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We lived in a rather long street -- Earlham Grove, adjacent to the main railway line from Liverpool St. to Harwich. We had more than our fair share of bombing. In 1940, during the `blitz' (a short form of the German `Blitzkrieg' — lightning war), there was a stick of high explosive bombs, dropped by old-fashioned carriers with human pilots on board. Then in the summer of 1944 came the first assault by pilotless planes, the V1's or 'doodlebugs'. We had one in Earlham Grove, a few-hundred yards from our house number 169 (13 squared). A V1 you heard coming, and you could see its tail-light, so when the engine cut out, you dived for the nearest shelter. But the V2's were supersonic rockets and gave no warning. If you heard an explosion, you knew you were safe, as the rocket had hit somewhere else, and its domain of devastation was vertical rather than horizontal. In the autumn of 1944 one arrived at midday, about half a mile from 169. A few months later, a second one came, about a quarter of a mile nearer. I began to wonder: are these two the first members of a series, and if so, is it arithmetical or geometrical?* Luckily, the War ended before I could get an answer. But you see how the story of Earlham Grove illustrated the progress made in the techniques of mass slaughter.

* This refers to whether the progression from one term to the next in the series ¼, ½, ?, the distance of the bombs from their house, involved division by 2 or subtraction of ¼ — that is, whether the next term would be ⅛, or 0. The latter case, of course, would mean that the next bomb would fall right on their house.

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