Bonfire Night when you was a kid, what did you do?

[trt]

I remember when I was a kid and along with the neighbouring kids we used to build a big bonfire on a croft behind my house which was about 20 foot high with the wood we had collected or stolen for months.

We always had a guy Fawkes in a pram/chair near the shops to collect money for bangers or rip-raps weeks before and, most people used to give a few penny's. You never see this anymore.

We had toffee apples, black treacle and used to cook jacket potatoes on the bonfire with old wire coat hangers or sticks, and let off our own fireworks without parents being there.

I don't ever remember anybody getting hurt but, we wouldn't have noticed anyway because everybody was so excited.

The morning after we used to go back to the bonfire before school and look for fireworks that hadn't gone off..... great days!

[ummmm]

Before my time....

[JonnyBoy12]

How many years ago was this, trt? This may have been before my time also.

[Andyvon]

Yes they were trt. Don't forget wrapping your hands around a cup of steaming tomato soup and eating hot dogs while watching the fire! We weren't allowed to go out with a Guy Fawkes dummy though - my father alwasy told us it was "a form of begging". Spoilsport!

[Caran]

trt that all sounds so familiar to me, are you from oop north by any chance

[trt]

In the late 50s.

[ummmm]

My Mum would have been a little 'un then....

[trt]

Yes carandrog, Old Trafford, Manchester but, now in Suffolk.

[missprim]

Nov 5th, my birthday. Invite friends round for tea and birthday cake then they would all leave to go to the bonfire but I never went as I was and still am scared stiff of fireworks and bonfires.So I would look at the bonfire on the croft at the back of our house and would cry because I wanted to be there with all my friends.

[missprim]

I was born and bred in Old Trafford still live in Manchester. What was the name of your street trt?

[Caran]

I was born in Pendlebury, Manchester, we had some wonderful bonfires in the 50's don't forget parkin.

[slinkycat]

wasn't allowed to do it myself, but remember other kids with their guys in old prams or on their go-carts, that would have been late 60's early 70's

[Buenchico]

My mother would have done her nut if I'd been out asking for a penny for the guy! That had nothing to do with child protection issues; she simply regarded it as something only done by 'common' children, and we were (in my mother's eyes anyway) far too posh for that, even though we lived on a council estate!

Bonfire night was something I always looked forward to but it always seemed to go too quickly, the fireworks were never as good as they were meant to be and I was usually shivering in the cold. (I loved the sparklers though!).

I don't remember ever having any special food.

Later, in my teens, my friends and I did a lot of experimenting with bangers. For example did you know that they'll still explode underwater if you light them first? We had great fun damning streams and then blowing up the damns with lots of bangers. (Perhaps I'd better keep quiet about the nitroglycerine which we made some considerably bigger explosions with when we were in the 6th form!)

[Buenchico]

You're in Suffolk, Trt?

How the hell did you get a visa and a residence permit? We're very fussy about who we let in, you know ;-)

[vulcan]

About the same time as you trt, health and safety hadn't become such a big issue. Our headmaster told us we could take fireworks to school but only on a specified day, no doubt thinking the teachers could supervise us. They had forgotten the ingenuity of several hundred schoolboys. We made parachutes out of our handkerchiefs and tied bangers to them. These were tossed in the air and designed to explode at head height amongst the teachers. They beat a hasty retreat to the staff room and we got on with re enacting the war. The strange thing nobody got hurt and it became an annual event, ah happy days.

[Ann]

I loved the "pretty" fireworks called Golden Rain, Snow storm, Mount Vesuvius, Roman Candles but hated the Jump Jacks (squibs) and the penny bangers which my Dad used to put under a metal dustbin lid to sound louder! My favourites were the hand held sparklers where my brother and I used to write our names in the air with the sparkles, Catherine wheels attached to the wall or shed (which dad had to keep knocking round while lit as they refused to turn, to give the full effect - tut tut health and safety I hear you say! Sky rockets stood in glass milk bottles which soared high over our back yard never to be seen again so we missed the explosion of coloured stars! As my birthday is on Nov 7th my Mum & Dad always saved half the box of fireworks (cost about 5 shillings and made by Brocks or Standard) to have after my birthday party. We used to press our noses to the window (not allowed outside in the yard while Dad was lighting the fireworks with long tapers) and our dog stayed by our side being comforted....... Ah, those were the days (in the 1950s) What memories!

[Ann]

We had home made black treacle toffee (so hard Mum had to smash with a hammer!)and toffee apples which we helped Mum make in the afternoon when we got home from school.

[trt]

missprim, I lived in Byrom street off Stamford street not far from Whalley Range, where abouts were you?

[missprim]

I lived off Cornbrook St and went to Stretford Rd infant and junior school then Seymour Park Secondary School.

[trt]

Blimey missprim I know Cornbrook St and I went to Stretford Rd infant and junior school.
I used to have a girlfriend at Seymour Park Secondary School, her sister became a film star! cant think of her name at the mo.

What a small world?

[missprim]

Was her name janet Ritchie? Her sister June was in the film Saturday night and Sunday morning. I probably walked down your street on the way to Seymour Park. I definitely went down Langshaw St and knew a few people from around there.