A fifth device, sent to a home in Spurstowe, Crewe, yesterday afternoon, was also made safe by bomb disposal experts with a controlled explosion.The hunt master and his son were not so lucky. Mr Woolley suffered severe burns to his hand and Joshua, who was standing two feet from him, suffered slight eye injuries and must return to hospital tomorrow to assess any permanent damage.Mr Woolley was still in bed when the post came at 8.15am, and the letters were brought up to the bedroom."Joshua had opened two letters and he could very easily have opened the third one," he said."I can barely remember the explosion, I can recall very little of it. I remember the whole bedroom being on fire and that is as much as I can recall."Joshua said: "Daddy had given me a letter and I went to show it to my brother and then he gave me another letter. I was opening the letter that daddy gave me and then daddy opened the bomb."The worst part was when daddy screamed," he added. "My brother was more frightened than me."Mr Woolley said: "I feel that anyone who indiscriminately sends bombs through the post that can be opened by a six-year-old child .. it is appalling. A hunt master and his six-year-old son told how they were caught in the blast from a letter bomb in the bedroom of their home yesterday. David Woolley, 38-year-old master of the Cheshire Hunt, revealed that he almost gave the package to his son, Joshua, to open, believing it was a get-well card for the boy who has been recovering from an eye operation. The device, posted to Mr Woolley's farmhouse home at Huxley, near Chester, was one of four delivered to people connected with foxhunting in the county yesterday morning.Army bomb disposal experts and police dealt with packages that were sent to addresses in Nantwich, Worleston near Crewe, and Utkinton, near Tarporley.

Battered and bruised, with a powerful Commons committee promising an inquiry and having to spend increasing amounts of time on litigation, his condition worsened when a stray fax from his PR man was passed to the Independent on Sunday One more story, it said, would be enough to finish him.. He declared: "If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it, I am ready for the fight."The Tory hierarchy was delighted: at last one of their own was having the guts to take on the press that had made their lives hell ever since the Prime Minister announced his "back to basics" moral crusade.It was heady stuff, but last month in a completely unexpected move, Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, announced to a stunned House of Commons that there were grounds for believing BMARC's guns had gone to Iran Suddenly Mr Aitken was on the ropes. Major-General Donald Isles, a former military attache in Washington, conceded on BBC's Newsnight that there were rumours the guns were bound for Iran.No sooner had that affair died down than the Guardian and World in Action took up the cudgels again with accusations about his relationship with members of the Saudi royal family and his business links with two Lebanese businessmen.At a remarkable press conference, with his wife and daughter at his side, Mr Aitken announced he was suing. On the main battleground he produced other directors of BMARC who rebutted Mr James's assertion Even they however appeared not so sure under questioning. From the sidelines, his supporters sniped incorrectly that the Independent was in cahoots with the BBC, which he had accused of political bias a few days previously. He denied knowing anything about Lisi and said he had no idea BMARC guns were going to Iran.Gerald James, BMARC's former chairman, said otherwise.

All the directors knew the weapons were going to Iran, said Mr James on BBC radio It was a startling intervention Again Mr Aitken chose to fight fire with fire, line by line. The contract, codenamed Project Lisi, was mentioned in board papers distributed for board meetings attended by Mr Aitken. As for his friends reportedly being in the hotel at around the same time, with the exception of Mr Ayas he did not meet them.Then in March this year the Independent revealed he had been a non-executive director of BMARC, an arms company which supplied naval guns to Iran in defiance of a United Nations embargo. Mr Aitken said he was taking his wife and daughter to his daughter's school in Switzerland; yet they apparently were not in the hotel. He said his wife settled the bill; hotel staff claimed a secretary working for Mr Ayas paid it. As soon as Mr Aitken realised the mistake, he said, he repaid Mr Ayas.What should have been a simple issue of who paid the bill became ever more clouded in intrigue. Other business associates of Mr Aitken, notably Wafic Said, an international Mr Fixit close to the Saudi government, were said to have been in the hotel at around the same time.Mr Aitken strenuously denied the allegation and said that only part of the bill was paid by Mr Ayas.

But in the past 18 months they have filled acres of newsprint and caused him political embarrassment.His recent problems began with allegations in the Guardian that he had stayed at the Ritz hotel in Paris in September 1993 and had his bill paid by the leading Saudi businessman Said Ayas. Britain was desperate to sell arms to the Arabs; Mr Aitken, with his excellent connections, appeared just the ticket. Mr Aitken, a friend and business associate of the rulers of Saudi Arabia, was thought by some to be too close to the biggest movers and shakers in the world arms trade.It is those friendships and associations formed during his time in the backbench wilderness, when even he must have given up hope of landing high office, that have now brought about his downfall.Initially his supporters saw them as a help rather than a hindrance. High office appeared to have passed him by until John Major made him Minister for Defence Procurement in 1992.Immediately eyebrows were raised.

CHRIS BLACKHURST Westminster Correspodent From the word go Jonathan Aitken's short ministerial career was dogged by controversy.He was a backbench MP for 18 years and it was always said Margaret Thatcher could never forgive him for having jilted her daughter, Carol, in the 1970s. The coaches were travelling in convoy down a steep hill when one crashed into the back of the other, shattering windows and shunting it into a wall. Most of the injuries were minor - many passengers suffered shock - but there were six people with serious injuries.. Seventy-five people, mainly children, were taken to hospital after two holiday coaches carrying American tourists crashed in the centre of Bangor, Gwynedd, yesterday. STEVE BOGGAN Stranded British holidaymakers who thought they faced even more delays in Greece were heartened yesterday when British Airways promised to fly them home for pounds 50. Hundreds of independent travellers and backpackers were stranded on Greek islands because of a four-day ferry strike which left many of them with expired flight tickets.