By NEIL BENNETT
In total, 34 teenaged boys from what was then the Lanfranc Secondary Modern School were killed when their plane crashed into Holtaheia Mountain near Stavanger on August 9, 1961. They were on their way to an adventure holiday over the summer break. Two of their teachers, the two pilots and a stewardess also perished that day.
The book Holtaheia. Chance- Challenge-Change is by Rosalind Jones, whose brother Quentin was one of the Lanfranc boys who did not come home from that holiday. Quentin was 13.
Holtaheia. Chance- Challenge-Change is Jones’s third book about the disaster and the result of years of exhaustive research trying to find out more than the official conclusion that “the cause of this accident was a deviation from the prescribed flight path for reasons unknown”.
In particular, Jones wanted to discover witnesses who saw the Eagle Airways Vickers Viking aircraft on its last flight path because, since the age of 16, she could not believe the official flight path map that appeared in the crash report.
The aircraft was trying to land at Sola Airport, but was 20 miles off course. British authorities did not want the two Cunard Eagle Airways pilots to be blamed when they were no longer alive to give their accounts. The Norwegians did not want to be blamed for not using their radar system, GCA (ground-controlled approach), to guide the plane into Sola.
There were immense diplomatic problems untangling this to the mutual satisfaction of both Britain and Norway, but it left the relatives, friends and Lanfranc School without proper answers. Many parents thought of this as a cover-up and also believed that the crash victims were “wasted lives” – when in fact, a lot to make aviation safer had been learned. The families were not told about this at the time.
Jones’s book includes heart-rending testimonies from Croydon families who speak about the permanent damage to their lives.
Never explained: what led to the Stavanger air disaster in 1961 remains a mystery
The sister of one of the boys who died says his loss was never discussed. She was never able to talk to her mother over her feelings about anything, as she felt guilty about being the one who lived. It impacted their relationship until her mother died.
A Lanfranc boy who lived opposite a family who had lost a son recalls that from the day of the crash, those neighbours “couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge me”.
In the book, he says: “Whenever I left or returned home, they’d look away. This always made me feel awful. I carry Lanfranc Boy Survivor’s Guilt still.”
Some couples lost their only childin the disaster. One family barely left the house for six months afterwards. Others kept their front room curtains closed to try to block out the grief.
The twin brother of one victim says, “A sort of light and the laughter went out of my dad’s eyes. My mum was much tougher mentally than my dad was and she faced up to what was going on, but he was never the same person again.
“He laughed, but the laugh didn’t reach his eyes.”
Rosalind Jones’s brother, Quentin Green, got the last place on the flight on the toss of a coin. Their father, Ronald, “blamed himself, bitterly, for allowing him to go at the very last moment – he was broken, and he tortured himself with self-recrimination.”
Ronald Green died four months after the crash.
Tireless research: Rosalind Jones BEM
Rosalind Jones went on to become a teacher and an author, while trying to make sure the Lanfranc tragedy was not forgotten. In 2025, Rosalind Jones was awarded the British Empire Medal “for services to the victims of the Stavanger air disaster”.
Holtaheia.Chance-Challenge-Change also hears from a group called “The Other Lanfranc Boys”, contemporaries at the school. They were not on the Norway trip, but their lives were also touched forever.
They speak of the shock on hearing the dreadful news and the distress of going back to Lanfranc for the new term in September, missing their mates and sitting between empty desks.
They reflect on the lives they have lived and having the opportunities denied to their 34 schoolfriends. Happy families and successful careers, ranging from working on the Apollo space programme which put men on the Moon, to lectureship in project management at Harvard University, to professional busking on the Vienna U Bahn system with one of his self-made ukuleles.
There have been other shafts of light in this long and dark story. The comradeship and mutual support of the Lanfranc families. The bonds forged between them and the people of Stavanger, particularly the Norwegian Red Cross whose young volunteers, themselves teenagers, who retrieved the boys’ bodies from the mountain.
There’s the ongoing, loyal commemoration by current pupils at The Archbishop Lanfranc Academy, the successor to the original school. And the recent fundraising campaign which reached a tough target to restore the Lanfranc Memorial Garden in Croydon Cemetery.
This book is an extraordinary account of what happened as a result of the Chance cataclysm on a mountain in southern Norway, the Challenges it created that had to be overcome, and the Changes to so many lives being lived today.
It is a story of individual courage and dignity in the face of trauma. Be prepared with a box of tissues beside you to mop the tears when you read it.
Read more: Lanfranc Memorial rededicated ahead of air crash anniversary
Read more: Mysteries behind the Lanfranc air crash could finally be solved
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