In Memory of "Cracker Night"

[fragger]

In the FO4 topic, Art recently joked about Aussie BBQs in a post accompanied by some screenies with backdrops which to me were reminiscent of huge bonfires, and these started me off on a jog down memory lane which led me to fond recollections of "Cracker Night".

And what might Cracker Night be, I hear you say? Well, I'm glad you asked! Allow me to elucidate.

Australia having long been (and, somewhat regrettably for some of us, still is) part of the British Commonwealth, we here in 'Straya would, and do, each year, "celebrate" the Queen's Birthday with a public holiday, usually on the second Monday of the month of June. I put "celebrate" in quotes as we aren't so much enraptured with the fact that some stuffy old throne-warmer on the other side of the world has survived another year as we are about the prospect of getting a Monday off w0#k. The adults, that is - we kids, in bygone years, had another reason to revere that day, or rather, the night of that day.

When I was a kid, the celebrations would entail the family getting together to let off fireworks sometime after dark, commonly soon after dinner (which led to much shamelessly rapid wolfing down of food). Since all fireworks were collectively referred to as "crackers", inevitably that evening became known as Cracker Night. It was great fun for us kids. In the weeks leading up to Cracker Night, bags of mixed fireworks would be sold in supermarkets and newsagencies. These weren't like the huge aerial fireworks one sees erupting in the sky on New Year's Eve or anything, of course - they were somewhat smaller affairs, such as Roman Candles and small skyrockets and the like. One's parents would generally buy two or three bags of these in the weeks leading up to the Big Night (and if one were a slightly mischievous offspring of one's parents, such as this one, one would surreptitiously spend some of one's weekly allowance, or "pocket-money", to buy a few on the sly).

In addition to the "pretty" fireworks like Catherine Wheels and ones that shot out coloured flares and fountains of sparks, there were also the ones that simply went bang. These were the real crackers, and they ranged in size from the Tom Thumb (about an inch long, a couple of dozen of which would be strung together by their fuses so that they all went off one after another) to the big daddy, the Thunder (not so much a cracker as a baby stick of dynamite). In between was the most popular, the "Penny Bunger", or simply, The Bunger. Bungers were about three inches long and half an inch thick, painted red for "watch out", with a little bit of fuse string sticking out the top. Light, throw, and stand back. This led to certain young miscreants being hauled over the coals at school for engaging in Bunger fights in the playground at lunch time (was I ever involved in any of those? Um... [looks down and kicks at pebbles]).

Cracker night made for a wonderful time in the 'burbs in those days. I spent my formative years growing up in a suburb of Sydney called Killarney Heights. At that time it was still a relatively new suburb, and there were still a number of vacant lots in our street. So on Cracker Night, many families would congregate in one of these generously-sized vacant lots, have a big communal barbecue, build a big bonfire (bugger what the local council may have thought of it), and let off all our fireworks. I have lots of fond memories of Cracker Nights spent thusly. It ranked second on my childhood list of days to most look forward to, with Christmas occupying the number one slot, natch.

But not all neighbourhood festivities were conducted as responsibly - and soberly - as ours were. Consumption of alcohol combined with irresponsible parenting and insufficient adult supervision inevitably led to a spate of firework-related accidents, involving drunken adults as well as children, every year. And so, the "we know best for everybody" brigade, aka The Fun Police, tooled up and were instrumental in getting Cracker Night, and the crackers that made it so, banned, for the "good" of all concerned.

I think I was about ten or eleven years old when I heard the news that there would be no more Cracker Nights, and I'm pretty sure the delivery of that ill news marked the earliest emergence of my disgruntlement with "The Man". So thanks to these do-gooding arseholes idiots, everybody has to miss out on a fun time because of the actions of a relative few. If they hadn't squelched one of my most looked-forward to nights of the year as a kid, I might not have become such a rebellious young ratbag in my late teens/early adulthood - well, it was probably one of a number of contributing factors, at least.

Anyway, I'm over it now. Actually, no, I'm not. I still reckon do-gooders suck One of these years, mark my words, I'm going to drive all the way down to Chinatown in Sydney, buy a few bags of illicit fireworks from under some shady Oriental merchant's counter, then come back and stage my own one-man, late-mid-life rebellion by having my own Cracker Night in the back yard. Just as some Americans are prepared to fight for their 2nd Amendment rights, I'm prepared to fight for my God-given right to enjoy Cracker Night. Might even slip out in the wee hours and employ a few Bungers - or preferably Thunders, if I can get hold of some - to blow up a certain local Councillor's mailbox

[Art Blade]

Makes me wonder why they haven't yet banned New Year's fireworks.

And by the way, the post fragger referred to is here.

[BinnZ]

Wow, good read Fragger!

I could smell the gunpowder in your story and yes, I have similar memories to celebrations (and skirmishes) with fireworks!

In Holland fireworks are only allowed around New Years Eve. Sellers are allowed to sell it only 3 or 4 days before New Years Eve and you are only allowed to light them up on the 31st of December, until 2 or 3 am January the 1st. When I was a kid we had the same wild dreams and plans with the real deal stuff; little fire arrows and above all; the bangers. Most popular were the so called Astronauts. They would produce a proper bang. Likely comparable with your Bungers. If you had the right friends you would maybe be able to get some crackers called 'Strikers'. You had different types; regular green Strikers and black, so called Widow Makers. These strikers were particularly thin and didn't have a fuse; they had one end looking like the head of a match, and all you needed to do to ignite the thing was 'strike' it along the side of a match box; throw away and wait for the joyful BANG
The Strikers were, and still are, illegal in Holland. You had to drive to Germany to buy them and smuggle them back and, of course, sell them with a tiny profit to your friends and your friends' neighbours.
I remember going out on New Years Eve with my friends and troop through the city with our explosive content. The city felt like a warzone and we felt like rebels out to no good. It was so exciting, will never forget these times

At the moment the same is happening what has happened in Australia. More and more people misbehave in New Years Eve and cause fires and other accidents and even harass emergency workers. Therefore the politicians want to ban fireworks. So far it's not banned, but there's more and more control and one day, sadly enough, they will ban the fireworks for good I'm afraid.

[Art Blade]

So fragger recently hit 7,000 posts and BinnZ 5,000 posts.

Nice, congrats  +1 for each of you

[PZ]

Seems like the entire world is going crazy.

+1 from me as well to you gents for achieving a new milestone 

[BinnZ]

Thank you! It just happened, didn't even notice
Although I must confess I saw that I was nearing 5k recently. Made me smile

[Art Blade]

 

[fragger]

Thank you my friends 7,000+ posts and eight - well, closer to nine - years later, and still no regrets whatsoever for joining this wonderful little site

You guys are the best

lol BinnZ I didn't notice my post count either until Art pointed it out! Art's still the posting champ though - over 26K and still going strong

[nex]

I still have one of those strikers BinnZ, it's about 20 years old now.

fragger, although we were also British subjects till 1961 we never celebrated
her birthday, we did celebrate Guy Fawkes though, heaven alone know why,
but we did.
As with you guys we did very much the same, my dad always bought a big box
of various size crackers and sky rockets, the entire neighborhood kids would
congregate in the street in front of our house to shoot off crackers.
Until fireworks got banned from residential areas some years ago 

[Art Blade]

does that mean they're still allowed in industrial areas, like next to a petroleum industry warehouse? 

[Dweller_Benthos]

haha, nice hearing other people's fireworks stories. Here in the states we have the 4th Of July, celebrating our exit from the British Commonwealth, so we traded the Queen's birthday for pretty much the same celebration a couple weeks later. Also, due to the USA being a collection of "states" and not a uniform country like other places, there are federal laws that apply to everybody and state laws that only apply to the state that passes them. The regulation of fireworks is left up to the individual states to apply their own rules. So, here in New York State, most fireworks have been illegal most of my life. It was always a challenge to hook up with a connection to one of the states that allows the sale of said merchandise. So like Binnz driving to Germany, we had to drive to either Ohio or South Carolina to get "the good stuff". The laws have changed since then, and now some of the more tame fireworks are allowed here in New York, mostly anything that doesn't fly in the air or explode. So fountains and spinner wheels at most.

But growing up we had relatives who lived in the south and usually came up for a visit and would bring some stuff along for us on the 4th. The small ones we just called firecrackers, which came in a bundle and you could either untwist the fuses to light them one at a time or light the whole thing and watch them go off for a few minutes. The next size up we called M-80's, mostly I think because they were based on the military issue things used in training troops to getting (somewhat) used to loud noises that might happen on the battlefield during artillery fire. Sometimes someone would have something we called a quarter stick, as in it was as powerful as a quarter stick of dynamite. So big and loud. These we usually went down to the lake and someone would hold it ready to throw, arm back and waiting, while someone else would light it and as soon as the fuse caught, the thrower would fling it as hard as he could. This was because these things were loud and powerful. They usually sent a fount of water shooting up in the air 15-20 feet or so. They could be heard miles away and we always shot them off last as law enforcement was sure to arrive at the site in a few minutes and you didn't want to be around when that happened.

My favorites were the festival ball kits. Miniature versions of the professional fireworks you see the pro companies put on at various municipal celebrations, they were a ball of pyrotechnics attached to an explosive charge with a long fuse. You drop the whole thing, ball up, down a tube just big enough to hold it, that comes with the kit, and make sure it hits the bottom, then light the fuse and step back. The charge at the bottom goes off and propels the ball up several hundred feet in the air and it goes off in a burst of sparks in a sphere shape.

Then there's the "cakes" which are a set of short tubes that each shoot off a fireball much like a roman candle, only a cake can have upwards of 200 of them shooting off in sequence. Set it and stand back for a few minutes.

Of course, when we were young kids, it was mostly firecrackers and stuff like that, which we'd used to blow up various things like plastic spaceship models and what not. When we were older is when we'd get into the larger things. How all of us kept all our fingers, I'll never know.

[Art Blade]

good read, D_B

[nex]

Most properties here are fenced in with a motor gate, because my dad was in the furniture industry
he made a postbox replicating our house from timber which was attached to the one gate post.
Usually by that time of the year this post box need to be replaced,
blowing it up became a ritual with every Guy Fawkes celebration.
My dad used to get a few special firecrackers, they were red and about
2 1/2" long by about 3/4" thick and named "Bom Crackers".
These thing were like miniature dynamite sticks,
all houses had steel rubbish bins with a steel lid, these lids were
about 20-25 inches in diameter, we would tie four of these crackers together
put it on the ground lit it and place the bin's lid over it, the explosion would lift the lid roof height,
but of course the next day we had to try and unbuckle the lid so it can fit the bin properly

[Art Blade]

 

[PZ]

lol, more than one of us had a misspent youth 

My dad was a researcher at the university, and had plenty of chemicals in his lab. Naturally being a curious kid back in the 60's, I wanted to my own version of powder for "crackers". I knew about the need for sulfur and charcoal, but needed an oxygen source, and found it by reading the chemical structures on the labels of bottles on the shelf. The result was a highly explosive powder, but very corrosive to metal in nature.

Using this powder, I made crackers, and also a tiny cannon of sorts. I cut off a 6-inch section of my dad's barbel, drilled a 7.65 mm hole down the center, packed it with powder (and a bullet), and that tiny cannon would shoot holes through 3mm thick steel plate 

As kids we also played with Estes model rockets, which were tiny solid fuel missiles that kids would shoot into the air, the parachute would pop, and the rocket would gently come back to the ground. Naturally being a curious kid, I hollowed out the nose piece into which I placed a shotgun shell and improvised a firing mechanism. Now when it came down it exploded on impact. 

I laugh now as I think of those days, but it could have been a bad outcome had my parents any inkling of what I was doing. Of course, I never told my boys of my curiosity, but as it turns out, they have stories of their own to tell me now that they are adults.