They were called the Barnbow Lasses: young women and girls working long hours in a munitions factory, helping to sustain the war effort far from the front lines.
On the night of December 5, 1916, that work turned deadly.
An explosion ripped through the Barnbow Munitions Factory near Leeds, killing 35 women and injuring many more. In the aftermath, the story was quickly contained; officially framed, quietly mourned, and rarely questioned.
But behind the headlines were lives interrupted, families forever changed, and truths that did not fully surface for generations.
In this episode, I speak with Antony J. Bell, author of A Penny a Shell, whose own family history is tied to the disaster through Sarah Ann Jennings. Together, we explore not just what happened at Barnbow, but how stories are passed down, reshaped, and sometimes lost.
This is not only the story of an explosion.
It is the story of memory, silence… and rediscovery.
