Friday 6 November 2015

Born to burn


It obviously wasn't raining in Ambridge last night, because little Henry's hand was burned by a spent sparkler before it had a chance to cool down when he picked it up from the ground. You only have to turn your back for a moment, and - just as Rob predicted - this sort of thing is bound to happen. Helen's confinement will be even more confined because of the little bastard now.

I used to love the day after bonfire night almost as much as I loved the night itself. I would wander about looking for spent fireworks, and pick them up to sniff the delicious smell of toasted sulphur and salt petre, sometimes taking them indoors to sniff before the rain got to them and they lost their perfume.

My obsession with fireworks lasted for a long time - it is only in the last 5 or 6 years that the magic has gone out of it for me. I even had a job which involved setting them off once. When I was a kid, my excitement was tinged with guilt and worry about panicking birds and animals though, and I put this down to my sister, who could think and talk of little else during displays.

Rather like a municipal display itself, my fascination reached a peak with the largest of arial mortars - the biggest, the loudest, and the ones which took up half of the sky when they reached their zenith and the end of their working lives.

The largest one of these I ever saw was in Amsterdam, and the chrysanthemum bloom hung there for a full 30 seconds before tinkling away to nothing, leaving an almost nuclear mushroom-cloud in its place which hung there for another 5 minutes. That must have been a 30 incher.

I started off with coloured matches - remember those? I loved them. One of the strangest things I have learned about fireworks is how they make the whistles. You would think that the whistle comes from the gasses being forced through an actual whistle, wouldn't you? In fact, the noise comes from burning aspirin.

14 comments:

  1. Being a fellow Surrey lad, Bonfire Night was the biggest festival of the year; bigger even than Christmas. Our village had a huge torch-lit procession, and we all dressed up. Our gardener used to make the main village Guy, and always made a smaller one for me too.

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    1. Abinger Hammer used to have a good display.

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    2. I used to live near Abinger Hammer.

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  2. I stepped on a red hot sparkler once and a firecracker exploded in my hand. Dangerous things. I'm surprised the government hasn't banned them for our sake. Fireworks lobbyists must have a lot of money. I still love to watch them.

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  3. My family always had fireworks on Christmas Eve when I was little. One year my evil older cousin, Brian, talked me into setting off a pack of Jumping Jacks by myself, and I spent Christmas with a burned hand that year.

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  4. You are a mine of information of fireworks Tom, while I do not care for them at all. In fact I would go so far as to say that I am quite scared of the large, noisy ones and am always glad when bonfire night is behind us.

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    1. There is a firework called, 'Mine of Information'. You would want that going off behind you, Weave.

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  5. Love them but not more than once a year. In France they seem to set fire to them for any excuse, 14 July and any village 'do' mid week or Saturday night.
    Generally one person in the village is trained to take charge, we don't just buy them at a sweety shop!

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    1. Spain is worse, and utterly unregulated. They are mad.

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  6. I liked Catherine Wheels and the emphasis in general was on pretty colours and the burning aspirin noise and a big bonfire and sausages and baked potatoes and sparklers. Now the emphasis appears to be on noise that have to be as loud as bombs going off. I don't like fireworks anymore.

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    1. Yes, I have gone off noise too. They don't have to be really loud to look good.

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