Back in the days before games consoles and PCs the closest you got to the Burnout or Need For Speed series involved Dinky or Matchbox cars and a lot of imagination. If you were really, really lucky your dad might have convinced your mum that a Scalextric or TCR set was what you wanted for Christmas so he could play too. An FPS usually involved running round a local bombsite, scrubland, park or the local churchyard firing at your mates with an assortment of cap guns and as for huge explosions, you only got those in war films…unless you were a ten year old with an unhealthy obsession in militaria and making things go ‘BOOM’. As mentioned before on here, my friend Dave and I both had that particular unhealthy obsession. I’m not sure what his excuse was but I still blame my granddad.
One bonfire night in the mid 70s Dave’s wheeler-dealer of a dad got hold of a quantity of Chinese fireworks from one of his contacts. In those days Chinese fireworks were a bit of a novelty sold in a rare few shops. Most of us made do with boxes of Astra, Brocks or Standard, nothing as exotic as these and tame stuff unless you count the time one nearly set fire to the conservatory. Usually it was only the rich kids down the road whose parents could afford them that got them on Bonfire Night, not that we did not reap the benefits too as we could see their display by standing on the garden wall and peering over the fence.
Unfortunately the provenance of these particular oriental fireworks could not quite be ascertained and to say that they were a little on the duff side would have been an understatement. About 70% of them failed to bang and sparkle as sensible fireworks are supposed to. These were thrown to one side and forgotten about as us kids stuffed our faces with the party food on offer.
However, come the following day Dave and I were poking through the detritus of the previous night as bored kids are wont to do when we discovered the huge pile of dud fireworks that had been thrown aside. Back then bonfire nights were, on the whole not conducted in the pouring rain as global warming had not yet been invented so the explosive contents of the brightly coloured tubes was quite dry albeit slightly chilled. It appeared that the cause of non-detonation was quite simply rubbish blue touch paper that had failed to convey the fire to the powder. Of course, the next thought was obvious, “Why not make our own firework?”
So we did.
Nearby was a row of local shops, this being the days when such things existed and they had not all been turned into trendy wine bars and coffee shops. One of them was a haberdashers shop selling everything from buttons to huge rolls of material. A swift raid on the bins at the back procured us an empty cardboard tube left over from a roll of material and in the case of Dave, a pair of ripped jeans as we scrambled back over the wall. Back at his dads shed we bunged one end up with a cardboard disk and best part of a roll of masking tape, filled the tube with the gunpowder mix from all the other fireworks with no thought of what they had originally been supposed to do, rockets, fountains, Roman candles, they all went into the mix. The original fireworks were pretty chunky affairs and nowadays would probably have large warnings on them about retreating at least fifty metres if not several streets away or even the next county just to be really safe so there was a lot of gunpowder and ‘stuff’ (‘stuff’ being a technical term known only to ten year old boys and used to describe most chemical compounds and the green slime found in water butts). Once we had filled the tube up with the gunpowder mix and given it a bit of a tamp down we then trimmed the tube down, covered the other end with a circle of cardboard and a lot more masking tape and added a bit of blue touch paper adulterated with some scraped matches and a bit of leftover gunpowder.
The ‘Atomic Fireball’ as it was grandly named was ready. Now we had to find somewhere to let it off in peace and quiet. It was decided that the churchyard was the ideal place as we could hide behind the buttresses whilst setting it up. It was a quiet area and passing cars were a rarity back in those days.
Dave managed to steal some matches from the kitchen whilst I distracted his mum and we set off. A few minutes later we were in position and ready for go. After a bit of “You do it!”, “No! You do it!” the blue touch paper was lit and we retreated to a safe distance, about fifteen feet, expecting a few pops and a lot of sparks. We were not ready for the 10 foot high jet of flame and sparks accompanied by vast amounts of smoke that erupted from it.
Standing amidst swirling smoke reminiscent of London pea soupers of the 1950s our trousers went a little bit brown as the flame scorched a black mark up the side of the church. It looked like Beelzebub himself had farted up the side of the building. The look that passed between us said it all, “Oh…arse!”
If this obvious affront to God, that was bound to get us excommunicated from Sunday school should the vicar discover the culprits was not bad enough, at that moment the local policeman rounded the corner by the far end of the church. Now, this being a gentler time before international terrorism, crack cocaine and body armour we might have expected a Dixon of Dock Green style “Ello! Ello! What’s going on here then lads?” or some such gentle enquiry to ascertain the nature of our crime. Instead we got a slightly more earthy yell of
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
A yell that was a touch more ‘Sweeney’ than ‘Dixon’ and one that hinted at dire punishments to come. At this point our trousers went several shades browner than they had been before and we decided that discretion was the better part of valour. We ran, scaling the seven foot high spiked railings that surrounded the churchyard in seconds before fleeing for our lives. The rest of the day was spent hiding in an empty garage on a local estate, convinced that it was next stop Borstal and we would never be able to bend down in the showers again.
One bonfire night in the mid 70s Dave’s wheeler-dealer of a dad got hold of a quantity of Chinese fireworks from one of his contacts. In those days Chinese fireworks were a bit of a novelty sold in a rare few shops. Most of us made do with boxes of Astra, Brocks or Standard, nothing as exotic as these and tame stuff unless you count the time one nearly set fire to the conservatory. Usually it was only the rich kids down the road whose parents could afford them that got them on Bonfire Night, not that we did not reap the benefits too as we could see their display by standing on the garden wall and peering over the fence.
Unfortunately the provenance of these particular oriental fireworks could not quite be ascertained and to say that they were a little on the duff side would have been an understatement. About 70% of them failed to bang and sparkle as sensible fireworks are supposed to. These were thrown to one side and forgotten about as us kids stuffed our faces with the party food on offer.
However, come the following day Dave and I were poking through the detritus of the previous night as bored kids are wont to do when we discovered the huge pile of dud fireworks that had been thrown aside. Back then bonfire nights were, on the whole not conducted in the pouring rain as global warming had not yet been invented so the explosive contents of the brightly coloured tubes was quite dry albeit slightly chilled. It appeared that the cause of non-detonation was quite simply rubbish blue touch paper that had failed to convey the fire to the powder. Of course, the next thought was obvious, “Why not make our own firework?”
So we did.
Nearby was a row of local shops, this being the days when such things existed and they had not all been turned into trendy wine bars and coffee shops. One of them was a haberdashers shop selling everything from buttons to huge rolls of material. A swift raid on the bins at the back procured us an empty cardboard tube left over from a roll of material and in the case of Dave, a pair of ripped jeans as we scrambled back over the wall. Back at his dads shed we bunged one end up with a cardboard disk and best part of a roll of masking tape, filled the tube with the gunpowder mix from all the other fireworks with no thought of what they had originally been supposed to do, rockets, fountains, Roman candles, they all went into the mix. The original fireworks were pretty chunky affairs and nowadays would probably have large warnings on them about retreating at least fifty metres if not several streets away or even the next county just to be really safe so there was a lot of gunpowder and ‘stuff’ (‘stuff’ being a technical term known only to ten year old boys and used to describe most chemical compounds and the green slime found in water butts). Once we had filled the tube up with the gunpowder mix and given it a bit of a tamp down we then trimmed the tube down, covered the other end with a circle of cardboard and a lot more masking tape and added a bit of blue touch paper adulterated with some scraped matches and a bit of leftover gunpowder.
The ‘Atomic Fireball’ as it was grandly named was ready. Now we had to find somewhere to let it off in peace and quiet. It was decided that the churchyard was the ideal place as we could hide behind the buttresses whilst setting it up. It was a quiet area and passing cars were a rarity back in those days.
Dave managed to steal some matches from the kitchen whilst I distracted his mum and we set off. A few minutes later we were in position and ready for go. After a bit of “You do it!”, “No! You do it!” the blue touch paper was lit and we retreated to a safe distance, about fifteen feet, expecting a few pops and a lot of sparks. We were not ready for the 10 foot high jet of flame and sparks accompanied by vast amounts of smoke that erupted from it.
Standing amidst swirling smoke reminiscent of London pea soupers of the 1950s our trousers went a little bit brown as the flame scorched a black mark up the side of the church. It looked like Beelzebub himself had farted up the side of the building. The look that passed between us said it all, “Oh…arse!”
If this obvious affront to God, that was bound to get us excommunicated from Sunday school should the vicar discover the culprits was not bad enough, at that moment the local policeman rounded the corner by the far end of the church. Now, this being a gentler time before international terrorism, crack cocaine and body armour we might have expected a Dixon of Dock Green style “Ello! Ello! What’s going on here then lads?” or some such gentle enquiry to ascertain the nature of our crime. Instead we got a slightly more earthy yell of
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
A yell that was a touch more ‘Sweeney’ than ‘Dixon’ and one that hinted at dire punishments to come. At this point our trousers went several shades browner than they had been before and we decided that discretion was the better part of valour. We ran, scaling the seven foot high spiked railings that surrounded the churchyard in seconds before fleeing for our lives. The rest of the day was spent hiding in an empty garage on a local estate, convinced that it was next stop Borstal and we would never be able to bend down in the showers again.
