I too was destined for a career in chemistry.  Pocket money
was spent at the chemist shop (in those days a small boy
could buy things like conc acids and phenol) and at the gardening
shop on bags of things like ammonium nitrate.  Eventually was
banned from the house due to too many bangs and smells.

By age 11 I had moved more towards electronics so was allowed in
the house again, at least for a while until I discovered high
voltages, then it was back to the shed for me.

Eventually interesting in chemistry waned and was finally
killed off by a martinet chemistry master at school.

The VLF angle?  My favourite way to make hydrogen was
Al and NaOH.   A shame to waste valuable helium in a
antenna balloon.

Want a really really good read?  Try

 http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf

You won't be able to put it down until finished.
--
Paul Nicholson
--