Leeds nostalgia: The Blitz bomb which began ticking after five years

Turn the clock back 70 years and Loiners were desperate to get away from the city to the east coast but because car ownership was quite a rare thing back then, almost all of them had to queue up for the train.

Indeed, as the above picture shows, so many people turned up that the queue in question stretched all the way from Leeds Central Train Station in Wellington Street to Boar Lane.

In other news, a bomb which was dropped on London in 1941, suddenly came back to life after apparently being ‘dead’ for several years. The unexploded German minution was St James’s Park and was one of three which was dropped on the park. However, they were left after being deemed inactive but when a passer-by heard one of the devices ticking, the authorities closed off the surrounding area.

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Major A E Smith said: “The bomb has a delayed action fuse and can run for four days. We are hoping it will go off within the next 24 hours.

“If it has not gone off by Friday evening, one of the men will take the risk of putting a charge next to it and blowing it up.”

In other news, Leeds teachers were opposite plans by the Government to extend their school day.

Section 49 of the 1944 Education Act required teachers to monitor children during their lunch hour. This caused alarm among some teachers, who feared they would be “never separated from the presence of children” during their 9am-4pm shift.

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Speaking at the national teachers conference in Blackpool, a Mr Barford said: “I warn you, a very long school day is coming.” They were also in opposition to plans to raise the leaving age of children, arguing they needed more staff to properly implement the change.