Surviving Tragedy: How a Near Death Experience Changed Her Priorities

We talk with Pam Warren about how a single catastrophic day reshapes identity, priorities, and the meaning of a life well lived. We dig into trauma, chronic pain, PTSD, and the practical mindset shifts that help us stop shrinking and start choosing our response.

• Pam’s account of the Paddington rail crash and the calm of survival mode
• The “It Has Not Been Worth It” moment and the split between pre-crash and post-crash identity
• Years of surgeries and recovery plus the delayed diagnosis of PTSD
• Living with chronic pain and learning to stop fighting mental health episodes
• How tailored therapy and coping strategies rebuild forward motion
• Wearing the perspex mask for two years and becoming the Lady In The Mask
• Humor as resilience without slipping into toxic positivity
• Setting boundaries around news and focusing on what we can affect
• Survivor organizing and campaigning that drives nationwide rail safety changes
• Catching the slide back into the rat race and building a project-based life
• Pam’s message to fall in love with change and find purpose through what you can do
If you were moved or inspired by this episode, please forward to a friend.

You can find Pam HERE

https://www.pamwarren.co.uk/

Transcript

Embracing Change And Managed Expectations

Pam 0:00

If you want everything static, it's just never gonna happen. So you may as well embrace it. That's why I try to ask people to fall in love with change, because it is fun if you just relax into it and stop fighting it.

Meeting Pam Warren

Mary 0:17

For centuries, the phrase shrinking violet was used to diminish women, to suggest we were meant to be small and meek. But in nature, violets are anything but weak. They're resilient, beautiful, and essential to the ecosystem. Hi, I'm Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist, and each week I sit down with women who remind us that being compared to a violet isn't an insult. It's a testament to strength, endurance, and the power of taking up space and living by your true nature. If you're ready to stop shrinking and start thriving, you're in the right place. Hey Violets, welcome to the show. I'm moving in a little over two weeks. Actually, by the time this airs, I'll be in my new home for about a month. Lord willing and the creeks don't rise, as the saying around here goes. I've had more than one person ask me if I'm excited about this move. I took a second to ponder that question the first time it was asked and replied honestly, not really. I don't get excited about things anymore. I got the same question from someone after I told them about an upcoming trip I'm taking, and my reply was the same. No, I'm not really excited. Both times my response created an awkward silence. Afterwards, I actually reflected on that response because if I heard it from a client, I would mentally add it to the list to follow up on. Did it come from anxiety, pessimism, or as I had a college student say one time, existential angst? But no, for me, I honestly think it's realism, not pessimism. Things often go wrong, don't they? And then we're disappointed. So I simply manage my expectations. And here's the thing: the painter is behind schedule in the new house, and it will be a scramble to finish on time. The movers want two days to pack and one day to move. Isn't something bound to go wrong in the space of three days? Something will be broken. And as far as the trip, we just found out yesterday that there is a snafu with our accommodations. See? And while I do expect to be disappointed by something, I still hope for the best and work really hard to reframe and find the moments of joy. My mom had a saying, there's always someone better off and worse off than you are, because for every inconvenience in the process of moving or every snafu while traveling, there is someone truly suffering. The reality is we all need to live in a world where we don't constantly imagine the worst, yet at the same time recognize that things periodically will go wrong. How do we function from both a place of happy anticipation and radical acceptance of future uncertainty? My guest today knows all about things going disastrously wrong and how life can tip you off the edge when you least expect it. And as is often the case, she was simply living her life when it literally incinerated. But she did what so many of my amazing guests have done. She used her experience to take up her space in a way she probably never anticipated she would. And she found her way to a different life through using her voice to enact countrywide policy change, and more intimately, now helps other people through her easy path to change method. One of her catchphrases is fall in love with change. And in light of her experience, that is very nearly a miraculous philosophy. My guest today is Pam Warren, widely recognized as the Lady in the Mask following the Paddington rail crash in October 1999. Pam survived a near-fatal event that changed her life in an instant. What followed was not only a long and complex recovery, but a journey into purpose, advocacy, and resilience that continues to shape her work today. I'm looking forward to hearing both her story and the resilience that shaped her and helped her heal. Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Pam. Hi, Mary, and thank you for having me on. It's a real honor. Well, you're welcome. I'm looking forward to this, and thank you for indulging my little bit of a long intro. No, it's very good, and good luck with the house move. Thank you. Thank you. So I normally start by asking my guests to share flashbulb moments, the moments where it's like captured in time, where we realize nothing is going to be the same, or it could be a small thing that diverts us onto a different path. But you had really something much bigger than a flashbulb moment. So can you tell us a little about really the event and however much detail you want to share? But the event that sort of catapulted you onto this very different life path.

Pam 4:49

Yes, it was um it was a train journey from my hometown into London. And the train I was on was a high-speed train, and it met a train coming out of London on the same piece of track, and we crashed at over 130 miles an hour. And back then the fuel was in the engine behind the end, you know, in canisters underneath the engine, and that exploded. So the carriage I was on exploded into a fireball. And unfortunately, a lot of people died, 31 people died. Um, and I was told a long time afterwards I was supposed to be the 32nd because I got engulfed by the fireball, and um, yeah, I've been severely burnt, um, as well as sort of been knocked around by the actual train crash. But I do remember during while it was happening, because obviously it was over in seconds, but everything just slowed down while it was happening, and I was I just assumed I'm gonna die. I just there was no way, as I saw this fireball heading towards me, I thought that's it. But I remember in that one precise moment, this thought flashed into my head, which was it has not been worth it. And what I meant by that was my life previous to then. It suddenly dawned on me that the life I had been living up until that point, of what I thought was going to be my death, had been an absolute waste. And then when I eventually, because I was in a coma for three weeks and in hospital for months, um, and when I eventually did come out of the coma, because of the burning, I couldn't talk because all my vocal cords have been burnt. So I had a lot of time to do a lot of thinking while I was strapped up and um being attended to by doctors and nurses. And it was then that I made a promise to myself that I would never allow myself to be in that position again. When I meet my maker for the second time, I want to make sure that I can say my life was fun.

Mary 7:05

Wow. Okay, so first it's amazing that you remember what happened before. And I can't imagine that, even though it was probably a split second, the terror that you experienced when that happened.

Pre Crash Life And Social Conditioning

Pam 7:21

It's funny actually, because I don't remember terror. Um, I think it's again, it's because it was completely out of the blue. Um, you know, you had no pre-warning of it. I think your brain almost switches into survival mode. So it was just constantly taking on board whatever was going on. So quite a lot of the thinking was quite rational in a way. I mean, even once the fireball had passed and I realized I wasn't dead, I was still alive. Um, I remember looking down and my leg was still on fire. And it again, there was no terror, there was no pain because your pain receptors hadn't kicked in by then. And I remember just calmly, with my hands, which again I didn't realise had been burnt to a crisp, I just reached down and patted them out because sensibly, if you see a fire on a piece of your body, you want those those flames out. So I don't remember any panic at all. And I noticed that also once um I jumped out of the carriage, not knowing exactly what had happened, but it was very quiet, and I actually jumped into the middle of the debris, so I hadn't jumped onto the outside, so I had to call for help, and at that time my vocal cords hadn't seized up completely, and another passenger came to help me. And again, we were all super calm, absolutely calm. Even the crawling underneath, because I had to to escape, I had to crawl underneath one of the overturned carriages, and there was diesel dripping down, and it was horrible to get to the side of the rail track. And again, we just did that calmly. And on the other side, I then realized that there were loads and loads, hundreds of passengers all lined up, and some were injured, and some were helping them, and we were sort of um left to ourselves for quite a long time because the emergency services couldn't get to us because there was a chain-link fence, so they had to get through that first of all to get to us. But again, it was very peaceful. I mean, there was there was moaning because people were injured. I mean, I'm sure I was moaning, but there was no screaming, there was no shouting, there was there was nothing. It just felt very, very calm. Um, and that's one of my enduring memories of that time. It really is.

Mary 9:54

And the thought that you had, it wasn't worth it. When you think back to your life before this, and I think I've heard you say, how do you term it? What the before and after? Uh well, I call myself pre-crash pam and post-crash pam. Okay, so so pre-crash Pam, did you know going through that life that you weren't really fulfilled?

Pam 10:19

No, I had no idea. Um, what I have come to realize over time, because I've done a lot of work on myself with post-crash pam, is um we're conditioned from the minute we're born. And we're conditioned by society, but I don't mean, you know, by the society that we move and we have companionship in. I mean just by the countries we live in and the rules that we have to abide by and everything. So I grew up in a time when it was accepted that you'd go through education, you'd try to get to university if you could, you would then get a job, you would then get married, you would then have children, um, or in my case, because I wasn't particularly child-minded, um, you or you would guess a career. And back then it was very much about making money. So then it turned into, right, if you've got enough money to buy your first home, your first flat, apartment, whatever, you've got to then earn enough money to buy the next one up, and then the next one up, and then you want the five-bed house, don't you? Um, and if you start off with a Peugeot 205 type car, you then want to work towards a BMW and then a Mercedes and so on. So I was very much brought up in that. And because pre-crash pan, I was a financial advisor. I mean, I worked long hours and I worked very hard. And yes, I made a very, very decent living. Um, but it was all money-based. I didn't have time for my friends, I didn't have time for my family. If I was going out socializing, it was always with people that were very similar to me, but would be going out to get drunk or have a party or you know, or even going on trips abroad. It always had to be five-star type trips, otherwise you hadn't made it. And it was always about making it, which is where I think the conditioning came in. And that's what I meant when I said that final thought, or what I thought was going to be my final thought, was definitely it's not been worth it. Because it suddenly dawned on me that is not what life is about, nor should it be.

unknown 12:43

Yeah.

Pam 12:44

So that's also why while I was in hospital, I made that promise to myself about um never allowing myself to be in that position ever again. Never. And so far I've stuck to it.

Mary 12:59

So one thing that occurs to me with this story is obviously pre-crash pay was pretty independent and pretty ambitious. Then you're in a situation where, if I remember right, there were three weeks you were in a coma, and then it wasn't like two weeks and you bound out of bed and go back to your life. You were literally at the mercy of people helping you for a very long time. So you did sort of have everything taken away. You had to sell your business. Do you remember that time and mentally what that was like for you and emotionally to navigate that?

Pam 13:38

I think, well, emotionally, the losing of the business, I was sad because I'd taken so much trouble building it up. Um, but to be honest, Mary, I was in so much pain. Um I didn't really think about it. I was so concentrating on recovering. That became everything to me was to get as good as I could do. I mean, for example, with my hands, um the doctors said, well, if you if you follow our advice and you do what we tell you to do, and you do all this physiotherapy and stuff, you should get 50% usage back in your hands. And my little brain was going, that's not good enough.

unknown 14:22

Yeah.

Pam 14:23

Because we use our hands for so much, like doing up buttons and zips, and we show affection with our hands, we we express ourselves with our hands. Um, so I worked really hard on any therapy I could find to get these hands working better. And I surpassed what the doctor, I mean, I've got 95% usage back in my left and 85% back in my right. So um I was I suppose that bit of determination that helped me build my company in the first place then got switched into right, I need to recover. And it was just constantly, I was in and out of hospital having operations and grafts. I lost count after operation number 27. Um, and then it was just this whole cycle of pain, recovery, recuperate. Oh, you need another operation, pain, recovery, recuperate, another. So it was just continuous. Um, so that tied me up for a good two years, and we eventually got to the stage where I turned round to the lead surgeon, and I said, I've had enough. I said, I can't take any more. I just, you know, I'm acceptable. Okay, because he was going on about all laser surgeries come such a long way, we can do this, that, and the other. And I said, I don't care. I look good enough and I feel good enough in my set with my physical injuries that um I'll put up with the scarring and how I am now. So um it was me that brought a stop to all the operations, but then of course, it was the mental thing that kicked in because I'd gone undiagnosed with PTSD, um, which when you look back, it seems obvious that you've been through something so traumatic, you'd have PTSD, wouldn't you? But nobody had diagnosed me, nobody had explained it, I didn't know what it was. Um, and I was on heavy medication because I was on morphine for five years in total, and they put me on a particular antidepressant that I have a very low opinion of, which I now think is off the market, um that made me behave very out of character. So battling PCSD and coming to terms with that and getting the psychological help that I needed with that, as well as the correct medication to get me over the depressive side, that took a further eight years. So it took me 10 years to recover fully and get back on a stable footing. So when you ask about okay, what were you thinking, what was mentally going through you, you didn't really think about much apart from the problem that was right in front of you. Um, and as I said, that started off physical and then turned into combating the brain.

Mary 17:26

Well, and pain, I think, is one of the most frustrating and depressing things. I mean, I get migraines, and I think if I have a migraine for five hours, I'm like, this is awful. And then when I think about you in a situation where it isn't this, you know, you break your foot, this is a sustained challenge. How did you get through that? I mean, did you did you have moments where you're like, I can't, like you said to the doctor, I don't want more operations, but did you think or have times where it was like, I don't know how I'm gonna go on and continue to face this pain?

Pam 18:01

Yeah, there were. And I'll be perfectly honest with you and your listeners, is I did try to commit suicide a few years afterwards. Um, and that was because I just wanted everything to stop. I couldn't I got so tired and worn out, and I just couldn't see forward that I I began to think it's probably better if I just go to sleep and don't wake up. Um, so I did make an attempt. Luckily, I wasn't successful, I'm pleased to say. And that's really when my psychological team kicked upper gear. Um, and really they saved my life, I have to say. They were the ones that gave me the coping strategies, and I loved the fact because I've become quite interested. I'm not expert, but um, I've become quite interested in the DSM definition of PTSD and um the new therapies that go on around our armed veterans that have PTSD. So there's a lot of exciting stuff that goes on, but it what I was interested in was the way that rather than just coming at me with right, this is what we do. So we medicate you and we do this therapy, they try to work out what sort of personality I was. So my psychologist eventually worked out that I'm not the type, because to begin with, it was always let's talk about what happened, and then when you can cry, you'll be on your road to recovery. And I'm thinking, but I'm not a crier, I I don't I do cry. I can totally relate to that. Yeah, yeah, can you? Yeah, well, that's what I sort of thought, and he eventually worked out that I was far more practical, and despite having that hiccup of trying to end it all, um, I very much look forward. I'm quite an optimist all the time, and I'm always excited about what might be right around the corner. So he then worked out that that was the best way to go. My therapist then focused on okay, where do you want to go? Let's get there. We'll take these little steps together. And he's been supporting me now for over 20 years, and he still does. In fact, I've got a session with him tomorrow, so I'm sure you'll come up in conversation.

Mary 20:31

Yeah, and I think that part of it we do often discount. We we focus on here's the physical part of it. But and there's so many ways people think about trauma. And so in your case, and this is what what I think creates can create so much anxiety, when you are a person that has a lot of agency and you take control of your life and you build this thing, and then through someone else's negligence or decision, and I want to get to that too, what what kind of grew from that for you, but through someone else's actions, something comes out of left field and just literally, like I said, incinerated your life. And I think that can be really hard because it creates this sense of constant unease. And what is around the next corner? And, you know, that's where I think for when you say trauma, that's what I think of in your case. It's all of a sudden this we, like I said in the intro, we have this idea that we have control, which we have to, I think, to go through a day. But then when you have an experience where you're like, my God, I had no control, there was nothing you could have done. How has that part of that trauma played into your recovery and coming through that?

Pam 21:50

You're right, in so much as I'm far more aware, you know, the minute I walk out my front door that something might happen. And I Often joke about it, to be perfectly frank. It has made me take a few more risks, strangely, um, because I'm accepting the consequences of whatever I'm doing. So I'm sort of sat there going, yeah, but I could be sat on a train and it blooming explodes on me. So um my sister finds this all very annoying because I'm always sort of testing the waters, as it were. Um, but I know that there's things around the corner that I can't see or I can't control, but I never look at them anymore with trepidation or fear. I actually look forward to them. And one strange peculiarity that has cropped up is if my life gets too samey, I call it samey, I don't think that's a word, but you know, if it gets too static, I deliberately do something that is effectively chucking a grenade in because I want to see what comes out of it, because that to me is quite exciting. Um, that's really what now gets my adrenaline going. I know it's mad. Um, and again, my sister keeps telling me off about that. My sister tells me off a lot. Um, and I love new experiences and I like experiencing new things. And ever since I've recovered, I now work in order to earn money in order to travel. And my goal now is to visit as many countries as I possibly can across the globe. Um, and I'm I've got a decent number under my belt so far, but I'm so open to new cultures and new ideas and what you know what's going on in other people's lives, not to the point of interfering or being nosy, but just opening myself up. And I found that things I've encountered in different countries, I've actually taken some good bits and I've brought back with me. Because even my friends have mentioned that I'm a lot calmer now. I used to be highly stressed all the time. Whereas now I'm calmer, I'm far more laid back. I accept things as they are, and I'm very accepting of people until they prove me wrong. Um, and then it shut us down. You know, what's that expression? Um, once my respect has been lost, it's gone forever, type of thing. So, yeah, I'm probably a perfect mark for a con artist, but um I'd like to think I would spot them, but um yeah, I I like human beings. I've just come to like human beings.

Mary 24:53

Yeah. So two two directions I want to go. The first one I'm gonna pick is you say now that you've recovered, but I'm guessing you you talked about the movement of your hands, but I'm guessing you still have things, you mentioned your vocal cords, times that you still have maybe days where there's more pain. What what are the lingering effects of what happened?

Pam 25:13

Well, the lingering effect, I'll never be 100% physically fit. Um when the burning occurred, the heat was so intense that it burned every single joint. So um I had to have like the tips of my fingers had to be amputated and stuff like that. But um again, because of the heat, I've effectively got arthritis in every single joint. So when I was in my 30s, I had the joints of a 70-year-old by the time I recovered. Um now I'm beginning to feel more like a 90-year-old because um, and of course it's worse when it's cold and it's wet. So I keep as warm as possible, but I'm never out of pain, Mary. I take painkillers almost every day because I have to in order to function. But then your body gets used to it. So although it is keeping a lid on the pain, your brain adapts to the fact, okay, well, that's background pain, it's not a problem pain. It's only if there's something sharp breaks through, or um I can be quite unsteady on my feet. So that can lead to falls. So you become you have to start thinking almost like a geriatric in a way. Um, okay, if I go if I go down those steps too quickly, the likelihood is I'm gonna fall over. So, and of course, the older you get, you don't bounce so well, do you? No, so you become a bit more aware of that. So that's a lingering effect, and the PTSD, because it didn't get treated for so long, I've now got it chronically. So I will never get rid of it. However, again, that's why I still see the psychologist. The episodes, I call them episodes, where it knocks me out, it's no different to having flu. So I used to fight the episodes because it was depression, it was insomnia, it was you just filled the pits. Um, and I used to fight them thinking I should be bigger than this, I should be better, I should be over this by now. And then my psychologist came up with this idea of um, he said, accept it. Just accept. And I found the less I fought, the easier it was and the quicker it passes. So now I'd say out of 52 weeks in a year, it might knock me out for two weeks. And I've got my brain to realign with the idea of, yeah, but that leaves me 50 weeks when I'm having fun and I'm doing what I want to do. That's good enough for me. That's a good enough trade-off. So again, that's just you know, a change mentally. Um, and effectively, that's how I cope with both the physical and the mental side. But again, always hoping for the best, there may be a treatment that comes along that will get rid of PTSD completely. That would be fabulous.

Mary 28:19

So I want to circle back to the lady in the mask because I know what that means, but can you share, you know, where did that come from? Because I know how severely you were were burned, and most of my listeners don't have a video to look at. So they're listening auditorily. And I'm I'm going to say, and I hope this doesn't sound uh what any type of way, but you you are beautiful. And so what went into that, because I've heard you say the the face you have now is not the face you had before.

Humor Boundaries And Cutting Bad Inputs

Pam 28:53

No, it's not, it's not the face I grew up with. Um, yeah, the the fire uh burnt my face from basically the bottom lip upwards, and I lost my entire face, and it was full thickness burns, so there was nothing um apart from the musculature underneath. Luckily, I had a fantastic plastic surgeon. Um, but this is a patchwork of um grafts taken from other parts of my body, and when you're grafted, some of you listeners will know this, or even when you're injured, when you when you've um had an operation or something, your body's very good at repairing, and you tend to end up with a scar, but sometimes that scar over bubbles, and it's where your body doesn't know it can stop repairing, so it's called hypertraffic scarring, and that for my face was a danger because it's a patchwork of grafts. So they then suggested to me that I wear a hard perspex mask over my entire face to press down on all these little grafts, and that would do two things. Firstly, because it was clear, a clear perspex, it acted like a greenhouse, so it stayed very moist underneath, which then helped the skin knit together, and then because it was made of hard plastic, it was applying constant pressure to my face, and it was tied to the back of my head so I couldn't move. And I always remember Nick, who was my surgeon, he said, Um, you have to wear it for 23 hours a day. And I just went, What's the point of taking it off for an hour? So I just used to leave it on. It was difficult at first getting used to sleeping. I ended up having to sleep sitting up, and but I had to then keep it on for almost two years. Uh so I had a mask on for two years, which is hence why in the UK I'm known as the lady in the mask. Because I became quite a public profile at that time, people just always saw me with the mask, so that's how I got the moniker. But I'm very pleased to say it seems to have done its job. But the thing that's always got me, Mary, is because as I said, I got I lost all the skin. Apart from because I put my hands, which is hence the reason why my hands got so badly burned, over my eyes. I saved my eyesight. But the little this little bit is my old skin, my my usual skin. And my neck, of course, is mine. It's not plastic, it's not this plastic surgery. So I've now got fissions as I get into my elderly years that I'm going to end up looking like a tortoise because graphs don't wrinkle. Oh wow. So my face is going to look quite youthful, except I'm going to have wrinkly eyes and a wrinkly neck. So I'm definitely going to end up looking like a tortoise. We'll have to wait and see.

Mary 32:05

Okay, so Pam, the thing that I noticed about you almost immediately is your sense of humor. And I that it seems to be a theme. And a lot of people I've talked to that have suffered things that many of us can't imagine. One of the things that they carry with them is this sense of humor. So when I think about that, I know that that is a source of resilience. But I also know that we have this idea that you're you come across as very positive and you say you define yourself as an optimist. So how do you find kind of that perspective during everything without kind of just this idea of toxic positivity? You know, you see this thing, no bad vibes. And as a therapist, I'm like, there are a lot of bad vibes sometimes. We need to learn to exist and still thrive when there are bad things going on. So talk a little about that because I love your sense of humor and how you kind of even say pre-crash Pam. And you you just bring that with you, it seems.

Pam 33:09

I I don't know. I mean, I suppose we've all got a sense of humor, even if some people hide it sometimes. Um I think I can understand why a lot of people who've been through any form of trauma would the humour would come to the forefront because I think we learn to not take life so seriously, even when bad things are going on. Perhaps it's because our way of coping, or part of the way that we cope, is to look for the positive side. So it doesn't matter how bad it is, we're all constantly looking for, okay, what's the way out, or you know, how could that be turned to somebody's advantage, or how could that possibly help people? Maybe trauma helps you refine your more altruistic outlook, which again might feed into the humour. I think humour, because humour's a great medicine anyway, by itself, isn't it? So maybe it's self-medication, in a way, with the humor side. Um, I'm not a psychologist myself, so I'll ask him tomorrow. Um, but I I just find it's easier to be humorous and positive than it is to be negative and down in the mouth. Plus, I've come like, for example, we all know the world is a complete mess at the moment. Everywhere is a mess.

Mary 34:49

Especially here, Pampa, we won't go into that.

Pam 34:51

Well, just believe me, we have our problems overseas as well. But um, it is just a complete mess. And years back, I think about getting on for 10 years ago, I was one of these people that would watch the news or have the news on in the morning when I was getting up and having breakfast, and then I'd watch it about 10 o'clock at night. And then it suddenly dawned on me, why am I so depressed all the time? You know, why am I so ugly? So I stopped watching the news completely. I refuse to take newspapers and stuff. The one thing I do do so that I'm not a complete ignoramus, is on my computer I look through the headlines, I scan the headlines, and if there's something that I want feel I ought to know about or want to look into deeper, then I'll look. But apart from that, I never allow the news to touch me. I'm also very quick now, and again, maybe I'm maybe this would be what other trauma people find. You're very quick to go, oh, this has happened, it's not good. Has it hurt anyone? If the answer's no, fine, move on. You know, has somebody died? No. Okay, move on. Um, has somebody died? If the answer's yes, then okay, pause. Is there anything I can do about it? There is not. Okay, move on. So even with the bad stuff, you can move on quite quickly. Because you one person can only affect so much. You can't affect everything. And you have to very quickly work out in your head what I can do. And then if it's nothing, then why am I worrying about it? It is time for me to concentrate on what I know I can affect and then follow that path instead. You're nodding. So I'm assuming you're agreeing violently here.

Mary 36:52

Yeah, I really agree. And so I know for you, you decided to take some action. So it's interesting because when you reached out to me about being a guest, you sort of alluded to this theme that I have about shrinking violet. You've already talked about our social scripts that, uh, especially as women, we're taught to be a certain way. We're taught a lot of it is to not be outspoken, to just keep your head down. Here's your goals, hit the next goal, go to the next thing. But this created in you the desire to affect larger change. And you did, right? Talk a little about what led a little bit to the level of this tragedy and what you felt needed to happen.

Pam 37:35

It sort of happened organically, in as much as um, by the time I was well enough to go home, the training crash had happened months previously, and the media had forgotten all about it, and so it faded out of people's minds. But I felt very alone because I'd never I didn't know what had happened to the other survivors. I didn't know what stage they were at or who had got injured. I mean, it was a long time before I knew how many people had died. So I reached out through um the British Transport Police to other survivors and said, Look, do you fancy getting together at some point? And we did. We all we all got together in this meeting, and I always remember we all shuffled in, we were all a bit grey and you know, nondescript. And then somebody said a phrase that um they said, Oh, do you remember the smell? And it was like somebody had thrown a light switch because we all knew what they were talking about, because we all remembered the smell. And then it was, do you remember the sounds? Do you remember this? Do you remember that? Do you remember the other? And it was just the whole group came live, and there was 81 of us in this room, and everyone got super excited because we were suddenly 81 of us didn't have to explain how we were feeling, what had happened, etc. But it was during this meeting that we agreed that we'd keep on meeting. And as I think it was only the third one, somebody said, Well, it's great we've got this group of people, and we all seem to be fairly like-minded. So what do we do about it? And I think somebody else piped up that um we ought to find out what actually happened to us, and then they said, Well, we need somebody to lead this group, and they all just, I'm not joking, 80 people turned to this one person who was in a mask, so it looked slightly different from the rest of them, and said, Um, well, you do it. And I went, Oh, okay. And because I'd run my own company, I thought, you know, it didn't scare me. So had to tread very carefully. But one of the advantages of being as badly injured as I was and wearing the mask, and the fact that the media loved the picture of my face and the mask, was I could get in touch with the major rail companies, with government offices, and they didn't dare say no to me. So I it opened a lot of doors for me. I have to give the media credit for that. They really did help. And it was while we were investigating, we there was a group of us that put ourselves on a crash course to learn engineering terms. So we learnt about train safety systems, we learnt about the acronyms they use, we learnt how almost to speak real language without becoming fully fledged engineers. Because I always reasoned if you want to change something, there's no good in jumping up and down shouting, how dare you! It's much better to do your research, then go in and talk to them in their own language. That's when you're going to be at your most persuasive. So that was when we started campaigning. And really, I couldn't have done it without the rest of the guys in the group, to be perfectly frank. I just seem to be the figurehead. Um, but we we went at it and we refused to give up and we wouldn't put up with the excuses that were coming out. Alongside that, the government has set up an official inquiry anyway. And Lord Cullen, who chaired that inquiry, he came out with this whole he was scathing about the rail industry in this country, came out with all these recommendations, which we then thought if we keep up the campaign, we can make sure they get put into place. Because if we go quiet, then that inquiry will just end up on a shelf somewhere because the government won't follow through. So we actually manoeuvred the government into insisting that they put the recommendations through and then calling to them into account every time they tried wiggling out of it. And thankfully, in five years, when we reviewed the recommendations and what to improve the safety, we'd managed to get 99% of them done. So that is one thing I must admit I am eternally proud of. That has to be one of my best achievements in my life. Um, but nobody said to me, Pam, you can do it. And it didn't occur to me when I was phoning up um the rail companies and government offices and things, it didn't occur to me I shouldn't be doing this. I mean, occasionally I went, Well, who'd have known? You know, who'd have known that this woman would be going to the House of Commons or going to the House of Lords? And um, it was all a bit of an eye-opener. But again, I met some really decent people even in the corridors of power that truly want to do the right thing, but in my opinion, ineffectual because they haven't strategised properly as to how they're going to achieve what they want to achieve, um, which you have to do with everything, particularly when you are a small woman up against what let's face it, governments and rail industries, it was male-oriented. Women can very easily get dismissed. But I would always give the advice, have a go. Everybody loves somebody who's had a go. It's better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all.

Mary 43:42

So I'm curious about something, because I, you know, I work with people and I'm a human. Did you ever find yourself sliding back towards complacency, towards that mindset? Or it is this your way? Like when you say you love to, you know, sort of go on the next adventure or do the Next thing, is that how you keep yourself engaged in a different way?

Pam’s Method For Loving Change

Pam 44:04

It's it will be easily done. I'll admit that to you. There have been times when, particularly if I'm working on a project, um I've almost felt myself slipping back into the rat race, I call it. But I catch myself, I think it's because I'm aware of what that looks like that I then pull myself out of it, or I will stop what I'm doing and walk away. The way I keep my life going now is I don't do one thing. I've actually got 12 projects today on the go. I've got far too many projects today on the go because I can't I can't keep all these plates spinning. I am literally waking up and running for the whole of the day from one project to the next project to keep everything going. But it's quite fun, it's quite exhilarating. Um if I was only doing one job, I think I'd be like, oh no, no, this is not for me. The other thing I've also worked out is I can't possibly work for anyone else. I'm now self-employed because of that very fact that I could I can't put up with particularly incompetency at the top. I really can't do it. And I think because um there was a time when I thought, oh, I must get a job because I really ought to be doing something. I'm not a woman who shops or sits around watching TV. So um I did go to an employment agency. We were talking and we were chatting, and she went through my CV and stuff, and she said, to be honest, Pam, most companies, if they look at this, will think you're going to take them over. So I don't I think I don't think you'll be getting any sort of normal jobs out there. Hence the reason why I thought, right, I'll go self-employed. But yeah, that's how I now fashion my life. And that's also how I keep life interesting all the time. Because if I'm bored of one project, fine, I'll leave that alone today and do the other one tomorrow.

Mary 46:10

This has been so inspiring. I know that you have um, I forget now, it's a sort of a methodology. Like when you speak, you talk to people about this. And one of the nuggets of that is what I said that you need to learn to love change. Yeah. So talk a little about that part of your work. And if people want to find out more, where can they find you?

Response Choices And Closing

Pam 46:34

Okay, yes, I I now because I'm a speaker now, so yes, I go out and I talk to people about resilience and change. What I'm trying to do, it because it's a truism, is change is exciting. It's not to be feared. It's without change, we all stay stuck exactly where we are now. Without change, the world won't change. Without change, people won't change. And it's actually amazing the things that come out of change. I mean, some horrible rubbish stuff comes out as well, granted. But there's always these nuggets, there's always these little things around that will then go on to be something positive. I think one of the changes that would be really nice is if we all started remembering that we're not all the same. Therefore, you've got some people who are academics, some people who are good at figures, some people that are artists, but we should all be free to explore what it is that we feel we have a natural ability towards. That would be a nice change, wouldn't it? I can just imagine that. Um so, yes, change, change is a necessity in life. Life is always going to, it doesn't matter what you wish for. Um, if you want everything static, it's just never gonna happen. So you may as well embrace it. That's why I try to ask people to fall in love with change, because it is fun if you just relax into it and stop fighting it. Um, and that's what I'm hoping people will start discovering. So, yes, and um I go into it a lot in my um on my website, which is just pamwarren.co.uk, because obviously I'm based in the UK. Um but on there, I mean I've got things like about finding your purpose, because obviously, after trauma, after my life got ripped up, I then wasn't entirely sure what I was gonna do, particularly with my health issues. So that's that's a very interesting self-introspection into the steps you go through to then work out okay, what am I good at? What can I do without concentrating on, well, I can't do that. It's what can I do? Um, and again, I think particularly in today's world, resilience is going to be the biggest thing we all need. We need to keep letting things roll off our raincoats, if you like, and not affect us too deeply. We need to be aware, but we don't need to allow it to affect what we are doing and the path we've chosen for ourselves.

Mary 49:29

Because you always have a choice how to respond, even if it sucks.

Pam 49:33

So well, there's that there's that formula, isn't there? Um, I've forgotten what it's called. It's that one that talks about events, response, and outcome. So normally there's an event, we have a response which then equals the outcome. But the trick is we the event happens, we then envisage what the outcome is, and that's then dictates what our response is. Um, I've always held that one to heart. That makes a lot of sense in my head.

Mary 50:03

Yeah. It's it's a way to take more control instead of feeling like I'm at the mercy, because we are at the mercy of certain things, as we've talked about. But when it comes to coming through that, we you have the choice to kind of envision what you want. So I just think this has been so inspiring. And I love both the message of resilience and perseverance, and I love your sense of humor. So thank you so much for sharing your story today. Well, thank you again for having me on, Mary, and all the best. And I want to thank everyone for listening. If you were moved or inspired by this episode, please forward to a friend. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant Violet that you are.