by Flossy (Tue Nov 03, 2009)
I am turning into one of Them: Those people who spend their days
contorted with rage at the world around them, who write fulminating letters to
the local papers - the very local papers that flop, unsolicited, onto the
doormat every fortnight to inform residents of how many stabbings/drug
arrests/charity triathlons the borough has witnessed since the last issue. I
think it is only a matter of time before I become one of these vociferous
letter-writers, signing myself ‘Horrified from Hounslow.'or ‘Concerned from
Clapham.' My current bête noir is fireworks.
Don't get me wrong, I adore fireworks. I am the world's biggest child
when it comes to fireworks. I marvel, I gasp, I cheer, I weep at the finale
when the biggest and brightest erupt, helter-skelter, over each other, spraying
the night sky with sparkles of every colour. Around the 5th November in the parks of every
city, over the bridges and the rivers, in fields and cliff tops and around
bonfires all over Great Britain people (including me) gather to celebrate Guy
Fawkes Night and to watch the fireworks. Gunpowder, treason and plot
and all that... It's historical and magical and I love it.
But did I miss something? Has 5th October been declared
the new 5th November? For the past four weeks, I have been
subjected on an almost nightly (and several times, even daily) basis to volleys
of nearby explosions. At first I thought they were gunshots and dove for
cover. I live in a fairly pretty part of London where, right now, the
window-boxes take my breath away with their clusters of snow white and claret
cyclamens and the creepers cloak the Victorian brickwork in scarlet. Nearby,
however, is a slightly less salubrious network of streets with its own home
grown little gang of bicycle-wielding youths. It is this gang who are
responsible for the bangs.
So incensed have I become by all this gratuitous exploding and
detonating, I have
been moved to brush up on my Firework Law. As I read the list of do's and don'ts
I became increasingly outraged as I realised the extent to which these hoodlums
are transgressing the law and how many times over they could - and should - be
prosecuted.
For a start, you are not allowed to let off fireworks between 11pm and
7am except of course on Bonfire Night, presumably because people are fond of
sleeping during those times and don't like being kept awake by what is akin to
a crow-scarer going off in the bedroom. It is an offence under section 80
of the Explosives Act 1875 (1875!) to throw or set off fireworks in any
highway, street, thoroughfare or public place. Yet, just two days ago I watched
as several members of the ‘bang gang' threw handfuls of those popping, fizzing
fireworks all over a van as it pulled away from the newsagent on the corner,
before speeding away on their bikes. If you're under 18 you're not allowed
to have a firework in a public place. If these lads (there are probably a
couple of lasses in there too; it's impossible to tell under the hoods) are 18
or older, I'm Marilyn Monroe. So there we go. I reckon they owe in the region
of £7,580 in fines already. And it's climbing with each passing
day.
Fireworks are, I have learnt, allowed to be sold between 15th
October and 10th November. Fair enough, people should be allowed to
plan ahead and stock-pile if they so wish. But should they be allowed to
actually let them off during this extended period as well? That's nearly a
month's worth of explosions. All those poor dogs. Do they spend an entire
month cowering under the table, off their food, I wonder?
Everything is happening earlier these days (pass me the travel sweets
and my knitting, dear). Halloween starts at the end of the summer and Christmas
before Halloween. We've barely recovered from Christmas and we're being
threatened with Valentine's Day. The run-up to everything is too long and
the event itself all too short-lived. No wonder the children break things
and the adults get tearful. Though, to round off the fireworks issue, if
I'm honest, it's not that they're going off left, right and centre that I'm
cross about; what really gets me all bitter and twisted is that is that I can't
actually see any of them!
