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At the start of the war, the small village of Skinningrove had an iron works and was said to have been involved in the production of mustard gas. It therefore became a target for German zeppelins. There are many stories of spies being captured on the north east coast, although many of these seem to be urban legend. In a previously unheard interview, recorded for an oral history project in the 1980s, Linda Smith recalls being a teenager and witnessing someone she believed to be a German spy jumping to his death from a bridge: “He’d been spying. The police were at one end of the bridge and the army were the other side.” Initially people hid in a local pub from the Zeppelins, but soon went underground. On one occasion a bomb exploded narrowly missing a TNT plant. The local population took refuge in the local drift mine in the darkness. A list exists at the Cleveland Ironstone Museum of the men who were called upon to keep order down the mine. Linda Smith said: “There were rats running about. It was an awful business mind.” Location: Skinningrove Mine, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Redcar and Cleveland ST13 4AP Image: Skinningrove mine in 1900, courtesy of Ironstone Mining Museum