Penny for the Guy

Wednesday was a lovely evening and I went to an organised bonfire, there were jacket potatoes (done in the oven), hot dogs (done in the microwave) and soup (probably out of a packet), fireworks and glow sticks. The children had more fun running up and down the hill in the dark, the fire and the fireworks were a backdrop to their own little games. Bonfire night 2009 did not resemble the atmospheric bonfires of my past, harking back to the 70’s and 80’s.

It would start in early October; a patch of ground at the end of our street was designated as the spot for the bonny. We would scour the local streets and collect wood, old furniture, cardboard from the factory bins, tyres, anything that we could get our hands on that was combustible. Toxic fumes and health and safety had not been invented, so if it could be carried, it was ours for the bonny. We’d build a den in the centre of the bonfire and somebody would be on duty to guard it from raids.

We often went on after dark raids to other bonfires to nick their booty and whilst we were off on manoeuvres, no doubt another gang would be looting ours. There was no anti-social behaviour in the 70’s; we were busy ensuring our bonfire was bigger than anyone else’s.

We’d also make a guy out of an old jumper and trousers with a plastic mask for the face and push it around in somebody’s Silver Cross pram. We’d position ourselves near the corner shop asking for “penny for the guy” and then hot foot it down to the bus stop when the bus came along trying to cadge a few more coppers. Somebody’s dad would buy the fireworks and we’d keep them in an old biscuit tin, looking at them in amazement and wonder; traffic lights, Catherine wheels, roman candles, fountains and bangers.

On the evening of the bonfire, the entire street gathered, from grandmas, mums and dads to tiny tots. The fire would be poked in an attempt to rid it of hedgehogs, somebody with a telly had seen this on Blue Peter, and so it had to be done. The fire would be lit and we’d put jacket spuds into the fire to cook in the embers, mums would pass round toffee made from recipes passed down through the centuries... There would be an old tarpaulin strung up between lampposts and hastily put together wallpaper tables were ladened with sausages in bread buns, thick homemade soup in mugs, sticky parkin and parkin pigs. If it rained the mugs would get welded to the wallpaper tables, due to the old paste…

The older kids would light the fireworks, we would be stood right next to them when whoosh a rocket whizzed into the sky, none of this safety tape cordon malarkey. It was dangerous, exciting and fun! The fireworks I remember in my head were louder, bigger and brighter but in reality I doubt that very much. My memory is much more vivid. We’d have pockets of sparklers and try to write our name before they fizzled out.

At the end of the evening, the jacket potatoes would be cooked and we’d hold them in mittened hands to keep warm, once cooled we would eat them with our fingers with lashings of real butter and salt.

You’d smell smoky and have red rosy cheeks through the bitter cold, but we didn’t have time for a bath, it would be straight into bed to get warm. The next morning you’d hunt for dead firework shells and rockets were prized trophies to show and tell at school during circle time. At 3 o’clock you’d dash home to stoke the embers and kick half burnt bits of wood back into the hot ashes and re-live the experience.