Bonfire Night - sums up why life is worse now.

[Arrrrrrragghhh]

Clearly shows how we have lost touch of real life experiences in favour of some weird commercialised version.

Bonfire night always was finding a house/ family/ venue with enough space for a bonfire on November 5th. Point of the bonfire was to be close enough to keep warm on a cold November night. Sounds, sights and smells of a big wood fire
People would bring fireworks. Everyone knew the name and type of the firework involved. Always the element of danger. Sparklers were a must. Numerous safety films at school and on TV so few injuries but enough to make you be respectful.
You would enjoy some specific bonfire foods - potatoes cooked in thd fire, posh black toffee, cheap hot dogs.

Gradually morphed into local organised events.Ok not so many people have big/any gardens. Still community led volunteering to help build or man a stall etc.

Now my local village is a ticket only event - no sales on the day. The day is a Saturday not the 5th. Food is commercial sellers from out of town and the same ones at every fair or event throughout thd year. No one allowed near the fire. Firework is a showy display away from the bonfire
. LED lights for kids as sparklers discouraged. Basically it’s a pointless organised fireworks show rather than a specific festival for November 5th.

I was born in 1960 and loved bonfire night as a child. My dad did to and we always had a display and bonfire in the garden, I was allowed a couple of friends and neighbours were letting off fireworks too. Baked potatoes and sausages afterwards. Seeing lads asking for a penny for the guy and some brilliant Guys.

Gradually the displays took over which were also fab. The children's primary had a brilliant show, DS's school had fabulous displays - including Mumford and sons one year, before they got famous. Brilliant. We always had a box of fireworks at home too, usually on the actual day, with sparklers and baked potatoes.

Oh, and recalling a pp's Lewes comment, the trip to Lewes on Bonfirie night is the only fond memory I have of one miserable term at Sussex.

Love fireworks - always have. I might not if I had ever lived in the sort of area where they were tied to pets and put through letter boxes.

Moseley?

I too have lovely memories of bonfire night for the neighbours in my parents’ garden when very little. But I was also: terrified that my Dad would get injured by the fireworks he was letting off, terrified of that advert where the child had a burnt hand from a sparkler, scared of the noise, worried for my pets, didn’t like the Guy Fawkes story (felt sorry for Guy Fawkes), didn’t like the weird penny for the guys, felt sorry for them when they were burnt, didn’t like the balloon face popping, didn’t like getting close to the bonfire. Despite my otherwise fairly fuzzy warm memories of those nights most of it was fear tbh and I am happy to take my kids to an organised display now.

I never really cared for standing down by the scout hut while a handful of men ran in and out of the adjoining field trying to light the fireworks that felt about a fortnight apart in going off.

There's a mix of both round here - the bigger, more organised ones and the smaller ones at local pubs.
As for LED lights instead of sparklers, well pfffft to that 😁 I've always had sparklers as a kid, my kids have had them too and you just need to teach them safety.
Outstretched arms and hands, don't wave near people and keep your distance, and a bucket of cold water to put the used ones straight into afterwards.
We'll all be having sparklers, me included as I still love writing my name with one 😁

It really isn't the point of Bonfire night. I would rather people were safe instead of being burned or seriously injured by fireworks.
It's hardly new having an organised Bonfire night on a weekend either. More people will turn up then. If it really bothers you so much make your own Bonfire and do your own fireworks and invite people round. Nothing stopping you.

As kids we used to go to an organised display by the rotary club at our local park. Big event, bonfire, fireworks, fun fair etc
With my own kids we've had a couple of displays in back garden but usually have gone to an organised event.
What I insist on is one with a bonfire as so many don't have a bonfire nowadays, also avoid any that link it halloween - Halloween is nothing to do with bonfire night.
Also get fed up of all the complaints on my village WhatsApp about traumatised animals, ptsd for veterans and any other reason for guilt tripping people for celebrating bonfire night I think it's an important tradition, part of British culture and long may it continue

Bloody hell - what a load of old whinging.

When was this?

When I was a dc nobody did their own bonfire, there was the odd neighbour having a fireworks party. What I remember is each of my local commons doing free fireworks with huge bonfires. Now there is really only one event per borough & it's not free.

Well no, this is not true. The very literal point is the opposite, to commemorate being safe from danger! Guy Fawkes and his mates plotted to kill the King and failed. The next day, 5th November, people lit bonfires to celebrate the King’s survival, and we’ve celebrated it every year since. And actually these bonfires were not lit at people’s homes but in communal spaces.
These days, people don’t use bonfires for celebratory purposes, we use other things. It’s no surprise bonfires are less popular.
I can’t imagine Guy Fawkes or King James ate a jacket potato or a hot dog on that day either.

Remember Remember the 5th of November gunpowder treason and plot
The reason bonfire night is important is it celebrated the foiling of the Catholic plot to murder King James VI (1st of England) and the entire parliament by blowing them up along with a large part of London. Not some danger fest that is your imagination

Well this never happened but nice story

Well to go against the grain…as an NHS worker with a DH who’s a fire fighter imo the general public should 110% lose the right to purchase any sort of fireworks due to the (albeit small) population of absolute idiots who go out their way to cause harm with them…e.g. putting them through peoples letterboxes and that one person who flung one at me when there was no reason other than me trying to help someone😑

Oh I so miss the days when I was a kid, and bonfire night we'd spend at our local organised bonfire, we could get as close as we wanted and half the fun was taking things off a big pile of logs/ sticks / wood and throwing them on the bonfire! We used to light the ends of sticks and swish them like sparklers. It was so much fun. We'd never be allowed near it now. People are too stupid, and can't be trusted to use basic common sense not to burn themselves or other people.

I posted the same 3 pages back... 100percent

Why? Sounds like the kind of Bonfire nights I remember too. Just because it's not your experience, doesn't mean it didn't happen for anyone else.

And to all those saying risk is part of the excitement, yes I get it, but I want both myself and DH to return from work in the state we left

I'm 50 and, other than sparklers and a few half arsed fireworks set off by my Dad, it was always a massive bonfire and firework display in the village. With a sausage and a baked potato. Yum!

I totally agree with the OP. I loved Bonfire Night as a child. For us it was a real extended family occasion. All the cousins at my granny’s house, jacket potatoes from under the bonfire, everyone bringing fireworks, the dads lighting them and the mums handing round treacle toffee. We didn’t bother with Halloween it was all about Bonfire Night. I really have tried to keep it going a bit with my own children but nothing compares to Halloween nowadays. 🤷‍♀️ and you’re made to feel like a criminal for letting off fireworks in your garden. Mostly because everyone is obsessed with their animals - and we must all worry about the pets above all else - even when the same pets are crapping on pavements and peeing in flower beds!

I'm on the west coast of Scotland and there aren't many big organised displays now. It's Halloween that is massive up here with a big street festival and loads of events. I quite like fireworks but have never set them off myself, we used to go to the local council display but the bonfire was the best bit and that is now long gone, it must be 20 years since I saw a big bonfire at an event and the bonfire was the real magic.

We do have lots of people letting off fireworks locally for weeks around Nov 5th, there were some tonight when I was putting the bins out.

If your really interested in the history of bonfire night it goes back to Henry the 8th and the reformation which his daughter queen Mary (bloody Mary) reversed and then started burning heretics (prodistants) for refusing to convert to Catholicism followed by queen Elizabeth 1st of England reverting the country back to the prodistant faith and the anti Catholic laws she brought in that persecuted them which were made tougher by king James VI. Under James VI catholics were fined into destitution for not going to prodistant church services.
This is what was behind the plot and it was a gift to King James as it allowed him to demonise the catholics (even more than they were) and by decreeing that it must be celebrated every year its still remembered today

Still nope 🤣

Still remember the letdown when the bandage-swathed child shoved in front of us in infant school assembly as an Awful Warning turned out to be uninjured. It was P— M— ( I recognised her fat smug legs and her stupid socks) and I was hoping she’d lost at least one eye.

You don't get youths doing penny for the guy in a slightly menacing way like you did in the 1970s. Don't miss that.

@Arrrrrrragghhh People would bring fireworks. Everyone knew the name and type of the firework involved. Always the element of danger. Sparklers were a must. Numerous safety films at school and on TV so few injuries but enough to make you be respectful.

I’ll give another perspective. I’m so glad it’s stopped, was a complete nightmare. Treated many, many people with severe injuries from fireworks, fire and minor sparkler issues with kids who would grab the top hot part as soon as the sparkler went out. Now, a drunken idiot who tripped and fell onto a fire, or an idiot adult who shot themselves in the face with a firework is bad enough, but seeing children who’d blown fingers off or facial injuries, losing eyes etc from idiot adults letting a 4yo ‘help’ for example is appalling. I was glad and relieved when it was recognised that there were so many idiots out there, and these things became supervised, organised community events.

What I remember about the 70s and bonfires is all the local kids building one on some spare land, everyone and his dog buying some cheap fireworks from the local shop and knocking on people doors with a guy.
And everyone knew someone who'd lost fingers or other body parts through mishandling fireworks.
On the whole I'd prefer organised displays, and thankfully the meathead next door no longer seems to bother. Gormless wazzock once had one on his wooden decking.