Lunchtime – Peter* unfurled his fist revealing – as we gasped –
Polished brass, real, live bullet.
8 y.o. wisdom:
“Errr, if you throw it on the ground it’ll explode!”
Throw after throw – silence.**
Then …
Kids ducked, looked for war-planes flying low above.
Uh Oh.
We weren’t at war, but teachers were on the warpath.
Note:
* You have met 2 out of the 3 infant school perpetrators before – they eventually belonged to the Cameron’s Bakery Treehouse Club. The third one you’ll find in that same class photo (see: #38 The Treehouse Gang) – he is on the far left of the 2nd row from the front – Peter Elzer. Oh! the other two – Peter Kershaw and yours truly. The owner of the bullet – Peter. All of us around 2 years older in that photo than at the time of the exploding bullet.
** For many years I wondered why the bullet was so hard to detonate … and I suddenly realised we were throwing so that the tip of the bullet had impact with the ground, yet the bullet is detonated by impact with the “primer” at the base of the bullet.
365 Short Memories 
[…] Back: Gordon Hall, Sandra Hall, Peter Elzer, James Corr, Mark Haines (?), Me, ?. Front: Margaret Martin (?), Christine Smith (?), Bruce Turner, […]
Yes , I threw it but Carl Ferguson brought it to school because his father was in the army, and then he dared me to throw it.
The following was sent to me by Bill Joyner:
I felt this was the appropriate place to shed some new light on the events leading to the incident.
At the wake for his mother Heather last week, James Corr told me that the bullet in question was revealed to him on the bus trip to school that morning. This surprised me, as Fergo lived in Roberts Road, Lemongrove and Roc was in Lethbridge Street and so unlikely to have shared the journey. He is sure however, that this is the same bullet that caused the buzz in the playground on its arrival. This puts its origin in question, though Fergo’s dad, on leave from Vietnam, still seem most likely but why it should be on the bus is mysterious. The ‘war-planes flying low above’ that you mentioned was probably inspired by the the cry of ‘The Germans are coming!!’ that Roc also recalled but I had forgotten. I don’t know if the empty shell was found. It would now be referred to as ‘Exhibit A’ had there been a more serious consequence to its detonation.