MORNING SERIAL

IT wore a grinning moustachioed mask we bought in Terry Martin’s shop.

Huge bonfires were constructed on any old piece of waste ground, youngsters organised by groupings of streets coming together in an unofficial contest to build the biggest. Teenage lads regularly raided the efforts of the competition after dark, bearing off their booty of fuel to be added to their own pyre.

Old tyres were most prized as fuel as they burned for ages, the wires inside them twanging free as the flames ate away the rubber, sending up billowing clouds of sulphurous black smoke. Steadily, the bonfires grew with the addition of old furniture, mattresses, carpets and oilcloth flooring, once, even, an old piano.

When 5th November finally arrived, each bonfire was festooned with not one but several guys, then doused in paraffin and set alight. We danced about the flames, the monstrous heat in our faces, and watched sparks spiral upwards into the November night.

Bonfire night always seemed to be an occasion when there was more licence for kids to run a little wild, and we dashed frantically to and fro, trying even at this late stage to scavenge anything burnable within reach and hurl it into the flames, anything to augment and prolong the burning.

Older boys lurked on the edge of the bonfire’s halo of light, half in and half out of the dark, and set off bangers and jumping jacks, just like the ones our teachers had warned us against.

We little ones begged for sparklers and swirled them in the air and grew tearful when the supply ran out.

Dad had a Catherine Wheel that he nailed to a fence post. He did this, as he did everything, with enormous care and, so it seemed to us children, at an agonisingly slow pace. He gave it several practice spins with his finger, and only when completely satisfied, did he light the fuse.

When the fuse burned down, the Catherine Wheel obstinately refused to spin at all.