"We were tingling with fear as we sat and listened to the bombs fall" recalling the Sheffield Blitz which happened 80 years ago today

For 92-year-old Jessie Miller she can still recall where she was when the first siren went off.

She said: “I had my 12th birthday just days before and was at my aunt and uncle’s on the Arbourthorne Estate when the siren started at seven at night and we went down to the shelter at the bottom of the garden.

"You could hear the bombs falling out the planes and you could hear them landing. We were all just tingling with fear as we sat and listened to the bombs fall over and over again.”

The first incendiaries were dropped over Norton Lees and Gleadless. At about 9.30 pm a stick of bombs fell on Campo Lane and Vicar Lane, demolishing the West end of the Cathedral. At about 10:50 pm a 500 kg bomb fell on and destroyed the C&A and Burtons buildings opposite the Marples Hotel in Fitzalan Square. At 11.44 pm, The Marples Hotel itself received a direct hit.

Jessie said: “The bombs fell until about four in the morning, you couldn’t sleep you were too scared and the noise of them rattled your bones. It was very very frightening.”

When it was finally safe to leave the shelter Jessie made her way back to the house and said she slept for a whole day as she was just so tired.

The mother, grandmother and great grandmother said: “It was only after the attack you started realising how bad it had been and how many places were attacked. The Marples was hit and a lot of people died then and Pittsmoor was one of the worst places too.

"And just when you thought it was all over the bombing carried on on the Sunday night too.”

The Sunday attack saw many of Sheffield’s steelworks targeted.

Jessie added: “I feel very lucky to be here at 92 telling my story as I know a lot of people didn’t make it.”