Today, the 21st of December, will always be remembered for the terrible tragedy that occurred in 1988, when Pan Am flight 103 was blown apart in the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland. A total of 270 people lost their lives due to a terrorist bomb.
However, this incident overshadows two more tragic events. What is particularly sad is that the disasters occurred in the county of Lancashire, no more than 30 miles apart.
Over Hulton is an area of Westhoughton, 4 miles southwest of Bolton. Now located in the county of Greater Manchester, it was, in 1910, still within the boundaries of. Lancashire, and at the time, coal-mining was a widespread industry in the area.
The Hulton Bank Colliery No. 3 Pit - also known as the Pretoria Pit - was owned by the Hulton Colliery Company. On 21st December, 1910, some 900 miners turned up for the day shift at the colliery, with 347 going down No. 3 Pit. At 7.50 am, there was a huge explosion. It is believed that this was the result of a gas build-up, following a roof collapse the day before.
Of those 347 miners, only three were to survive. It remains the worst mining disaster in Lancashire history.
Thirty years later, Lancashire was suffering casualties as the Second World War raged, with the port city of Liverpool under attack. On 20th November, 1940, 166 were killed when a German bomb fell on an air raid shelter in Durning Rd.
On the night of 20th December, 1940, the area was encountering a particularly heavy air raid, and n the early hours of 21st December, another German bomb fell on another air raid shelter. This time it was in Blackstock Gardens, about a mile WNW of Durning Rd.
Sadly, we will probably never know how many lost their lives that morning. There have been 74 confirmed fatalities, but the final toll could be as high as 200. The reason is that two packed trains carrying passengers home from work, stopped to allow them to take shelter. Many were able to take refuge, but some were turned away as the shelter was full. So, we don't know how many, and we don't know who... What we do know is that was another tragedy as the result of war.
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