ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Those of us with a certain life experience will remember the year 1956. That was the year that TV started in Australia and the year that the Olympic Games first came to Australia; Melbourne precisely.

If I remember rightly, we could see film footage of the Olympics by watching the little unaffordable black and white TV that was in the window of the electrical goods shop or we could watch the newsreels at the pictures.

What I found fascinating about the Olympics was the athlete carrying the Olympic torch. So I resolved to make myself an olympic torch, it looked fairly simple.

In my father's shed I managed to fix a jam tin to the top of a piece of wood. Fine, it looked right.
But the olympic torch had a flame. I tried filling the tin with paper and lighting it, but it burned too fast. So I filled it with some rag. That wouldn't catch fire. I had the answer; douse it with some kerosene; that would get it going.
It burnt all right, went up in a big flash. I dropped the torch onto the floor of the shed where it landed on some wood shavings , and things started to get a bit hot.
Fortunately I managed to put out the conflagration.
I retired then from olympic glory. Learned a lesson didnt I.....No I didn't.

I was interested in magnets. I had a magnet, a bent piece of magnetised iron which did magical things.
In one of my library books I saw an interesting illustration of a powerful magnet. An electro-magnet.
It looked fairly simple too. A bent piece of iron with a wire coiled around the poles connected to an electric current. I resolved to make one.

I got a piece of iron rod and bent it. Then I got a piece of electrical flex that had a three pin plug, stripped the insulation and wound the wire around the two poles of my piece of iron. Then I plugged it in the wall socket and turned it on.

There was a loud bang !! Smoke billowed up. The power in the house went off and there was black stuff all round the wall socket. Where I had wound the wire round the iron rod, the wire had disintegrated and left scars on the surface. ooowaah.

Somehow my father fixed the fuse. And I had to give up experiments. For a while anyway.

They are right. Warning : Do not try this at home kiddies.

So how come you ended up as a Copper - with those kind of experiences I would have thought a pyromaniac or a firey would have been the go

Maureen Don't you know Copper is a better Conductor !!!



Bob

Now Neville here is a good experiment Drop a flat head nail down the barrell on an air rifle and then fire it at a piece of wood and it will almost stick in half way.

Note do not under any circumstances have the air rifle cocked and broken when doing this and definately do not place your finger over the barrell to stop the nail falling out. The air rifle can fire as soon as it is cocked and a high speed nail will certainly penetrate until the flat of the nail stops it.


Ouch screamed my mate Bruce with a few other words thrown in for good measure and although we were 10 blocks from the ambulance centre he beat me there by five.


Definately do not try this one.

Bob

Missed your calling Neville. Should have been a scientist - albiet a nutty one!

Heather

PS Glad you survived your childhood.

Thanks Maureen, I'm glad you're not my defending barrister

Thanks Bob. I think there's been a few of those. I won't mention my incident of the .22 rifle.


Thanks Heather. I might reveal later, the incident of the .22 rifle, the incident of the arc welder, the incident of the gantry crane and the incident of the oxy bottle and even the incident of the sewage pit.
Being a green person of higher calling, you must write out fifty times...albeit is spelled albeit.

AH HAR. Neville the devil the fearless one who is game enough to correct the one who thinks she's The Boss

Bill you know who

Did a few good experiments with penny bungers and old bike pump tubes to Nev again gotta keep the hands clear and under no circumstances go to check why it did not fire.


Bob

Sounds like you have a book in the making there Neville. I'd buy it.

We used to jump of the shed roof when we were kids. How we didn't break something I don't know. I remember lying up there watching the concorde go over (and other planes). From memory the concorde made a special trip. Don't ask me the year, I was a kid, I don't remember.

And defense should be defence!

Heather

yeh Bob we made cracker guns with 1/2 water pipe with a screwed cap and loaded it with a marble but when it went through the top of the wooden Dunny door and out the back weatherboard while dad was seated for his performance my rear end got kicked and no more cracker guns aloud.

Bill the old B------er