Health & What???
back in the halcyon daze when kids were still allowed to be kids, we used to build and burn our own bonfire every year. Separate groups of half-a-dozen or so kids would separately contribute from about mid October congregating only for the traditional November 5th blaze.

That was the magic of Guy Fawkes (or 'Bonner night') when I was young. The chance to mess around with fire without adult supervision came only once annually and, since most young boys have at least some form of pyromania, the opportunity was NEVER wasted. I remember on one occasion, we carried out an early refuse collection over several surrounding streets just to gather more combustibles.

It all came to a conspicuous end the year my brother and a few others got 'clever'. The bonfire had burned down to a roughly 6-foot diameter patch of embers and debris when some prick thought it would be cool to jump over the middle. Such is usually the case that an informal dare gathers pace, feeding from the bravado of not being outdone and peer pressure. It was actually quite impressive to an 8 year old firebug with singed eyebrows such as myself, to see several 'bigger boys' repeatedly carrying out this feat.

Several rounds of dangerous leaping progressed and all was well until my brother made his next attempt. On the final step of approach, his shoelace caught on (what I think was) a spring remaining from a sofa or mattress, cutting short his phoenix flight and causing him to land on hands & knees in the middle of the incandescent ashes.

Thankfully he was up & away in a second or two. His legs were no worse than sunburn due to him wearing jeans, but his hands were a different story. He was in hospital for a week with his hands raised and sealed in plastic bags filled with cream stuff. He had daily operations to remove blisters which apparently grew to the size of tennis balls, and clean out the embers that had embedded. He was even featured on regional news, obviously neglecting to mention that he was jumping over the fire when he fell in.

He had skin grafts a couple of weeks later and surprisingly, doesn't have any noticable scars now (20 years later, mind).

The bastard fucked bonfire night for me permanently that year. I had to risk severe punishment to practice fire-setting after that. What's worse is that the very next year, mum took us to the pictures to keep us 'safe' and what did I have to sit through? Fucking GHOST.
I ask you gentlemen; How would a Patrick swayzee rom-com compare to fireworks and arson when you were 9?
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Thu 1 Nov 2007, 15:51, Reply)