Bomb Happy –

Mad, Foolish and Young

I had a cousin David who was a bit of a lad and once upon a time when I was about 10years old he gave me a present. Ah what kind of present you say? And I say the not very safe exploding kind of present. In some way or other he’d acquired a dummy hand grenade and when my father came home from work he found me and my best pal, Neil, tossing it round the garden. Well my pa had been in the army and he knew what these things were and when i threw it for him to catch he very nearly dropped it when he saw it had the British Army arrow on it. ‘That’s the real thing’ says he, ‘ah the moon’s made of cheese,’ says we and continue playing soldiers with this plastic dummy grenade. A couple of slaps later pa was on his motor bike to the police. He slaps it on the counter, says my laddie was playing with this, and the sergeant nearly faints. They took it to a range and blew it up and it was, yes you guessed it, it was real and exploded. All it lacked was its shrapnel jacket to make it lethal.

Exploding Milk Bottles

Why have I thought of that because Scottish engineers working on a power network job stumbled across a hoard of 70 unexploded Home Guard glass phosphorous grenades, the kind the old boys were going to use on German panzer tanks. This was in Tongland Dam in Dumfries and Galloway. The team called in the bomb squad. They set up a no go zone and then as they say carried out a controlled explosion. The engineers thought it was old milk bottles because the glass of the bomb was yellow. But unlike Neil and me they had more sense than to lob them round and they called the fire brigade and the Ministry of Defence. In World War Two the Home Guard, also known as Dad’s Army, hid caches of them during the war for use in the event of an invasion. Naturally enough some caches were never recovered.

Not So Surprising

Now here at James Pirie we are health and safety conscious and I have to say it was a salutary lesson for Neil and myself about health and safety so we never played with explosives again. And if you want to avoid nasty surprises then you are in the right place for some great Father’s Day present that will go down a bomb, but not literally. There is the five star rated Royal Scot Crystal - Skye - Box of 2 Large Tumblers all in a tasteful presentation box. It’s half price too.

https://www.jamespirie.com/fathers-day-gifts/skye-box-of-2-large-tumblers.html

Or similarly five star rated by our customers is the Royal Scot Crystal - Flower of Scotland thistle tankard. Just right for a pint of heavy.

https://www.jamespirie.com/fathers-day-gifts/gift-boxed-flower-of-scotland-tankard.html