On this day in Yorkshire 1951

A NINE-TON load of tree trunks 40 long which fell from a lorry, rolled across Forster Square, Bradford, Saturday, hurled two cars into a building and just missed a loaded double-deck Corporation bus.

Only one man was slightly injured. He was Mr. Henry Bell, taxi driver, Killinghall Road, Bradford. The trunks forced his taxi into a shop front, narrowly missing the door.

He staggered from the wreckage and was taken by ambulance to Bradford Royal Infirmary. After treatment for shock and bruises, he was allowed to go home.

The other car, owned by Mr. C. H. Bryar, owner of a clothing and fabric shop, was stationary. It was hit by the taxi and was crushed against thick steel warehouse doors, which were forced open.

The driver of the lorry, Charles Calvert, had been driving down the steep Church Bank towards Forster Square.

He told “ The Yorkshire Post”: “I lost control of my wagon two or three hundred yards up the Bank. I swung out to avoid traffic.”

He brought the lorry to a standstill at the junction of Forster Square and Broadway. Coming down Church Bank, in front of the lorry, Mr. Bell’s taxi received the full force of the runaway timber.

“My car was going so fast after logs hit the back end that I could not steer it,” he said.

Two trunks ploughed across the pavement where, few moments earlier, people had been queuing for the Haworth Road bus. Shortly before the accident the bus had arrived and taken passengers aboard.

The trunks missed the full bus by a few feet and stopped inches from Mr. Bryar’s shop window.

Inside the shop customers and assistants screamed and ran for cover when they heard the tree trunks rumbling towards the premises.

Mr. Bryar said: “I heard a screeching and rumbling noise. It became louder everyone in the shop ran the back to take cover. I thought the roof was collapsing.”

Special equipment is to be brought from Settle to reload the trunks. The lorry Is owned by John Green, timber merchant, Norwood, Silsden, near Keighley.

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