He called the account: “Not All Were Bad”.

He wrote: “It was a warm Sunday afternoon and a young mother was out for a stroll with her young son. They stopped for a while on the hump back bridge over the railway line at Cross Lane, Newby – listening to the birds and feeling the warmth of the autumn sunshine. Suddenly, the peace was shattered by the drone of engines – louder and louder – the black crosses of a twin engined bomber were almost above them. She looked up into the face of a German gunner in the front of the aeroplane. They were so close, she remembered his features – a face she would never forget.

“It was over in seconds, the missing heartbeats, the cold shiver of fear, were gone. Thankfully she cuddled her son.

“A minute later she heard the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire – the Barrowcliff footbridge was being sprayed with bullets, pedestrians were diving for cover.

“Seconds later there was a loud thud and a plume of black smoke, the Wykeham Street footbridge had been bombed.

“She burst into tears – again clutching her son close to her chest – sobbing how lucky she had been and, more importantly, her five-year-old son was safe

“Had the German gunner seen the child? Had he seen the push chair – she was convinced he had – the hesitation in his face said it all – and in seconds he had passed on to the next bridge.”

Mr Howden said his mother’s account was true to the facts.

It happened on Sunday September 21 1941, and the German hit and run aircraft had sneaked across the coast at Burniston and followed the Scarborough/Whitby Railway line looking for targets.

He said: “The young woman was my mum – Mrs Alice Howden, then living at 7 Middle Walk in Northstead, later we lived on Broadway at Northstead. The young lad was my brother, David – now Professor David Howden – who did consultancy work for the US Department of Defence. As a metallurgist, he co-ordinated a team of experts who developed niobium – a metal used for use in space rockets.

“I wonder if this German gunner survived the war. I wonder if he watched the moon landings, not realising the part he himself played in the space programme. I doubt it, but by not opening fire that day, he did.

“God bless him – not all were bad!”