FORMER Hi-De-Hi star Barry Howard has told of his shock after a Second World War bomb dropped into the bedroom of his Poole home.
Builders working on the veteran actor's flat in Hayden Road, Branksome Park, dislodged the unexploded device when they stripped off the ceiling to his bedroom.
The 69-year-old, who played ballroom dancer Barry Stuart-Hargreaves in the TV sitcom, was in his kitchen when the missile fell 10ft and landed on the floor.
He rushed into the room to see what the commotion was to discover the rusty 10-inch bomb lying on his floor exactly where his bed should be.
The builders called the emergency services and an army bomb disposal team from Tidworth, Wilts, arrived and took the mortar bomb away.
Unbeknown to Barry he had spent 20 years living beneath the 65-year-old device which had been stored under the floorboards of the flat above by the former tenant.
He said: "I am having my bedroom completely reno-vated so the builders have been in.
"I was in the kitchen when I heard lots of noise coming from my room so I went to have a look.
"My builder Tim pointed to something on the floor and said it was a bomb that dropped from the ceiling.
"My first reaction was one of shock because my bed is normally in the spot where it was lying. It's unbelievable to think I have been lying with my head under a bomb for 20 years.
"I rushed out and the builders very carefully picked it up, put it on a plank of wood and took into the garden.
"Tim called the police, while another builder found a bucket and put it over the top, just to be safe."
Police put up a cordon around Barry's ground floor flat following the discovery on Tuesday morning.
Bomb disposal experts later declared the bomb was dormant and harmless.
Barry said: "The bomb was about the size of a milk bottle and had a tail on the end but it had fallen off when it landed on the floor.
"The police arrived and I couldn't believe it when they started putting up blue-and-white tape around my garden.
"It was all very exciting really. Fancy a bomb sitting above my head for all that time."
The explosive had the date 1942 etched into the metal and is believed to have been a British and US-made device.
Barry starred in the BBC comedy Hi-De-Hi as long-suffering husband of bossy Yvonne Stuart-Hargreaves.
Barry is about to go on a UK tour of Michael Cooney's farce Cash on Delivery, which will also star Kevin Kennedy, the former Coronation Street actor.
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