Just before 6pm on August 2, an explosion rocked Cricketers Way, Andover.

Generally, when an explosion goes off, it makes itself known quite quickly. Though the fire brigade and gas engineers were quickly on the scene, it turns out most residents thought it was a flash in the pan.

The Bennetts, living next door, didn’t think anything of it at first.

They were in the middle of cooking dinner, and when they heard a loud bang from outside, they just thought it was children playing outside. “It could’ve been somebody on a skateboard,” they said.

But when they saw people “milling around outside,” they knew something was going on.

Shortly afterwards, the Bennetts were asked to leave their home by the fire brigade, who went and sat down in a nearby field while the area was made safe.

It was a similar story at the Tough household, where Mr Tough was watching the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, while his wife slept upstairs. “She slept right through it!” he said. “We didn’t hear the bangs.

“It was only when we were told to get out and they cordoned off the area around our house that we knew something was up.”

Two doors down, Kyle wasn’t even aware of the explosion at all. “I didn’t know about it,” he said. “I didn’t hear anything. I saw the fire brigade, but I didn’t want to ask.”

Around the corner, Wendy Morton wasn’t even aware of the explosion until she saw it on Facebook later that day. “Maybe I had the television up too loud!” she said. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

With the help of an engineer from SGN, the fire brigade were able to finish up by 7:53pm, allowing residents back to their homes. Though most would return to homes unaffected by the explosion, there was once casualty – the Bennett’s dinner.

“When we were asked to leave the house, I had to stop cooking,” said Mr Bennett. “We couldn’t eat the chicken then, so I had to rebuy it!”