The lunchtime speaker at yesterday’s Probus lunch was Geoff Twine – a retired RAF bomb disposal engineer.
Geoff’s fascinating talk was of his time, in the 1970′s, leading a team of bomb disposal engineers, who cleared 350 tons of military ordnance dumped into the disused Glyn Rhonwy Isaf slate quarry in Llanberis in North Wales.
In the picture, Geoff is on the right. Amusingly he asked us to consider the lack of health and safety equipment.
The quarry site was chosen as a bomb store in WW2, but soon after being built the bomb store roof collapsed, trapping 14,000 tons of bombs. These were removed within a year. The site continued to be used for the demolition and burning of explosives, and also was subject to the indiscriminate dumping of explosives.
It took six years to clear the site of explosives. A dangerous job, in a particularly hazardous and depressing site. Lunch time talks are fun, and you always learn something new. If you’re interested in knowing more about this impressive feat, Google Llanberis bomb store, or click on a link below.
- Text from a book describing the exploits of Geoff Twine to recover the explosives, and the story of the bomb store.
- Detailed description and photos of the Llanberis bomb store.
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