Light my fire
New Year Fireworks/GDJ/clipart
As I sit here, the world outside is banging and crashing with the wonderful sound of safe explosives. The night sky is bursting with sparks and flashes. Fireworks – I love them and can’t get enough of them. When I was a kid we only saw them once a year, on November 5th, so there was a huge build up to Guy Fawkes’ night. Public displays were rare, and my abiding memory is of watching my father lining up rockets in empty milk bottles and lighting one, then shouting to us all to stand back, and our heads craned upwards as we gazed at the rocket’s spectacular trajectory. Only when all the sparks had faded from our vision did the process begin again. Forget multiple simultaneous launches; this was a linear progress with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end, which always followed the same pattern.
After every third rocket we got a Catherine Wheel; now these were fun, as there was always the possibility that Dad might not have secured them to the tree, and they might spin off into the night, increasing the sense of danger and risk that my parents were trying so hard to control. Actually, in all the years of garden festivities I only remember this happening once. We stood at the other end of the garden, clutching our sparklers, the only thing we were allowed to touch. The evening always ended with baked potatoes and baked apples – delicious.
Nowadays, we get treated to displays almost as soon as the clocks go back and the days start to shorten, and there are plenty of occasions to celebrate in wonderful multi-cultural Britain. As well as November 5th we have Divali, New Year’s Eve and Chinese New Year, to name a few, and for good measure we Londoners get fireworks over the Thames at the Mayor’s summer festival.
There are so many things I didn’t know or had forgotten about fireworks, so here are a few:
- The first fireworks may have been chunks of green bamboo which exploded with a loud bang when thrown on a fire in China some 2000 years ago. The bangs were thought to keep evil spirits away.
- The explosive element of a firework is a combination of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre.
- It is believed that the Italians were the first Europeans to master the art of making fireworks.
- The first recorded fireworks in England were at the wedding of Henry VII in 1486.
- Queen Elisabeth 1 was so keen on fireworks that she created the post of ‘Firemaster of England’.
- Handel composed the Music for the Royal Fireworks in 1749 at the behest of King George II for the great fireworks display celebrating the signing of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which concluded the War of the Austrian Succession on October 18, 1748.
- Pyrotechnical competitions are held all over the world. The ‘Festival of Fireworks’ was celebrated this year at Catton Hall, Derbyshire – marking the sixteenth year of such a competition.
And finally:
- The largest Catherine Wheel was 25.95 meters in diameter; it was designed by the Newick Bonfire Society and fired for at least one revolution in October 1999.
Now there’s a reason for keeping the pets indoors.