French Trickery - Man Mistakes Citroen Car Part for Explosive.

[2strokebloke]

I received this article today from one of the vintage car email groups I belong to:

From the front page of today's Daily Telegraph,(from Julian Marsh)

Gripping yarn of man who thought he'd found a bomb
By Nic Fleming
(Filed: 15/09/2004 - Daily Telegraph)

Sweating with fear, and told not to let go under any circumstances,
David Page tightened his right thumb's grip on the button of the
suspected World War Two mine.

"Tell my family I love them if the worst comes to the worst," he told
the police operator.

As he carefully taped his hand to the device to avoid letting go of what
he thought was the trigger, police cordoned off roads within a two-mile
radius and called in the Army.

The 40-year-old JCB driver and his wife Joanne, who refused to leave his
side, then endured a terror-filled three hours until bomb disposal
experts arrived at midnight - and told him the "mine" was a discarded
Citroen car part.

Mr Page, a father of five from Coltishall, Norfolk, was digging near his
home when he unearthed a rusting piece of metal resembling a camping gas
cylinder and pushed a button at one end.

It was only then that it occurred to him that it might be dangerous and
that he must not let go. He even put his hand, with the device taped to
it, in a barrel of sand to lessen the blast.

"We thought if it does go off I'd hopefully only lose my arm," he said.

"I was absolutely terrified that I would be blown into a million pieces.
The woman police operator kept saying it would be OK but I said to her,
'You're not the one holding the bomb'."

"I told her to tell my parents and children that I loved them if
anything went wrong. I was crying and didn't know what to do. I just
wanted to throw it away but knew I couldn't. The man from the Army said
that he'd blown up a few similiar devices in the past because they
looked so much like mines so it was an easy mistake to make."

A discussion on the subject leads us to believe that the part of a vintage Citroen that looks most like a land mine is the "suspension sphere" where the gas and oil was held for the hydraulic system!

[KustmAce]

Damn Frenchies, always trying to sabatoge us!