At the height of the IRA's explosive activities, a chemistry in my school foolishly explained how the terrorists were blowing buildings up with fertiliser bombs. Needless to say, we paid rapt attention to this lesson.
The only thing he didn't explain was how the IRA built triggers for their explosives. However, he did say that if the chemicals were enclosed, such as put in a piece of pipe with the ends sealed off, and heated, this would set the device off.
In the following weeks, the woods behind the council estate the school served started to be rocked by huge explosions. As the summer wore on, it became exceedingly dangerous to go into the woods for fear of being blown up.
As the situation got more and more out of hand, a chemical factory on a nearby industrial estate 'mysteriously' burnt down and soon after the woods were rocked by even bigger blasts.
Eventually, each year was called into a special assembly individually to be given a lecture by the local beat constable, PC Archer, about how incredibly dangerous bomb-making was.
I specifically remember him saying: "These are unstable compounds and could go off due to being shaken or even just getting too warm, such as by being left next to a radiator..."
As I sat in my music lesson after that assembly I remember thinking how incredibly exciting it all was. Especially when the girl sitting next to me reached into the satchel of the boy sitting next to her and pulled out a pipebomb, banged it on the desk and said to me: "Do you think this is what PC Archer was on about?"
It didn't go off, obviously.
Ah, happy days.