A torrential thunderstorm in Swinton in August 1915 caused damage and distress to residents in Swinton and Clifton, and even caused the fatality of a farm animal.
On the weekend of 10 August 1915 the Eccles Journal reported that violent thunderstorms erupted over the Swinton area with lightning bolts striking haphazardly across the borough.
One eyewitness, Mr Keen, who lived on Swinton Hall Road, was preparing the family dinner when a bolt of lightning struck the chimney on the cottage, dislodging it from the roof and causing the cottage and the family meal to be covered in soot.
Mrs Keen and her son were sat by the fireplace when the chimney crashed down, this caused to them to run out of the cottage where they were described as being “greatly alarmed”.
In nearby Clifton the thunderstorms and lightning were causing trouble not just to local property.
A tramcar was passing along Bolton Road when the overhead electrical equipment was stuck by lightning.
This caused a short circuit and the tram ground to a halt which apparently “caused much excitement among the passengers which included a number of young ladies”.
With trams still in their infancy I suppose it would have caused some excitement for the passengers. In any event it’s an early example of a tram failure – something Metrolink passengers will be quite used to these days.
The storm raged unabated and this time it would cause a fatality.
A cow which was grazing in a field near Moss View, Clifton was stuck by a bolt of lightning and was killed instantaneously.
Can you imagine the newspapers of today covering the news of a cow being killed by a bolt of lightning?
I wonder what the farmer did with the cow? Would it have been edible after meeting such an untimely fate?
The 2015 great British summer continues…
