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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sarah Harding of Kirklees Libraries on behalf of Mr.Hever and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

An unexploded bomb

It would have been around 1943 and I was eleven or twelve at the time. I remember an incident when an incendiary bomb had been dropped around the area of Firth Street Mills in Huddersfield.
I think it must have either been a weekend or a school holiday and I remember walking along by the side of the River Colne to watch the firemen damping down.
The river flows parallel to King’s Mill Lane and as it flows to the left there is a weir. Where the river splits a little island formed. On the island there was a little hut and a goat tethered nearby. I remember looking at the white goat and also the hole.
At dinnertime I went home. My mother came rushing out of the house, telling me that all of King’s Mill Lane had been evacuated. ‘What have they done that for?’ I asked. ‘There’s an unexploded bomb near the island where the goat lives’ replied mother.
Members of the Civil Defence tried to steam out the bomb. They erected a tripod and successfully lifted it out. Once it had been made safe, it ended up in Huddersfield market place. A hole had been made in the side so that people could drop pennies in for the war effort. It was later moved to the main gates of Greenhead Park. I often wonder what happened to it.
Three days after the bomb dropped, I heard people talking about the goat. ‘Oh, that poor black goat’ they said. ‘
‘How do you mean?’ said another.
‘Well, the shock of the bomb turned it white’
On that day, my faith in history was lost. I lived so close to the incident that I knew the goat had always been white – there never had been a black goat!.

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