Childhood Memories of Our First Home made Firecrackers

[mrclark303]

Back in 1980 at the age of 13, when my trusty BSA Meteor air rifle was chopped in for a BSA Airsporter, myself and my friends were obsessed by ever increasing power. leading to updated main springs, transfer port reaming etc, plus some gun powder extracted from my mates fathers shot gun cartridges, added to the pellet skirt and sealed with candle wax.

All this made was a "bang" when it hit a rabbits skull, probably did nothing....

Well, it goes without saying that this messing with explosives naturally led us to making rather dangerous home made devices that would on occasion go BOOM when we tested them out in the country...

This all came to a halt when we were stopped by the local Police Seargent on our way to another detonation.

He looked in my backpack, laughed, threw us in the back of his Police Mini Van and took us down to the Station ... We all got our ears clipped and lectured by the Seargent and got the inevitable walloping from our fathers for making our "fireworks"

It was all just country lads youthful highjinks back then, how different it would be viewed today...

An earlier generation was way worse, my father in law at the same age blew up a chicken coop among other things...