On the scene

The picture of a policeman taking down particulars as a colleague and passers-by look on was discovered among the estimated 1.5 million photographic negatives in the Luton News collection at Wardown Museum.

The accident happened at the Princess Street/Adelaide Street crossroads in October or November 1950.

The Star and Garter pub is on the junction and the edge of the Princess Alexandra pub sign is visible in the top left corner of the picture. Both pubs and part of Princess Street disappeared in the early 1970s to make way for the new magistrates’ courts.

Pictured top right is a lorry which careered off Stockingstone Road and ended up in the front garden of a house after shedding part of its load of wood in April 1942.

And bottom right is the aftermath when an elm tree crashed onto a double-decker bus in 1946. The Luton News reported that on Wednesday, February 20 the bus driver and conductor had just been talking about the way high winds were swaying a row of 60-foot trees.

They were parked at the Cutenhoe Road terminus when a tree snapped about 20 feet from the ground and fell across the bus.

Luckily, the only passenger on board was sitting on the lower deck and escaped injury, as did the driver and conductor. The fallen branches had to be sawn up before they could be moved.