大象传媒

This took place in Weston Super Mare, a seaside resort and a wonderful place to be. We moved there in either late 1939, or early 1940.

One of my first memories was of the Germans coming over and dropping incendiary bombs. I rushed out, and managed to pick up a number of these that hadn鈥檛 gone off and rushed back to our garden shed which was rather large and very congested. Well, we had a big vice there and I was able to unscrew the bases of the incendiary bombs and extract the contents and then to polish the outer cases until they absolutely gleamed. I can鈥檛 remember how many I had 鈥� it was about half a dozen - and they were kept in the shed out of the way so that my father would never see them. A boys treasured secret.

In Weston we also had lots of other exciting interests for small boys. Such as the U.S. Army who were up in the Weston Woods, and we also had the defences going out there to Sand Bay which was actually used for target practice by the R.A.F. There was a large target painted almost on the end of it and they used to come over 鈥� mainly Spitfires and Hurricanes, that sort of thing - and strafe these targets. As young lads we used rush out afterwards to try to recover the cannon shells that they used to fire at these targets and squirrel them away; but there used to be troops based on top of this peninsula and they used to open fire with 303 rifles 鈥� obviously not to hit us but certainly not to miss us by not very much. My memories of the rounds screaming away off the rocks around us, and we used to run like mad then. My cousin Nick and I, had quite a collection of these cartridge shells.

The American Servicemen up in the camp did not appear to care very much about security. There was this big twin machine gun on the main track that runs through the middle of the woods. There were also numerous containers of ammunition alongside it but we rarely saw a guard and so my cousin and I 鈥榖orrowed鈥� quite a lot of this ammunition and took it home.

We opened a lot of these cartridges and removed the powder. My undoing was that one of the traditions then, was that people used to keep these cartridges 鈥� not like a complete shell, on the mantelpiece. They鈥檇 been fired and we used to polish up the brass cases. In fact we had two of these cartridges on our mantelpiece at home.

Now one day, my cousin and I found someone had made a hole in the pavement. They were often made by gas maintenance people 鈥� if there鈥檚 a slight gas leak under the pavement they make a hole to let it breathe. Well, we extracted this powder from the incendiary bombs, we filled the hole with powder and rammed it in and made a little trail along the pavement. Then we lit it and ran away and this was outside my cousin鈥檚 bungalow. We expected to see a little hole but when we came back we saw a great crater in the pavement! The following day in the local paper was this headline about this phantom German raider which had come over and dropped the bomb in Worle. It may have fooled the paper, it may have fooled a lot of the locals but it didn鈥檛 fool the local Police. The next thing I knew was a "bang bang" on the door. My father went and there was this great burly Policeman who wanted to come in. Father didn鈥檛 know anything and asked 鈥淲hat鈥檚 the problem?鈥� The policeman was ushered into the lounge and my father said to him 鈥淥h, no. My son wouldn鈥檛 do any of the things you are suggesting. My son is a goody, goody鈥�.

Well unfortunately, there were these two spent cartridges on the mantelpiece and unbeknown to my father I had swapped these for live rounds. Unfortunately the policeman wandered over and picked one up. I can still picture my father saying 鈥淥h no. These are just souvenirs. They鈥檝e been fired.鈥� And the policeman said 鈥淥h, they鈥檝e been fired have they?鈥� and he showed my father who was absolutely thunderstruck. I was grabbed by an ear, yanked away and forced to explain.

He said 鈥淗ave you got any more?鈥� and I said 鈥淵es.鈥�
鈥淲here is it?鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 in the shed.鈥�
The policeman came back with some colleagues and they took all my incendiary bombs, all my relics and all my precious powder which we used to make wonderful fireworks. And I that evening I got a thundering good hiding which I鈥檝e not forgotten.

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