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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Morwenna Nadar of CSV/´óÏó´«Ã½ LONDON on behalf of E.F. Taylor and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Around 1942/43 I was about 15 or 16 and had just left school. When the incendiary bombs dropped we all went rushing out to collect the fins and bits of shrapnel. One day I collected a whole bomb that had not ‘died’ and took it home with me. I knew I could not leave it where my parents would see it but at first I could not think of a good hiding-place. Eventually I pulled up one of the floorboards in my bedroom, put the bomb underneath , and then replaced the board.

My brothers were in the army by then but my parents were both at home. I never told them as they would have been horrified and would have immediately called the bomb disposal unit. I did not want to lose my prize! I often used to take it out to look at and I used to show it to my friends. Sometimes my friends would come upstairs and we would secretly look at it in my room but we had to be careful that my parents did not come in unexpectedly. Sometimes I managed to sneak it downstairs so that we could look at it outside but we had to be careful that none of the adults in the village saw us.

I left it there when I went into the Navy and just forgot all about it. That was the last time I saw it and I have never thought about it until my friend was telling about his experience with a similar bomb so that it could be put on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ website. I suppose it was probably a dud bomb (Ihope so!) and I imagine that by now it’s been found and disposed of. My wife is listening to me telling about this and she is gobsmacked!

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