FRIENDS and neighbours of James Brown were stunned to see him picking his way out of his devastated home.

Near neighbour Paul Humphreys had returned from a weekend away and only just unloaded his car in Barton Close when he heard a massive boom.

"I saw a plume of dust and debris falling through the air, then I heard rattling as it hit the roofs."

When he hurried round the corner into West Street he was stopped in his tracks by what looked like a bomb site.

He said: "People were starting to come out of their houses and I saw Jimmy actually walking over the debris in his house to climb out."

Seconds later as he began to see blue smoke climbing from the wreckage he heard the first sirens.

Audrey Waters lives two doors away and had just got in after taking her dog for a walk. She said: "There was a tremendous bang. I didn't even think of gas, I thought my roof had fallen in.

"I have had someone decorating for me upstairs and I thought: 'What's he done?' When I got to the top of the stairs I saw all my cupboard doors had blown off and my conservatory had gone."

Town councillor Patrick Goldstone whose home is also in West Street was in his garden when the explosion happened.

"It was terrifying," he said. "I just said: 'My God, Jimmys house has blown up'."

He told the Standard gas fitters had been in his home earlier in the day checking appliances after the supply had been reconnected.

Another neighbour and friend, local artist Mary Smith heard the explosion and was on the scene minutes later.

"I was on the phone to my daughter in America and she heard it over the phone."

She talked to Mr Brown as he was being cared for in the saddlery. "He told me he plugged the kettle in and the house exploded around him. He had to crawl out. It is a miracle."

A woman on her way to the dentistís surgery in St Maryís Street and smelled gas. A few minutes later the surgery waiting room was rocked by the blast.

One neighbour was in the bath when he heard it. When he got to the window the street was covered in bricks, roof tiles and smashed glass.

Regulars at the Three Cups in the Triangle thought a lorry had missed the bend and smashed into the front of the pub.

"Everyone ran out there expecting to see a truck embedded in the front," said licensee Lee Goodship.

But they could only see puzzled residents coming out of their homes.

But one customer was taking through a side window to a group of young boys who were sobbing.

"They were near it when it happened and they saw it," said Mr Goodship. "We were amazed no one else was hurt."

Gillian Stephens, who lives yards away in Burnham Road with her 100-year-old mother, was standing at the window.

She said: "The window shook, ornaments fell off the ledge and the attic hatch fell down. Outside it looked as though things were shooting into the air."

But she added: "The nice thing in one way is that all the neighbours were checking on each other. I was most impressed by the way people rallied round."

One family is believed to have found a chunk of metal in their garden as far away as Abbey Row.