If you’ve listened to last week’s episode, 20 June 1996, you’ll have all the facts – or, at least, all the conflicting accounts – at your disposal. So where do we go from here? Well, it won’t have escaped your notice that all this happened nearly three decades ago, so today we’re looking at everything that’s happened since, bringing you right up to date. We’ll drag you, kicking and screaming, out of the 90s and deposit you back in 2025, where you belong.
You might have followed the news story in the aftermath of the accident. It’s possible that you already know the Hunter family were fined £500,000 and that Wildworld shut down with immediate effect. But what toll did that take on everyone involved? How did the Hunter family, and AJ’s family, cope withwhat they’d witnessed and had to live with? And where are they all now? Let’s find out.
Cathy: There were police swarming round for days. They brought someone in to inspect the rollercoaster, and they interviewed us all separately. It was necessary, I understand that. There had been a life lost, and they had to work out what had caused that. Meanwhile, the story was everywhere and the press were hounding us. We couldn’t leave the park – I had to ask friends to bring us food. I guess we got a bit of a taste of what life was like for AJ Silver, didn’t we?
John: The day after it happened, I made my way through the press and got in my car. They were all over it like a swarm of bees. Scattered pretty quickly when I started revving the engine, though. I went to see the loan shark, told him where I was. He shook his head. Said, ‘Dear oh dear oh dear.’ Thing is with people like that, they don’t make allowances. They don’t care what your excuse is. They break legs first and ask questions later. He said I had until the end of the following day to get him ten grand. There was just no way. On the drive home, I turned it over and over. But there was no solution. I was going to have to tell Cathy.
Cathy: John sat me down when both the kids were in their rooms and I could see he needed to tell me something big. It’s almost funny now, but I’d convinced myself he was going to say the marriage was over. If only it had been something like that. He told me about borrowing the money for the rollercoaster, about using a loan shark, about how much he owed and how he had just over twenty-four hours to raise ten thousand pounds. I was incredulous. As if the accident wasn’t enough to be dealing with. I asked him how he could have been so stupid, and he said he’d done it for us, for the family, for the park.
John: Cathy didn’t even try to understand, to see it from my side. If you want the truth, I think she had one foot out of the door with our marriage back then, and she wasn’t interested in being my support system. But I was desperate, so I asked if she could go to her parents. She laughed drily and said she would call them but she didn’t hold out much hope.
Cathy: I called my parents. They’d heard what had happened, of course, and they thought I was phoning about that. When I said we were in some trouble and we needed ten thousand pounds urgently, my dad went quiet. He said he didn’t have that sort of money lying around. And I said I thought that was the case but I’d wanted to ask just in case. And then I hung up.
John: She didn’t even push them on it. When I challenged her, she asked whether I’d askedmydad. Which was hardly fair. My dad was fairly close to having lost all his marbles. I was frantic, pacing. I went to the kitchen and poured a measure of vodka. Tipped it back, poured another.
Cathy: He was shaking, and it was hard to know whether it was the drink or the fear. He started mumbling, saying they were going to come for him. That’s when I realised how dangerous these people were that he’d got himself involved with. I asked if they knew where we lived.
John: I told her of course they knew where we bloody lived. Everyone knew where we lived, didn’t they? We were like sitting ducks in that stupid house my grandfather had built right on the site of Wildworld.
Cathy: I said that I was leaving, that I was taking the kids. I couldn’t risk them witnessing anything, or actually being hurt themselves. John looked at me with pure hatred. Said we weresupposed to be a family. I said he’d lost the right to call us that the day he’d put us all at risk of harm.
Pea: Mum burst into my room and told me to pack a bag. Said we were leaving. It had come out of nowhere. I thought she meant the police had said we had to leave. I thought Dad was coming with us. Sebastian came in after she’d gone and asked what I was taking. He had his toothbrush in his hand and looked totally bewildered. I said we should pack clothes for two or three days, but I was only guessing. We were in totally unchartered territory.
Sebastian: It wasn’t until we were ready to go that Mum made it clear it was just the three of us leaving the house. I thought her and Dad must have argued about the accident, that it would all be resolved in a day or two. I could hear him in the kitchen, slamming things around. And to be honest, a part of me was glad. Fuck him and his stupid theme park.
Cathy: I had some money in an account that John didn’t know about. I’d come close, earlier that evening, to offering it to him to get us out of this hole. But it wasn’t enough to cover his debt, so what was the point? It was enough for the kids and me to stay in a hotel until I got something else sorted out. So we went into town and checked in at the Ace Hotel.
Pea: We went to the hotel where Zak and Maggie had stayed on their first visit over, which felt like several lifetimes ago. I wondered briefly whether they were staying there that night but dismissed the thought. Surely they’d have travelled further away?
Zak: I was lying on my bed when I heard Pea’s voice in the corridor. I thought I was going nuts at first, but I got up andopened the door and there she was, with her brother and her mum, dragging a suitcase behind her.
Cathy: There he was, this young man who’d just lost his brother, looking lost. The mother in me wanted to gather him up in my arms and tell him it would all be all right, but that wasn’t something I had any right to tell him, was it? And there was a part of me, too, that hated him for taking my daughter away from me. She’d changed from girl to woman in the past few weeks, and even if she was ready for that, I wasn’t.
Pea: We just looked at each other for about a minute, and then Mum pulled on my arm and we carried on down the corridor to our room.
Zak: I didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t sleep properly for a long time.
John: After they’d gone, I got blind drunk. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I stayed drunk, too, all the next day. There was no point dashing around looking for impossible ways to get the money together. I knew it wasn’t going to happen. The loan shark was as good as his word. His men came looking for me at midnight on the deadline he’d imposed, threatening to break my legs. I let them take what they wanted from the house – it wasn’t much but it was something. They told me they’d be back. As if I didn’t know.
Danny: Now, I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was shocked to learn that the Hunter family literally imploded within a day of the accident.
Sebastian: We stayed in that hotel for a week, and by the end of it Mum had rented us a tiny two-bedroom flat in the next town. She and Pea had to share. It was a dive but that didn’treally matter. I just didn’t quite understand how my family had fallen apart in a matter of days. When Pea and I questioned her, Mum said she couldn’t cope with Dad’s drinking any longer. A few days after we moved in, I went back to the house to see Dad. I was so angry with him, with the way he was trying to control my future, but he was my dad, too. He was in a real state, his face bruised and bloody. For a horrible minute, I thought he didn’t recognise me. But then he broke down, practically fell into my arms. I asked what had happened and he told me the whole story. The debt, the loan shark, the financial ruin. And I remember so clearly what I thought. I thought,Fuck AJ Silver.
Pea: I didn’t sit my last few exams. My life had gone to shit, after all. Alex tried to be supportive but things were strained between us. Every time we met up, I felt like he couldn’t wait to leave. Was the park really the only thing that had held us together? Now we didn’t have anywhere to hang out, it was as if we were lost.
Alex: The divide between me and Pea was nothing to do with her moving away from Wildworld. Of course it wasn’t. What do you take me for? It was just all so broken. I was grieving for AJ and no one knew. I felt like I’d gone too far down the secretive route to backtrack and tell Pea about it then. Those few weeks made us grow up fast, and in the process, it was like we grew apart, too.
Cathy: For a long time, I thought there was a chance that John could go to prison. I would have done anything to avoid that, despite our differences. The day we found out it was just going to be a fine for negligence, I was so relieved. Wildworld had never reopened and John declared himself bankrupt and that was pretty much the end of it. Some of the rides were sold to pay off debts, but most weren’t, because most people aren’t in themarket for theme park rides. They’re not that easy to sell. AJ’s family had gone back to the States, and I knew Pea was pining for Zak, but that was hardly the most important thing. The world had moved on, too. There’s always a new star to take the helm, isn’t there? No matter how shocking or sudden the demise, there’s always someone waiting in the wings to take over.
John: I lost everything. Everything. My family, my park, my home, my dignity. I longed for a prison sentence, some days. At least it would be somewhere warm to rest my head. So when I heard, about the fine, I felt oddly cheated. I was bankrupt; there was no way I was ever going to be able to pay it. So it was over, or as over as it ever would be. The lawyers had decided I was negligent, that I hadn’t taken the necessary measures to ensure AJ Silver’s safety. I didn’t agree, but no one was asking what I thought.
Cathy: I got a job. Two jobs. Days I worked in a care home, bathing and feeding and chatting to old people who couldn’t cope on their own. Nights I served pints in a local pub, making conversation with men sitting alone at the bar. In some ways, the jobs were different. But really, it all came down to loneliness. To helping people through their loneliness. I was lonely too, but I didn’t have a chance to feel it too often. I was dead on my feet, shattered from trying to keep a roof over our heads. John didn’t manage it. He ended up on the streets. It broke my heart when I found that out. I didn’t want to be married to him any more, and I hated the danger he’d put us all in, but I didn’t want him to have nothing, either.
Sebastian: I think I was probably the least affected, of the four of us. Pea was heartbroken. I’d never been in love, so I didn’t know how that felt. Mum and Dad lost each other, and Dad lost a lot more than that. A few months after it all happened, I saw Dadon the street. I’d finished college and I was doing some temp work, trying to get into graphic design, and I was on my way to the office. It was before nine in the morning and he was clearly drunk. I asked him what he was doing, where he was staying, and he gestured to the shop doorway behind us. I was horrified. I thought about all the arguments we’d had over Wildworld. How much I’d hated him at times. And there he was, reduced to this. I told him to come to the flat we were renting. He said Mum didn’t want him there. But I thought he must have been wrong about that. I told him to come for dinner that night, said I’d make spaghetti Bolognese. But then I got caught up at work and by the time I got home, it was past the time I’d told him. I thought maybe he’d forgotten, or spent all day drinking and thought better of it, but as soon as I saw Mum’s face, I knew he’d turned up.
Cathy: John came to the flat one day, reeking of booze, swaying on his feet. Said Sebastian had invited him for dinner. Sebastian wasn’t home from work yet and I didn’t want to let him in. How had it come to this? I had loved this man, had married him, and now I didn’t want to be alone with him for a single minute. Pea came out of her room and saw us standing there, on either side of the door. Her eyes were full of pain. I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to stay, and I was expecting a battle, but he just slunk off. There was no fight left in him.
Pea: It was worst for Dad, yeah. He really went off the rails. People talk about teenagers going off the rails, don’t they, but I think it’s an apt description of what happened to him. His life just went off track. That night he came over was the saddest. It was clear that Mum didn’t want him anywhere near her and when she sent him away, it was like she’d kicked a puppy.
