I am very interested to stumble on this thread as in 1961 I was 16 years old and boarding at Blundell's School which is about a mile from the crash site. We very often used to walk, run or bike along the canal (which was unrestored at that time).
I distinctly remember hearing an unusual noise which suddenly stopped. We were in the process of going to bed, so it would have been around 10 pm. I was checking the stash of cigarettes under the loose floorboard under my bed.
Next day we were all called together and told very firmly that the canal was now "out of bounds" for the rest of the term; we should go nowhere near it, and if approached by the press we were to say "no comment". By the following term the wreckage was of course removed.
So far as I recall we were never told officially what had happened indeed the policy of the school was that nothing had happened! Of course there were rumours, including that the pilots had sacrificed themselves to avoid the town. 1961/2 was the winter of the big freeze, so we spent most of the Spring term trying to keep warm, and the events of the previous term long forgotten. There was little or no discussion of the flight or the type of aircraft. At that time we were more into fast cars than planes. Package holidays were only just starting.
It is cathartic even 58 years later to find out more about a dim memory (and find it is not really so dim), and to be able to put names to the poor people who died.