Deaf to increasing distress of fireworks
So, predictably another fireworks season comes around.
And we all have to put up with everyone letting off high explosive bombs in their back gardens whenever the fancy takes them.
Last night (Friday) I heard some cretins actually letting off fireworks at 4.30am!
Of course now we have both Guy Fawkes Night and Diwali combined to give double the misery.
I heard on the news that this year, a mob in Trafalgar Square used fireworks as weapons and a number of coppers were injured.
Also it was reported that a firework was thrown onto a football pitch and hit one of the players.
They said he wasn’t injured, despite rolling around on the ground in pain.
Apparently a zebra in a zoo had to be put down after it bolted.
Every year horses, dogs and other pets are scared out of their wits and some have to be put down as a consequence.
I used to live in central London and on a nearby council estate kids used to let off air bombs that exploded right outside people’s windows in the upper floors of the blocks. Well, that’s alright then, isn’t it?
Because it’s TRADITION, so it must be okay.
It’s always been the same, hasn’t it?
No, it hasn’t!
In the past fireworks were far quieter than they are now.
These days they sound like bombs going off – sometimes it sounds like The Battle of the Somme.
Years ago I went to see my then MP, Dominic Grieve, asking that the Government ban the sale of fireworks to the general public.
But he refused, citing, you’ve guessed it – tradition.
Ludicrously he also claimed that people would ‘get them on the black market’.
I pointed out to him that fireworks are not like heroin or cocaine and even if a tiny number of firework addicts did manage to get their fix, it would be a vanishingly small number of cases.
Public organised displays are fine and give people a lot of fun.
But the sale of fireworks to the general public should be banned once and for all.
I have copied this letter to my local MP for Maidenhead.
MALCOLM JAMES STRETTEN Boulters Lane
Maidenhead