At 17 I was a geophone layer and a 'dynamite' blaster. (It wasn't dynamite but some explosive in toilet roll sized tubes)
Vale of Belvoir, circa 1976, I worked for a surveying company mapping what became Harby and Hose superpits . Miles of 50 core cable laid out, geophone, instruments capable of picking up seismic activity, connected to those cables, terminated in a mobile truck with instruments on board, then they (eventually I got this job) detonated explosives at 10ft depth along a predetermined line, creating shockwaves that allowed them to map underground via the instrumentation.
It paid extraordinarily well, it was fabulous in the summer, awful in the winter, a 17 YO driving a 3.5 ltr Land rover across country having the time of his life with like minded idiots
It was a rare job I suspect, some years later I saw some trucks with vibrating pads underslung doing the same thing, technology moves on I guess.
Interesting or mediocre things blown up while messing around, some intentional, some not.
A coal bunker in a rural house garden.
The line passed near this house. I blasted quite normally but as it went I heard another noise, turned to see the concrete coal bunker collapse as it imploded with a puff of black dust. It must have been just some slabs or similar that didn't take the (Not big by any means) shock of the explosion.
Me...nearly.
Some of the guys used to pull up the det cord to bring the explosive near to the surface, it then created a big bang and a big crater maybe 10ft diameter....a bit of fun
I blasted one they hadn't told me they were playing with....clumps of earth went flying, nearly me with them
as it went off the earth rose, compressing my neck...
Put a bunch of 17 to 25 year olds in charge of a load of landrovers, off road, with little or no supervision...games were played, endlessly.