Lightning Strikes at Conisbrough

Two houses were struck by lightning, a trolley bus fuse box caught fire and a horse bolted on Sunday afternoon when a heavy thunderstorm broke over Conisbrough.

The two houses, numbers one and three, Lewes Road, were badly damaged and the fire in the trolley bus fuse box, at the Lord Conyers junction, causing stoppage of buses and several telephones were put out of order.

Mr Sam Taylor (55), of 3, Lewes Road, was sitting reading the paper after his Sunday dinner when the lightning struck. He told a “South Yorkshire Times” reporter he was reading about “fiery” Freddie Trueman, the Yorkshire bowler, “and I thought he had come down the chimney,” he said

The lightning struck the roof of the two semi-detached houses, stripping tiles almost completely off one side, shattered several upstairs windows and damaged the Loft separating wall.

Stone and rubble fell from the separating wall through the ceiling and onto a bed in the bedroom of Elaine and Denise, daughters of Mrs Edith McCunn of No. 1. Several rooms in each house were covered in soot and the houses were cut off from the electricity supply until Monday. Mr Taylor, a miner at Yorkshire Main colliery, Edlington, dashed upstairs as soon as the lightning struck to see if there was any fire, but luckily there was not. The council emergency squad came to the house and fastened tarpaulins over the roof and the windows were covered over.

Elaine McCunn (12), told our reporter on Monday that the ball fell right on the pillow and would where her sister and she slept, “it from the loft fell on the bed have hit our heads if we had been in bed,” she said.

Mrs Taylor at number three was away in Burnley (Lanc.) Visiting relaties. vOn Monday morning she was busy cleaning up the mess. The television aerials were knocked off the roof and thrown into the back yard.

When the fuse box caught fire, a nearby resident had to go to the police station to call the fire brigade as telephones in the vicinity were put out of action.

A horse pulling an ice cream cart bolted as the lightning struck. The horse and cart were in a café car park off the main Doncaster Sheffield road. After bolting round the park the horse was stopped just in time as it dashed towards the busy main road. It was stabled in a building near the café until it calmed down.