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Family of tragic Jade support rail safety campaign

Jade Kenyon
Jade Kenyon

“Some days are unbearable and on others I just cope.”

Those were the words of Jade Kenyon’s mother shortly before the launch of a DVD warning youngsters not to walk on railway lines.

Jade, 17, died after touching a live rail on the Medway Valley railway line at Halling as she walked home with a friend.

Her mother, Rachel Farrington , said she hoped the video, to be launched on Thursday – the second anniversary of her daughter’s death – would highlight the dangers of walking on railway lines and the impact on families of the death of a loved one.


~ Watch a clip from the DVD on Kent Online >>>


She said: “For me the DVD will make no difference, it is too late, and as much as we can’t put into words what we are going through personally, I just hope it will go some way to stopping others having to go through what we are going through.”

The DVD, which has been almost two years in the making, is called Jade’s Story and features interviews with Miss Farrington, 38, and Jade’s father, Solly Kenyon, 40.

It has been made by Track-Off, a national railway safety campaign, with British Transport Police and Jade’s family.

After Thursday’s launch at the Malling School, East Malling, it will be available for schools to order online.


~ Listen to emotional interviews with Rachel Farrington, Jade's grandfather Barry Kenyon and her twin sister Josie


Miss Farrington, of Covey Hall Road, Snodland, said two years after the death of her daughter, the family’s grief and loss was as “raw” as the day Jade died.

She said she and her family took each day as it came and that Jade’s death had made her realise the things she once worried about were no longer important in comparison.

“It has made us look at things differently,” she said, “money, debt, mortgage, none of them matter. We have lost something we can never replace and that makes you put things in perspective.”

After Jade’s death, Miss Farrington and Jade’s identical twin sister, Josie, set up their Lives on the Line campaign, which aims to improve railway safety.

Miss Farrington said that although she was “dreading” Thursday, she would be at the school to watch the DVD.

“I am going because I have been asked to by British Transport Police,” she said. “But I don’t know what I will be like. I wanted it to be hard-hitting and show the effect on families."

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