'It was very noisy, like a grinding noise': Frances recalled the day the Zeppelins bombed the Black Country
She was only two years old, but the memory of the infamous Zeppelin raid that wrought devastation on the Black Country has stayed with her a lifetime.
"My uncle, aged about 26, lifted me up to the flat windows," recalled 100-year-old Frances Wall, in a 2014 interview with the Express & Star.
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"An aunt put the light out – gas then – and the curtains were opened. They would hear the drone and be amazed, so I obviously realised the excitement."
The night was January 31, 1916. A total of 34 people were killed in the raids on Tipton, Wednesbury, Bilston, and Walsall – 32 on the night, with two more dying later from injuries sustained.
And Mrs Wall, speaking days after her 100th birthday, was one of the last people to give an account of the incident.
At the time, she was living with her maternal grandmother at a flat in Avenue Road, Darlaston, almost at the epicentre of the carnage.
