Looking Back, with Eric Leaver

THIS WEEK sees an anniversary that old folk in East Lancashire have good reason to remember - of the night 67 years ago when they were in bed and the earth moved.

No, it's not what you're thinking. What sent the bed springs bouncing was the biggest earthquake recorded in Britain.

It actually took place 50 miles offshore in the North Sea but the shock took just 43 seconds to cover the 140 miles to here.

The quake lasted a full 25 minutes and was felt all over Britain at around 1.30am on a Sunday when most people were asleep. But those who experienced it reported tremors lasting between a minute and just a few seconds.

The country's only casualty was a pet canary which broke a wing when it was pitched from its perch. But in East Lancashire the effect, said the old Blackburn Times, was "sufficiently startling to produce widespread alarm, amounting in some cases to terror."

The sensation, according to the Northern Daily Telegraph, was like heavy traffic passing, accompanied by a low rumbling like a distant explosion.

But its force shook hundreds awake as windows rattled, crockery broke and pictures fell from walls.

Many terrified householders were convinced burglars were at work down below. At Colne, one man, roused by the crash of falling pots, leapt out of bed to search for what he thought must be an intruder. After finding no-one and being mystified by the tremors coming through the downstairs carpet, he went back upstairs and found his bed had moved more than a foot from its previous position. A sweet shop owner in Ribchester Road, Wilpshire, told the NDT that his bed rocked about so much that he thought he was going to be pitched from it into the street. At Burnley, officers reported that police boxes swayed in the quake and the master of the town's Primrose Bank Institution said he thought the whole building was coming down. A nightwatchman in Teak Street, Blackburn, thought someone was trying to push his cabin over as it rocked to and fro. Perhaps the most scary experience, however, was that of two men kneeling alone in St Anne's Church, Blackburn. Suddenly, the big church doors began to rattle and a minute later the bench they were kneeling on started to shake violently.

"They were considerably startled and were greatly relieved when the disturbance ended," said the Blackburn Times.

In the town's Eanam district, a husband who had just fallen asleep was woken by his wife claiming there had been thuds at the front door.

"Go to sleep and don't fancy things," said the weary spouse. But his wife insisted: "There's something wrong with mother - she said she would send down if she wanted anything." With her threatening to become hysterical, he got dressed and went downstairs. But when he came back up with nothing to report, his wife maintained the visitor must have got tired of knocking and departed.

The upshot, the newspaper said, was that the husband had to walk more than a mile to his mother-in-law's house - "only to be admonished for his 'fancies' and for disturbing peaceful neighbours."

"When he returned home, his wife had to listen to some straight talk," the report added.

Memory kindled by lamp

OUR look last week at East Lancashire's gas-lit era brought back childhood memories from the 1930s for Blackburn reader Mr Ronald Hodgson, who fondly recalled the noise the old street lamps made.

"If you put your ear to the post, you could hear the ticking of the mechanical clock which turned the gas on or off at a pre-set time," says Mr Hodgson, of Stephen Street, Mill Hill.

"The lamps had a pilot light to ignite the gas and a man with a ladder would come round on a regular basis to wind up the clock and clean the lamp glass."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.