HE was an excited 10-year-old boy, caught up in a war.
But young Charlie Hever’s day was about to get even more interesting back in 1941.
He was told off by firefighters, damping down after incendiary bombs dropped by the Germans set fire to shoddy sheds outside a mill in Firth Street.
But as the young Charlie wandered down to his favourite play spot by the River Colne, he came across something even more interesting.
A giant 2,200lb bomb, dropped in the raid the previous night, had landed on a small island close to King’s Mill Lane but failed to detonate.
Charlie, who was living with his family in Firth Street, watched fascinated as Army bomb disposal experts gingerly hauled the bomb from the island using three telegraph poles as a tripod.
It was made safe by steaming out the explosives and then went on show, firstly in Huddersfield’s Market Place and later at Greenhead Park.
Charlie, now 78 and living in Colne Street, Aspley, recalled the experiences after reading stories about the war and the Home Guard in the Examiner earlier this month.
He had been living with his mum, Mary-Anne Hever, and sisters Mary and Biddie when the war broke out.
“I was about 10 or 11 and remember the night the incendiary bombs came down.
“Early the next day I was up and about and watched the firemen putting out the fires in the shoddy sheds.
“They told me to scarper and I ran off to the river, where I usually played. It was there I saw the bomb and the men trying to move it.
“They had to evacuate many of the houses along Kings Mill Lane and Firth Street while they did it.
“They put the bomb casing on show in the town centre and they used it to collect coins to help the war effort. I don’t know what happened to it after it went on show at Greenhead Park”.
Charlie himself later served in the Army before becoming a miner.
He then moved into tunnelling and was one of those involved in work on Scammonden Dam.
He was badly injured while helping to dig a two-mile tunnel from the dam to Slaithwaite, but later returned to work as a roofer.
