Terrorists Don't Wear Suits

This is turning into a bunch of memoirs as well isn’t it?

Any road, last night I went shooting with Kerry’s dad and Greg from up the road.  We weren't shooting animals this time, unless an egg is an animal?  Is an egg an animal?  Is a sperm an animal?  Jesus!  This is a bit more complicated than I imagined.  Humpty Dumpty wasn't an animal was he?  Anyway, we shot targets and eggs which exploded dramatically.  Greg owns a number of guns and has licenses for them.  Pete has also owned guns in his time.  I haven’t owned any (apart from my ASI Sniper air rifle which got confiscated by the police!) but I can hold my own in gun talk due to my time in the army.  After all the gun talk we moved on to explosives, an area which I also have mild expertise in. 

In the R.E. I often blew “shit” up, bridges, roads and walls etc. and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  In the early nineties I was sharing a house with 2 friends of mine in Leyland and one night I claimed how easy it was to make a bomb.  They challenged me to make one, so I grabbed an old medium sized maglite, removed the batteries and filled the chamber with as much firework innards as I could.  I then packed any voids and gaps with a very strong packing tape and used the small hole where the bulb was to insert a fuse.

“Come and watch this”, I announced proudly.  We made our way into the alley behind the long terrace where we lived and shuffled a few houses down.  I buried the device in a pile of soil and gravel, lit the fuse and retreated to the safety of our back gate to observe the spectacle.  I was still dressed in my suit, they were dressed like the IRA on a day off, it was quite ironic.

After about 10 seconds there was an almighty flash causing us to cower simultaneously.  Immediately after the flash followed a boom that could have come from Krakatoa itself, and then shortly after that came the sound of windows being smashed by flying gravel.  My friends immediately ran through our house and straight into the pub across the road.  I ran upstairs into my bedroom to listen to the commotion.  I would stay in my suit just in case the police called, terrorists don’t wear suits do they?

“What the hell was that?”, one neighbour shouted to another.  “I think it was kids”, another replied.  “I think it was lightning”, another suggested.

The police were not involved but that didn't stop me from feeling ridiculous.

Several years later I was talking to another friend in my flat and telling him the story about the bomb.  He thought that using the contents of a firework was cheating, so I set about making another smaller IED, this time using match heads as the explosive material.  I chose to use an old metal pen this time filling it with the crushed sulphur from over 30 boxes of matches.  This time I trialled a new fusing mechanism consisting of a heated wire coil that could be remotely detonated with a 9V battery.

This time the bomb was much smaller so I decided to let it off in my bedroom.  Initially I was going to cover myself with a duvet to protect me from potential flying debris, but thankfully my judgement got the better of me and I sensibly left the room before detonation.  I pressed the wires against the electrical source and this time the bang was akin to a pistol being fired.  Indeed immediately after the explosion my neighbour knocked on the door and said, “Are you OK?  We thought we heard a gun shot”.  “Yes, I’m fine”, I said, “I didn't hear anything.  Maybe it came from outside.”

I entered the bedroom to find the walls, doors and ceiling covered in sharp metal shrapnel.  3 pieces of the shrapnel had managed to penetrate the wall and could be seen in the living room and one was protruding through the door.

This was the last IED I made.