The Exploding Well

A Memory of Saxmundham.

In the early 1950s myself and two friends had been fishing at the top of Church Hill, Saxmundham.
We stopped at a copse halfway down and explored. Removing some rampant Ivy, we uncovered a concrete cover on a well. To our surprise some of the bricks were crumbling, so we dug around them with our sheath knives and managed to loosen some of the bricks.
It was very dark in the well, so we lit some paper and dropped it in, revealing what appeared to be a lot of junk. Not happy with this we loosened some more bricks and dropped them in.
Suddenly there was a loud whoosh and a wall of flame shot through the cracks and above the well. My eyelashes were burned,, along with some hair. The other two had instinctively jumped backwards.
We ran for our lives and all the way home. I told my mother we had lit an old paint pot and got burned.
Years later, having read in the EADT about an old WW2 incendiary dump being blown up, I realised what it was.
But horror, horror, there are now houses nearby and the ground has been levelled. We said nothing, fearing we would get into trouble, and somehow the decades marched on.
Time to tell the story, and perhaps, if they are incendiaries, they can be made safe. What is certain is that someone went to a lot of trouble to hide them. Dad’s Army platoon?

---

---