M62 bomb anniversary: Former teenage soldier recalls the very second an IRA bomb destroyed the bus he was travelling in - killing 12 people, including an entire family

Tommy Judge was onboard a bus when it exploded, and says if it were not for some remarkable handling by its driver, many more lives could have been lost in a motorway pile-up.

The bus full of soldiers and relatives had been travelling along the M62 motorway in the north of England when a time-bomb went off, killing nine soldiers and three civilians.

The three civilians were Linda, Lee, and Robert Houghton (aged 23, 5, and 2, respectively), and killed alongside them was soldier Clifford Houghton (23).

Kenny Donaldson, director of victims' group the South East Fermanagh Foundation, believes this is the only incident of the Troubles where a whole family – father, mother, and their children – were wiped out together.

Mr Judge, a Labour Party councillor since 2001, is now a retired transport worker with two grown up children of his own.

Despite being just 17 at the time of the blast, he had been a recruit in training for since age 15 and knew how to drive tanks.

He had been out for a few drinks with his father that night, and almost missed the bus.

He remebers that it was just after midnight, and the 12 o'clock news bulletin had just come on Radio Two.

He could hear one child crying, and another giggling.

Suddenly there was flash, a bang, "and the bus sort of disintegrated around me".

Despite much of the vehicle being missing, the driver "managed to bring the bus onto a layby and stop – I don't know how he did it because his face was pouring blood; the glass had sort of shattered in front of him".

"He did a remarkable job and probably saved lives himself that night," said Mr Judge.

"You had to be careful getting off, because the floor had gone.

"The windows had gone on either side. You had to walk down the steel frame of the coach that the seats were bolted to.

"It was a tough thing to witness as a 17-year-old."

Walking wounded were meandering around beside the busy motorway, and they had to be led away lest they blunder into still-flowing traffic.

A woman was later convicted of the attack, but her conviction (based on confessions she had made) was overturned and she was freed.

Mr Judge said he was later told by a police officer that more people on the coach had died prematurely as a consequence of what they had suffered that night than were killed directly by the bomb.

He went on to stay in the Army and served as a guard at the Maze, watching some of the top IRA prisoners from his tower.

Two years later he escaped death again when a bomb exploded under a convoy he was travelling in. He left the Army soon after.

He expects that hundreds of people will attend the 50th anniversary memorial service, at a service station close to the blast, this Sunday morning.

Mr Donaldson said: “SEFF are privileged to support many of the bereaved families and injured survivors and I will be there to join with those impacted, supported by two of my SEFF GB staff colleagues.

"It is important that society never forgets those impacted by this brutal act of terror perpetrated by bloodthirsty Provisional IRA terrorists.”