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T it dawned on me the end was near occurred in my 20s, at a time when everything was beginning. My dearest friend, Helen, and I were headed to Blackburn to reunite with an old university friend who had recently moved there for work. Delighted to be together, and enjoying the thought of the party weekend ahead, we chatted nonstop as we made our way by train from York.

We placed our luggage – containing vital items such as bottles of wine and the clogs I had just bought – above our heads and made ourselves comfortable in a cosy two-seater. About 50 minutes into our journey, I was faintly cognizant of a bang. This was followed by a second, now unmistakable. Someone cried out as our carriage was lifted off the tracks in what felt like a dreamlike pace. All at once, Helen and I were upright in the middle of the aisle, holding each other tight. With my head lowered, eyes screwed shut, I expected the carriage to overturn and ignite, similar to cinematic scenes. I remember thinking our relatives and companions hearing the tragic update. Then I heard the little girl crying.

“It's going to be fine,” I murmured, my voice sounding croaky. “It’s all over,” I murmured, mostly for my own benefit.

She appeared to be seven or eight, and appeared to be completely on her own. Her sobbing snapped me back to reality; now I could do something meaningful. I went to where she was standing and wrapped an arm around her. “Avoid looking back,” Helen called out, but it was already too late. I caught sight of a man with blood all over his face. An enormous piece of metal had penetrated the window behind us. Subsequently, we found out a runaway digger had tumbled down the embankment and collided with the train, making the train leave the tracks.

Our carriage was stuck with its front end in the air. Then came the noise of sirens and a fellow passenger instructed me to hand the child over so he could pass her through the window, while young passengers were extracted to fire crews on standby. Shortly after, Helen and I were likewise scrambling out of the train window and descending via a ladder on to the track.

Once back on solid ground – adjacent to a storage building in Pudsey – my body started to shake uncontrollably. My eyes scanned for the little girl and watched her mother gather her up, who it turned out had been in the toilet at the time of the accident. A firefighter kindly retrieved my clogs. One of the passengers collapsed on Helen’s case, resulting in it breaking open – though luckily our wine remained intact. After a half-hour wait, we traveled in a free cab to Blackburn, alongside an adolescent and the woman who had broken Helen’s case. Our host was there, visibly shaken. She was aware there had been a derailment and a guard had taken her into his office and prepared some tea for her while she waited for news.

With the invincibility of youth, we put the train crash to one side and continued with our evening plans, which included a memorable turn by Blackburn drag queen Clitheroe Kate. There were no fatalities in the incident, although several people required hospital treatment. Helen and I escaped with bruises and general soreness from the impact of being thrown forward in the carriage. The locomotive was decelerating to come into Leeds station, which had been the crucial element in avoiding serious injury. Given that nobody was badly hurt made it easier not to focus on the “what ifs” but it was the little girl who changed my outlook profoundly. Taking care of her and calming her down distracted me from my own fear and showed me the worth of focusing on others in a crisis. In the decades since, I have frequently pondered if she recalled any details, and what a major event it had been for her.

Helen and I have remained friends for thirty-plus years and Pudsey has become shorthand for our ability to cope any situation, provided we have each other. Her presence that fateful day gave me the impression I was shielded against the worst of the situation. The crash also changed the way I approach various difficult situations, giving me perspective – and reinforcing the idea that, regardless of how terrible things look, it remains a gift to age.