With the others, I observed the arrival of the Rolls Royce from my vintage Riley. It glided around the corner and parked outside the long cottage. A fleet of shiny black SUVs followed, carrying men in matching suits carrying binoculars.

What’s going on? we asked one another.

Then we looked up and saw a massive metal object the size of an up-ended container ship drop from a huge height above us.

I screamed ‘Bomb!’ while everyone else reached to wind up the car windows.

As the ‘bomb’ struck the ground, one of the men forced my car into gear, then pressed hard on the accelerator. We escaped the explosion in a cloud of dust and debris.