Burnt toast sets off ‘siren’ which baffles readers

A simple burnt piece of toast was enough to set off an ‘air raid siren’ which ended up baffling many Peterborough residents sitting in their homes.

The Peterborough Telegraph received many messages last Thursday morning from readers wondering what on earth the noise had been the evening before.

One of those was Tim Groves who asked: “Was that an air raid siren just going on in the Netherton area?”

Jess Paulucci said: “Any idea what the siren was in the South Bretton area? Loads of people saying it was an air raid siren going off somewhere.”

And Claire Lucia-Wright added: “Do you know what the siren was that could be heard across Peterborough yesterday evening? It sounded a bit like an air raid siren, it was around 9pm.”

The PT put out an article on its website on Thursday to try and solve the mystery, and two readers came forward with the answer - the fire alarm at Milton Hall, one of the largest private homes in the whole of Cambridgeshire.

After being contacted by the readers the PT phoned up the residence and was told that “somebody burnt a bit of toast and set the fire alarm off ”.

This is not the only time the PT has received reports of a mystery ‘air raid siren’.

Readers also contacted us last December asking what a similar noise was, and even back in July 2011 the newspaper received a letter from Sarah and Andrew Granville in South Bretton.

It read: We’ve been woken a couple of nights in the past year by a siren sounding in the middle of the night (sounds like the wartime air raid siren).

“Do any readers have any suggestion of where this might be coming from? Thankyou!”

Milton Hall