Zeppelin air raid

I remember questioning my grandmother Edith Oliver (nee Ward) as to why she was so afraid of thunder and lightning, reassuring her that it would not hurt her and that she was safe.

She told me, to my great surprise, that she had been in service in Sheffield during the Great War and that she had witnessed an air raid by a Zeppelin.

She said that a man had seen the Zeppelin and warned people to take cover. She said they couldn’t see it and said there was no noise from the engines, the first noise was the whistle of the bombs as they fell and then explosions. She ran inside and sheltered under the stairs for the duration of the raid.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Strangely many years later an old guy called Tom who used to frequent The Fox in Beighton told me that the pond in Beighton is the result of a WW1 bomb from a Zeppelin but I have no further evidence of this.

Such an event that affects survivors for the rest of their lives should not be forgotten.

Graham C Sykes

Garden Walk, Beighton, Sheffield S20