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The 'Bombs to Butterflies' Interviews
Interviewees: Bernard Slack (A) and Lilian Slack (A2)
Interviewers: Eddie & Ivy Barber
Date of Interview: 01.09.99
Did you do the bomb filling or did you come after the war?
When the Ministry of Supply took it over, all the bomb filling had been cleared away.
Any idea what year that would be, roughly?
Good Lord what year would that be?
Er, you were not up there when we got married, which was 1948, but you went up there soon after, probably the early 50' s.
How did you apply for the job?
They were taking on a lot of ex-servicemen and with it being a Ministry place. that's how I got the job. There were a lot of things happened up there that the public don't know about I bet Mrs Lawson doesn't know this. The auction side, the disposal side - everything that the forces used had to be disposed of - this was only one of many depots. We had to dispose ofvehic1es and we had jeeps here which were just squares of wrecks. They had been unloaded out of the Dakotas and the parachute hadn't opened. They came hurtling down and crashed to the ground. But it was a vehicle and had to be disposed of. Everything had to be disposed of.
Had you got a price for each one?
Oh no, it was an auction you see. They ran three auction sites up here, big sites. You could see the lines and 1ines of vehicles guns and tanks coming in and one park was being filled up and being got ready for auction, the next park was being "lotted" up and the third park was where an auction was taking place.
Were they being brought in by rail?
Yes, rail, tank transporters, the lot, stores, engines, everything. I’11 always remember people made a fortune up here - they made themselves millionaires. I’ve got an extremely good memory and there was one guy, a Pole, and we met him. I used to meet everyone because I issued the pass tickets to get out with the goods, to see there was no fiddling. This Pole traded under the name of S & G Stores of Scunthorpe and I remember his very first buy. You remember the tin helmet? It's got a lace in hasn't it. He bought a mountain of them laces. He finished up with a fleet of BRS 40 ft lorries taking his goods out.
How much gear would there be then?
Oh, they were years and years at it. You know the kind of bikes the paratroopers had, fold-up bikes? They are fetching £500 apiece now. There were 5 in a crate and we had men opening the crates, burning the wood, and we just went through with a blowtorch, cutting them up and straight into the railway wagons to Wards of Sheffield for razor blades. Bayonets, knives, everything was turned into scrap metal and sent to Wards of Sheffield. We were cutting up the tanks and everything.
It must have been a tremendous task.
Yes, they came from all over the country, and abroad, hundreds of them.
To work?
No, to buy.
How many workers would there be then?
I don't know, you see, because there were textiles coming
in and skis and everything, piles and I mean piles, mountains of boots.
You could buy boots, used boots?
Yes, oh yes.
My sister worked on the textiles, sorting out uniforms and that sort of thing.
Of course the Army and Navy Stores started from that sort of thing didn't they.
Everything had to be disposed of you see. The metal merchants, the powder people made a fortune.
They would wouldn't they?
There was one instance that sticks in my mind. There's a firm and I think they're still going in the Black Country, by the name of Parsons, their speciality during the war was making skid chains, which they don't use in this country. Now there were mountains of them. They were bringing them in by the lorry-load, in ammunition cases. Now, the type that the army used had a brand name and these were called "Parson's Nose" and there were thousands, two sets in a box and there were thousands of these boxes, and a retired Canadian Major bought the lot, because they use them over there. The Road Haulage Association had offices on Arkwright St at the time and he left a message with them to say ' If anyone wants a return load to the docks, if they come in here there' 11 be one for them, guaranteed." He shipped the whole lot over to Canada and made a fortune. Nobody came out of there a pauper. There was one firm, Rawtinalls?? belonging to a big Russian Jew had his tanks modified so that the driver sat on the top pulling the gear on. The farmers on Pasture Lane and round the perimeter road stopped fanning and made parking for all these vehicles that were going to all the war-torn spots of the world. There were lines and lines of them, so much per day.
So the farmers were charging for parking?
Hundreds of them. They were dragged straight off the south park and onto the farmers' land ready to go away. Arms dealers, scrap metal dealers, the lot.
This was in the 1950's was it?
Yes it went on for years. Eventually the government stepped in. These buyers were making so much because the vehicles were sold in lots of 50 at a time and the ordinary man in the street couldn't afford that. Today they are very collectible. A little 10cwt truck with a tilt on them made by the Hillman company, called Hillman utilities were being put up in lots of 50. The government made them reduce the size of the lots to give the little man a chance.
Yes, they had no chance. It was big business.
I don't know whether you remember a company on Shakespeare St., Dawson' s Motor Bikes (now a funeral company, I believe). Dickie Dawson, he came up here, a very effeminate man he was, he was buying motor bikes and sidecars in lots of 50 and they running out at £ 1. 10shillings apiece.
Dear, oh dear. No wonder they could make a fortune!
Yes, that's how they made it. The stores and the tax files and that were kept in the buildings and of course the Heritage Centre is one of the buildings.
That is one of the original buildings is it?
Yes, yes they left it for them. All that sort of stuff that would get damaged went into there, with the vehicles and tents etc. outside.
Was there still a lot of buildings there in the 1950' s.
Yes, all the buildings but they've been removed now.
What were they used for?
Bomb filling.
No, but after the war what were the buildings use for then?
Storing the textiles.
They were all used for storing textiles?
There were great big sections of wireless gear in them. When they came in you were advised to take off your watch as there were magnets that big (gasps). If you got it stuck on a metal tag you couldn't get it off. It was all going up to Sheffield.
How many of these depots would there be?
I don't know exactly how many. There were several but this was the biggest one of the lot. One thing that arrived in boxes and boxes was millions of razor blades. Now what happened there and there was hell to pay about it, one man bought the lot. He didn't want them so he stood at one side and he conducted his own auction in the field. (Laughter from the others)
A barrow boy eh. !
That's how he made his money and this went on everywhere.
So this was happening in Ruddington - a thriving industry.
Oh yes, they had a railway station there at one time you know, and special buses came in from Nottingham bringing the men in.
The people who worked there at the auctions - they didn't come in by railway did they?
No, it had closed down by then. They finished with the railway.
Was it local people who worked there then?
No, not necessarily, there were a lot of Nottingham people. That's why Mrs Lawson an't get some of the information, because they were Nottingham people. Bartons ran fleet of double deckers.
I used to work at Bartons
Everything you'd ever heard of that was used in the forces came in there. I saw old fire engines, classic cars- it had all got to come in and be disposed of - everything.
What about the administration side? Did they have the offices here?
Yes, a big office section - an admin site - admin, disposal, everything.
What else would there have been in working a system like that? What a tremendous job to keep tabs on it all!
Yes.
Would you be a civil servant, working there?
I suppose we'd be classed as industrial civil servants. But you ask Mrs Lawson next time you see her if she knew that the big cross-channel guns like the. ""Big Bertha" came in here. (Sounds of amazement from the audience) I was working on them. We had men coming from the British Oxygen Company, specialists, to show us how to use the cutting equipment. There is a bottle of oxygen and a bottle of gas on a trolley. Well they came in with specialised equipment to show us how to connect up 21 bottles of oxygen to get the pressure to cut through these guns. They cut the guns up but saved the bogies. They towed the bogies out again and we got the guns - it took us months to do it. They towed them in on a Sunday.
Was there any risk with that sort of job?
Yes, because everything, tank and vehicle as its going along, the men sitting inside on sitting on a rotating basket. Every one was stamped "Free of ammunition as far as possible". Oh, we had men shot up there. The stuff used to drop down the basket you see. Now they couldn't get the basket out and we used to cut it out and I saw them once [they used to have a special place called the concrete where they used to drag the tanks until they were well spaced and a man would be supplying the oxygen and of course you've got your goggles] and I’ve seen them cutting up and you couldn't see Ruddington for smoke because they were cutting through smoke canisters.
Good heavens!
Ruddington was at risk was it?
Oh, for many years.
I mean during the war with working in that section there was a lot of risk attached to it that was kept quiet.
Absolutely, you just had to stick to the rules and you were pretty safe.
The potential was there for a tremendous accident though.
Oh there were no end of accidents.
There could have been a major accident involving the whole of the village.
When I was there with all that explosive...
Its a wonder the Germans didn't find it. That's what amazes me.
Yes, if s amazing really.
You see we were filling 500lb and 1000lb bombs up there. We got a bit blase after a while. There were long lines waiting to go out in what we call the transit and inspection department. I was in the inspection department and we had to get these forms to fill in with the number on the bomb. If you couldn't read the number, you just got your foot behind the bomb and gave it a push until it rolled over! You just got used to it.
I finished up there, not exactly doing Security, but I was
in charge of the documents ',which matched the lot to the purchaser so that
he could take them out the gate. As I say there were three parks and I had
a mobile hut and when I finished one park, the crane lifted up the hut to
the next park, you see. Oh there were lines upon lines.
A lot of the spares came in in wooden boxes. I had the book with all the code
numbers in. You'd get Bd of L? 7 - that meant Bedford and 7 meant what part
of the vehicle it was. Ld was Leyland; Fd was Ford, all the specialised stuff,
track vehicles, the lot. Time and again the dealers offered me a good price
for that book. They wanted to know what was what. They did used to pay us.
What was the pay structure like?
I wasn't bad really. It was a job.
A very responsible job, eh?
Have you been in the forces at all?
No, no I wasn't.
The majority of the lads up there were ex-servicemen you know and treated it as a joke. They used to ride through the canteen on motor bikes until they stopped them.
They had good canteen facilities there?
Oh yes, there were very good canteen facilities.
I don't suppose you worked shifts did you?
No, no only the security people. We worked regular hours
Was it be big security operation?
Yes, yes it was.
Did they have any break-ins?
No, if anybody wanted to take anything there was all that stuff in the fields and lines upon lines standing there for months, along the perimeter. He was paying the farmers for it all that time and then he collected them when he wanted them with his own big fleet of transporters. They were the ones making the money, shipping them to the trouble spots of the world. Ruddington, to put it quite bluntly, services all the war torn trouble spots of the world. Revolvers and everything. They were kept in a special section and the armourers from London used to come. I remember one bloke, funnily enough his name was Churchill: was a big gun expert: he used to buy a lot. They were all going abroad
So all the war problems - things that would be criticised nowadays...
Space for every vehicle there was once thing there: was mentioned in the paper recently and it was a secret project. I bet Mrs Lawson doesn't know this: but they had developed a massive machine to tunnel underground like a mole. I can't remember now what they stood for but its initials were N.E.L.E. It was parked up there for years. They used to call it the Nelly and it also had to be disposed of. There was a lot of controversy about that. The experts couldn't agree on what to do with it.
Why would the experts come in. Would they come to assess the value of it?
Oh no that was all done by the auctioneers.
No, I don't mean the value in money: but the value of it as a war weapon.
No: I don't think so. That NELE was a one-off job but they were all saying "Could we this, could we that with if: but it was eventually cut up.
It was cut up in the end then? Were they looking for ideas for its potential?
They must have been. My brother-in-law - he's dead now - he
used to operate one of the Coles cranes loading the buyers up with the gear
- it was a free loading service. These crane drivers made a fortune, 'cos
the buyers used to tip them you know. There would be great big boxes come
in: maybe with tank engines inside: and they had big bands round them. One
man approached them and he bought a load and inside one of the boxes was a
brand new aircraft engine: and he was frightened to death about getting it
out, but he was told: "Look, don't panic, you've bought 7 engines and
I’ m loading you up with 7 cases. There' 11 be no trouble at the gate:
it says 7 on your paperwork". But it was a mistake you know.
There were stores coming in from everywhere: wellington boots, socks, shirts:
you know.
Would a lot of that material go overseas?
The world, the lot.
Especially the war-tom areas?
Yes, if there was a war in Zimbabwe, you'd bet your life they'd get it out there.
What about the textile stuff, wasn't that sent abroad.
It depends, if somebody wanted it - they'd find a customer for it - that was their job, you see. The dealers who came in, when it was viewing days, there were not hundreds but thousands from all over the country.
I didn't know anything about that, just passing in the car...
I had a gang working under me, do you remember George Swain and all that, (oh yes, agreed Lillian) and their job was just putting lots up. You didn't know what was in it. A lorry would come in from one of the depots and there could be spares for anything under the sun, in little boxes - miscellaneous spares it said in the catalogue. I think she's got some catalogues now.
I thought she'd got them from you.
She had a film from us.
Yes, there was a cine film of the demolition.
But it was up to the labourers themselves. If they thought
the pile was big enough they sorted another pile.
The dealers used to open the boxes and throw the boxes away and they used
to salvage the lids off them. There was one man with a big tin of paint and
a brush (they called him Paintbrush) and I can see him now, and his job was
to paint the Lot numbers on the lids and put them out ready. Then of course,
the auctioneers' men would come and label them "Miscellaneous spares,
tank parts."
One particular label could make a fortune couldn't it?
Oh yes, we knew what was in that lot. They were all at it.
It would be a tremendous advantage if you knew what was in a particular lot.
What about security, checking up that there was no fiddling with employees and so on.
You just had to be careful. One or two did get caught.
Did you wear a uniform or did you buy your own?
Oh, they provided them. If you were cutting you wore protective gear. But there were some terrible accidents because they never used to take it seriously. The majority were ex-servicemen. We used to have crane come round and it lifted the tank turrets. They placed the turret on the ground and as you were cutting it became weaker and eventually you'd find your toes would be trapped in their steel toecaps. Then you'd shout and someone would switch it off. And there were huge ball bearings falling out.
Did you get bruised toes? How big were the ball bearings?
A bit smaller than a tennis ball, thousands of them. They were in big brass cages. There were mountains of scrap metal, tanks and things. I'll tell you there's tons and tons of brass and copper buried.
To make the hillocks?
One thing they used to do - when they took in hosepipes from fire engines- they used to bum things on the "burning ground" and they just left the brass connectors where they fell. I've always said, after the war when they'd finished, it would have paid somebody to have hired a JCB and gone in.
What can you see on this map - I must confess I'm not very good on maps.
There's Fields Farm and the perimeter road. There's Loughborough Road and Elms Park. All round this site, as I say, they had three parks, one with the gear coming in, one being made ready for the auctioneers and the other, with the gear being sold. These were the buildings. That is the MOD section there and this is Moor End Farm. That's where they parked all the vehicles.
They had a tremendous job at the end, putting the land to rights.
They didn't bother putting it to rights. You see the Country park now with all the ruIlocks. Well there's all the debris under all that.
Yes, we realise that. And those great big areas of concrete?
I'll tell you what they did, because me and my son use to watch this machine. You've never seen anything like it. You know the RSJ's in the roof, they had a track vehicle that would come along with a massive pair of shears in the air and it cut the RSJ's. They would weaken one end and then do the same at the other end and the roof would come crashing down in a load of dust and then men would come along and buy the sheets off the roof Other firms would buy the scrap. The brickwork and other debris, that is what makes the hillocks and so on in the park
Yes, we realise that, its amazing really. In the end, when they'd finished, who bought the MOD area?
Initially, the land had to revert back to the original owners, the farmers.
So, when you finished there you just left it as it was?
Walker came in to dispose of it. You'd have thought at one time it would have been impossible. Here in Barleylands, which was the main entrance, there were nothing but these great big warehouses.
How big were the warehouses? I can't really imagine it.
Next time you go up to the Country park, have a look at the Heritage Centre. That building is the only one left.
How many would there be, can you remember? Can you remember, Lillian?
Oh no, they were named.
There was an 'A' section, a 'B', and a' C'section. 'C' was where we did the bomb filling, 'D' was there the empty bombs were cleaned out. (Looking at the map) These were all little buildings and these were connected with the bomb filling.
Are the storage silos up near the perimeter road marked on there? They had big explosive storage places near the perimeter road, with thick blast walls, shaped like a bunker.
We have some photographs to show you actually. What I'm trying to visualise, and thinking of the Heritage Centre. How would you compare the buildings to anything.
All you can do is go and look at the one in the Heritage Centre and realise that that was one of the biggest, but there were a lot of them. You see, textiles were in one, radio gear being dismantled in another.
Some of them were aircraft size weren't they.
(Pointing to the map or a photograph) That would be one of the biggest with the railway going in one end and out the other. That's where they were demolishing it.
You actually took a cine film when they were demolishing it?
Yes, from our bedroom window over here.
You see, now you can only see a bit of it. You see this fencing is all that's left of the security fence. They kept taking land off them. They built Elms Park, Sheepfold Lane and Barleylands. We got the biggest section left of the security fence. That's where we took the photo from.
That's interesting. Was it IOP Canteen was over there was it.
IOP Canteen was this away, off the green. I've told him, and if you'll pass the message on, I want to see that film when he gets it done, because its years since we took it. I'm sure, on that film, it shows the roads they had to use when they were bomb filling. They were painted green and they had to use them because they were swept clean and they couldn't walk on the grass where they could pick something up on their shoes. All round these cleanways were pieces ofRSJ with hangers and pipes suspended from them just about head height. This was the heating system. The bunkers you mention were not really bunkers, were they - just blast banks and the building was inside. You could not see the building from the road
I believe the film is being transferred to videotape. I'm sure when it's all complete you'll have an opportunity to see it. We'll probably have a social evening.
You'll probably see my washing on the line.
It was taken out of that window there overlooking where they were building Barleylands.
You came to live here when?
Our son is 40 now and he was about 18 months so about 38 years ago.
The Ministry was still operating then. So you saw the overlap when the Ministry finished.
I think it was 1960 when we got Mum up here when she died they were clearing this at the back to build these flats. At one time when we first came here when we were in the bedrooln we could see over Clifton Estate up towards the Barton road. We could see the traffic up there.
To go back to the green roads, if you were working on the bomb filling, you had special shoes and had to stick strictly to the clean roads.
There were very strict rules.
Of course, there was none of this rubbish about. It was kept
very clean in the Ministry time. Another thing I must mention was that about
every fortnight they had reports of a massive glow in the sky, even reports
from London about it. It was cordite they brought in and piled up, and they
set light to it to dispose of it. People wrote to the press with lots of different
ideas as to what was causing it, but they kept quiet about it.
When they demolished the site, there was only one place where they had to
use explosive, and that was the bomb filling site where the walls were about
6 ft. thick. They had to blow that up. (This was where Lillian worked).
You see, the bomb fillers had special buildings for special job. That didn't
apply to us - the guns and revolvers would go in one building because that
was a specialised disposal place, you know.
So they were putting them in separate areas, tanks, ammunition, textiles,
odds and ends all in different place.
Whatever the forces used they were coming into these depots.. Sinfin at Derby
was another one.
You went to work in Northamptonshire - Brackley - wasn't it.
When the power cuts first came they had mobile generators and they wanted to get these out to industry, you know.
Well, it's been very interesting talking to you. Perhaps we can chat later, now the recording has finished.
Interviews > Interview with Bernard Slack