The Iraqi crisis rekindled memories for a group of Second World War firewatchers yesterday.

Viscount Matthew Ridley and close friends Harry Earp and Douglas Allen met up 60 years after starting their duties during the Blitz.

As students of King's College, Newcastle - now Newcastle University - they helped keep the city safe.

Yesterday, they celebrated the anniversary reunion with 30 of their firewatching colleagues who were also students in 1942 and 1943.

As a dental student, retired professor, Mr Allen, was a firewatcher in the university's old medical school, and remembers watching air raids from the roof of the building.

He also recalls one occasion when, cycling along Dean Street, in Newcastle, a bombed dropped on Spillers Flour Mill next to the Tyne Bridge. And when bombs destroyed houses in Mistletoe Road, where he lived with his parents, he slept through the raid.

The students were paid two shillings and sixpence for their duties and were equipped only with buckets of sand.

Their war-time exploits have now been recorded on a website by the University Alumni Association.

University development officer, Joel Burden, said: "The recollections of the graduates who were firewatchers have provided a fascinating insight into what life was like as a student during the war.

"We have had a great response to our appeal for memories from graduates all around the country."