AS the country looked back on 60 years since the Battle of Britain one Settle woman reflected how Hitler's bombs changed her life forever.

Joan Simpson was a young wife and mother living in Surrey when war broke out. With her husband abroad in the forces the mother of two worked at Croydon Airport, making parts for aeroplanes.

As the Blitz began in earnest, air raids were an everyday occurrence, and Mrs Simpson had to run for her life several times a day.

"One man I worked next to was killed on the way to the shelter. You had to literally run for your life," she recalls.

"I had a friend and the whole row of houses where she lived was flattened in one bomb. She lived, luckily, but hundreds died.

"At the airport we used to see about 10 pilots go up, and only seven come back, then you would hear on the radio that there had been no losses. It was annoying to me to hear that. It was pure propaganda."

One day, Mrs Simpson decided she had had enough. She put her furniture in storage and fled to Yorkshire with her young children, Harry and Clifford. She had heard of Settle as a cousin used to live in the town, and thought it sounded as good a place as any.

The day before they boarded the train, she sent a registered letter to Settle Town Hall to ask the council to treat the family as evacuees and find them accommodation.

"I was given accommodation and a job in the cotton mill. I soon left there on doctor's orders and went to work on the railway instead. I really enjoyed it.

"The day before I left Croydon, I had to run for the shelters 29 times. When I came to Settle it was like there wasn't a war on at all.

"They let the siren off on the first Saturday morning after I came here and I ran for it - they had to come after me to tell me it was alright! It took me some time to get used to it being so quiet," said Mrs Simpson, now 80, who lives in Northfields Avenue.

Sadly her husband never made it to Settle - he was killed in Burma - but at the end of the war she decided to stay and made a new life for herself. She met and married John Lamb and they had 27 years together and had three daughters and a son. Later in life, at the age of 71, she married Thomas Simpson, but was widowed again last year.

Mrs Simpson also revealed a connection with the ill-fated Titanic, which famously sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912.

Before her birth, her parents, brothers and sister had planned to emigrate to Canada where her uncle already lived. Mrs Simpson explained: "they had everything all arranged for selling up, they had their trunks packed and tickets booked on Titanic. They were at the front door, ready to go on the boat and then my father turned round and said 'I am not going'.

"My mother thought he was joking, but he then said 'I'm not going on that boat - it won't make it' and he refused to leave.

"My aunt from Canada who was going to travel with them had to go back, and of course Titanic went down and she died. My father was determined he wasn't going on that boat. Thank God they didn't."