MANY unexploded bombs have been dug up in Oxfordshire over the years.

Thankfully, most have proved to be harmless, but the incendiary devices digger driver David Heath uncovered were the exception. He was lucky to stay alive.

We were reminded of his escape by reader Bill Law of Faringdon, who has sent in a copy of the Oxford Mail story of the incident and pictures from a collection belonging to Jim Brown.

Mr Heath was working on a new driveway to an extension to Tollington School at Faringdon on May 29, 1974 when he dug up some strange-looking yellow bottles. He and his workmates threw them aside.

But as the Oxford Mail reported, under the heading ‘Sitting on top of a ‘volcano’’: “he was counting his lucky stars a few minutes later when he discovered that the bottles were wartime incendiary devices and that there were about 40 of them under the ground where he was working.

“It was not until Mr Heath drove his tractor over the bottles and the truck caught fire that he realised something was seriously wrong.

“The police and bomb disposal squad were called and Mr Heath learned of his good fortune.”

After Mr Heath had unearthed one collection of bottles, his workmates discovered another.

After making the devices safe, the bomb disposal team from Hounslow in West London searched the area to see if there any more, then took them to a nearby quarry and destroyed them.

Also uncovered on the site was an old notice warning of incendiary bombs and telling people not the break the bottles or remove the tops.

Mr Heath, of Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, was told that if he had caught the bottles wrongly, it could have seriously damaged his digger, worth about £10,000 new.

If they had all gone off when he was outside the vehicle, he would probably not have been around to tell the tale.

After the discovery, the area was fenced off and the public were told to keep away from the site for six months because of the threat of phosphorus in the ground.

Fire crews and bomb disposal experts continued to visit the site to check on the potential dangers.

As Mr Law points out, the incident happened two months after Faringdon had moved from Berkshire to Oxfordshire in a major county boundary review.

Do readers recall being caught up in any other bomb alerts?