PREMIUM
Where do you stand on the great fireworks and pets situation? Because if there’s one thing you can be sure of reading on local Facebook groups this weekend, it is going to be a lot of griping about the noise.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand pet owners’ concerns. I have dogs and when it sounds like our back garden is under mortar attack in the first week of November, my furry friends are less than amused by the situation. Yet they cope. Well, they have to, don’t they? It happens every year, we know it’s going to happen and it’s just one of those things.
Brace yourselves for a lot of complaining about loud noises scaring pets this Fireworks Night
There is a part of me which suggests complaining every year is a bit like moving into a house under an airport runway and then complaining about the roar as jets come and go.
Turn up the TV or radio and don’t let them out to do their business at peak times is the sensible advice if you’re anxious on their behalf.
But…it is only for a few days…and it is a tradition stretching back hundreds of years.
And what a bizarre tradition it is. A celebration of a failed plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. If we were to mark occasions today when a major terrorist operation was nipped in the bud, we’d have fireworks 365 days a year.
When I was young, it was a really big thing – comfortably more popular than all the silliness which surrounds the imported American fuss around Halloween. Mind you, Halloween is probably a darn sight safer.
Fireworks in your back garden are an odd way to celebrate November 5 in this day and age. Picture: Chris Davey
Families would bag themselves a box of Standard fireworks and try their very best not to blow their fingers off while lighting the things on a dark. Not, it should always be said, successfully.
There is still talk in my family of an incident where a rocket slipped after the touch paper had been lit and shot across neighbouring gardens like, as it was around the time of the Iraq war, a scud missile.
Good times. But the whole concept of buying little explosives to light in your garden doesn’t really fit with the modern era of health and safety. We stopped doing them shortly after that incident. Better safe than sorry.
Especially when dunderheads use them in entirely unsuitable locations or just to annoy people. Perhaps it’s just me, but that seems to be declining over recent years, fortunately. Probably because they’re so eye-wateringly expensive.
And while we’re on the topic, outside of organised displays, does anyone build a bonfire and stick a Guy Fawkes (old trousers and shirt, stuffed with newspaper) on top anymore? Again, not the world’s safest (or, for that matter, environmentally friendly) pastime, but one which seems to be on the cusp of disappearing. Which is a shame in many ways (although not if they inadvertently spread to your garden shed or fence).
Outside organised displays, do people still have bonfires for November 5? Picture: Gary Browne
It wasn’t that long ago that children would push their ‘Guy’ around hoping for a bit of cash as they did so (I did once…I collected not a single penny, which may explain why no-one bothers anymore).
However you enjoy Bonfire Night this year, have a fun one (and keep those pets safe).
