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I remember when fireworks were fun. Shortly before Bonny night the shops would begin to display the fantastic and colourful boxes of fireworks. Inside they had displays from which you could buy fireworks individually and build up your collection until the big night arrived.

Brands such as:

Standard

Benwell

Astra

Lion

Brocks

You could buy fantastic bangers in different sizes such as the penny banger, the cannon or the 3-2-1-zero. We made banger guns out of a piece of conduit pipe, bunged up at one end with a piece of wood. Light banger, insert fizzing end first and follow with a ball bearing....point at friend or other target and BANG! out came banger preceded by marble or ball bearing (why were we never killed?). Other daft tricks included firing Roman candles at each other, held in the hand of course.

There were Glittering cascades, Vesuvius, Jack-in-the-boxes, Catherine wheels, Traffic lights, Jumping jacks and all manner of coloured flares to be had, many of which were designed to be held in the hand and all for pocket money prices.

then would come the big night when a huge fire was lit on a piece of waste ground and folk from around the neighbourhood brought their fireworks and a great time was had by all. I know there were accidents but by-and-large it was one of the highlights of the year.

Happy days.

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How the devil have you managed to get to be the age that you are Col, I thought I was being wreckless eating three shredded wheat   Rog

You be careful Rog, next thing you'll be eating after 8 mints before 8 o'clock.

Having spent a stressful night trying to calm two terrified dogs I would cheerfully insert the fireworks into the place where the sun doesn't shine and give the big bang brigade a bonfire night to rem

We used to put "Air Bomb Repeaters" in a piece of drainpipe, bung up one end with cloth and sludge light firework, throw down pipe , hoist onto shoulder, point at 'freinds', Pow! instant bazooka !!

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Friends and I also made a 'gun' from some piping and the gunpowder from a few bangers, cue one friend with no eyebrows left afterwards...

Here's a strange one. A few of us used to go out searching for the dead carcasses of fireworks the next day - I'm really not sure why.

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go out searching for the dead carcasses of fireworks the next day.

I used to do that, but only for dead rockets. They were slightly glamorous compared to the other stuff.

And I also used to collect Banger Caps - small plastic red things which went on the fuse end of a banger when you got it from a shop

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I used to do that too. It must be some kind of hankering for the night before. Last year I found a spent rocket cascase by the roadside on my way to work. I stuck the stick in the ground by the fenceline and said hello to it everyday as I walked past - daft or what?!

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When my otherhalf was a kid he lived in the country and he used to throw penny bangers in cow dung then run like mad

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We used to search for the fireworks that had not gone of in daylight.

Much more dangerous to light as there was no fuse, and not so effective in daylight.

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They were called 'firedon'tworks' no fun at all.................................. no2 this is the only emo' that works in my page, sad isn't it?

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When my otherhalf was a kid he lived in the country and he used to throw penny bangers in cow dung then run like mad

Just had a note from a friend who now lives in France. He used to insert the largest bangers he could find into cow pats.

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  • 5 years later...

Seen on the news that a couples bungalow in Derby has been virtually destroyed after a rocket crashed through the roof and exploded.

Also, several extremely brave teenagers tied a firework to a cat, which died when the firework exploded. Wish I could do the same to them. 

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Disgusting cowardly bunch of jerks.  They need to feel the pain.  Seems like that's the only thing they understand.

 

Re.  the rocket.  I don't recall they were powerful enough to to do that in our day.  Sounds more like a shoulder fired missile.

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Well there was certainly about a quarter of the tiled roof missing, and the loft almost completely gutted.

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Loppy some of the stuff on sale today would make your eyes water. Anyone can buy display type fireworks and they don't seem to mind spending the money. I was up JTF Warehouse the other day, it's a discount warehouse that is now open to anyone and to see £300 worth on a trolley was not unusual. I doubt if they were for resale as they were all large type made in China.

 

To give you an idea there were rockets with 6ft sticks the business end 3" diameter and 8 or 9 inches long, like you say more like a 66mm shoulder launched missile than fireworks. Another favourite seems to be the 100 shot bomb, this will shoot exploding stars in to the air one after another 100 times. Bloody ridiculous........

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49 minutes ago, FLY2 said:

 

Also, several extremely brave teenagers tied a firework to a cat, which died when the firework exploded. Wish I could do the same to them. 

Couldn't put a notification on your post, that is a horrible thing to do to a defenceless  little animal. Makes you wonder what kind of home they come from obviously have no morals, no wonder this country is going to hell in a hand basket.

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Was in a garden centre near Doncaster on Sunday, and a guy bought one rocket. £100. Utter lunacy.

it was seriously like a shoulder mounted missile launcher, with what looked like it's own special tube. No milk bottle would have held that I can tell you. I reckon it could easily have crossed the channel or brought down a light aircraft.

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Its been many a long year since I ever bought fireworks.  I do remember the biggest rocket you could get in the  fifties was about 2 feet long including the stick.  Body of the rocket about 6 inches long and diameter about 1 inch.  I don't think it could have ever broken through a roof.  Especially the slate roofs around us.  Whatever happened to common sense.  I'm not suggesting its any better here.  Just never bought any and don't have any desire to.  We would be more vulnerable because most roofs are asphalt shingles on top of plywood. 

 

I didn't hit like for your post NBL.  The post is fine, but I sure don't like the thought of that kind of artillery flying around.

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I used to love fireworks.  Even made my own.  I was just as fascinated by the chemistry as I was by the twinkly lights. Made 'Banger Guns' and even the odd but very unpredictable rocket using ****** ******** and ***** soaked into newspaper.

 

Thing is that I think fireworks are often now just too antisocial.  Even worse IMHO are Helium Balloons and 'Hot Air' 'Lanterns which were a quite difficult thing to build when we were kids,  (Thin iron wire, tissue paper and a bit of meths soaked cotton wool) but can now be had for a few pence.

 

Thing is.. they all land somewhere.

 

As was rightly pointed out on NW telly tonight.. If I just dropped all this stuff in the street, I'd be done for littering.  But sending it into the sky somehow exempts me..

 

Odd.

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Agree with you about these lantern/balloon thingy's Col, the farmers around here get rate uptight about them, setting fire to hay/straw bails even livestock swallowing them with an expensive vet bill to follow, as you say they have to land somewhere but not from where they came

 

Rog

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More cheap crap undoubtedly from China. When will we as a nation wise up and not be taken in by cheap, dangerous and mostly unnecessary junk from the Far East !

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Same here, Fly.  I don't know if you have Wal Mart over there but that is where most of the stuff in the store comes from.  Mind you, that is probably true of a lot of stores these days.  I guess that's where all our jobs went. :mellow:

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