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Remember remember
The fifth of November
Gunpowder,treason and plot. There can be few adults aged, well, my sort of age, who don’t have childhood memories of fireworks night. We were given, or earned, some pocket money and went to the local shop to buy roman candles, Catherine wheels, jumping jacks, and asked Da to help out to get one of those big exciting-looking rockets.
With the fireworks stashed in the cellar, Mum helped make the Guy – some old stockings stuffed with newspaper for the legs, a worn out vest or jumper stuffed with an old cushion for the body, and a coal sack stuffed with straw and a face drawn in charcoal for the head.
Job done and we took the Guy out on the street to get some pennies, for a few more jumping jacks and toffee apples.
Home and time to build the bonfire. My dad was a master of the fire, and he built it so carefully – a pyramid of wood on which to perch the Guy.
At the very end of the garden, the fire was skilfully lit. It smouldered slowly, started to take hold, and Da began to light the first fireworks.
Roman candles started the display, glorious colours cascading into the grass. Then there were the fountains – two, three feet of magic. A short break then for us to light our sparklers (while Da attended to the bonfire and made sure that the Guy was sitting nicely, ready for the finale), and we waved them round. Writing our names in the sky. Screaming with laughter as the cold sparks fell on our woollen mittens.
Then came the Catherine wheels. The day before Da put up wooden sticks so he could nail the fireworks safely. Blue, green, bright white colours swirled in front of us. We ate our toffee apples and clapped with soft gloved hands.
Waiting for the big moment, the moment when the Guy would go up in big flames, the moment when the rockets would be launched, we had the jumping jacks. All round the garden, under the bushes, under the laburnum tree, they leapt and banged and we screamed in surprise.
Then the denouement, the moment we’d been waiting for. Six milk bottles standing in a line. Each rocket waiting, two small, three medium and one great big one. The anticipation was intense.
Da lit the first two. Little whooshes. Just went over the garage roof, but green and red sparks. We went – wooh.
Next three – wow – over the wall, into Keble College gardens, and they weren’t just green and red, they were blue and white and very bright. We cheered, loudly.
Then we waited, literally with bated breath for the big one. The last three had been spectacular.
So two small girls, watch, mittened hands clasped, as Da approaches The Big One. The fuse is lit, suddenly a jumping jack we thought finished, leaps out from the undergrowth. The girls shriek, and miss the moment of launch. But a moment later the rocket starts to earn its money. First a whistle in the star night sky. A silence. Then a burst of golden showers, then green, then red. This rocket has cleared the walls, the nearest buildings and is blossoming in the velvet darkness of a November sky.
With a final burst of lemon-coloured tiny stars, the rocket dies. We don’t know where it fell, and we don’t care. The bonfire starts to die down. Watching the fireworks, we have missed the burning of the Guy. Da attends to the fire, making it safe, then hugs us, closely, says – was that fun? We hug him closely. It’s been the best, we say.
Mum’s back in the kitchen, looking after the pets and making sure there’s hot soup and baked potatoes for us all.
Now I’m the grown-up. And I hate the fireworks. All I care about now is making sure my cats are safe when the bangs start. Perhaps if I had children I would be less harsh. But when we were young, we didn’t tie jumping jacks to cats' tails or throw bangers at strangers in the street. We had a family thing, in our walled garden.
This year, however, I am moved with other thoughts. It is of course, coincidence that the US election has fallen at this time of year. It is coincidence that the BBC are doing a big historic series.
But you know, what is a coincidence? Someone else’s chance, or one of Humphrey Lyttleton’s Pot Noodles of Fate?
At the very moment that Barack Obama seems to usher the world into a new era, so we are reminded of the wish for ethnic cleansing that was the Gunpowder Plot. Fawkes and his co-conspirators were very clear on that. They didn’t just want to blow up parliament. They wanted London and England to be rid of all Scots.
And that is perhaps why Bonfire night is still remembered. Across these lands of Albion and Alba. Across the religions, because some burn the Guy because of Catholics, others because of politics.
Wouldn’t it be a great thing now, this year, if we stopped all that rubbish, and celebrated November the fifth for Obama’s victory. For a new era, and a more tolerant era for our generation and for those who come.
Remember remember
The fifth of November
The day we came of age
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