Whatever happened to firework night?
I’m not talking about those large communal events where adults and children gather at sports grounds or other open spaces to watch a pre-programmed display of pyrotechnics. I’m talking about fireworks in the garden, each one ignited not by the press of a button but by using a match or a taper (plus a torch to see what you’re doing).
When I was a small child in the Sixties firework night, November 5, was something we looked forward to with great excitement. I remember waiting for my father to get home from work, usually around seven o’clock, whereupon he would get changed and disappear outside with a large box of Standard fireworks purchased the previous week from the local hardware store.
Funnily enough, a few years ago in an episode of Would I Lie To You, Bob Mortimer told a true story about setting light to a box of Standard fireworks in his own house when he was a small boy.
Apart from the damage to the family home, what his fellow panellists found difficult to believe was the fact that there was a brand of firework called ‘Standard’. Well, I can remember thinking, not only did Standard fireworks exist, they were widely available and could be bought over the counter by almost anyone. But I digress.
My father would be in the garden for what seemed like an eternity before we were ushered outside in our woolly hats and coats and the fireworks would begin.
Roman candles had been carefully embedded in flowerpots so they didn’t fall over. Catherine wheels had been nailed to a post or fence, and rockets were placed in milk bottles, ready to be fired into the night sky.
Catherine wheels were my favourite but occasionally the nail had been hammered in too much and instead of whizzing round in a blur of light and sparks, they would fizzle briefly, then expire, and we would sigh with disappointment.
I liked Roman candles too because they came in different shapes and sizes and you never knew what type of explosion you were going to get. Sometimes they didn’t go off at all but even at the age of seven or eight I knew never to return to a lit firework. (That and ‘Don’t accept sweets from a stranger’ are the two warnings I remember most from my childhood. There may also have been something about looking both ways before you cross the road.)
Meanwhile similar explosions were happening in almost every neighbouring garden and the night air was thick with smoke and the smell of gunpowder. Soon our little firework ‘display’ was over and we would be handed sparklers to wave around creating patterns of light in the dark. And then we would go inside and that would be it for another year.
It’s a different world now but in the days leading up to firework night it wasn’t uncommon to go to school (when I was eight or nine) with a box of matches and a handful of bangers - bought for pennies in a local shop - in our trouser pockets. Then, during the mid morning break, we would set light to them in the playground, standing back and waiting for them to explode with a loud bang. And, no, I don’t remember ever getting into trouble with the teachers, although I suspect my parents would not have been happy had they known.
What I do remember is reading a number of newspaper stories about people, children mostly, losing what used to be called their ‘wedding tackle’ when bangers exploded in their trouser pockets. This was caused, apparently, by a combination of heat and friction and even at a young age the message got through and I stopped buying bangers and putting them in my pocket.
In fact it was almost a decade later that I bought more fireworks. I was a student by then and they were indoor fireworks, but that didn’t go too well because we burned a hole in the Formica table in the kitchen of the flat we were in. Thankfully it wasn’t my flat.
Today the tradition of firework night, as we knew it in the Sixties and Seventies, doesn’t really exist. Yes, some people still have fireworks in their gardens, but garden fireworks have been largely replaced by big communal events that are organised, in many cases, by professional firework operators.
Many firework displays don’t even take place on November 5. Instead they are organised on the nearest Friday or Saturday so firework night is no longer restricted to one day. In fact, fireworks can often be heard at other times of the year as well, whether it’s to celebrate New Year or even someone’s birthday, so the one day of the year that used to be called Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes’ Night, or simply firework night, is no longer unique. (This isn’t a complaint, by the way, just an observation.)
Garden fireworks are still a thing but they are far less prevalent, largely because of safety concerns that, in my view, were blown out of all proportion. Like smoking, setting off fireworks is also considered anti-social because it scares pets and young children, allegedly.
Pets I can understand, although it was only in old age that our dog Roly began to tremble a bit when he heard ‘noisy’ fireworks going off. (I wouldn’t ban them, though, because it was only for a short time and he soon got over it.) But young children? For goodness sake, just be grateful if the worst thing your child experiences in childhood is the sound of fireworks.
According to the Telegraph however there’s currently a ‘plot to silence noisy fireworks’ which begs the question: how on earth did my parents’ generation ever survive the Blitz?
See also: Could this be the last Bonfire Night for noisy fireworks? (BBC News)
