It is 50 years since Pat Twyford, of the Western Morning News, put pen to paper as war correspondent in a bid to describe the horrors of the Plymouth Blitz.
Now the book he wrote has been doubled in size and is about to be re-launched. Martin Hesp has been learning about its remarkable author.

For a journalist, it was almost an understatement…

“It Came To Our Door” sounds as if someone is referring to a cold or influenza – but the war correspondent of the Western Morning News was, in fact, talking about the vicious and deadly might of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg.

In a brilliantly written book of that name, the door to which “it” came belonged to Plymouth.

Outside London, few cities in England were as badly bombed as the Devonshire naval port.

On the Richter scale of wide-scale demolition, the Plymouth Blitz scored horribly high indeed.

Luftwaffe bombs not only killed many Plymothians, but destroyed 20,000 of the city’s buildings, 100 of its pubs, 42 churches, 24 schools, eight cinemas and six hotels.

The late Pat Twyford, who worked for the Western Morning News, man and boy for 53 years, was in the middle of all this mayhem towards the end of the war, and he put the Westcountry’s own version of Armageddon into words.

His book, It Came To Our Door, was a bestseller half a century ago when it was first published – and looks set to retain the accolade once again as it is re-launched at twice its original length, with some 400 extra photographs.

He didn’t witness every terrible day of the Plymouth blitz because he was busy as the WMN’s war correspondent, covering the D-Day landings with the likes of Richard Dimbleby and following the action through France and Belgium as Europe was liberated – until his Jeep was overturned in an accident with a friendly tank.

But, on his return, he saw the results of previous raids and witnessed the ongoing devastation of his beloved hometown. He decided to record such momentous and horrendous events for prosperity.