Boom!

Funny how sometimes you don't know about history which is on you own doorstep.  Not that far from where I live is the village of Hanbury.  Nice village with a nice pub - at least it used to be so.  Back in the days when you could still go out for a drive in the country and finish up at a pub for a leisurely drink before wending your way home, this was a favourite destination.  But what I never realised until recently was that close by is the remains of RAF Fauld, where the country's biggest ever explosion happened in November 1944.  Underground chambers and corridors were used to store bombs and on 27th November - apparently as a result of a spark caused by someone using a chisel, the whole lot went up.  At least 70 people died - probably more and it remains one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.  The huge crater has now been reclaimed by nature, but the area is still forbidden to walkers - there is still plenty of unexploded ordnance down there.