Day to Day happenings in my life

Penny for the guy?

Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 3540 July 2, 2024
How do you feel about fireworks? Should they be available to everyone or only professionals

I am ambivalent about fireworks now. But when I was a kid in England we had firework night on the fifth of November. This commemorated the night that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament .

They were freely available to purchase and we’d save all our pocket money to get as many as we could. If you had enough you could buy a selection box of fireworks.
My grandma would make bonfire toffee which would just about break your teeth!
For months we’d collect stuff to burn to make the biggest bonfire ever seen, in our gardens.

We’d make an effigy of Guy Fawkes and wheel him around in an old pram, asking people to give us money to buy fireworks. “Penny for the Guy!” we’d shout out. The best spot was outside the pub when the men would come out a bit worse for wear.

The weather was usually frosty and we couldn’t wait for it to go dark so we could light the bonfire, then Dad would set off the fireworks. There’d be rockets flying high into the night sky and lots of Ooh’s and Ahh’s from everyone as the Catherine Wheels spun around madly and the Penny bangers made everyone jump in fright when some naughty child would drop one behind an unexpecting Granny! This was the highlight of my year.

Rules are such now that fireworks aren’t available to buy, well certainly not in Australia.
The City usually puts on a massive display on New Years Eve, costing millions of dollars. Watching them now does nothing for me and I just tend to think it’s a waste of money and so much could have been done with it.

The smell of smoke in the air on a winter’s night still reminds me of Bonfire Night. It’s then the memories of my Grandma’s toffee, the excitement of the weeks leading up to it, the making of the Guy and watching him burn on top of the bonfire come flooding back.
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