大象传媒

Bombs and Swaps

Bradgate Park was a regular playground for the children of Anstey, being just a short walk over the fields. Brought up on a daily diet of films shown at our two local cinemas of Cowboys and Indians, Japanese and jungle warfare and of course Adof Hitler and Mussolini, we re-enacted many a battle amongst the ferns and rocks of the park.

The park during the 1939-1945 period was a very restricted area for the public, being confined to a narrow strip to the West side of the central tarmac road. The reserved area on the Old John side of the park was used for training by the army with tanks and bren-gun carriers traversing the slopes and coppices.

This of course was a fascinating to the more adventurous youngsters who found a variety of ways into the area. Our aim was to collect the empty tank and bullet shellcases and discharged smokebombs as these made great swaps at school.. On one occasion our gang was just making its escape as we approached the ruins from Old John with a good hoard of contraband stuffed into our trouser pockets and under our Fair-Isle pullovers when an armed Guard sprang out from behind a wall complete with bayonet! Very frightened we duly and reluctantly surrendered our ill-gotten gains and after a caution and grateful not to have been shot, we were released, albeit with a few bullet cases still hidden in our socks held secure by the compulsory blood-stopping elastic garters.

One of the subsidiary uses of the shellcases besides swaps was to make Bombs. These were made by using a mixture of cordite obtained from the live ammunition, being oblivious to the danger of being blown up! And dried-up shoe solution (glue) borrowed from the scrap heaps at the rear of Pollard and Wain鈥檚 Shoe works. This was then sealed airtight in the cases by hammering the end closed. All this was done in Dad鈥檚 garden shed, Dad being away in the army and Mum working at Harry Palmer鈥檚 making Army boots. Detonation was achieved by positioning the finished product over a candle and running for cover or stuffing it into one of the many bonfires on the village garden allotments and frightening the poor unsuspecting gardner out of his wits besides showering him with the contents of the fire.

Whole areas around the park became a stor for ammunition in the build up to D-Day, with camouflaged huts set up in fields protected by barbed wire. This again proved to be irresistible and under the cover of darkness and on bikes without lights (very little traffic on the road of course) we raided the huts to get the prized top swaps of live shells and machine gun bullets. Needless to say the army soon became more vigilant and one group was later caught and finished up before the Beak

One of the best collections of swaps passed over our heads one day in the form of a German Bomber which was obviously in trouble ands crashed wit the crew having baled out (except for one unfortunate member found under a partly-opened parachute) near to Sheet Hadges Wood on the outskirts of Groby. It seemed as if the whole population of the village鈥檚 youngsters raced over the fields towards the site. My lasting memory of the incident is of us all scrambling over the wreckage which was covered on Kerosene and likely to go up at any minute to get at the cockpit dials and pieces of Perspex canopy which for some reason that escapes me made a good swap. The shout of 鈥渉ere鈥檚 the cops and the RAF鈥�, made for a sharp exit.

Lucky to be still alive 鈥� Brian Kibble 鈥� born Feb. 1935

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