Suicide chef 'took drugs to keep calm'

The driver who caused the Berkshire rail crash turned to drugs to cope with the pressure of working as a chef, it emerged today.

Brian Drysdale, 48, regularly smoked marijuana and took ecstasy tablets and cocaine to "calm down", colleagues revealed.

One fellow chef said Mr Drysdale, one of seven people killed when a train hit his car on a level crossing in Ufton Nervet, had taken drugs for years.

Andy Haines, 38, who worked with him at the Hanover International Hotel outside Reading in the Nineties, said: "Brian was a heavy drug user. He must have blown a fortune. He was usually skint and scruffily dressed.

"He used to get very stressed and rely on drugs to calm down. He would have a smoke every single day - it was part of his life he didn't keep secret. His head mustn't have been right to do this. The drugs may have put his head out."

Mr Drysdale's homosexuality was well known among colleagues. "We didn't mind," Mr Haines added. "He had a short temper but wasn't a nasty bloke. He was a nice guy."

Mr Haines, from Reading, also revealed that Mr Drysdale was once fired from a hotel for stealing alcohol. He said: "He made a young kitchen worker sneak into the bar in the early hours. He got him to put bottles in a food lift to the kitchen, but the alarms went off."

Another former colleague, night porter Dan Lund, 72, said: "Brian used to be steady and reliable until he got in with the wrong group and began drinking heavily and taking drugs."

Friends said Mr Drysdale was griefstricken over a failed relationship with a man but had a brief fling with a woman, said to have had no idea he was gay.

One friend said: "Brian must have been deranged. He was tortured over his personal life. He could be quite dramatic. It wouldn't take much for him to snap. He said he had started having feelings for women and this could have pushed him over the edge."

Mr Drysdale's mother Henrietta said he would never have intended to hurt others when he committed suicide. She added: "He would just think the train would knock him off the road and do him in."