The tanker explosion that devastated a village high street

Exactly 50 years ago, on 11 September 1976, a petrol tanker overturned and exploded in a quiet village, making national headlines.

At about 07:15 BST on a Saturday morning, flames engulfed the vehicle and houses on either side of the High Street in Westoning, Bedfordshire.

Families asleep in bed were forced to flee their homes to escape the fire, which also destroyed a bakery, butcher's shop and the village post office.

Five thousand gallons (23,000 litres) of petrol exploded almost immediately after the tanker crashed, but the driver managed to scramble clear and no lives were lost.

Petrol vapour got into the drains under the road and exploded, blowing manhole covers into the air.

A fire engine en route to the fire overturned and two firefighters received injuries that required hospital treatment.

Twenty-one people were made homeless and more than 100 people had to be evacuated, including Richard Swan, 62, who was 12 at the time of the disaster.

He lived with his parents and younger brother and sister in a small two-bedroom house by the butchers on the High Street.

He said they heard a screeching noise and then "there was a boom where the tanker had clearly exploded and then almost immediately the windows started to crack".

They quickly went downstairs, and he remembers seeing the polystyrene ceiling tiles "dripping flames on to the carpet in the sitting room and the place was on fire".

They had to climb over 6ft-high (1.8m) walls at the back of the house by the butchers before going to stay with friends.

"It was all pretty chaotic," he remembers.

He says their house was knocked down, probably two or three days later, and the family had "lost absolutely everything".

They were relocated to nearby Harlington, which Richard says was a "nice place to live so, some good came out of it".

He still can't understand how the tanker managed to slide such a long way into the village before it exploded – and how the tanker driver managed to get out alive.

"It was an absolute miracle there was no loss of life because I think if it had been an hour later, there would have been more people on the streets," he says.

He praises the emergency services and anyone else that gave help at the time.

The only fatality was his brother's tortoise, Humphrey, which they did not manage to get out of the house in all the confusion.

The memory of the disaster lingers in his mind to such an extent that when he stays in a hotel, he wonders how he would get out in the event of a fire.

He says his family never forgets the date and thinks they have all suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Janet O'Mahoney, 76, was 26 at the time of the disaster and lived four doors down from the butchers.

Lying in bed, she heard "a really loud thud" and asked her husband Michael what it was.

He said it was a car backfiring "which is what he always says".

She thought it was a gas explosion, however, and went to look outside.

"There was a whoosh and the flames shot by me right past the window. I was terrified," she says.

She got her 10-month-old baby out of her cot and ran out of the back of the house with her.

Janet had to step over the coats on the floor as their pegs had blown off the wall.

She says she was just thinking: "I have to get out of here."

Her husband joined her at a neighbour's house with their other daughter, Alice, who was four years old at the time.

Janet recalls seeing flames which "were really high – higher than the house".

Their neighbour gave them clothing as they were still in their night clothes, and they went to find her husband's father, who was going to pick them up.

They ended up staying with her mother who lived in the village of Ireland, near Shefford.

Her husband told her what had happened as he had gone back to their house to put on his special constable's uniform.

"He just went to work and went and stood in the road," she says.

Janet says Alice still has a fear of flames, and they never had any bonfires following the disaster.

She says the memory of it all still lives with her.

Explosives inspector David Jones, speaking at the time, explained what had happened.

"The back end of the tanker had rolled over and had scraped along the kerb edge and this had fractured the tank and there had been an initial spillage of petrol," he said.

He added it was impossible to determine the exact cause of the ignition but said an empty compartment in the tanker had burst from the pressure of the expanding gas and air.

The explosion is remembered within the fuel industry as a disaster that highlighted the importance of emergency planning and tanker safety procedures.

An exhibition with photos, newspaper clippings and videos of eyewitness accounts is taking place on Saturday at Westoning Village Hall.

Do you have a story suggestion for Beds, Herts or Bucks? Contact us below.

Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.