Bonfire Night is a testing time (From News Shopper)

Bonfire Night is a testing time

9:50am Tuesday 30th October 2007 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

Long before dad nails a Catherine wheel to the fence post, even before he's bought it from a shop and even before the shop has bought it wholesale, someone has to test it. Surely a fantastic job? I was going to find out ...

I love the bang and whizz of a firework, the explosion of colour and the shower of sparks.

Normally, I would give very little thought to what goes into setting off a firework and just how dangerous it can be that is until I visited Rocket Pyrotechnics, on Canada Farm Road, near Longfield, and director Rebecca Franklin filled me in.

She said: "We fire shows for all manner of outdoor events weddings, birthdays, concerts, TV programmes and of course Bonfire Night."

On a noticeboard in the warehouse, under the heading "Miracles Needed", is a mammoth list of locations where Rocket Pyro are meant to be firing Bonfire Night displays.

Rebecca said: "Things are pretty manic at the moment and the hours can be very unsociable but it's all worth it when 30,000 people in a concert crowd cheer the fireworks. The adrenaline really flows through you."

A concert is a far cry from a chilly warehouse near Longfield but, having manhandled some of the fireworks, I was eager to don my protective gear and get out into the drizzly night to test a cone cracker.

I lit a port-light (the technical term for an operator's splint) and, at arm's reach, lit the fuse on the package of gunpowder.

For a moment nothing happened and I thought we'd got a duff one but then whoosh a torrent of bright orange fire shot from the tip. The spray reached eight feet high and I was covered in a fall-out of debris and sparks. It was noisy, definitely dangerous and very smoky. But the cone cracker passed the Tim-test.

Next was a Catherine wheel: simple, effective, entrancing, noisy, smoking, excellent stuff.

These may not have been the very powerful fireworks those are kept on Ministry of Defence property in Essex but they are still a lot of fun.

And the sense of power which comes with causing an explosion is incredible. It was as if I had harnessed the most primeval of elements fire.

I could only imagine what it must be like to set off the really big ones.

To finish, I got the sparklers and if anyone tells you they do not like them or they do not scribble their signature in mid-air, then they are a liar.

Have a safe and happy November 5.