Gunpowder plot went with a bang

AS A 13-year-old, I was at a boarding school near Goudhurst, Kent, in the Fifties. A group of us decided to collect hundreds of crow scarers (fireworks that farmers would hang in orchards, lighting the slow fuse that set them off at intervals through the day) and use the gunpowder to fire a projectile (made from melted down toy lead soldiers) from a cannon we had made. On the morning of the test firing, our group disappeared to what we called The Swamp behind the cricket pavilion. We had purloined an old vice, which we buried in the ground to hold the barrel, ensuring it was pointed safely at the steep bank of The Swamp. Inserting a length of Jetex fuse (used in model planes), we poured the gunpowder into the barrel. Finally, I inserted the 3in lead missile and lit the fuse, which burned furiously. The explosion threw us to the ground and we got to our feet, ears ringing, to see the barrel completely split down its length. Then we heard shouting coming from the recently built glasssided assembly hall. We scattered before we made our way back to school, where we found out what had happened to our missile. It had entered through an assembly hall window and exited the other side, luckily without injuring anyone. To our relief, it was concluded that some village boys must have been playing with a gun. That’s when I learned my lesson regarding the danger of playing with firearms!

Robert Readman, Bournemouth.