The History of Ruddington Depot
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Dismantling And Disposal
A forbidden place to play and explore
The children born during the war took the Depot for granted. Roy Peacock and his friends used to play close to their homes, and engaged in very similar activities to their pre-war counterparts:
“We lived in Elms Park and our back garden backed onto the playing fields, but opposite was an area called Back Field which was part of the Depot. There was fencing surrounding it to keep us out, but we managed to get through. I think one of the most dangerous things we did was getting onto the site itself, but we by-passed any form of security and we found our way underneath or over the fence. It was our adventure playground, and there was so much to do.
We used to make dens in Back Field especially. We’d excavate a large hole in the ground and put corrugated iron over the top. Then we put grass sods on the corrugated sheeting. We made steps down into it and a sort of fireplace, and found a piece of old sacking to conceal the entrance. Sometimes we lit a fire and tried to roast potatoes.
Some of the material lying around was very dangerous, but we didn’t realise it. I remember some large batteries that had tubes that we removed. Inside there was acid or something, but we didn’t see the danger. It was just another adventure as far as we were concerned.
We picked raspberries, wild raspberries, and there were wild damsons on an old tree, which is still there on the Country Park. There were mushrooms on the field where the cordite was burned just after the war, an absolute abundance of really good quality field mushrooms. Sometimes people would stop us when we were coming back and buy them off us. We didn’t go intentionally picking to sell them, but if someone offered you 2s 6d for them, or 1s 6d, or a bob, well, its money.
We never actually destroyed wildlife. We used to collect moorhens’ eggs and pheasants’ eggs and eat them. We never robbed a nest. We’d probably take two but moorhens lay a lot of eggs and don’t miss two. We used to collect birds eggs. Some people had a very good collection, but we only took one egg at a time.
We were out in the fresh air all the time, especially in the school holidays. We were never at home. The girls were part of the gang. There was no gender issue, or prejudice either way. We just played and got on together quite naturally.
All these activities had the added attraction of being on a place that was strictly ‘out of bounds’, and there was the ever present threat of discovery. Some of the gang were seen by security staff and that added to the fun. Then it was a competition between us and the site police, who could run fastest, but we were never caught.”
The Story > Chapter 6 > Section 6.05