by Mushroom

Created on: December 13, 2009

This is a true story of a jinx that took the lives of three young Brentwood army cadets during the mid to late nineteen sixties. At Pilgrims Hatch midway along Hatch Road there is a area of waste land which was once known locally as the back-fields. it was on this waste land that there once stood some derelict green houses. I was one of those youngsters who sat on top of the wooden gate that once stood at the entrance to the nursery. Armed with catapults and a pocket full of stones the temptation to have some fun became too much to bear, and so we went on to have a smashing few days breaking hundreds of panes of glass. There then began the task of dismantling the wooden frames of the green houses. It was with these timbers that we built huge bonfires, this task took some effort and several weeks to complete. The only structures left standing were two red brick chimneys. They stood on square concrete plinths, the chimneys were approximately twenty feet high.

        I remember the afternoon when a few senior army cadets arrived on the scene, they came armed with tools with which to chop down the chimneys. The next evening after school I remember visiting those back-fields, and I also remember being very impressed with what I saw. The first of the two chimneys had fallen to the ground and it had landed in one piece laying flat on its back. The heroes had won their day in the field hence they must of been well chuffed with themselves. However a couple of days later there came the terrible news of a disaster which had taken place over the back-fields. What happened was as the chimney started to topple over one of the cadet's ran directly under the falling chimney. Moments later the cadets discovered to their horror that one of their friends had not made it back to safety. It had happened so quickly that the cadets couldn't understand how this disaster could have taken place. In retrospect it was generally assumed that as the young cadet fled from the falling chimney he must of fallenl on uneven ground. Consequently fourteen year old David Hall, pet name Docker's was fatally injured and died before reaching hospital in May 1967. As with this foolhardy venture the young cadets could not have known that at the end of that tragic day they were to lose one of their close friends.  I remember one of the cadets who took part in the venture saying "It should have been me who died that day." I also remember while on parade one evening

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