Episode: 1348
Title: HPR1348: Fuse
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1348/hpr1348.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 23:56:34

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Bo,
Hello and welcome Hacker Public Radio audience. My name is Mr X. This is I think my fourth
show. It has been a while, I think, almost a year. In fact, probably over a year. I do intend
to do one a year or at least one a year. This is really a unique service that Hacker Public
Radio provides. You know, they try to make it as easy as possible for anyone to contribute
a vacuum, contribute I'm sure you can too. Why not give it a go if you've got some sort of
burning hobby or passion that you think you'd like to share with the rest of us just record something
actually quite simple. Well, now today's podcast is a little bit different. I'm not sure exactly
how well it fits into the hacker theme is such, but it's something that hopefully you'll
you'll find interesting. It concerns a family member that actually fat my grandfather and he,
like many of you had served during the Second World War and I'm sure you've all heard
interesting stories relating to that. But, well, what might grandfather
served in the Second World War? I know at one point he was doing something out in Africa.
Now, I don't know what he was actually doing, but later on he came back to Britain and there he
worked for the bomb disposal squad. Now, I don't know very much about the history of
bomb disposal team or what they actually did really. I haven't really looked at anything online to
to find any more background information, but it's just kind of stories and things that he told me
when I was a young boy. He wasn't the kind of man that we'd actually talk very much about the
war. In fact, I don't think he would talk about it at all unless I first prompted him. He was quite
a quiet man really, but I remember him telling me things such that all over the country,
Scotland is where I come from. Obviously, even more so than in England, there was bombs dropped
all over the place and he said that the wardens kept look over the skies at night, had to record
where these bombs dropped. And I said that in a lot of occasions, these bombs landed too deep,
too difficult to recover. I recall one day when he was driving in the car and we were passing
a forest and he mentioned that a bomb had dropped into the forest and it had carved a diagonal
line through the canopy of the trees down into the ground. It was almost like I can a ramp
structure and it was, I don't know how many feet down into the actual soil it was, but the
concluded it was too difficult to remove and it just recorded that it was there and just left it.
But up in the country, these devices are still lying underground and disturbed. It's hard to imagine
how exciting and perpetrifying sort of life it must have been, providing this service trying to
defuse bombs. I remember I'm telling my story in particular where a bomb had dropped into the
middle of a field and it was broken and dropped up against a tree. And he's, he's sergeant
that said, you know, well, come on, let's go and have a look at this, take a look at this
bomb and see how we're going to tackle it. And so, if you can imagine there was a tree in the
middle of this large field and there was a fence running all around the perimeter of the field.
So they stepped over this fence and walked towards the bomb now. Can you imagine doing that,
you know, a live device that could go off at any moment. They had to take that long walk
to the to the active bomb. It must have been terrifying. Anyway, they got to the bomb and
he's sergeant said, well, you know, so I can see this is a new one and you kind of haven't seen
one like this before. I guess you better go back just in case, you know. It's a real sergeant.
He turned around and walked towards the perimeter of the field and he got to the field and was
just about to step over when there was a loud blast. And I think it got blown over the fence. In fact,
obviously that was end of his commanding officer, but it's hard to imagine what that must have
been like. Living in modern times and the peace, the vast majority of the rich nations and
such like do, you know, the world is ultimately in peace. Let's hope it continues. But I remember
that there was a cylindrical object that took my interest, that just to sit on the edge of his desk
and it was, it was, oh, I don't know, several inches long and, oh, I don't know, three
inches in diameter sort of thing and it had like a threaded end to it and a kind of mushroom
top. And on the top of that was two studs and I remember asking, well, what is that?
Grandad and he said, oh, well, that was a fuse from my 10,000 kilogram bomb was dropped in Aberdeen.
And of course, that worked to obviously spark my imagination. And I can't remember if he told me
any more about that particular story, but how he how he came to have the fuse or whether he was at
the site when it was, when he actually if he removed it or what I don't know, but he kind of told me
that basically the fuse is screwed into the side of the bomb. And it sits in the aircraft,
well, well, first of all, the fuse is contained, pickering rings, I believe. And these
pickering rings, I guess, are explosive. And in fact, the charge, it told me, was roughly
a small hand grenade and when it goes off, it sits off a chain reaction and detonates the bomb.
So this thing is screwed into the side of the bomb and it sits inside the aircraft and there's
the two contacts, the top make contact inside the aircraft and charge the fuse. And I don't know
if it's a capacitor or something in there that this charges over time as the bombs falling through
the air and I think something like that. And as it reaches, you know, it's kind of time constant
and after so much time it detonates, you know, there's also a terminal switch so that when it can
also detect them, obviously, it could also detect when it hits the ground and detonate then.
Of course, sometimes these things didn't go off and that was when the bomb disposal team would go in
and try and defuse the bomb. I do remember watching the odd episode of
UXB unexploded bomb with my grandfather and saying to me, you know, well, is that, you know, really
what they do? Is it quite accurately? Still, yes, the UXB was fairly accurate. The only thing that
isn't accurate was that they tended to show groups of people around the bomb and said they would
never do that. A maximum of two would go to the bomb, you know, there's always be further back.
So, this fuse kind of fascinated me and I said, well, you know, granddad, can I take it? You know,
wait, so I told, sorry, it's here to put the, now, let me step back. What it said they did was,
once they get the fuse out and I can't remember the details of how they removed the fuse
exactly, but they pumped it full of tar material which neutralized the fuse and made it safe.
So, you know, I said to my grandfather, ah, that's, that's amazing. I've had a, could I take it to
school and tell him about it? He said, yes, I, of course. So, I put this in my school bag,
however, it wasn't, and took it to school and, you know, told them all at school, oh, this is a
fuse, my tenters and kilogram bomb that was dropped in Aberdeen. I, of course, were all amazed.
I couldn't tell him much more than that, you know, there's a story last for about 10 seconds or
something, but he's up and told them at the front of the class, and I was a young boy.
Obviously, eventually my grandfather died, and then he died quite some time ago, in fact,
many years ago. And it ended up, I think, in my, in my brother's room, I'm not quite sure how we
ended up with, with this item, but, um, at this point, I wasn't around, and, uh, I've been told
that they were watching television, and it was one of these, kind of, 9, 9, 9 programs where
something happens to somebody, and I think they, on this show, they found a second world war
fuse somewhere, other, I think it might have been on a railway track or something like that, and,
um, I think it exploded in a young chap got, got hot, you know, and the story with my mother
said, well, that looks like that, that fuse thing that, that, that, you have upstairs, is it,
you know, and what I think it is, you know, and what, what they were saying was that, these
fuses, over time, the, the term material, which is pumped into neutralize it, breaks down,
and the, the fuse can become active again, and known to, to my grandfather, I guess it would be
told, you know, at, at, at, at bond disposal school, whatever that involved, that, you know, the,
or the pump, full of this stuff, and it, and it, and it makes it safe, but they wouldn't expect
it, but it's, you know, sitting in someone's house for 40, 50 years or whatever, and, uh, so my,
my mother and my brother, carefully picked the fuse up, kind of, and on the land fashioned, and,
and my, uh, my brother, held it by his feet, and, uh,
suppressing in the car, as a passenger, and drove carefully to, to local police station,
where, upon the, when they came in, they, told the local WPC, you know, that, um,
this is a fuse for my tenders, and kilogram bomb, dropped an Aberdeen, and, uh, could you,
deal with it please? Obviously, the, the police officer was rather alarmed at this, and, uh,
kind of backed away from the counter. It's just kind of understandable. I believe it was safely
detonated, um, and, and that was that, always regretted the fact that I never saw it again,
because I was quite attached to the thing, and, um, uh, in me and my brother would, would throw it
back and forth between each other, um, believing it was completely safe, but, uh, I guess we were
really lucky, it could have gone disastrously wrong at any time. Is hard to imagine living in,
in these sort of times, it must, I must have been terrible exciting and, and terrifying at the same
time, all around the world, um, I get the feeling things are becoming more unstable,
there's all sorts of things conspiring to make the whole world less stable, in no particular order
there's things such as, you know, boil, water, food, carrying capacity, climate change,
these sort of things, can't imagine what, what, what it must have been like living in these,
these, these terrible times, I do hope that doesn't come again. Anyway, I hope you found this
podcast interesting, and, uh, if you have any comments, I'll try and put together some show notes
and whatnot, but if you have any comments feel free to drop them to me, and, uh, I do plan to try
and do another podcast before the end of the year, but we'll see how it goes. I can be contacted
at MrX, at HPR, at googlemail.com, at MRX, AT, HPR, the AT symbol, googlemail.com.
Thank you very much, and goodbye.
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