The Cannon

East Cowes, Isle of Wight 1955

Harold Bowen, the proprietor of Radio Resco, in East Cowes, in addition to selling the town televisions and radios and all other manner of electrical goods also sold fireworks, certainly from after the last day of Cowes Week until well after the smoke of ‘Guy Fawkes’ Bonfire night had cleared.

No more than any other boys of our age we enjoyed the excitement of setting off fireworks illicitly and of course I particularly enjoyed the making of mischief. For example, the experimental effects of bangers and squibs in cowpats, and firing rockets and marine flares which hung in the night sky slowly spiralling earthward to crash in a myriad of splashing orange sparks upon ground.

It was that time of year again when summer was no more than a rumour and autumn frost and short stunted days drew night in stark and damp. I recall it was on such a dank evening that my friend Ian Sherfield who lived close by showed me a small cannon that he had fashioned from a spent .30 brass rifle shell case. He had mounted it by wiring and tying the shell case onto a small block of wood allowing the end of this mini cannon to project by an inch or two. He had drilled a small hole through the top towards the closed end of the shell case and with gun powder he had removed from a banger firework set about filling the cannon with just enough gun powder and then pushing cotton wool and finally a ball bearing down into the breach end with the help of small gimlet.

In the event of recoil he positioned house bricks on each side of the cannon and then pushing a split matchstick into the hole at the rear of the cannon to act as a fuse, made sure to leave the red head in view. He then set up a tin can full of water ten feet away and level with the cannon which was there to serve as the target. Carefully lighting the exposed match head with a long straw taper he stepped back, a moment later after the fizz of the igniting match head there was small bang and a long flash of flame issued from the little cannon on the wooden block the tin can flew into the air spraying water in all directions and on inspection it was found to be punctured very nearly in two by the impact of the small ball bearing. Although we had purchased and examined very nearly all of Mr Bowen’s firework selection, we had discovered that the maximum gunpowder that could be obtained from an individual firework was from a Payne’s Squib. Thereafter the gradual development from the 3.03 shell knew no bounds, our little mine of pyrotechnics had long since dried up and we were now purchasing 410 shotgun cartridges and using them as the accelerant agent which did save a lot of time and of course there was no more carefully gutting Squibs and Bangers to extract their precious black powder.

There had been a few little mishaps on the way whilst we continued experimenting with the development of our homemade cannons. As our confidence was growing, it is probably more honest to say ‘Sherf’s confidence, so the size of the cannons that we built grew. I recall one such cannon measuring approximately eighteen inches in length, it had been fashioned from mild steel conduit piping with a diameter of approximately four or so centimetres, the breach end of the pipe had been hammered flat, again mounted on a large block of heavy wood. We set about testing it down in the woods close to the ‘Bommy Building’ shattering chucks of old brick work, we were using old glass ally marbles as the missiles. Sherf had another idea and suggested that if the missile we used was heavier more streamlined, ideally bullet shaped, it could fly further.

This resulted in us digging a small hole in the ground and filling it with builders’ sand and then pushing our fingers straight down into it as far as we could reach, thus forming a mould. We gave up our lead toy soldiers and used any other scrap lead we could find, melting the lead in an old brass jam pan that we had purloined from Mike Brinton’s mother’s kitchen. Once the lead was sufficiently liquid we poured it carefully into the finger moulds in the sand and waited for it to cool. When the lead had been extracted from the sand it formed a weighty, almost bullet shaped projectile, cleaned off and rubbed and buffed down it would serve as an ideal missile.

After a number of tests over the fields, always ensuring first that there were no cattle or Prince the old Shire horse grazing we would aim our cannon at certain trees whereon we had placed a white painted dustbin lid as a target. Even at distances of hundreds of yards we quickly realised that our cannon was well able to fire its missiles much further distances than we had at first estimated.

East Cowes Castle a once grand estate and home, the country seat of John Nash the architect no less, was by now no more than a faded beauty, a dilapidated ruin. The surrounding acreage of the once splendidly laid out grounds was being cultivated into a fruit farm. By the middle of the fifties East Cowes Castle was completely ruined and deserted but nonetheless the building still presented an imposing sight across the fields looking out and over the Solent.

‘I reckon, said Sherf, we could hit East Cowes Castle from here’, pausing he cupped his hand over his eyes as he scanned the distance.

‘Yeah, I think we could.’

‘As the crow flies the main tower can only be about half a mile or so probably a bit less’ said Mike Brinton as he squinted his eyes together to focus more clearly.

In a general discussion that followed the distance varied from between

over a mile to eight hundred yards. Whilst none of us thought that the cannon could not reach, we all agreed that there could be no definitive way of telling if we had hit the target or missed it.

‘Tell you what’, announced Sherf, what about if Gus and Mike go over to the castle and go up to the top of the tower and wave a flag and we’ll fire the cannon at you when we see it’.

An explosion of spluttering expletives followed from both me and Mike, as we protested. ‘If we don’t fall off and break our bloody necks, that old tower’s falling to bits, it’s really bloody dangerous’. ‘Not only that,’ shouted Mike his shaking finger pointing at the cannon.

‘Yeah Mike’s right, I eagerly agreed, what about that bloody thing, it could kill us’!

Nah! You daft buggers, once you’re up there and wave the flag and we see you, me and Phil will wave our flag back’.

Philip Hunt was another friend of ours who lived close by on Princess Close, he was a bright cheerful boy but had always struck me as somewhat devious.

‘Then after we wave our flag said Phil, we’ll count to five and I’ll light the fuse’.

‘So, have you two got that’ said Sherf. ‘We will wave back at you and then after a count of five you duck down behind the battlements and we will fire the cannon’.

‘Once you’ve both ducked down, whispered Phil smiling mischievously, ‘you had better count to five again’, he said laughing, ‘just in case’.

After another couple of run throughs of the plan we all decided that the next day was going to be the most suitable for our assault on East Cowes Castle Tower as it was forecast to be a clear and most importantly dry day. We spent the rest of the day making the two flags, which were going to be essential for signalling, by tying old white pillowslips, borrowed from Phil’s mothers laundry basket, to thick bamboo canes.

Late autumn colours had faded to fawn through to tangerine as a cold stinging wind chased me and Mike as we set off together. We crossed the road that led to the Bommy Building then quickly through the woods until we reached the old iron fence. We took turns carrying our white flag across Warner’s fields, not that it was particularly heavy we just liked the feel of carrying a fluttering flag. We stopped and looked back at the old tennis court field where Sherf and Philip were setting up the cannon upon a gantry of bricks and blocks of wood. We were pleased we had chosen Sunday as our day to climb the tower and careful to check that there was no one about that might attempt to chase us off the property we ploughed on. Finally, we had reached the remnants of last summer’s raspberry and blackberry gardens, now just a tangle of bush and bramble. Most of the entrances and conservatory windows to this once grand building were boarded up. With extraordinarily little persuasion the flimsy barricade of plywood and boarding soon yielded, and we were both through, a minute or two later we were standing at the small entrance beneath the spiralling stone steps leading to the top of tower. Climbing up the tower was no easy task, much of the outer winding stone stairway was loose and very suspect in parts and in places we had to help each other hand over hand to safety as some of the stone steps were no longer in existence. When at last we had reached the top of the tower we entered through a small gothic arch onto a grey roundel stone roof much of which was cracked and grown through with tufts of moss and weed.

Sherf and Phil had decided to mount the cannon on a higher level, upon a platform of sorts, from where they had calculated and agreed both the aim and trajectory would be better served. They laid their white flag down beside them as they busied themselves building the cannon battery.

Every now and they would take turns and scan the castles ramparts looking for any signs of a fluttering white flag.

‘Any signs of the buggers yet’ enquired Sherf. ‘They should have been there by now; I hope they haven’t fallen off and broke their bloody necks in this wind’.

Both boys looked at each other and moments later burst into laughter.

Suddenly Phil let out a whoop of joy. He did not need a second look; he had seen a definite flash of white fluttering high on the largest of the castle towers.

‘There they are Sherf’’, both boys scanned into the far distance.

‘Wave our flag Phil, let them know we have seen them’ and shouting out above the wind Sherf cupped his hands to his mouth so that he might be heard.

‘Do you think they’ve seen us’ shouted Phil, struggling to keep hold of the madly fluttering flag. Suddenly there was a ripping sound, a momentary flash of white and the flag spiralled into the air, the wind carrying it high as flapping into a metal grey sky looking like a broken seagull until finally it was out of sight.

The cannon was in readiness, mounted and powdered up and loaded with our homemade moulded lead projectile. The breach end would be made ready with a pinch of gunpowder when it was finally decided to light and fire.

After we had crawled on our bellies over to the battlement parapets Mike looked up and shouted, ‘I think I can see them both’. He was right, we could see them clearly beneath the trees standing next to what we assumed to be the cannon. The fields ran away from us like a green carpet and to our right we could see clear across the Solent to Fawley.

We could hear our pillow flag flapping and slapping above our heads and I was holding onto the stick for dear life as we both tried to peer between the battlements to the fields beyond where the cannon should be set up and ready to fire.

‘Can you see them? No sign of a bloody flag anywhere.’

Suddenly Mike yelled, ‘Look! There they are! I can see them. There they are waving their arms…

…Where’s their flag’?

‘I’ve no bloody idea, I hissed hoarsely, ‘They are jumping about like mad waving their arms at us, I think they must want us to wave our flag. Now remember Mike, east to west, east to west, heads down and count nice and slow one to five and make sure you keep your bloody head down.’

Mike stood up and exacted the white flag semaphore as instructed and then quickly dropping to his knees he joined me as we huddled and crouched behind a stone battlement.

We both remained flattened to the cold grey stone battlement when we heard clearly the distant but distinct crack of the cannon. We clung like limpets to one another other for what seemed an eternity when we heard a loud whining crack and thud just below the battlement, we were sheltering beside. Whatever it had been was probably no more than ten feet below us. There was no doubt whatsoever about it, something extremely hard had just hit the tower wall.

When we leaned over to examine the tower below us there was very definitely evidence of damage to dressed stonework, a clean white scar of exposed stone.

Although we, the gang of four, all excitedly shared the moment of our joint success over and over, none of us were ever to fire a cannon of any sort again or for that matter did anyone of us ever return to East Cowes Castle. Soon after that, no more than a couple of years, we had all, for one reason or another drifted apart, boys into men, with wives and families, all us travelling a different road.

However, every firework night I vividly recall our adventures especially when the smell of sulphur and gunpowder smoke fills the air, my mind goes back to those dangerous experiments that we undertook but I still feel a sense of pride in our innovation and initiatives. Now, after all the years as I listen to the older children laugh and enjoy the thrill of bonfires and fireworks, bangers and rockets, I am more than happy just to take another slice of parkin a nip of something Scottish and smile to myself as I watch the younger ones excited and wide eyed, playing with their sparklers.

· (Sherf) Ian Sherfield went on to become an extraordinarily successful and renowned Electrical Engineer, responsible for the management of the grid connection and electricity supply to the infrastructure to the UK side of the channel tunnel. He is also the author of a superb book entitled Pictorial History of East Cowes Castle the family seat of the national architect John Nash Esq.

He has also written a history of electricity on the Isle of Wight entitled Electric Wight.

· John Nash was one of the foremost British architects of the Regency and Georgian eras during which he was responsible for the design in the neoclassic and picturesque styles of many important areas of London. He designed many renowned buildings throughout the United Kingdom including buildings such as Buckingham Palace and Clarence House. He spent a great deal of his time in East Cowes where he was responsible for designing many buildings of note on the island including of course, his home, East Cowes Castle.

Sadly, many years later in 1960 East Cowes Castle was demolished