I don't remember the last time I went to an organised bonfire night display. I have a feeling it may have been back in Cheddar when I was a child. In the past few years I have occasionally been to people's back gardens and seen amateur misplays(displays is too professional a word). On one memorable occasion the actor Marc Bannerman nearly wiped out the entire Sawalha clan when one of his poorly erected fireworks fell on its side and started popping towards us. But hey, the danger of losing an eye is all part of the fun.
So I was getting weird nostalgic feelings as I headed down to a drizzly Ravenscourt Park to see the fireworks. When I was a kid my mum and me would always make a tray of toffee to take down to the display. I remember when I was about ten I was looking forward to doing all this again when my mum revealed she was going to going to miss bonfire night because she had to go into hospital for an operation. I remember crying partly because I was worried about my mum, but partly because we might not end up being able to make the toffee. Kids are horrible.
Or maybe just I was.
It was weird to be reminded so clearly of all this stuff from about 28 years ago. But as a kid these feast days and holidays seemed more significant and also it always felt like ages since the last one. Now Christmas and Easter and Bonfire Night seem to come along practically every week, but then the prospect of missing bonfire night felt like sleeping through the appearance of Halley's comet.
I suppose these festivals gave structure to your life. My nephew still treats Christmas very seriously and though I have only missed one Christmas dinner at my mum's in my entire life, he memorably said, "When Uncle Richard is 80, he's really going to regret missing that one year."
My mum (who survived the operation incidentally if you were worried) replied, "When Uncle Richard is 80 I think there's a chance I might not be making Christmas dinner anymore." All I can say is she'd better be, or I'll be having baked beans in front of the telly (or whatever we are being entertained by then).
Anyway, don't quite know what I'm trying to say here, but I suppose some of the old magic remained in the event. And it was good to see all the kids laughing and crying at the excellent display and knowing that there was a chance that this would be one of the things that they would remember in quarter of a century's time. Although personally I remember little more than the toffee and the way we all used to rush behind the rope at the end in the hope of finding the spent firework casing. Why we wanted them I don't know. I suppose it was a thrill to touch something that was so dangerous, even if it was now impotent. Who knows what was going on in our stupid child heads?
