Rude awakening thanks to bombs

IN a recent Nostalgia article about the 1940s, you included the oft published picture of the bomb destroyed houses in I research both military and civil aircraft crashes in County Durham or anywhere south of the River Tyne.

I am asking the readers if they have any details on an aircraft which landed and ended up in a hedge either during World War One or just after at a locality nicknamed Holmes Head near to Rowlands Gill or Lintzford.

Also a light aircraft crashed at Sunniside near Whickham on June 6 1964. The pilot was Norman Hart and passenger Guildford place but this time it was cropped at the left-hand side.

The original picture, shown many times before, shows a half-demolished house at the left or west end of the demolition.

That night my wife, then a three-year-old, was in bed upstairs fast asleep in that Walter Coburn; both were from Darras Hall in Ponteland and were OK. I am trying to trace the relations of both with the aim of pinpointing the crash scene. This aircraft was a Piper PA-12 Super cruiser G-ARTH and it is still flying. Please contact me. PHILIP SMITH Tel: 0191 488 3654 after 8:30pm or write to 13 Sunnidale, Fellside Park, Whickham, NE16 5TT. Email philip.smith322@btinternet.com house. The blast woke her up and she was covered in broken glass, the bedroom open to the skies.

She was rescued by a fireman and still talks about him today as the episode is vivid in her memory.

After the rescue she was then evacuated with her mother to the Lake District. BRIAN TAYLOR,

North Shields