Better to be Mr Nice Guy
G M
SPARKLING MEMORIES: But safety standards were often slapdash UY Fawkes’ Night was big when I was growing up and took weeks of preparation. The lads in our street would make a Guy out of old sacks stuffed with rags.
We’d scrounge old clothes to dress him in then tote him around the streets on a go-cart (homemade from orange boxes, pram wheels and bits of string) to raise money for buying fireworks.
Back home, our dads would save offcuts from their workshops and add them to the growing mound of garden rubbish in the worst garden in the street, that is the one where a bonfire could do little to make things worse. Old carpets and broken furniture, rotten planks, old fence posts and the like would add to the small mountain that would become our bonfire. At the last minute the star turn, the Guy, would be sat on top.
Then came the fun – trying to light the damp and teetering pile. Helped along by a gallon of paraffin and heaps of newspaper there would be a sudden great whoosh as it all went up; next we’d have the fireworks then the mums produced parkin and treacle toffee, and we’d bake sausages and potatoes, over the embers as the fire died down.
Needless to say it was great fun but it would have today’s parents in a flat spin. Small kids held sparklers in their bare hands; bigger kids threw lit bangers into metal dustbins or nailed Catherine wheels to the fence and dads stuck rockets into milk bottles which acted as free launching pads, then lit the blue touchpaper and hoped their eyebrows survived the ensuing blast.
Unfortunately, lots didn’t. Casualty departments were full of people who had made the mistake of trying to relight fireworks that didn’t go off first time round. The firemen had a busy night too, thanks to the hedges and sheds that caught light when they were hit by fireworks or showered with sparks from bonfires.
It’s an old tradition, of course. The original Gunpowder Plot – an attempt by Guido Fawkes to bump off King James I in order to return the Catholics to the throne – took place more than 400 years ago and as every schoolboy knows it was one of history’s greatest failures.
Goodness knows how different IT’S difficult to be indifferent to dahlias – you either love ’em or loathe ’em. But they’ve been enjoying a revival lately and if you have them they’ll be just about ready for lifting and storing for the winter.
In these days of global warming you might get away with leaving them out and if you have a mild location and very welldrained soil then, yes, it’s worth the risk, though I’d still put some bark chippings or manure over the crowns for extra insulation.
But when yours are varieties you can’t replace easily, it pays to “harvest” them. Wait until the first hard frost turns the foliage black then cut the plants down to about six inches above the ground and ease the tubers out of the soil with a fork, taking care not to spear them.
Shake off the soil and stand them upside down so that sap can drain out of the stems.
When dry, spread the clumps of tubers out in slatted trays to stack in a frost-free shed or things would be now if the plotters had succeeded but what has changed are our attitudes to green issues and the environment.
Today it is really not acceptable to stink the place out with smoke and fumes; bonfires upset the neighbours, disrupt or even end the lives of hedgehogs, beneficial insects and frogs who have crawled under a nice, quiet pile of garden rubbish to hibernate, while the bangs and flashes of fireworks frighten pets and wildlife and leave a lot of elderly people feeling decidedly shaky.
So instead of spending a fortune on overpriced squibs that’ll be over in two minutes flat, why not join a growing trend towards a green Guy Fawkes’ Night? AKE yourself a biodegradable Guy by stuffing dry dead leaves, straw or scrunched-up newspaper into an old cotton T-shirt (with raffia “wig” or cocked hat made of folded newspaper) and put that on top of your compost heap where it will rot down; cook your party food on the barbecue and then after dark head off for a large, properly planned public firework display at a stately home or somewhere similar.
Killjoy, me? Nah! You’ll enjoy it much more knowing your garden is safe; you won’t terrify pets, wildlife or nervous neighbours and you’ll make some decent compost instead of wasting perfectly good biodegradable material on a bonfire.
And if he was around today I’m sure that Guido himself would agree.
TIME TO SEIZE THE DAHLIAS
garage or save space by hanging them up in netting “hammocks” slung from nails in the rafters.
Alternatively, you can box them up in barely moist compost or sand. Don’t assume, just because they are put away in perfect condition, that they’ll remain that way right through the winter.
It’s worth looking them over at least once a month and if you find rotten bits cut the affected sections off and dust the wound with green or yellow sulphur.
And do protect them from rodents because stored tubers make a very attractive meal.
But all being well they’ll stay in perfect condition, ready to replant again in the garden around mid April.
If you want to be crafty pot them up in February, “force” them on a warm windowsill indoors and use the strong young shoots that soon appear as cuttings as well.