One Thursday afternoon in August 1993 I took my children into Bournemouth and we went into Waterstones the bookshop.

Next morning I realised that we had been there when the firebomb had been taken down to the basement - we even glimpsed the people responsible. As I came down from the first floor they were by the front door.

The police wanted to talk to me and there we were on the tape from the surveillance camera.

When I had bought the books I wanted I found that my seven year old offspring had gone down into the basement, so we had to go down there before leaving.

The fire destroyed the staircase - the device was planted in a cupboard at the foot of the stairs, presumably in the hope that the fire would spread to all the floors.

Several more small devices were placed around the town, and a larger bomb at the pier but that was either defused or did not go off. If it had exploded, there was an event on the pier attended by about 800 people -

I can't pretend that we had a close call - the fire did not start for some hours after we left - and was intended to destroy property rather than injure.

I did wonder though - what if - and just how well was the bomb made.

In all the other 'events' that get into the news there must have been people who arrived just before, or who happened to leave, those who were delayed, missed the train, caught an earlier bus, stopped to buy flowers - and they were either there or not there purely by chance.

Think about such things too long and you'd never go outside, ever.

Anne the Pleater :ootd: