Being located at Birchfield Road did have it’s advantages. It was not too far to hike down on the mudflats and Mangroves and carry out bomb tests. Yeah, I know, it sounds dramatic doesn’t it? We had discovered how easy it was to make impressive noises with ordinary stuff that you find in the garage and at the time atom bomb tests were all the rage so we had to follow their lead with one let off up in a tree, one on flat ground and one down a hole. Denis Browne and I had perfected the quart paint tin inside a gallon paint tin with cement in the cavity between the tins and mounded up to a piece of 3/4″ water pipe. The pipe was capped with a screw blank that we drilled a small hole in and after the charge was placed inside the can and filled right up to the top of the pipe, the cap was screwed back on and a piece of ‘Jetex’ fuse inserted. ‘Jetex was the fuse used to start the model airplane rockets popular at the time. About a foot of fuse gave us time to rush for cover unless, of course, it was up in a tree, when we needed two feet of fuse!

On a quiet morning in the school holidays, we set everything up for a ground test. The bomb was placed, suitable cover in the form of a muddy bank and the fuse was set and lit. We sprinted to the bank and waited . Ten seconds must be longer than you think when you’re running for cover as we peered at the bomb thinking that the fuse must have gone out. As Denis rose up to check, a huge cloud of white smoke leapt up and was followed by a huge explosion. We never anticipated the very visible white cloud about a 100 feet high and the resounding boom! This was going to be noticed and we sprinted for home , about 300 yards away, forgetting that running on mudflats is not easy and progress was slow. About 20 seconds into our sprint, something splatted into the mud ahead of us. A piece of 3/4″ water pipe, no longer attached to the paint tins.

By the time the police siren arrived Denis was a speck in the distance on his bike and I was in the shower.

There was a spate of enthusiasm for making bombs around the school generally and one of our parallel experimentors got a little foolish and intended to show off to his friends in a local milk bar called “The Tumble Inn”. His intention was to put a teaspoon of mixture in the ashtray and light it. This he did but a spark from ashtry jumped into his pocket where he had the bulk stock. There a muffled explosion, he lost two fingers, and the front window of the milk bar flew into the street!

(This was 1958)

The milk bar was renamed by the locals “The Tumble Out”.

My brother was teaching at the Havelock High School at a time when my son was a pupil. A boy took a shotgun cartridge to the school playing field and very carefully uncrimped the end. He then emptied out the shot, and placed the now empty cartridge into a hollow tube, then struck the primer cap with a hammer and made a huge bang.

What the boy didn't allow for was the now spent cartridge, with the pressure of the explosion, came backwards and struck the boy in the face causing a very serious injury. Several of the boys who were watching had to receive trauma counselling at what they had seen. The injured culprit never returned to the school, he will carry the scar for life.

Michael, that would be about twenty-four years ago, my son was one of the boys who saw what happened.