FireWorks

November 3rd and the house is surrounded by bangs, wizzes, shooshes and cracklings as people enjoy fireworks. Luckily Trixi is not too bothered by the bangs although she gets a bit spooked if she notices the lights. On our walk tonight I noticed that the sheep in the field we walk past were all on their feet and bunched together. They seemed to feel apprehensive about the loud and unusual noises.

I remember as a child being mesmerised by the Catherine wheels and roman candles, far tamer than the fireworks of today, they produced arks and fountains of coloured sparks. I used to try drawing them, one way I had was too cover a piece of paper in different coloured wax crayoning and then cover the whole piece in thick black paint. Once this was dry you could scrape off the black paint to reveal the colours underneath, like a scraper board. I never felt my efforts were satisfactory. I remember going to the village bonfire and having hot dogs and being well wrapped up. Communal bonfires seemed to be more popular, and we rarely had fireworks at home, although we were allowed sparklers. You could use them to write your name against the black sky.

At eleven I went away to boarding school, and we always had a big fire and spectacular fire works. Mr Ilife (froggy) the music teacher was always in charge of the fireworks. Baked potatoes wrapped in silver foil were cooked in the embers of the fire, one for everybody. It was always a good night, and I remember being in tears at the end of the night during my last year because it was the last firework night. It was the culmination of a fortnight of high excitement at school, which included the return to school from the half term break, and then we always had a Halloween party which was fancy dress followed by the fireworks on the Saturday nearest the 5th, a good start to the run up to Christmas. For Halloween the first year girls were given the job of hollowing out turnips, no pumpkins in those days, this task was done in the girls changing rooms and the smell of turnip lingered for weeks afterwards.

Since school I haven’t had much to do with fireworks, my last dog used to get terrified of any loud noises and since fireworks started to go off from the middle of October and continue well into November taking her for walks was a bit of a nightmare and I used to feel very stressed. In recent years though the letting off of fireworks appears to be concentrated to the weekend around the fifth.