Shropshire Magazine

The wreckage of the Piper Cherokee in which Fred Jones crashed on the Long Mynd, in 1988.

Ben Bentley hears the story of a man who has packed rather more than the average measure of adventure into his life

Fred with wife Peta and boys Peter and Simon pictured a day before the crash that nearly killed him.

Unlike most writers, Freddie Jones would not struggle for a dramatic plot for his first book. The handsome young central character with the millionaire lifestyle, hobnobbing with celebrities and enjoying yachts and flash cars;  becoming embroiled in business-related court cases and a steamy affair; and finally suffering an air crash that would leave him for dead – Freddie’s book has it all.

Shattered Image – The Life and Loves of a Broken Man is a pot-boiler which works well enough as a piece of fiction – except that it is a true account of his own life.

All of this would probably have remained a racy pub story had the plane he was flying not plummeted 8,000ft from the sky into a hillside at Ratlinghope on the edge of the Long Mynd. His crash and amazing survival catapulted Fred to fame. At first it was thought he would not live. And when he did that, it was thought he would never walk. And when he did that, he set about reconstructing his life and shattered body. It was the least he could do to dedicate proceeds from the book to the Orthopaedic Hospital, at Gobowen, near Oswestry, where doctors “worked miracles” on him following the crash in April 1988.

Bonus

“This is the NHS version of me,” says Fred, now 57. “I died four times, they tell me. I shouldn’t be here talking to you by all accounts; every day is a bonus.”

The accident happened after the Piper Cherokee plane he was co-piloting iced up after hitting a freezing cloud. It resulted in complete engine failure. He remembers it all in detail – the altimeter spinning round as the plane went into freefall at 180mph – and recalls thinking: “This is it – I’ve had my chips.”

Three weeks later he awoke from a coma at the Orthopaedic with a broken back, shoulder, jaw and ankle. He also lost an eye and his nose. His face had gone through the dashboard of the plane.

But the book reveals this episode to be far from the only drama to have happened in Fred’s life. Prior to the crash he’d been a magistrate who attracted national media headlines when he appeared in court – this time in the dock, accused by a former business partner of stealing electricity. The judge threw the case out.

The book, ghost written by Angela Weston, also reveals how he’d earlier built a steel manufacturing company with a £1.6 million turnover and lost the lot after he and his business partner began suing each other amid accusations of fraud.

“I ended up with nothing,” says former millionaire Fred. “I was penniless except for my house. It was the lowest point in my life.”

Fred with his biography, Shattered Image: The life and loves of a broken man.

Detail

Fred describes his wife as an angel. But his book doesn’t pull any punches, and charts in graphic detail his affair with his secretary Helen. How they’d go everywhere together on business and, when the moment took them, check into hotels to make love.

“I was a 23-year-old virgin when I met my wife and the only time I’ve slipped off the rails was with Helen,” he explains.

He describes how he fell for her and how at the time “if she’d said stand in the middle of the motorway in the nude and do a handstand I would have done it.”

Fred is not a man for regrets, but says if he has one then it’s probably his affair.

He admits that he was “mad” for a long time following the crash, and tells how when he had most of his face reconstructed he told doctors not to remove a scar on his chin. Says Fred: “My wife said Harrison Ford has got a similar scar, and like a bloody idiot I said leave it.”

Perhaps there is a follow-up book in Fred, who lives just over the Shropshire border at Wombourne, near Bobbington. Now back on his feet having rebuilt both his body and his life, he’s again a successful businessman and a partner in a steel company.

A man who likes to take chances, he staked his pension and bought a slate mine in Wales. After having a geological survey conducted he has discovered it can be mined for platinum. 

“It will put me back on a footing,” he smiles. 

“I had the most fantastic life for 10 years before the crash and now every day is fantastic. It’s bitterly cold but I’m here and I’m breathing.

“I’m lucky. I’m the only person I know who lost a million pound company, lost his eye and his nose and feels lucky.”

• Shattered Image – The Life and Loves of a Broken Man is available from Amazon or by writing to PO Box 5398, Wombourne, Staffs WV5 5AA, enclosing a cheque or postal order for £6.95 payable to ‘Shattered Image’. A signed, limited edition copy of the book will be sent in return. 

In 2008 Fred and Peta invited many of those involved in saving him after the plance crash to the Severn Valley Railway to celebrate the anniversary.