Nina Bawden has written a 130-page love letter to her husband, killed at Potters Bar. She tells Peter Gruner why her grief is tinged with fury

FUTURE generations will look back on Islington author Nina Bawden’s book about the Potters Bar rail crash with the same mixture of shock and incredulity that we look at the iniquities of the past.
Seven people died in the crash on May 10, 2002, and 76 were injured. Despite that, it took Railtrack and maintenance contractors Jarvis three years before they were prepared to admit some liability and even now they still refuse to accept the blame.
Among the dead was Austen Kark, 75, Ms Bawden’s husband of 48 years and the former head of the BBC’s World Service.
Ms Bawden, 80, was herself seriously injured, with broken ribs, legs, arms and collarbone. She is still in pain and has not fully recovered.
It was the third major rail crash in four years and happened on the same line and only five miles from the scene of the Hatfield disaster 18 months previously.