Posted by Kaptain_Von on Sep 3, 2010 19:23 (Sep 3, 2010 19:23)
Back in the days before Burnout or even Pole Position we had to make do with Dinky or Matchbox cars and a lot of imagination. An FPS usually involved running round some bombsite, scrubland or the local churchyard firing at your mates with an assortment of cap guns and as for huge explosions, you only got those on war films…unless you were a ten year old with an unhealthy obsession in militaria and making things go ‘BOOM’. My friend Dave and I had that particular unhealthy obsession. I’m not sure what his excuse was but I blame my granddad.
I never found out what Daves dad did, I think he might have been a builder but whatever he did, he was a bit of a wheeler dealer and one bonfire night in the mid 70s got hold of a quantity of Chinese fireworks from one of his contacts. In those days Chinese fireworks were a bit of a novelty sold in a rare few shops. Most of us made do with boxes of Astra, Brocks or Standard, nothing as exotic as these and tame stuff unless you count the time one nearly set fire to the conservatory.
Unfortunately given that their provenance could not quite be ascertained, the fireworks were a little on the duff side and about 70% of them failed to bang and sparkle as sensible fireworks are supposed to. These were thrown to one side and forgotten about as us kids stuffed our faces with the party food on offer.
However, come the following day Dave and I were poking through the ashes as bored kids are wont to do when we discovered the huge pile of dud fireworks. Back then bonfire nights were, on the whole not conducted in the pouring rain so the contents of the brightly coloured tubes was quite dry albeit slightly chilled. Of course, the next thought was obvious, “Why not make our own firework ?”. So we did.
The local haberdashers shop was nearby and a swift raid on the bins out at the back procured us an empty cardboard tube left over from a roll of material and in Daves case a pair of ripped jeans as we scrambled back over the wall. We bunged one end up, filled it with the gunpowder mix from all the other fireworks with no thought of what they had originally been supposed to do, rockets, fountains, Roman candles, they all went into the mix. Then we cut the extra off, covered the other end with a circle of cardboard and added a bit of blue touch paper.
The ‘Atomic Fireball’ as it was grandly named was ready. Now we had to find somewhere to let it off in peace and quiet. It was decided that the churchyard was the ideal place as we could hide behind the buttresses whilst setting it up.
Dave managed to steal some matches from his mothers kitchen and we set off. A few minutes later we were in position and ready for go. After a bit of “You do it!”, “No! You do it!”, the blue touch paper was lit and we retreated to a safe distance expecting a few pops and a lot of sparks. We were not ready for the ten foot jet of flame and sparks accompanied by vast amounts of smoke that erupted from it. Standing amidst swirling smoke reminiscent of London peasoupers of the 1950s our trousers went a little bit brown as the flame scorched a black mark up the side of the church. It looked like Beelzebub himself had farted up the side of the building. The look that passed between us said it all, “Oh…arse!”
If this obvious affront to God, that was bound to get us excommunicated from Sunday school should the vicar discover the culprits was not bad enough, at that moment the local policeman rounded the corner by the far end of the church. Now, this being a gentler time before international terrorism, crack cocaine and bullet proof vests we might have expected a Dixon of Dock Green style “Ello! Ello! What’s going on here then lads ?” or some such gentle enquiry to ascertain the nature of our crime. Instead we got a more earthy yell of “What the f*** do you think you’re doing ?”. A touch more ‘Sweeney’ than ‘Dixon’ and one that hinted at dire punishments to come. At this point our trousers went several shades browner than they had been before and we decided that discretion was the better part of valour. We ran, scaling the seven foot high spiked railings that surrounded the churchyard in seconds before fleeing for our lives. The rest of the day was spent hiding in an empty garage on a local estate, convinced that it was next stop Borstal and we would never be able to bend down in the showers again.
We kept our heads down for a few weeks after that. At least until we saw a POW film on TV and decided to launch Daves kid brother from the second floor of the house in a homemade glider…
