ON BLOWING SELF UP

I quite honestly don't know where I ever got the idea to make gunpowder.  I think it must have come from a Science class at school.  My friend Bill McCoubrey and I, got the idea we would like to try making it at home. [This was in the 1930's]  I am not going to mention the ingredients for obvious reasons.  All I will say is that we used to mix it until it was a bluish-gray colour.   We were quite successful with our mix and when a match was put to the loose powder it would quickly flare up in a bright flash until burnt out.  If we put small pinches of the powder on an anvil or on the road and hit them with a hammer, they would make quite a bang like a cap gun. 

 We decided to wrap small amounts in silver paper from discarded cigarette packages.  They looked like peppermint patties.  We then went up to the #10 streetcar line, by the Normal School [still there, 2013], now Camosun College], Victoria, B.C. and on the slope of a hill we placed several of our "patties" on the track about ten feet apart.  We weren't afraid of damaging the street car as it weighed about ten tons.  When the streetcar came along and roared down the hill over the "patties", they went off:  BANG!, BANG! BANG!

Our next venture was to make something much, much bigger and this we did, by cutting short lengths of any type of pipe or tubing we could find, including parts of old bicycle frames.  These were to be used for the making of "pipe bombs".  They were quite powerful and we took them up to Mt. Tolmie, and looked for cracks in the rocks into which we wedged them.  Then with a long piece of string "fuse" we set them off.  We could actually blast the rock.

A pipe bomb was anywhere from four inches to 8 inches long, depending on its thickness.   The method was to kink over about a half inch of one end of the pipe and hammer it down flat.   Then we would jam in a small wad of paper or cloth.  Next we drilled a small 1/8th of an inch hole in the centre of the pipe.  While holding a finger over the drilled hole we would fill the pipe with our bluish-gray powder mixture, tamping it down ever so carefully and then placed another wad of paper on top of that.   We'd bend over the end and flatten it out, hammering on the end away from the powder itself and hitting more on the part that contained the wad of paper.  The bomb was now complete.   The method of exploding it was simple.  The pipe was placed in the desired location; a long piece of hairy string was strung from a safe distance, up to the pipe and over the drilled hole of the pipe and held in place with a small stone.  Then we liberally sprinkled some of the loose powder over the drilled hole and the string, and along the string back to our place of safety.  Once this was done we lit the end of the string.  It flared all the way up to the drilled hole.  The fire would naturally burn into the pipe hole.  The pipe was tightly sealed and the compressed contents could not flare.  IT HAD TO EXPLODE! AND EXPLODE IT DID! BOOOOMM!

    During our experiments my mom noticed what we were doing and forbade us to do it any more and kicked us out of the basement.  We were bad boys and not to be stopped.  Instead we went to make our bombs in the basement of Bill McCoubrey, at Palo Alto and Christmas.  The McCoubrey home is still there 2013.

One cold November night when Mr. & Mrs. McCoubrey were settled in their comfortable chairs reading, Bill and I were in the basement making a pipe bomb.  I was holding the bottom of the pipe in my left hand, down low, while Bill held the piece of tamping material that was in the top of the pipe, in his left hand with fingers around the top of the pipe, while tamping with his right hand.  We were facing a small basement window that looked out across their garden.  I don't know why I would say such a stupid thing,  but I distinctly remember starting to say, "Wouldn't it be funny if it went off."  I got as far as "Wouldn't it be..."  AND OFF IT WENT!  

 I didn't feel any pain, I can't speak for Bill, but a piece of the copper pipe [and thank God it was copper and not lead, I learned later], went into my abdomen.   I was cut in several places on my hands and wrist which required stitches.  I was wearing a heavy wool-knitted sweater my mom had made and it came unravelled where the piece of pipe entered.  Naturally I bled profusely and the wool was soaked in blood, and when I put my hand to my abdomen the hole felt very large and wet.  It is a wonder I did not faint.

Bill on the other hand lost the little finger off of his left hand and part of the next one and some of his palm.  The little basement window in front of us was blown out.

Upstairs the McCoubrey's reading session ended abruptly with the explosion and a picture falling from the wall.  Mr. McCoubrey rushed down to our aid.  He quickly hurried Bill out to the car in the garage through a side door.  I followed.  Then, without thinking Mr. McCoubrey drove his car right through the garage door.  It was one of those doors that slide sideways on a runner, so it was pushed up over the top of the car as though on a hinge.  We were two trembling and very scared young men.  I guess I was 16 or 17 at the time.  Not sure. Must look up the old newspapers as we "made the headlines".  I do recall though that a neighbour, Madge Cook,  was a nurse in the Emergency Room when we were brought in.  I can remember I had blood dripping all over the white sheets on the table they wanted me to lie on, and I was quite concerned about getting it all dirty.  Madge gave me that bit of news later.  I don't think I was aware of what I was saying at the time.

We spent about a week at most in hospital and of course were ashamed of the trouble and worry we had brought to our parents.  Not to mention the expense.  Just an aside -  when the war came along,  because of this injury, Bill was exempt from the services,  re holding a rifle etc., because of his lost fingers. A sort of blessing in disguise.