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Original Text (Annotation: EAW000471 / 2081463)
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This is the site of where the Projectile Engineering Factory used to bring out in wheelbarrows the lathe shavings of metals to open recycling bins. We as 6-11 year-olds used to rummage through and take away as "scrap" any brass, copper, white metal, aluminium alloys etc and sell them to an "illegal" scrap merchant on the top floor of an adjacent block of flats.This area was also known as "The WAAFS" as there had been a barrage balloon tethered there and serviced by the army. There was also a huge cuboid-shaped stack of shell ammunition boxes with a tarpaulin sheet over them as protection against the weather.We used to slide under the sheet to try to sleep there. We also had our November 5th bonfires on this waste site for several years. I set fire to a stack of chestnut paling fencing in the air-raid shelter just above the metal recycle bays. Within just a couple of years to bomb-damaged Bilton House seen on the edge of "The WAAFS" was repaired and fully occupied. The Collonys, Rowes and Staggs lived on the top floor of Bilton House. by Peter Freddie Harden '
