Fireworks night (a little late) (From Bucks Free Press)

Fireworks night (a little late)

8:33am Monday 16th November 2009

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When I was five years old, I went to my very first fireworks display. I was wearing about seven layers, and in the photograph that was taken of me holding a sparkler in each thrice-gloved hand, I looked not unlike a Christmas pudding. I went with my dad, as both mother and sister hate fireworks with a passion. My father and I continued this tradition for 10 years, until I was 15. When I was 16 I went to a display with some friends instead. For the whole 10 years we went to the fireworks, we went to the same display; the Round Table ones at Terriers. I have never seen its equal; absolutely fantastic display, every single year.

We used to walk to the display; a lot of people parked their cars in the roads nearby and walked along to the field in which they were held. This was part of the fun. We would put on our wellies, take torches, and walk through the well lit fields just past what was the Wellesbourne Campus. There were so many people walking through there, and stewards there to guide the way for those whose first outing it was, and therefore didn’t bring torches like us seasoned fireworks attendees. When we reached the end of the fields, the marshals would stop the traffic to let people across the road to the fireworks field. An excellent system, and for the ten years I attended the Round Table fireworks at Terriers, the journey there added to the excitement.

This year, a friend of the family and two young children came with us; child one was six, and child two was three. We walked along the pavement until we got to the entrance to the field.

Which was blocked off.

The Wellesbourne Campus is no more, and there is a sign declaring it will soon be ‘1 & 2 bedroom apartments, 2 & 3 bedroom coach houses and 3, 4 & 5 bedroom houses’. Oh, goodie. So we, along with all the other people attending the firework display, were forced to walk along the road, where there is no pavement, and we had the unenviable choice of walking either directly into incoming traffic, or with the traffic coming at us from behind. I would imagine the drivers were peeved as well at having these pedestrians invade the road.

It is so incredibly dangerous; I am very glad that the school attended by child one and child two takes part in the scheme for kids to have hi-vis tabards, as it meant that they, at least, were visible in the dark. The fireworks were, as always, fantastic, and I, being the noble sort of person I am, took the kids on the teacups ride, and joined them in a stick of candyfloss. Terrible evening for me, clearly.

We walked back the same way, along the road, once again taking our lives into our hands. It was a Saturday night, and the road was fairly busy.

I recounted this tale to my mother, whose emphasis was not on the fact that her eldest daughter had taken her life into her hands in the pursuit of colourful gunpowder, but on the fact that, if those fields are destroyed to put up these apartments, coach houses and houses, those beautiful trees, hundreds of years old, would be felled, and all the animals who live in the fields would, best case scenario, be made homeless.

Which got me thinking. With one fell swoop, whoever is in charge of those fields has endangered the lives of the fireworks goers, and may well destroy a lot more life. Yes, the fireworks only happen once a year. Which will, I am sure, be such a consolation to those who will, invariably, be injured walking on the road in the dark.