PICNIC at Savernake

(thanks go to volcano-club.blogspot.com for telling us about E C Large)

10 miles south of Swindon Savernake Forest is a favourite picnic site on a Sunday afternoon the place is full of people enjoying themselves.  

Yet there is a more sinister side to the forest, it was the catalyst for the Hungerford massacre in 1987, has been the final resting place of

those committing suicide and was recently the scene of a mass search for a missing Swindon woman. During the war it served as an ammunition dump used by Home and US forces, roads were closed and the whole area was a no go, although secret at the time chemical weapons are said to have been tested there.

It is also the haunt for people foraging for funghi maybe E. C. Large, the English chemist and plant scientist was researching for his book 'The Advance of The Funghi' when he visited Savernake in 1939.  Whatever he may have been doing he did not enjoy the experience, read on.