Speedway fan Inez Watkins will never forget 50 years ago when local hero Johnny Thomson was taken to Poole Hospital.

She was a 22-year-old trainee nurse on night duty at about 8pm on May 9, 1955, when news came through the Poole rider had been in a crash.

Inez, now aged 72, called The Daily Echo after the anniversary of Thomson's death was reported last week.

The 27-year-old speedway star had an operation on his fractured leg and four days later he was dead after suffering an embolism - a blood clot, a frequent medical complication half a century ago.

The retired nurse recalled: "The male orderly was off that night and I was the second nurse on. They told us there had been an accident.

"He was asleep during the night from the operation but when he woke up the next day he was cheerful."

She recalled people visiting him, including Ken Middleditch - fellow rider and father of the current Poole Speedway team boss - and his wife.

She looked after Johnny in the male ward of the hospital and on his third night there she had her last conversation with him.

"I told him I was going to South Wales the next day," she said.

"He asked me if I was Welsh and I said I was half Welsh.

He said it was a nice part of the country and I said I would send him a postcard. He said: 'Don't bother nurse, because I won't be here.' "

She added: "I've seen it many times over the years. People just know when they are going to die."

As Inez - whose surname then was Gooder-ham - was preparing to go to South Wales the next morning she heard her friend and fellow Speedway fan calling her name.

She said: "I heard a nursing friend shouting "Goody, Goody, where are you?" She told me Johnny had died. I sat down on the bed and cried.

"We both cried. It took me a good half an hour to stop. I couldn't believe it."

Johnny Thomson was riding for Poole Pirates in a National Trophy match when he was in collision with the opposition captain, Bert Edwards, riding for Ipswich.

First published: May 20