大象传媒

At the outbreak of WW2 I was ten years of age. I was living at the Conishead Priory Cottages. The first impact on me from the war was the filling of sandbags, hundreds of them; I was helping with other family members and employees of the Priory to fill them. The sand was taken from the field on the seaward side of the old railway line to the south of the old Priory station. The sandbags were to be placed around the Priory and Staff Quarters as it was now to be used as a Military Hospital. The construction of four or five wards soon started. They were built in the corner of the field to the north of the main Priory building, and next to the road leading to the Staff Quarters. There was a gunpit built near the second bridge next to the road leading down to the beach and old iron ore jetty. It was never used, nor did it have a gun placed inside it.
As I grew older I was an avid reader of the War Illustrated magazine. It seemed that the war was a game, and we were very happy if the charts showing losses were less on our side than that of the enemy. When my brother, who was in a reserve occupation joined the Home Guard, my interest in explosives, bombs and bullets increased. We looked on ourselves as the last bastion in defence of the Realm, The Home Guard issued their members with handy literature on how to make makeshift weapons; this made interesting reading to children of my age. A good trade in bullets and all things military started in the schools, sometimes with unpleasant results such as the detonation of a cannon shell in the boy鈥檚 urinal at the school, then known as Lightburn School Ulverston. Shrapnel marks were still visible on the red bricks the last time that I looked there. The cannon shell had I think been taken from a Hurricane that had crashed on the moor near Kirby.
Birkrigg was a good place to find 2inch mortar bombs, also Piat bombs and hand grenades. The mortar bombs were in the form of smoke, parachute flare, and high explosive. The Piat were inert, TNT, and gelignite filled. The Army had placed three old Cromwell type tanks on a limestone-paving ridge to be used as targets, they didn鈥檛 last long.
I believe that there was one fatality in Ulverston due to children playing with unexploded bombs. It was I believe a Bakelite Grenade, These grenades were made live by the unwinding of a tape on the end of which was a lead weight, When thrown, the tape unwound withdrawing the safety pin, releasing the striker and detonator to be struck by a steel ball. If the grenade failed to explode, the action of throwing again would make the ball strike the pin or, the unfettered detonator case and pin hit the ball with disastrous results.

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