Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
imagine that? If you work in Health and Safety you're probably about to faint (if you're
Chinese or from certain parts of southern Europe, you're probably thinking, Yeah, so?).
So we had fun with fireworks.
On the other hand, of course, I was just one of the many lucky ones and lots of kids
blinded themselves - or others - lost fingers and/or were badly burned or scarred for life.
I wouldn't even suggest repealing any legislation that restricts the sale of fireworks to
minors.
At Gourock High I became friends with Andy MacLennan. We'd meet up and muck
about with carbide and water mixtures, then with pressurised petrol containers and finally
with a compound of sodium chlorate and sugar, in all cases producing explosions.
The power went up as we went along. The carbide and water stuff usually resulted in
fairly gentle detonations like large pops; we rarely had to move out of the MacLennans'
back porch, which is where we used to perform these experiments. The pressurised petrol
paraphernalia made a noise like a jet engine towards the end and then banged fairly loudly
and created a mushroom cloud several metres across and ten metres or more high and was
quite spectacular in the context of my mum and dad's carefully tended back garden.
And the sodium chlorate and sugar stuff produced supremely-fatal-if-you-were-too-
close, military-standard supersonic-shrapnel-type, serious fuck-off explosions. We had to
head into the hills above Inverkip to let those off in peace, though we did try to blow up
a donated model yacht in front of a hundred other Greenock High pupils one lunch time,
in an old reservoir almost entirely surrounded by overlooking houses. That particular dis-
play didn't work (water ingress resulting in fuse extinguishment) but we had others that
did, up in the hills near the Daff Reservoir.
We'd invite a bunch of friends and head up into Forestry Commission land in a con-
voy of cars, and then one of us would keep people entertained with some small explosions
- the equivalent of quickly prepared and presented starters - while the other one got on
with the preparation of the main course, our feature presentation.
We blew a
lot
of shit up.
Actually when we got to the sodium chlorate and sugar stage, we had problems creat-
ing anything
other
than explosions. We kept on trying to make guns, but they always blew
up. We tried making rockets. They blew up too. Easy-refill burners for the first generation
of bombs; exploded. Rocket-propelled cars; guess what? (Actually the rocket-propelled
cars worked fine.)
It has to be said that continually trying to make a gun with a wooden breech block was
possibly being a little naïve - I'm sure our Physics, Woodwork and Metalwork teachers
would have been appalled.
On the other hand the rogue exploding burner taught us we didn't need burners in the
first place. That was Andy's Close Shave; the very suddenly - and indeed very highly
