Griff Rhys Jones isn’t crackers about aerial pyrotechnics

Don’t misunderstand me – as a kid I adored fireworks. I got two shillings pocket money in the late sixties. It mostly went on birthday presents, but in October the newsagents stocked a gorgeous array of gunpowder. Brocks and Standard. Golden Rain. Vesuvius. Rockets. Squibs. Bangers.

The really big expensive rockets had a little plastic wizard hat and rattled when you handled them. I handled them a lot. I used to spend hours fondling my painfully accumulated collection. They were kept in a cardboard box in the hall. What devilishly brilliant wrappers they had.

Bonfire Night itself, however, was a disappointment. My darlings fizzled. They spat a little coloured flame and expired. My father stuck them up the far end of the garden and let them off one by one, until I was old enough to help, when I was 32. Ten, I suppose, in truth.

But we always approached the dying embers with utter caution. If anything failed to ignite, a five-mile exclusion zone went round it. It wasn’t pyrotechnics. It was a couple of bangs and a bright-coloured flash or two. We infants had more fun the next day making improvised bombs out of the remains.

Bonfire Night was interminable in the seventies. Torches ran out of batteries. There were long pauses. We got cold. The dog started whining. The safety requirements stretched out. Buckets of water. A secure box for the waiting fireworks.

Later I moved to the countryside. I took control. I worried. It’s in the blood. I hated over-excitable mates coming down to show how you could launch a rocket when holding it in your hand.

We live by an estuary. Once, I was having my fireworks early and was worried the coast guard might be confused by my supernovas, so I rang to let them know there would be a few cheap rockets going off. They listened in silence. Then the coast guard sighed heavily. “Do you really have to do this?” he said finally.

Yes, you do. You can’t ignore a celebration of an execution.

Eventually, I restricted myself to 15 rockets lined up on the lawn and fired off quickly: just enough to cause shipping disasters off Walton-on-the-Naze. Big ones, that did twisty ack-ack things in the heavens. But over in ten minutes.

The alternative, of course, is public displays. Trying to park, trudging through mud, eating processed pigs’ toenails in a bun – yes that’s the real November the 5th fun. But my heart sinks. Have you ever been to a public firework display that knew its limits? Just when you think it’s over, more, bigger bangs go off. No one in charge ever thinks to leave you wanting more. Handel’s suite for the Royal fireworks is 18 minutes long. I reckon we get the idea in ten minutes. Five really.

I’m not a popular family figure at displays. “We’ve seen the best of it now!” and “If we left now we’d at least get out of the car park”. But like Good Morning Britain, if something is merely decorative and demands no intellectual response, people will happily watch it for hours.

Face it. Among all the “oohs” and “ahhs”, the best sound is “ohh”, meaning it’s finished a lot earlier than you thought.

Big on my Fucket list.

This is an edited extract of an article that appears in the November/December 2023 edition of the Idler – out now.

Our November/December issue is available in Waitrose, Waterstones, Smiths Travel outlets, select Smiths high street branches and around 100 indie stores. Click here for your nearest stockist.