Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Thursday 05 January 1939

Deaf Man Killed By Train
Tragedy While Taking Dog For Walk

A verdict of Accidental death was returned at the inquest yesterday on Thomas Henry Dunston (71), retired miner, of 4, Talbot Road, Swinton, who was killed on the L.N.E. Railway at Kilnhurst on New Year’s Day, while fetching a dog off the line.

Mrs. Sarah Ann Dunston, the widow, said every morning her husband used to take the dogs of two friends for a run. As the result of an accident ten years ago he was very deaf and blind in one eye and the sight of the other eye was very poor.

Charles Henry Barnes, railway fireman, of 39, Rowms Lane, Swinton, son-in-law, said Dunston was a punctual man and when he had not returned from taking his dog out two hours later, witness gussed that something was wrong and cycled out to look for him. He found his own dog sitting on the side of the railway near Green Lane railway bridge. His father-in-law’s body was lying across the metals nearby.

Constable Hoyle said trains from Sheffield had to round a sharp bend before reaching the spot where the body was found. Witness had stood on the spot while two trains had approached and had been unable to hear them until they were almost opposite to him.