Someone was looking over us that fateful day...

ZOEY Chadderton says she thanks her lucky stars that she decided to pop out on the day of the Shaw blast.

The mum-of-two was at the children’s centre and only found out about the blast when she saw a friend on her way home.

Her home in Chancery Lane was badly damaged. She moved to temporary housing in Royton when she was seven months pregnant.

“I think someone was looking over us that day,” she said.

“We weren’t even going to go to the centre as my daughter was playing in the garden with her friends. We were out no longer than an hour — in which time the blast happened.”

Some of Zoey’s neighbours still live in their homes but continually find structural damage.

“I still see my old neighbours but they say the place just feels empty; nothing like it was. It was an amazing community and I was really settled there with my daughter.

She said one fire-fighter even went into her home to retrieve her daughter’s favourite bedtime storybook.

“It shows we live in a community with good people — yet I wasn’t in half as much distress as others, nowhere near.

“I think what Kenny has done setting up Jamie’s charity is amazing and such a good way to turn something so horrendous for them into something so positive.

“We’re in Royton now. I like the place now but we didn’t leave a house in Shaw — we left our home and brilliant bunch of not only neighbours, but family.”