'Put the kettle on': unexploded bomb brings out the Blitz spirit

Usually, as the weekend approaches, the streets, shops, and pubs around Devonport in Plymouth, the largest naval dockyard in Western Europe, are humming with life.

- Steven Morris

But an eerie hush fell on the area yesterday after more than 10,000 people were evacuated from homes and workplaces so that a Second World War bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe 80 years ago could be extracted from a back garden.

Police cleared parks, ferries stopped running, trains were halted, schools shut and there was a collective holding of breath as a military convoy transported the 500kg bomb - very slowly through the terraced streets that tumble down to a slipway leading to the River Tamar. From there, it was being gingerly floated out into

Plymouth Sound, past Drake's Island and the breakwater, to be detonated far from city streets.

It was a satisfactory ending after a difficult few days for the people in the neighbourhood of Keyham, where the bomb was discovered by a builder.

"Funny old week, really, wasn't it?" said Cassie Dunton, who works in a motorcycle shop close to the dockyard. "Strange times. You wonder how many more of these bombs are out there waiting to be found. What's been nice is that everyone has stuck together. It's a great community here.

We look after each other." The decision to move the bomb was signalled to everyone in the area via their mobile phones using the government's severe alert system. It is believed to be the first time it has been used for a real emergency.