The Doodle Bug

It was an evening towards the end of WW2. We children had got used to listening to the sound of doodle-bugs knowing that if the engines stopped the bomb would drop where it was. When the sirens went on this particular day we could already hear the familiar drone. There was no time to go outside to the cellars under the house so Mother bundled us into the cloakroom under the stairs. Dad was in the bathroom across the hall. He had just run himself a meagre wartime bath. Mother pleaded with him to join us but there was no way he was going to waste his hot water for any 'Jerry". As we crouched among the coats and boots (for the first, and last, time ever) the noise stopped. We waited, horrified and a few minutes later there was a loud explosion in the race course opposite our house. Mother didn't wait for the all-clear but dashed across the hall to find Dad sitting, shocked, in a bath full of glass from the window which had been shattered by the blast.

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