I WAS interested to read the article on wartime memories (LET, April 25) as I, too, well remember the camp at Stanhill. When the gun battery first appeared there, it was a natural magnet for the young lads and it was a regular Sunday afternoon walk to see what was happening.

I could stand at our kitchen door on Accrington Road and see the tiny pin-points of light where the shells were bursting miles away.

I agree with Francis Cross (Letters, May 6) that when prisoners came to be housed there, they were all Italians. I do not recall any German troops ever being there. We used to watch their football matches on Sunday afternoons.

I also remember the barrage balloon in a field by the main road near Church cricket ground and the smokepots which were placed every few yards on the edge of the pavement.

These were supposed to create a ground haze to protect the Bristol Aircraft engine works at Clayton-le-Moors.

They made a real old oily mess on the pavements, too.

There was also the searchlight unit just over the railway embankment from the old Whitebirk power station - in a field between the road and the canal. As far as I remember, there were three lights and a sound locator, presumably worked in conjunction with the gun battery at Stanhill.

Even then, I thought it a bit strange that this unit was so close to a power station and not too far away from the large Mullard valve factory, just up the road. There were armed guards patrolling the pavements by Mullard's in those days.

The only action I remember was when two bombs fell near the railway embankment on the other side of the road from the power station. The ground there was given over to allotments and the soft soil absorbed the explosions and no damage resulted.

We could clearly hear the Lewis guns in action from the searchlight unit so the aircraft must have been quite low.

JAMES SHORROCK, Cheltenham Road, Blackburn.

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