It should have been a happy day for Barbara Ann Webb, the carnival queen of Upchurch, but it ended in tragedy after she fell from her float and was killed.

Coroner Noel Boucher, who recorded a verdict of accidental death for the 19-year-old, said: “This is the saddest case that has come to my notice since I have been a coroner.”

The incident happened on August 8, 1964, after a procession which included the carnival queen float, paraded through the village.

Her brother Ian, who was only six at the time, was sitting in front of her feet.

Pauline Hazell, 19, of Drake’s Close, Upchurch, where Barbara also lived, was also on the float as one of the attendants.

She told the inquest that Barbara had been sitting in an armchair which had been placed on a small table. Although the recreation ground had been bumpy, everything on the float remained stable as the procession made its way. The entire event went off without incident.

It was not until the driver of the float lorry decided to take the girls home that things went badly wrong.

As he steered the vehicle down a lane to the rear of the recreation ground he was forced to pull over to pass a parked car. But, said Pauline, the lorry did not swerve or jerk.

“I had just spoken to Barbara when I looked back across the recreation ground,” she said. “When I looked back again I saw her going over the side of the lorry. The chair seemed to go with her but the table stayed in position. Barbara did not make a sound and I have no idea what caused her to fall.”

For Barbara’s father, Tom Webb, the incident was devastating.

He left his home that afternoon to find his daughter, who had been voted carnival queen the previous month.

A woman shouted to him: “Don’t come down the road there has been an accident.”

“I ran down the road and saw Barbara lying at the back of the lorry,” he told the inquest.

A pathologist said she had died from multiple head injuries and that death would have been instant.

It may have happened 50 years ago but villagers have never forgotten what happened to the teenager.

As a tribute, a tree will be planted at the village hall at 10.30am on August 8.

Barbara’s sole surviving sibling Christine Madden, who lives in Bramley Close, Newington, will attend the service with her sister’s two princesses on the day, Sandra Pamplin, now Harris, and Pauline Ward.

Parish council members and representatives of Upchurch village hall management committee will also be there.

Christine Madden had spent the morning with her sister Barbara shopping in Chatham before going home for lunch with the family before the procession started.

Mrs Madden, 72, said: “I was 22 at the time and over at The Paddock where the fair was held.

“I could see my mum Flo, I wouldn’t say she was hysterical but I knew something was wrong. We didn’t know my sister was dead at the time, we just knew there was an accident.

“My dad Tom went to the hospital and we went home and waited. He broke the news to us. It was numbing.

“We never really got over it. It changed the family in lots of ways she wouldn’t expand anymore than that.

“We always talked about Barbara but we could never talk about that day.

“I’m glad people still remember her and that she’s not forgotten. Both my children know what happened and my two grandchildren.

“There is a clock inside the village hall with a plaque underneath it. Dad also bought a silver plate in memory of her which he donated to the church to use for Holy Communion.”