carbidecanon

Can you imagine what our parents would have made of the young today? When you think about it - it’s like another world with their entirely different language and essential array of ‘bells and whistle’ gadgets.

Growing up, and at the age we probably are now, with the superstitions of the time, even sighting such gadgets (I won’t even attempt to name them lest people start writing magic formulas like “pmtl” or “lol”) could have caused panic in the streets. An absolute joy in those days was for any young boy to receive a military badge or a forage cap from an older brother or uncle home on leave. Real “must have’s” according to the strict seasons, which seemed to prevail, didn’t exist. There was very little apart from things like wooden spinning tops or bamboo canes to make the bows for playing at Red Indians.

Another sign of growing up was to be allowed to go down to the night watchman’s fire to hear storytelling. These were at major road mending or building sites and the night watchman was usually very very old. The watchman had a small hut with a large brazier outside in the open air. There was always a kettle hanging over the fire so if you were lucky, maybe half a dozen of you might even share a mug of hot sweet tea or cocoa. And your forage cap could come in handy as well, you could undo the two buttons on the front to allow the folded part of the cap to come down and keep your ears warm!

But back to the seasons, it seems that you could go to sleep at night and when you woke up, as if by magic, every one for miles around all had the same new toy, albeit home-made, or were playing the latest game. So after using all the wiles possible and finally raising anything from 2D to a tanner, you would be off to what everyone called the “Oil Shop.” This was the shop where you took the accumulator which the radio worked off to be charged and also sold everything for car or bicycle do-it-yourself.

It was here we came to meet the dreaded Carbide!

You probably have never seen Carbide which created a greeny-white light for bicycle lamps and some carts had them hanging at the front as well. The white powdery Carbide stuff gave off gas which when it was wet, could bring tears to your eyes, but made a very good light. But light was the last thing on the big boys minds - they had heard of the Carbide cannon! This terrifying invention involved an Andrews Liver Salts tin and a halfpenny worth of carbide.

The hardest part of the operation, not having a hammer to hand, was making a small hole in the side of the Andrews tin with a half brick and a four inch nail. That done they put a few pinches of carbide into the tin. Jerry the leader, with a great show of bravado, spat on the powder in the tin. This caused the contents to fizzle and bubble. A fine smoke spiralled out stinging eyes all round which called for the lid to be snapped on.

The tin was then placed on its side and a lighted match applied to the little hole which had taken so much time to create. Bang! Like a pistol shot! The lid was lobbed about 30 yards into the garden across the street. After that we were all allowed to have a go but were only allowed to apply the match - Jerry who was in charge of this miracle of science was the only one allowed to do the spitting. From then on a new game was formulated with flags made from any material to hand and set at different distances to make the varying scores.

But boys being boys soon tired of seeing the tiny Andrews Liver Salts lid skipping across the street so when Billy came up with an idea “You know that carbide, say you got two-D’s worth - that’s a pound of carbide - you could blow the lid off a bin, so you could, and we could invent a new weapon.” Practically the whole group were now imaging thousands of bin lids flying over the trenches on the Western Front. “You could” said Jerry. “We’ve only to get the two-D.”

And they got the two-D, it was easy, apart from having to lift ten or eleven gratings along the street before they clicked. For ages all they had to show for the effort was a half-penny, but things changed outside Micky Lynch’s pub. A wee three-D bit eventually turned up after the fourth handful. It was dirty work but overall it wasn’t a wasted effort producing three glassy marleys; a booler, a broken sharpener and an ear-ring!

So off to the “Oil shop” and got the carbide. A whole big bag full.

“What kind of bin is yours?” Billy said innocently to Jamesie. “Get stuffed” came the swift reply “Me Da would have your guts for braces.” And who would query that knowing “Me Da” had a hard-earned arm like Popeye from hoisting the odd Guinness or two. But they eventually got a bin - well they found it really, someone had abandoned it in the back lane off Brook Street. It was nearly new but Jerry saw a difficulty straight away.

“This lid is too loose, it needs a bit of packing” says Jerry and after a fierce discussion producing a stack of daft ideas, Billy as usual came up with the plan. “We’ll go up the banking and get a load of that soft clay to pack in between the bin and the lid.” And were back very soon, like a line of waiters, each carrying a large dollop of clay on a slate. Meanwhile I had been trying to create a hole in the bin - now think of this - if a hole in an Andrews Liver Salts tin could cause problems, imagine trying to make a hole in a bin using only a bit of brass stair-rod and a brick. I had bent the stair-rod, broken the brick into little pieces and not a flamin’ dent in the bin!

“I know the very thing,” shouted Jamesie as he ran towards the old churchyard, and came back with a big spike broken off some railings. Jeez it worked a treat, one sharp smack and the point of the spike went through the bin like a hot knife through butter, leaving a hole the size of a half-crown. So we were off.

The carbide was dropped into the bin but there was no point in trying to get the fizz going by just spitting into it, and we dare not go home to get water, so Billy being Billy knew how to solve the problem. Not a smart move - someone in earshot of Billy’s little brother had cautioned all and sundry of the danger of losing their dick by getting too near the bubbling mass. So as soon as Billy stepped up his little brother went ballistic, running around like a headless chicken shouting “Aw Billy, aw Billy your dick your dick.” It took an age to settle him down and assure him Billy would still be able to sing Bass baritone.

The brew fizzled and frothed like mad, so it was a race to get the clay stuck around the rim of the bin to prevent the gas seeping out. As a precaution Jamesie also tied a piece of string through the bin lid handle and on to the handles to make the whole thing firmer. Now the completed creation lay on its side with a sizeable wisp of gas coming from the hole made by the spike. “Who’s going to light it?” Everybody looked at everybody else. “No fear,”
Says I, “It was your idea.”

For the first time Jerry the genius had lost his nerve but he did come up with an idea and told all present to gather up any old paper and pile it around the bin. Then after making a big twist of newspaper, he threw it to the opposite side of the bin, away from the gas “leak” giving everyone time to hide in Carlin’s hall before the flame caught the gas.

Woomph! There was an almighty bang and the bin took off like a rocket, right over the houses into Foyle Road, causing the “bombers“ to scatter in all directions in panic. Our Mammy was almost knocked down by the rush as she stood in the hallway “What in the name of God was that?” she screamed. “Say nothing” Jerry hissed at me. “Aye we heard it too, Mammy” he said. “Somebody’s boiler must have burst, I‘ll go up to the front bedroom window and see whats happening.”

I followed him up and looked out to see the whole street, black with people. They were standing in wee bunches, waving their arms and shouting at each other. A short time later a flatbed cart came up from the direction of Foyle Road with the bin on it, looking more like a lump of corrugated iron and as flat as a pancake. Unfortunately, with so many police around, the whole story came out when they questioned the man at the “Oil Shop” about who had been buying carbide recently.

Now we were for it, our front room was crammed full with police all braid and buttons, and a few with stripes for good measure. I felt sorry for our Mammy, who couldn’t sit still, but Jerry was great though. He told the story in exact detail and made it sound like a great experiment in physics and chemistry, gone tragically wrong. The top policeman lectured us for about an hour on stealing other people’s property and endangering life and limb. They were very nice to Mammy and told her not to worry as the incident was now closed.

Then while shaking hands at the door the top policeman said “It’s funny how the bin flattened like that, you’d think it had been steam-rollered.” But naturally our clever-clogs had to butt in: “Not at all Mister,” he said “ You see the air inside was expelled and the air pressure outside squeezed the sides in, it’s a vacuum and the air pressure is 15 pounds to the square inch at sea level.”

The top policeman stared at him and turning to Mammy said in a very sympathetic voice: “Keep a good eye on that one Missus. Won’t you?”