(no subject)

[frostfox]

I've bought myself some sparklers!

When I was a lass, in the 1970's, we built a huge neighbourhood bonfire on the waste ground behind our houses. We always had a den in it, much to the anxiety of our families, who would warn us about it catching on fire and killing us all. We would scour the neighbourhood for wood and people would bring out doors and scraps of wood for us.
The kids on the other side of the railway were 'the enemy'. We's say that they lived 'over Cally' and they were dead common. They also built a bonfire; we could see from ours. Each year there was a quite comptition to build the biggest bonfire, we would post guards to stop them nicking our wood, selective guard, just in after school hours. And one year, I was sat in the front room watching 'Sunday Night at the London Palladium' when we saw the tell tale glow over the houses opposite ours, the little buggers had torched ours early.

The local sweet shop would take the sweets out from under the counter and replace them with brightly coloured individual fireworks and where the boxes of Dairy Milk and Black Magic usualy sat on the shelves behind, there would be boxes of mixed fireworks.

On Bonfire Night, we would light the fire and our Dads would get out the boxes of Standard Fireworks, one box per family, they were expensive and we would set them off one box at a time so we could all watch each others.

Silver fountains which crackled and spat, Catherine wheels pinned to the fence which never spun properly, volcano's spewing slowly, ric-racks which jumped about and sparklers you could hold in your hand, they were a kind of magic. Mums and Grans would hand out treacle toffee and parkin and the air would be hazy with the black powder and smoke.

The next day we kids would try to bake potatoes in the embers of the great fire, they would char on the outside and be raw in the middle but we ate them anyway. We would hunt for spent rockets and fireworks to throw on the embers to make a few extra bangs.

I miss my Dad and simple communal Bonfire Nights.

Comments

[designgeek.livejournal.com]

What wonderful memories! :-)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Your description of family fireworks and parkin really brings back the memories. Isn't it odd how certain foods get linked to particular occasions.

[kateaw]

I've been thinking back to my childhood Bonfire Nights over the last few days too. I remember waving sparklers with my big sister to try and write our names, rockets in milk bottles, Katharine Wheels, Roman Candles and my little sister watching from indoors because she was too young to join in.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

This is WONDERFUL.

[frostfox.livejournal.com]

Yep, rockets went in milk bottles and went up and went whoosh and pfhutt and bang, sparkle, if you were very lucky.

No little rockets now, big, cat scaring rockets. No milk bottles either.
Everything changes.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

What an evocative description. Unfortunately, I grew up in The Land of Litigation and therefore have no similar memories to share :->

[eleyan.livejournal.com]

ah, sparklers. Loved them, and I don't think I ever heard of anyone having an accident with one, although I suppose you could poke your eye out if you were determined.
There was something similar up in the horse paddock behind the houses where I lived as a child, I don't know how many years we had a communal fire. It might have even been only one, but such a one that you've brought it all back, all those kids running round delirious with excitement.
And I, too, have a nervous cat sat Right Next to Me, As Close As He Can Get.

[frostfox.livejournal.com]

Max is actually doing quite well.
He's not happy when the bangs happen but he's happily pottering about and killing beanie babies when it goes quiet. Actually, I haven't heard a peep from fireworks for at least an hour.

This is a *very* quiet area.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

Does the UK now fit that description? I know that in '70 stationed in the UK we US types would loved to set off fireworks, many of the locals partied with us but the base AP still got calls of complaints. Another thing, way back when ('68 was when I first went to the UK) on most UK roads the speed limit was "Reasonble and Safe". When did this chage to speed cams everywhere and low limits (100 kph) on the M system?

[highstone.livejournal.com]

Truly, domestic firework displays are a thing around which some of my fondest childhood memories turn. In the 60s, certain interesting fireworks were not yet prohibited - such as 'jumping crackers' - the unpredictability of their explosive motion helped the joyous squeels of laughter that seemed a necessary part of 'Bonfire Night'. I noticed you called them 'ric-racs' a colloquial term I've not heard until now, in London they were either 'jumping Jacks or 'jumping crackers'

I do recall me and my contemporaries rushing round the bonfire, sparklers in hand, and wearing grotesque papier-mache masks (skulls/guy-fawkes faces and such), it all seems in retrospect a bit, well, pagan...

[frostfox.livejournal.com]

Gosh, can't imagine why!

FF ;-)

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Being in the middle of summer we had to always be careful about the fireworks and sparklers on the 4th of July. But still we got to play with them when I was a child, but there was never the communal aspect. I lived in the middle of nowhere, or close to it, so there were no neighbors to do fireworks with. So I associate the smell of burning black powder and brimstone with family events to be followed up with a pie.

It would be neat sometime to come when I could perhaps take part in a bonfire night, at least as much as a visitor from h'merica could anyways.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

And treacle toffee.

Does anyone even sell it any more?

[armb.livejournal.com]

70mph limit on motorways was originally introduced in 1965 and re-introduced in 1977.
Private fireworks are still legal, but most people just go to big public ones.
(When I was young, we had the village ones in the paddock at the bottom of our garden. I don't think that village has its own display now.)

[djelibeybi.livejournal.com]

You've described my childhood "bonfire nights" almost to a tee. We had waste land behind our street (they called it The Green but it wasn't). We had baked potatoes, sometimes bangers (sausages) in buns and a couple of groups of houses would club together for their fireworks. One of the fathers would co-ordinate the groups letting them off nice and slowly so's they'd last longer.

The Guy would've been dragged round the streets for weeks beforehand and sat outside the local shops to collect pennies towards the event.

When the council cut The Green in the summer, we kids would play cowboys and indians lying on our bellies behind big heaps of grass that we'd spent ages collecting and arranging into a fort. A very low-level fort admittedly, but still.

[djelibeybi.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd mis-remembered wearing the outfits so edited that bit out. Now I know I'm not the only one.

You may have thought there wasn't a speed limit...

[malwen.livejournal.com]

...because our signage is madly designed to confuse furriners.

Per the Association of British Drivers

Diagram 671, sometimes known as the 'derestriction' sign, has the international meaning 'end of maximum speed limit'. In the UK, however, it has been given the meaning 'national speed limit applies'.

[frostfox.livejournal.com]

Our corner shop does, but then I live in t'frozen north.

FF

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Are you coming to Novacon? [g]

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

That's a very evocative description and reminds me of my own childhood.

Thank you.

[aunty_marion]

Treacle toffee? Mek thi' own, mate!