Swaps

Most of the shrapnel we collected was from British shells that were fired by anti-aircraft guns and then had fallen from the sky afterwards.

It had thick walls and it was quite shiny on the outside. The interior was sort of crystalline - like metal fatigue, this is where everything is just blown apart: very rough.

Occasionally we would get some from a ‘bomb’ — that usually had a much thinner coating.

There were some that we were told were ‘Oil Bombs’. They were fire bombs that were filled with an inflammable liquid, and they had a very thing coating as they idea was that they wanted this to break and spread the oil as well. We found some of those, but not a lot. Mostly it was shells: shell fragments.

I don’t have any anymore. I expect we just threw it away when the war was over and it was no longer of interest.

It was a great game as well — swapping. “I’d like two small bits, so I’ll give you that big bit”: A lot of fun.

See more of Alvin's stories:

• School Shifts
• Just imagine the headlines!
• Underground tunnels
• Keep going, keep going…
• The Evacuation Line
• An extra egg
• What an anti-climax!
• In retrospect I was very lucky

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