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During the winter of 1944/5 I was asleep in my cot in an upstairs bedroom of my grandparents' house, when a doodle-bug roared over. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they thought the danger had passed when it flew over the house. Suddenly it reversed course and headed back towards the house, and then the engine cut out. Everyone fled for shelter beneath the stairs, except me who was left alone in my cot to face the spite and fury of the Nazi war-machine alone. The doodle-bug crashed about half-a-mile away, in Rayleigh, killing the occupants of the house it hit, and leaving their son, Albert, an orphan and crippled for life. I slept through the entire proceedings, and the story was often recounted in the years following!

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