And I think that answers a lot of the questions.
Hi it's Tod of Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and today we're looking at plumbata again.
So these Roman war darts used by skirmishers I've now found out;
not the legionaries themselves. You know they're very interesting things, but they have modern
parallels and that is lawn darts, are over in the States as you know them, Jarts. Now
I have managed to buy some of those over here and I've now engaged my 1970s camping friends
and we're going to do an unboxing video that the world has never seen before
versus lawn darts. Now these are not just any lawn darts, they are "English Lawn Darts", so if you're
going to injure your children apparently and allegedly, do it patriotically. So this is our box
of English Lawn Darts here which I bought on ebay for 15 pounds or something, made by the Vic Toy
Company. 1969 was a year of manufacture. But what I particularly love about it, is it actually has
a health and safety warning on the back and for 1969 that is quite extraordinary. Brian, could you
open up the box for us? And here we have our lawn darts all four of them, nearly mint condition. You
have a counterweight here, a thin, I would guess polyethylene, plastic set of vanes and a quarter
inch steel spike here which has actually been blunted, but let's face it, any self-respecting
adolescent boy is going to sharpen that up and we're going to try that later because I would have
done. We're going to run a few trials now which are patently ridiculous really, against weapons
of war versus well, toys. Thanks very much Terry, but it's a really serious thing because these were
apparently very dangerous, so the question is how dangerous were they? Because they got pulled from
sale in all sorts of countries. America you can't even buy them, not even on the second hand market.
So first one is going to be for accuracy at short distance so Terry take it away. Good luck. All
right here he goes.... whoa oh no that was rubbish that was. Right here we go oh that was nice just
no okay all right
oh oh that was a ball I thought you're gonna split it up that was a pork hit.
oh
no
I can see why they took off and it is a shame that they're just so darn dangerous or are they?
I don't know. Rather unfortunately neither of us managed to hit the pork during that, I thought I
had I thought I've got a pork hit, but I didn't, so what I'm going to do now is just drop it
from a meter up so the point is a meter above the pork now and it'll just give you an idea what a
casual throw or casual impact from this thing will do and then we'll do the same with the lawn darts.
That is nasty, Terry. So up a little bit Terry, okay then Terry drop that one see what we got.
on the surface quite clearly....
ooh that much into the pork and 'no' much into your pork, so
little Sophie is going to be safe off this one, but what happens when we throw for distance
that's when you're really hurling them so we'll go down to the sunken garden where we've got a
good length and we'll throw them there let's do that. We've just arrived in the walled garden at
Kentwell Hall here and it's occurred to us none of us have actually read the rules off the back,
so Jonathan could you take it away? Certainly, rules are for English Lawn Darts. How to play.
Stand one at a time inside a target ring and toss dart towards the other target ring throwing
underarm and the scoring yeah the object is to be the first person or team to score 21 points,
score three points for each dart embedded in your opponent. Yeah sounds about right.
Inside the target area and one point for the next nearest. Start in each round right right
clear. Fine so what we're going to do then Terry up the other. Oh can I have two darts because this
is not a job for plumbata. Uh, I am not going to stand in the ring and Terry take it away.
But I mean let's face it, many children would be standing a lot closer than this
right out the ring
oh oh but we're gonna do distance after this
oh nice but I think what is completely clear is there's plenty of scope for children to,
well, get in the way really, it's guaranteed to happen and one of the things I like to do when
I'm messing around with stuff is I make new discoveries and we just set up for the next
bit of filming where we're going to have a game of lawn darts and Terry by complete accident,
fluffed up the throw completely and he just did that and it went straight up in the air and landed
about a meter from him and that's something of course that children are going to do all
the time and the other thing that they're going to do because they're not the most coordinated
people in the world they're going to go for the backswing and they're going to let go
and that is what is going to happen. We're going to throw for distance now and as I was
saying earlier, these were used by skirmishers so they had to get 40,50 meters out something
like that. I'm not that practiced so that's the absolute cream of native troops really and then of
course we have Terry here which is the absolute cream of 1970s campers. So we're going to have
a distance competition now, how far can I throw these and how far can Terry throw his? Here we go
oh oh nice little spin on
Thank you very much let's just leave it there, so plumbata here we go.
Whoa, I do find standing in the ring a bit difficult; do you,
do you reckon Roman auxiliaries stepped out? there because I think they probably did.
Oh no that's not fair what i'm also going to do is go overhand all right.
So I mean the the difference, ah that was a rubbish one, the difference is really
significant. I'm to estimate and say about 45 meters, something like that, 45 yards
so quite a difference in distance. The lawn darts are interesting and
they're not going in that deeply, but they certainly, you know they're going to
hurt little Sophie or whoever. So we're just coming out to the furthest of our throws now
and if we have a look at this, I mean I did give it everything, but you know
I'm not practiced at it but look how deeply it's gone in, so all the way up to the head there which
is that far, so they really are monumentally nasty things and I think at the moment we can
say that lawn darts definitely are going to be dangerous but they're not remotely like these.
So we've had a few games now for accuracy and distance with both the lawn darts and the plumbata
now these were quite clearly made for war and are horrifically dangerous things
and yet these also led to thousands of accidents and that's why in the end they got
banned in America particularly. They're still available in Europe, but in a modified form
but in on the second-hand market we can still buy them as they were, that's not a problem,
but the thing is none of this is factored in little boys like me and that was the adolescent,
the the sort of child you didn't want to live next door to, and I was one of them. And so the
first thing that I would have done with these was gonna sharpen them, so we're just gonna run
a test now where we sharpen these up and we'll have a look and see how much nastier they are
What I mean by the 'adolescent factor' is people are going to be sharpening these up,
they are going to be throwing them up in the air and dodging or trying
to catch them and stuff like that, because that's how stupid kids can be. You know!
All of you out there have been kids or you've got kids, you know this is true.
So first up we're going to do the blunt blue ones and log on the ground here
that's good enough. Red ones going in.
And I think that answers a lot of the questions and I think this says everything that we need to
know about lawn darts and why they were banned, why they were dangerous. The blue ones, the blunt
ones they still stuck into the end of this wood here, not so deeply obviously, but the red ones
which some maniac adolescent sharpened up, not me obviously, these ones are right on in there
and they actually take some getting out, so it would have happened, it would have been done,
I certainly would have done it if i had a set of these when i was a kid.
So before I hand these back to the 70s campers, I've done the responsible thing and blunted them
back off. Well I think that's everything we really need to know about plumbata versus
lawn darts, Jarts. Quite clearly the most dangerous game that came out of the 1970s
so I think we're done now. So thank you very much Jeremy it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you
and uh Terry yeah uh one more game? What a great idea! Good ready one two three
What I was hoping would happen is that one of the other of us had got to
uh
watch out there's sharks oh yeah