MEMORIES 200 mentioned the great fire of Aycliffe, which happened during nightshift at the Bakelite factory on April 19, 1955. A terrific explosion in the new resin production plant, hurling large lumps of metal onto the railway line and shattering windows in homes as far away as Heighington and Redworth.

Ten Bakelite employees were injured, six of them requiring hospitalisation for some months, although we believe they all recovered.

"The blast occurred about 4am," writes Tom Robson of Bishop Auckland. "I was working in the Physical Test Laboratory, perhaps one of the nearest buildings to the resin plant, where we control tested the mechanical and electrical properties of the nearby PVC production plant.

"I had my back to the blast so for me the first indication of the explosion was the vast lighting up of the whole area followed by a great bang and shock waves.

"Objects and apparatus trembled on the benches but our main concern was whether there was any breakage of glass bottles full of acids on the shelves and benches in the adjoining Chemical Analytical Lab. Fortunately there was no damage.

"Between each of the long low building there were big earthen embankments stretching the length of the building. These were the remains of the Aycliffe munitions factory and had been constructed like this presumably as protection if there had been an accidental explosion during the war years.

"They certainly served their purpose in 1955."

AS everyone likes a good fire, we'll move on to what The Northern Echo's front page called the "Great Fire of Spennymoor". It happened at 11.45am on August 27, 1981, at the Thorn Lighting factory and, again according to the Echo, it forced 1,700 workers to flee in horror as a "raging inferno" ripped through a warehouse.

The building was only five years old, and the inferno commenced its ripping in the centre of a pile of corrugated cardboard boxes.

Flames shot 50ft into the sky and the column of smoke could be seen 20 miles away. The Echo said this was the worst blaze in south Durham since the war, and about £8.5m of damage was caused.

Little wonder, then, that Thorn's fire engine and its eight man crew struggled when confronted with the enormity of the flames, and soon 20 pumps and two snorkels – from Bishop Auckland, Newton Aycliffe, Durham, Ferryhill, Sedgefield, Langley Park, Peterlee, Wheatley Hill and Consett – were on the scene.

As was a large crowd of sightseers.

"There were more people watching than at Durham Big Meeting," someone told the Echo.

Spennymoor photographer Keith Taylor, of Cameracraft, was among them.

"I remember it like yesterday," he says. "I was in Parkwood Precinct in Spennymoor where I had a

small photography shop. I saw masses of smoke, grabbed the camera and made my way over to the industrial estate. The landlord of the Golden Fleece – later the Frog and Ferret – gave me permission to use the pub's upstairs window, but the adjoining roof was encroaching on the picture, so I climbed along its ridge to get the wide shot,

"A few days later, I was invited onto the site by one of the managers, Albert Hickman, to photograph the remains which were just a mass of twisted metal – I haven't seen anything like this since."

Any other memories of this extraordinary day?