On October 7th, 11 ex-apprentices and our father of the house - John Hone, attended Fort Nelson on Portsdown Hill for our annual Technical Visit. We were introduced to our guide, also called John for a very interesting and entertaining tour of the fort and associated artillery museum.

There was much to see, in fact, too much to include in this report, so only the highlights will be mentioned. However, a visit is strongly recommended.

The fort itself was built in 1860 following a Royal Commission under the Prime Minister of the day, Lord Palmerston,as part of a series of defences round major ports because of fear of invasion by the French. However, invasion never came because the French turned their attention to the east, where they were defeated by the Prussians! Hence, Fort Nelson never fired a shot in anger and throughout subsequent World Wars it was only used for training purposes and in this connection, as part of added defences, a new artillery volunteer corps was raised which subsequently became today's Territorial Army.

The fort contains an extensive exhibition of artillery, ammunition, production processes and many pictures of guns in action. Apart from the museum, the fort is also laid out as it would have been when it was used as a training garrison.

There are displays outside the fort and in the artillery hall where guns of every bore, design and age are on show; the range is too extensive to detail here. However, one particular weapon caught our attention immediately; this was the so called -'Iraqi Super Gun' designed by Dr.Gerald Bull. This weapon had a bore of nearly 1 metre and when complete it would have been 156 metres long which by coincidence, is the same length as the tunnel down to the ammunition cellars! The sections of this gun manufactured in the UK, were intercepted by British Customs in 1990; if the weapon had been completed it would have had a range of something like 1500 kilometres - and we all worked out which way it would have been pointing!

Outside on the parade ground we witnessed the firing of the noon-day gun when two rounds were fired in a 25 pounder field gun. After a very pleasant lunch, during which the Lockies were able to reminisce about their time at Enfield, the tour was resumed through other parts of the fort.

All in all, a very worthwhile visit and thanks are due to Barrie Mitchell for organising it, who regrettably could not attend due to a leg injury. We wish him well and a speedy recovery.

Chris Brooks 1957/62