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This is the third of Brian Cable’s ‘CHILDHOOD MEMORIES FROM RAYLEIGH IN ESSEX’.

These memories were written by Brian, edited by Jo Taylor of the Holmewood and Heath CAP team, and added to the site with the author’s permission.

CHILD’S PLAY

A local ancient hunting Lodge which is now a smart restaurant, and once reputed to be a courting place of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was taken over by troops. One lot would stay for a while, and then leave, and another lot would arrive. In between the place was left empty and we kids used to creep in to see what we could find. They used to leave things like biscuits, empty tins and buttons and belts. Once we found a belt of live ammunition with about thirty bullets. We took it home, and in the workshop we put the cartridges in a vice and pulled out the bullets with a pair of pliers. We went into the meadow, emptied the cordite onto a sheet of newspaper and set fire to it. It went up in a glorious blue and yellow flame much to our delight. Some of the cordite we packed into a golden syrup tin, the lid hammered down, and a small hole knocked in the middle. Into this we placed a single stick of cordite, lit it, and ran!!
The explosion was quite impressive, it rent the silence of that Saturday afternoon and we could hear dogs barking at bungalows a good quarter of a mile away. We were mad; it was a wonder we never blew ourselves to pieces.

We always got on our bikes and cycled to wherever we heard a plane had come down. Some boys I knew got to a site just as the bodies were being taken out of the wreckage - they never went to another one!

Whenever any demonstrations of any sort were going on we lads liked to be there. I remember going to the fire station grounds and seeing a show put on by the wardens on how to deal with incendiary bombs. Sand, water and a stirrup pump were the main tools and by the time it was over we felt confident we could deal with such things competently. The only night they did land on our town we never saw them, and they all landed on a disused piece of scrubland. Next morning we inspected the site and found some pieces of melted magnesium and the odd metal fin.

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