Two Hundred and Forty Bangers to the Pound

'Two Hundred and Forty Bangers to the Pound’

I can’t really say at what age I grew out of the excitement and anticipation of ‘remember, remember, the fifth of November’, if indeed I ever have, as I still yearn for those carefree, yet dangerous, days. It was the biggest day of the year for me and one I would look forward to, and plan for as soon as the last one was over. How could we make the Bonfire bigger? What did we do wrong? What could we do better? Those were the questions I obsessed about. I think it may have something to do with the ‘boys and fire’ thing. The fascination never leaves us. Maybe that’s why men always have to do the barbecuing; ‘burnt and raw’ at the same time is my speciality. The planning would begin months in advance, almost as soon as we broke up from school for the summer holidays.

 Holidays always started at the end of the third week in July for Manchester Wakes fortnight, the last in July and the first in August; everybody had the same holidays. We usually went away for a week, or two if we were lucky; sunny Blackpool, or North Wales if we were going ‘abroad’. Gran always came too, much to Dad’s chagrin. Gran and Grandad played a big part in our young lives as we would go to their old terraced house from school till Mum got home. Mum, Dad and ourkid, Pauline, lived there for six years, and me for nine months, before we moved. My favourite tea at Gran’s was a tin plate full of sterilised milk and ‘cooking’ cheese with an egg in the middle and grilled. I’ve tried many times but have never been able to replicate the wonderful smell and taste of that dish: warm, moist, cheesy and with a lovely runny egg for dipping with ‘soldiers’. It was heavenly. There was an outside toilet and a tin bath. I thought it was great fun to have a hot bath in front of the coal fire watching telly.

There was no such luxury at Mrs Barnsley’s boarding house in Blackpool, and the same bloody rooms year after year. She was like the Gestapo! Kicked out after breakfast and not allowed back in until teatime, no matter what the weather. I loved the holidays away and was remorselessly active, which drove Mum and Dad crazy. I used to get a comic every day, The Beano, The Dandy, Beezer, Roy of the Rovers, and Marvel comics including Captain Marvel and Captain Fantastic. Unbelievable extravagance as I only normally got one a month if I was lucky. I loved them all and I lived in their fantasy world. Anyhow, that’s when the scheming for Bonfire Night started. As I was feeding the slot machines with pennies, flying a kite, or chucking stones at seagulls, I would be secretly planning the expeditions to acquire more wood for November 5th than is in the Amazon rain forest.

Towards the end of the school holidays and once all the summer stuff had been done – you know, running, jumping, climbing trees, picnics of sugar butties and bottles of corporation pop, or playing doctors and nurses in a tent outside our front door (oh how I wish I knew then what I know now), yes, the usual stuff – we would make the ‘Guy’. This was indeed very important and to be taken very seriously as it was the main profit stream for fireworks, so no effort was spared in making it as much like Mr Fawkes as possible.

A collection of old clothes, and some not so old from washing lines, would be gathered. “You found that bloody thing before it was lost,” Ma would accuse. A conference to decide which to use would be held and then the clothes stuffed with newspapers and leaves, and tied together. The Guy would be transported by either a pram or a bogie which was a plank on two sets of old pram wheels normally used for racing down our hill with no brakes or steering. My hero, Mr Fawkes (I still wish he’d finished the job) would then be stored until it was deemed close enough to 5^th November to beg for money, either door to door or outside pubs, without us getting a ‘clip round the ear for our bleedin cheek.’ “Penny for the guy, mister,” was our usual call and we made a bloody fortune. One old shilling (five new pence) in 1960 is worth over two quid today. There were twelve old pence to the shilling, two hundred and forty bangers to the pound, and the pennies were bloody big coins too. There were also half-pennies and all our pockets would bulge and rattle as we ran about. We would amass countless pennies which translated into thousands of bangers! Dad, who liked to watch his ‘coppers’ (Mum called him a ‘careful Christian’ amongst other things behind his back), could never believe how much money we collected and always suspected me of raiding his pockets, which was not beyond the realms of possibility!

Dad was a ‘coal-bagger’ and worked long arduous hours delivering coal. He was always knackered and usually asleep in the chair with his Woodbines, his teeth, and his glasses on the arm. He was a Royalist, a Tory voter all his life, and a compulsive reader of the Daily Express and he believed, without question, all he read in that esteemed tome. He would, irritatingly, stand to attention any time he heard the National Anthem. As I got older I always refused to stand, just to wind him up and it never failed to cause trouble. His character, work ethic, and beliefs gradually led to a breakdown of any relationship we had. We would argue constantly until eventually we stopped ‘talking’ and just communicated about day to day necessities. He died in his late fifties when I was in my early thirties, after a long illness and several heart attacks. I know his job killed him, and even now I feel sadness and anger at his life and our lack of any real relationship. I can’t listen to the Mike and the Mechanics song In the Living Years without a lump in my throat. His life and my mother’s, and indeed my maternal grandparents’, had a profound effect on my personal beliefs and politics. Everything Dad was, I am not.

Back to school in September and the main work of wood collecting would begin in earnest. We would start by raiding gardens on the estate, sometimes asking ‘nicely’ as we were told to do, but sometimes not. Wood was like gold to us. We would need a centre pole for the bonfire against which all the wood would lean and this meant a trip to the woods with the relevant tools, an axe, a saw, a rope, and enough of us to pull it up the steep hill. Can you imagine this happening today? A small band of ragarsed kids off to the woods with those weapons, in the dark evenings!

Much care was taken selecting the tree. Tall, straight, and thick were our requirements and it would take hours to hack it down and pull it home. Our hands would bleed from burst blisters and giant splinters as we took turns to chop and saw, often late into the night, begetting another bollocking. One time I stayed very late on my own chopping a tree down and by the time I got home, well after dark, all the neighbours were out looking for me and a Police Panda car was parked outside our front door with the blue lights flashing. As I walked up the hill, bewildered, knackered, filthy, and carrying an axe over my shoulder, Mum came screaming towards me followed very quickly by one of the coppers. I was made to stand in front of the Panda facing the headlights and this huge copper in frightening silhouette, with Dad holding my collar roughly, smoking a Woodbine and all the neighbours surrounding us, watching and tutting. “I’ve missed my tea ‘cause of you, my lad, and I’m not best pleased. Where the bloody hell have you been?” the ‘rozzer’ roared. They scared the shit out of me. Yet another bloody bollocking and a ‘belter’ too this time.

We’d moved into this new three bedroom semi-detached house on a Manchester council estate when I was nine months old, and no, I don’t remember that! We had gardens back and front and very quickly everybody knew each other and all the kids had shedloads of new aunties and uncles. Time went excruciatingly slowly at that age (I wish it did now). The bonfire was built on a field and visible from my bedroom window. I would stare at the wood pile each night as it grew, with the pain and joy of severe heart thumping expectation, but also with the constant worry of our bloody wood getting nicked. After a few weeks we would organise ‘watches’ from dawn till dusk to keep an eye out for rival bonfire gangs from the estate. The bastards would have our wood away as soon as we blinked, but then we would do the same to them. ‘Wood Wars’ broke out through October every year. We would send out robbing parties to visit the competition, and sometimes set fire to theirs just for fun. We even built ‘dens’ deep inside the bonfire which we would sleep in to guard it, WITH our stash of fireworks too! Jesus, they were bloody long cold nights. No sleeping bags then, just a couple of rough hairy woollen blankets and wood to lie on. Amazingly we would think nothing of lighting a small fire inside the bonfire to keep warm. Crazy, I know. Me and my mates saw ourselves as soldiers in the trenches, Wilfred Owen style. What the bloody hell was Ma thinking letting me do that? Dad didn’t seem to give a shit, but Grandad thought it was hilarious as only he could.

            Grandad was my hero, much more of a Dad to me. I adored him, he was nearly always drunk and frequently in trouble with the ‘bluebottles’. The archetypal loveable rogue with thin swept back Brylcreemed hair, a big red boozer’s nose, and several missing teeth. He was always ‘up to somat’, from running bets for illegal local backstreet bookies to dealing in ‘knock-off’ to one and all, and he wasn’t averse to using his fists to make his point. He was never out of the pub and I remember him coming home drunk and having a furious row with Gran about his tea not being ready and he finished up putting his foot through the telly.

Mum told me of an occasion when he, pissed of course, stabbed Mum’s hand with a fork and pinned it to the kitchen table, and also several times introducing her as his little sister when meeting strange women on the street. Mum discovered when I was in my early teens that she had a half-sister from a long affair he had with a woman just a few miles away. She came to our house one night but that was the last I saw of her. It was a taboo subject after that.

Grandad was certainly a ladies’ man, and no angel, but I loved him all the more. He drank and smoked all his life and lived to his late eighties – I found him dead one New Year’s Day morning in his chair with the telly still on and the fire burnt out and cold. ‘Just like him,’ I thought as I touched his bald head. I was thirty when he died and the week before on Christmas Day we were all in the pub at lunchtime, as was tradition. I had a new girlfriend and we were standing at the bar when suddenly, looking at Grandad, I burst into tears. She thought I’d gone mad and she asked me ‘what’s up?’ with great concern. I told her that somehow I knew this was the last Christmas I would spend with my hero. One week later he was dead.

As the money started rolling in for fireworks I would visit the shop daily to add to my collection. Penny Bangers were the favourite but you could also buy threppenny Cannons which were louder. ‘Ripraps’ were also good as they had a series of bangs, but they were about a ‘tanner’ (six old pence). Rockets were best for aiming at people’s windows and then ‘leggin it.’ All stored in an old biscuit tin with an ill-fitting lid held on with shoelaces. Of course, a few had to be tried each day, lit by matches nicked from the shop when he wasn’t looking – well you didn’t want to waste hard earned money on bloody matches. We would light them in our hand and throw them at the last minute. We all knew how long you could hold ‘em for but you would get called ‘mardarse’ if you threw them too early – a crazy game of ‘dare.’ One year, I think I was about ten, I threw one up the skirt of a girl I fancied called Elaine Collier as we walked along the street after school. Luckily she wasn’t hurt but she reported me to the Headmaster, Mr Musker, and it cost me a week’s suspension and the biggest bollocking in the history of the world. We met a few years ago and laughed about it and she told me she fancied me then too – another bloody chance missed! I was oblivious to the danger even though we sort of knew about it. A kid over the road from us, Rob Taylor, actually made his own firework by ramming weedkiller and other stuff into a pair of racing bike handlebars. As he got them nearly full he took to hitting the mixture with a hammer. Not surprisingly the hammer hit the end of the handlebars, sparked and exploded, blowing his right hand clean off. Nonetheless we carried on much as before but you mustn’t let your Ma catch you or you’d get another bollocking!

Mum ruled the roost in our house. She could turn you to stone with fear just by lifting one eyebrow and on seeing it go up the best policy was to run away rather quickly or ‘geron yer toes’ as we used to say, usually when the coppers were knocking about! However, Mum thought the sun shone out of my arse and was big on education. We would have spelling lessons from a giant dictionary, after ‘jarmas’ were on in the evenings, and although at the time the lessons were a pain in the backside (I always got harder and longer words than my sister and she still can’t spell today), they were also a way of conning Mum to allow ‘another five minutes’ of staying up and sneakily watching the black & white telly out of the corner of an eye.

            Telly was the last thing on my mind when the big day arrived during half-term break. That doesn’t happen now as the authorities (always known to us as ‘they’ or ‘them’ or ‘those bastards’ and not much has changed) thought it would cut down on accidents. Well Bonfire Night has all changed now and probably for the best. Last minute flurries of legal, and illegal, collecting of wood and fireworks took place. All the parents would get together to sort the food and drink. It was mainly ‘parkin’ cake with butter spread thickly, slabs of sticky home-made treacle toffee, and huge spuds for baking in the edges of the bonfire. Dad had to do these and once they were cooked you scraped the ash off and smothered them with butter (a luxury just for Bonfire Night). The taste was truly scrumptious and all banger throwing would cease while the feast was had. We also got bottles of Corona pop, either Lemonade or American Cream Soda, or Ben Shaw’s Dandelion & Burdock. There was no Coke back then. I know, it’s hard to imagine a world without Coke! But we thought we were the richest and luckiest kids alive on the planet.

The lighting ceremony was always a nervous time for me, especially if the wood was a bit wet. We never used petrol but sometimes we had a bit of paraffin. We would ram newspaper into all the little spaces. It was hilarious to watch the Dads trying to light this enormous edifice with matches in the wind; they were bloody hopeless. I would flit in and out of the light of the fire slinging bangers at everyone, scaring them half to death, especially ourkid and her mates. They really were the best of times. Joyous occasions with lots of laughing and singing.

The Bonfire was magnificent when it caught. The flames chased upwards roaring and sparking into the dark sky, casting a wonderful warm glowing light on everyone’s smiling faces, the blaze mirrored in their eyes. It fascinated me how each person had a bright lit side and a dark unlit side, creating an eerie and surreal experience. A huge crowd would come to our bonfire, everyone from our part of the estate. To a small boy, the bonfires we built were massive. My over-excitement was palpable (it’s lit!). I remember forever having to go out of the warm halo of light from the fire to pee in the cold and dark, but I never realised it was caused by the exhilaration of the event.

We usually had a smaller ‘back-up’ pile of wood to keep the thing going for as long as possible into the night. The next day (it’s gone out!) the real Bonfire aficionados amongst us would be up the next day well before dawn to see if the fire was still alight and let off a few saved fireworks too. This never failed to end in another bollocking. Mum was always like a cat on a hot tin roof, especially after the Robert Taylor incident. All I could hear was ‘where’s our Raymond’, ‘our Raymond put that down yer little bugger’, and ‘our Raymond come here and tell yer bloody Father what yer just did’. I was always ‘our Raymond’ and not Ray when I was in trouble, another sign to geron my toes! She had a wonderful word, ‘gobbin’, which she used to describe someone being stupid or daft. God knows where it came from? I think I was nine before I realised my name wasn’t ‘yer bloody gobbin’.

I hated it when the night ended and I heard the familiar call, “come on our Raymond, time for bed.” My heart would sink and I would be inconsolable on the short walk home, with all of us filthy and stinking of smoke. Dad would shout “stop bloody skriking” as the tears ran down my dirty face cleaning little streams as they went. A retort from Grandad would be “oh ler‘im skrike, he’ll pee less.” Mum, compassionately, would usually say something stupid like “never mind son, it’ll soon be next year” but at least she knew how much it meant to me. But, of course, as we all knew at that age, next year never comes.