we’re here and they’re all not. That still haunts both of us today, it’s just something that doesn’t leave you. You learn to live with it but those sort of feelings they’re innate in you so it doesn’t go away.”
Ms Poidevin returned briefly to her family’s home town of Warren, who were devastated by the loss.
But she had to leave before the grief consumed her.
“I moved from Warren because I had this inner feeling that if I’d stayed there I wouldn’t have made it,” she said.
Moving to Sydney, Ms Poidevin took a job at a medical factory and tried as best she could to rebuild her shattered life, but after a year it all became too much and she broke down with the weight of what had happened.
“I don’t know how I survived that first 12 months,” she said. “I tried to get on with my life but I fell to pieces and then I had to rebuild myself from that point on,” she said.
The pain and grief of losing her husband and children was compounded in the years that followed by an investigation that was widely criticised and a number of inquiries that failed to determine an exact cause of the deadly fire.
While an electrical fault was blamed for sparking the inferno, rumours persisted that it was deliberately lit.
In 2007 the niece of one of Sydney’s most notorious crime figures, nightclub owner and developer Abe Saffron, told the Sydney Morning Herald that her uncle was the one who had started the fire.
Anne Buckingham told the newspaper that Saffron wanted to purchase the park and hadn’t meant for anyone to die.
Saffron had long been rumoured to be involved in the fire - and was a suspect in seven other fires around the same time - but had long denied he was responsible.
Mrs Poidevin said the theory held a lot of weight for her but admitted that she just wasn’t sure anymore what had happened.
She said a Queensland man had contacted her in recent years and told her of a different theory.
“He’s rung me over the years a couple of times and he’s suffered quite a lot of stress over it but he believes there was someone letting off fire crackers,” she said.
“But I truly don’t know. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
While she would like to know why her family was killed on that fateful night in 1979 and has long campaigned for the truth to be revealed, she can no longer afford the strain it puts on her, both mentally and physically.
“For my own sanity and my own physical well being I’ve had to put that away and just go on and believe somehow that will all be sorted,” she said.
“To this day I still believe that there is someone out there that knows the exact truth and I don’t believe justice has been done in terms of what truly happened there that night.”
Seven years after her family perished on the Ghost Train, Mrs Poidevin gave birth to her daughter Emily Rose who is now 28.
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The ‘miracle baby’ helped get the devastated mother back on track and was the injection of hope she needed to carry on.
“She is amazing and my life wouldn’t be the same without her,” Ms Poidevin said.
At this time of year comes around, or when she celebrates her sons’ birthdays, it is like the horror was yesterday and the grieving mum struggles to mesh her two worlds together.
“I’ve got a beautiful daughter now so I often get very torn when this time of the year comes around. I think if I should be allowing myself to do this when I’ve got her,” she said.
“It just feels like I could click my fingers and it’s there. That feeling never goes away, ever.”
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