Enfield SMLE feed barrel system

[CINDERS]

We were at Northam on a Corporals course over the school holidays among other things we learnt was care of the Bren, clearing stoppages and barrel changes on the Bren among other stuff they were teaching us this is back in 1972 I was in my teens.
Any how ofcourse we were excited to handle a fully operation LMG which is something the average kid of the day would not have a hope of touching unless he went to a show where the army may have had one on display but that was a rarity in those days.

Anyway the scenario was you were behind the gun just yourself I gather the other chap had met his demise, the enemy (Another cadet getting his stripes as well) was standing @60 yards from you and as it was hot we were in JG's but still had the old style leather soled boot which we also paraded in, try keeping a mirror cap & heel doing this lot!
So what would happen is you were firing furiously at the enemy that was advancing on your lone position at any given point the instructor would yell out "Barrel change" at which point the cadet started to charge at you the aim was for you to get the mag off, reef the charging handle back check the breech, get to the side of the bren get the locking handle up remove the hot barrel, slide the new barrel in, lock it down then get back behind the gun whack a mag on rack the cocking handle and kill the enemy running towards you.

Its really amazing as how fast that person closes on you from such a short distance, I managed to get the new barrel in but not locked down so reasoned in my head the enemy was too close and I was not going to get the Bren operational before I was killed so decided to go down swinging I reefed the new cold barrel out held it by the flash hider and was ready to strike the would be enemy as he was within 10 feet of me.
None of us got the gun up & running to kill the cadet but it showed us in the heat of the moment you cannot let yourself go to bits some poor cadets just made a bit of a hash doing things wrong but we had only really had our introduction to the Bren that morning.
The instructor said I showed initiative for using the barrel as a club but in reality I died like the rest of the troop it was a good learning curve.