Oh what a lovely bang!!

As Ivan pointed out, this board seems to have surprisingly few posts, although it has the potential to be really popular and entertaining. I know that many people have collected some surprisingly funny, entertaining and educational memories, so why not share them here?

One of my own funniest memories was from about 1965, while I was still at school. In those days the teachers encouraged pupils to make use of the school's services, such as the reference library, wood- and metal workshops, and also the physics and chemistry laboratories. I remember that one pupil virtually occupied the physics laboratory since there was a small room that he converted into a photographic laboratory.

I, on the other hand, was more interested in the chemistry laboratory. I really loved to make a note of the chemicals names, then go to the reference library and look them up. I found that potassium permanganate can be used in explosives, and it could even be used with glycerine as a slow fuse to start an explosion. I was really interested in explosions.

Iodine! Now that is a stuff to behold, and I found a bottle of that. It has so many uses, from medicine and photography to explosives. The school laboratory had a bottle labelled "Metallic Iodine", which is just iodine in crystalline form. I read a bit about it and decided to do some experimenting of my own, at home. I measured out a precise "slack handful" of the crystals into a very small glass jar that I stole from the kitchen. My dad always saved jam jars as "come-in-handies". He didn't miss this small one. At least, not at first.

To the iodine crystals I poured in some really strong ammonia. Just a little, as I didn't want the dissolve the crystals. This I stood on the window-ledge outside my bedroom so my father would not find it. Every day I added a little more ammonia as the liquid slowly evaporated, just to make sure it never quite dried out. Some of the iodine did dissolve a little, but as it dried out I had a really huge crystal developing in the centre of the jar. After a week or so I let it get a little more dry and began my first (and only) experiment.

I fished out some rotting bacon from the garbage bin and put it on a plate on the back wall behind the house. I know that the small crystals exploded spontaneously when the became dry, but at that stage they were sooooo fragile, and unstable. I put a few crystals on the bacon, in the sunlight, and waited for the crystals to dry. There were already a load of flies buzzing around the bacon, which was the point of the experiment. Eventually, as the crystals slowly became more unstable, the slightest vibration would set them off. I watched while fly after fly was simply blown to bits as their contact with these micro crystals was sufficient to cause them to explode. I was looking forward to the biggie. The huge crystal that I had grown. I was thinking about it, but fate made the decision for me.

One dark and stormy night, the wind whistled round the houses and blew my mini jam jar off the window ledge, and it fell into the back yard, just outside the kitchen window. The family were all having dinner at the time, and there was a really loud; a huge KABBOOOOOMMMM!!. It sounded much louder than a gunshot, and the window rattled a little. I reckoned that the huge crystal had done a good job 

I don't know how much you know about explosives, but crystals do not explode. It is only the outer surface that actually explodes but the crystals themselves just shatter. They sprinkled thousands of tiny micro crystals all over the asphalt back yard. My father went out thinking it was some form of bomb, but as he walked on the asphalt it crackled, just like walking on potato chips. Then he started screeching my name. How did he know it was me?

He said that I had done something really serious and I had to tell him what I had done. Of course, I had this angelic look on my face and pretended not to know anything. I can still see him now, scraping is foot on the asphalt and picking up pieces of the jam jar, listening to the crackling, then pronouncing that we were "infested wiv electricity". He told me how I had to own up to it, otherwise he would go to the electric company in the morning and tell then that we were "infested wiv electricity". He told me that they would find out what I had done and there would be big trouble for me. He also went in the house and made a note of the electricity meter reading, just in case.

The following afternoon I came home from school to a silent house. My dad would not speak to me or anyone else. Total silence. If anyone said anything at all they were told to "shut yer bloody big gob" (be silent).

It seems that he went to the electricity board offices and explained to them all about the electricity in the back yard coming from underground. They asked him a load of questions: No, nobody had received an electrical shock. No, there were no sparks. Yes, his 13-year old son had "done sumfink wiv electric", and as a result were were seriously infested. It attracted quite a bit of a crowd as the conversation got louder, more excited, and the queue to be served got longer. It ended when he had to leave the shop with loads of people mocking, laughing and ridiculing him. I really wish I had been there to see it.

About a month later I was sitting in a chemistry class and a big hairy arm was thrust in front of my face and took out a test-tube filled with lumps of brown stuff, that was sticking outside my inside jacket pocket. The teacher could see it was not a school test-tube, but of course he asked me what was in it. I told him     He just stood extremely still and went white in the face.

He calmly screeched at one of the other pupils to wind open the huge lab windows. We were on the 2nd floor. He slowly went to the open window and dropped the tube out of the window, where it fell down to the teacher's car park. There was a huge bang that made the one in our back yard sound like a little "pop" by comparison. It did land on the asphalt, several metres from any car, but a couple of teachers cars were stained by the brown fumes. You could see a lovely part where the asphalt was damaged and the wall of the school was a nice, permanent brown coloured stain.

I was banned from the school chemistry laboratory. Six months later I was back in there again and nobody complained, at least, not at first. That didn't happen again until I found Hydrochloric Acid.

So I began my hobby being more interested in chemistry than radio.

Does anyone else have any memories to share from their past? That which I have shared with you is 100% true, but it would not be possible today. Children today are treated very differently. Instead of a "jolly good spanking" you will be taken by the police and have a criminal record, even as a child. I am thankful for those early days of freedom.

Very best regards from Harry - SM0VPO