A wartime drama left 2,000 people evacuated from their homes and brought a wealth of copy for the Sunderland Echo.

The paper enjoyed a running story about a 1,000lb Second World War bomb that had remained buried and unexploded in Hendon for decades before building work uncovered it last Monday.

Several stories were filed each day as the tale unfolded – with news of people being evacuated, people refusing to leave their homes, analysis of the operation, the chaos it caused and what might happen if the high explosives went off.

There were also nostalgia pieces from people who remembered the night the bomb may have landed.

Follow-ups included stories of business as usual and criticism of the authorities’ handling of the crisis.

The bomb was finally moved and blown up on a city beach at 1.25am on Thursday after being stabilised by the Army.

The massive blast still shook the ground, smashed windows and set off car alarms and the paper reported how crowds cheered as the flash lit up the night sky. It meant they could finally return to their homes.

The events broke in the week after another big story for the Echo – the departure of Peter Reid and appointment of Howard Wilkinson as manager of the city’s football club.

Editor Rob Lawson said: “We did extremely well over Peter Reid and Howard Wilkinson and had a sales increase of more than half a per cent, taking us over the 50,000 figure.

“The bomb kept the momentum going in the face of a potential come-down after the football story.

“The blast woke most of the people in the city up when it happened. One reporter, John Corney, stayed with the story through the night on Wednesday, which is when they blew it up at night, and did on-the-spot interviews with people who were there.

“We handled the story very well as a team.”

The paper also took some time to soberly reminded its readers: “The last few days will have given a flavour of what wartime life must have been like 60 years ago. Living with the threat from Hitler’s bombs was a daily problem for Wearsiders who had to endure night after night of Luftwaffe raids.”

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