Truth is stranger....

[LMS6202]

During WW2 when Dad was on the LMS he had a very lucky escape. Signed on at Camden shed and did the preliminaries before proceeding to his allocated engine in the yard. Him and his driver left the shanty and there was a fierce air raid on with shrapnel falling all over the place. So tin hats on and hope for the best making there way by the light of hooded torches. Suddenly Dads driver said he had forgotten something and was going back for it but told Dad to carry on and he would see him on the Loco. Pop had not gone 20 yards when there was an almighty flash but not a sound heard. Dad was flown through the air TOWARDS the flash and landed rather roughly. When he looked up there were flames quite close so he took the better part of valour and "ran like f**k" back the way he had come. He did not get far when he tripped over something in the dark. By the poor light of his hooded torch he saw a body lying on the ground. He went back to the shanty and with the help of two other enginemen got the person and brought him in. They discovered that it was Dad's driver and he was stone dead without a mark on him. The only odd thing was that although he had his shoes on his socks were nowhere to be seen. Presumably he had been killed and so treated by the blast of the bomb. Even stranger Pop had been closer to the bomb than the driver but was virtually unscathed apart form minor cuts and scratches and bruises and the loss of his tin hat. He searched for the metal lid but it had been blown somewhere by the blast. It was found a couple of days at later at Wolverhampton down the chimney of a loco after the crew had reported difficulty in steaming. This would have been 1940 or 41.