Thursday 11 September 2008

Standard equipment

These were the matches of choice when we were kids. No lighters in those days. A constant supply of matches was necessary for lighting the workies lamp or candles, for starting fires, for lighting fags and last but not least for making a tank. A tank was usually called for when we got bored or when taking the matches home was too dangerous. To make a tank you opened the match box slightly at the end where the heads of the matches were.One match was tken out, struck and stuck flame first into the other match heads. The resulting conflagration was supposed to resemble a burning tank. Good stuff. A strong smell of sulphur and a lot of smoke , just what the doctor ordered! Short lived but still bloody good fun.

2 comments:

Alien Orders said...

There was an old trick of wrappping match heids in silver paper and lighting the stick about 1/4 inch below. You could get a pretty good bang if you got it right.

Reading about a tank it took me back and I could almost smell it.
Thon slightly sweet sulphur smell, followed usually by a concerned adult asking "have you boys been playing with matches?"

I mean we didnae have Nintendos what else were we going to be doing.
In the 70's playing with matches was what you did.

bobrob said...

There was also the trick of wrapping the head in silver foil and throwing it at the ground. That wasn't a bad bang either.