A REQUEST from Echo readers for their memories of a day Bournemouth was bombed in 1943 has equipped a local author to write another book.

Malcolm Lowe appealed for anyone with memories of the day the Luftwaffe bombed Bournemouth in 1943 to come forward so he could use them in his book.

And in a letter to the Echo he revealed the appeal was so successful that he has enough personal reminiscences from local people to write a separate book specifically about the Bournemouth raid.

His latest book, due to be published, is about the Second World War German fighter plane the Focke-Wulf FW 190, which was involved in the daylight raid carried out in Bournemouth in 1943.

The raid caused much destruction in the town, a bomb landed close to the Echo offices and another blast destroyed the Metropole Hotel at the Landsdowne, where KFC stands now. The official death toll of the raid was 128.

Malcolm also writes for specialist magazine Aeroplane Monthly, is a UK correspondent for American magazine Popular Mechanics and also writes about space flight. His latest book will be published this year by Osprey.