Andy Richardson: Banging Bonfire Night for the wrong reasons

Actually, forget God. It's got nothing to do with him. And let's not get started on religion.

Bonfire Night has passed and I'm still in one piece. Hallelujah. There have been many occasions when I almost haven't.

Guy Fawke's night is THE MOST DANGEROUS NIGHT OF THE YEAR. It's the time when it's perfectly legitimate to set fire to stuff, blow stuff up and run around with matches. And I enjoy that too much for my own good. Show me a match and I'll be your sandpaper strip, take me to a flint and I'll be your bottle of kerosene.

As a kid, I was bullied mercilessly by a bunch of unintelligent gooks at Willingsworth High School. Bipin, Stuart, Gary and Darren were the idiots-in-chief who thought it would be a good laugh to make my life hell, because their lives already were.

When it got to November 5, they thought it would be great craic to stick rockets through my front door, or so they told me. Determined to protect my mum and dad's house, I took it upon myself to find a way to block the letter box. Trying to surreptitiously do that as a 13-year-old isn't easy. I had no hammer and nails – and there wouldn't have been anything surreptitious about hammering nails into the letter box at 6pm on November 5.

So I did the best I could with the materials at my disposal: a tube of UHU Glue. I smeared it across the letter box, thinking I'd jam it shut so that no fireworks could enter and I'd thereby be protecting my family from imminent doom. It didn't work, of course, and I got told off for pouring glue all over the door. I was too scared to warn them of the impending firework attack . . .

In a happier time, I hosted my own, adult bonfire party. I took the preparation seriously, driving to a local wood and somehow hauling a fallen tree back home before erecting its five-metre height in the lawn. Around it, I stacked the remains of a kitchen I'd ripped out – though not simply for the purpose of burning. Much as I love a good bonfire, spending £2k on a new kitchen so that you can burn the old one is a step too far, even for me.

I packed the insides of my tepee-shaped pyre with dry wood and newspaper, all the better to get the party started. And then I did what every responsible pyromaniac does – check to make sure there were no hedgehogs inside. Burning flammables is fun: killing defenceless animals is a bummer.

Hedgehog checks complete, I doused the construction with white spirit. Then I lobbed in a match. Whoosh. I'd placed the pyre beneath the neighbour's telephone wire, unfortunately, and as the flames licked higher I realised she'd be unable to call 999 in the event of an emergency, her line having been completely engulfed by a ball of flame.

Not that I was worried about such trivial matters. I had fireworks. And lots of them. I'd like to tell you I did what the fire brigade advises and that I was more cautious than a 33-year-old virgin at a speed-dating night. But I wasn't. My first rocket, having been, erm, 'secured' by its stick in the ground shot into the night sky. There was a whoosh of air as it departed terra ferma and a pretty colourful display of exploding chemicals illuminated the sky.

The next one went wrong. It shot into the sky, then wobbled a bit, then did a 90 degree turn before firing itself along the street, at lamppost height. Five long and anxious seconds later, there was a loud boom and an amber glow as the firework exploded. The colour drained from my face. The joy drained from my body. I was shipwrecked on Planet Worry.

My nephew walked over: "You might have killed someone there," he said, with the honesty that only an 11-year-old can muster. Everybody laughed. The firework had exploded harmlessly, without causing damage to property or people. But it was too close for comfort.

These days, I watch fireworks from the comfort of my living room. I'm near enough to a park to be able to see the greens, reds and golds exploding in the night sky. It's a neat arrangement.

I don't have to worry about UHU-ing shut the letter box, setting fire to the neighbour's telephone wire or blowing up the house down the road. So thank God I've made it through bonfire night in one piece.

Editor's Note: No fireworks were used in the creation of this column. No persons have ever been injured by its writer, either. And he's handed in his Zippo, never to be used again.

By Andy Richardson