Eric Noble was a 26-year-old police officer when he was called to deal with the aftermath of the Birmingham bar bombings.

Thursday marks 50 years since 21 people were killed and more than 200 injured when bombs exploded at the Mulberry Bush and Town Tavern.

The pubs were destroyed on the night of 21 November 1974 in the largest unsolved mass murder in modern British history.

Mr Noble, who now lives in Ryall, Worcestershire, said there was nothing in his 30 years of police work that compared to the horrific nature of that night.

Mr Noble was part of hundreds of police officers stationed at the airport where the body of an IRA bomber was to be flown to Ireland.

He told BBC Hereford & Worcester that the force received information that there might be an incident that night and was on duty at the airport for several hours.

He said: “We were called to the city center and told that something had happened.

“We parked outside Digbeth police station, I was the driver of the van that night.

“As I got out of the minibus to go to the Mulberry Bush bar, passing the bullring, I saw a taxi driver carrying a blanket.

“There were body parts inside and that’s when I realized something serious had happened.”

Mr Noble, who joined Birmingham City Police in 1968, described the scene in the city center as “mayhem”; It was clogged with cars as ambulances struggled to reach the scene.

He said: “It was quiet and eerily dark and we could see bodies lying on the ground.

“It’s hard to explain how terrible the situation is. The loss of life, people killed in the blink of an eye.”

“The taxi drivers were great at taking the injured to hospital. I’ve encountered terrible things in my 30 years of duty, but nothing compares to the horrific nature of the entire night.”

Mr Noble said he wanted people to remember that pub bombings happened and that something like this should never happen again.

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• ‘Being caught in a bar bomb affected my whole life’

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