Blast radius

BLITZ: THE BOMBS THAT CHANGED BRITAIN | BBC2 9PM

More than 450,000 bombs were dropped on Britain during the Blitz of the Second World War

– a period spanning just over eight months. Despite the chaos and devastation inflicted on the nation’s cities, detailed records were kept of every single bomb that fell. This new four-part series explores the stories behind those bombings, and how British society was changed as a result – not least because they exposed the urgent need to overhaul our social care system.

The first episode, fittingly enough, follows a bomb that fell on Martindale Road in Canning Town, east London, on the first night of the Blitz. It was part of a campaign aimed at damaging London’s docks, which meant that the streets surrounding them were right in the firing line.