Council killjoys have ruined Guy Fawkes Night

As a child growing up in the 1980s, Autumn was my favourite time of the year. It combined two of my favourite things – fire and explosions. Back then, getting your hands on the kind of firepower usually left behind in third-world coups required little more than asking your mate’s older brother to go to the corner shop. Laws were rarely, if ever, enforced. It may have been the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness for Keats, but to a kid armed with Black Cat bangers and a disposable lighter, it was the season of sulphur and scorched grass.

We blew up bins and shoved lit flares up our arses, years before that football fan did it. One year, we tried to recreate the flaming streets scene from Back to the Future . Instead of hitting 88mph and escaping the Libyans, all we did was knacker a BMX and melt a pair of size 5 Converse. Parents didn’t drive you to A&E or trigger social services, so long as you didn’t blow off a finger. Public health paternalists are pushing an ideological agenda under the guise of ‘harm reduction’ While our adolescent antics lit up our council estate like a war zone, the community bonfire brought young and old together.

My dad would take us to the local Scout hut, where an immense pyre fashioned from old pallets and scrap timber dominated the skyline. In the weeks leading up to November 5, Scouts built a ‘Guy’ during evening troop meetings by stuffing old clothes with shredded newspaper. Adults clapped and cheered as they wheeled the life-sized effigy across the dark field, where it was placed atop the bonfire and set ablaze. Little did I know it then, but I was watching the last remnants of a 150-year-old Victorian tradition fade away.

Driving home, smelling of woodsmoke and fried onions, I would see fires glowing in the distant Norfolk fields like the Beacons of Gondor. Most popular Alexander Larman The welcome downfall of Russell Brand Alexander Larman The sudden end of the World of David Walliams Druin Burch PPT and the power of shame These days, that communal warmth has been extinguished by the cold hand of bureaucracy. My home city of Norwich used to host the famous ‘Big Boom’ display.

Thousands would turn up in the rain and congregate around Market Place as loud, colourful rockets were launched over Norwich Castle to the sounds of KISS. The council paused it during Covid and then scrapped it altogether. It’s the same across the UK. Glasgow, Cardiff, Liverpool and Leeds have all scrapped their Bonfire Night celebrations. Even where displays return, like in Manchester, after years of cancellations partly to meet net-zero carbon targets, they come rebranded with early evening, reduced-noise and sensory shows, and are bereft of traditional bonfires.

Last month, Oxford City Council introduced a three-year ban on people using fireworks in all its 41 public parks and open spaces. As for Birmingham? Forget about it. A multi-million-pound equal pay case bankrupted the council, proving that fighting sexism takes priority over Brummies watching a few rockets whizzing over the Bullring. The second-order effects have led to a backyard arms race, with private displays happening in every street across the land.

But dads, beware: spending a fortune on a massive garden barrage will mean looking over the fence to see if a nosy neighbour with a decibel metre is about to report you to Environmental Health. It comes as a public consultation from the government’s Office for Product Safety and Standards proposes cutting the noise limits from 120 dB to 110 dB, effectively halving their perceived volume and banning rapid-fire (multi-shot) fireworks from sale to the public.

According to the British Fireworks Association, these compound fireworks account for 70 per cent of all retail sales. It’s easy to get caught in nostalgia. Back then, we didn’t need ear defenders or a ten-page risk assessment, and kids crying at noisy fireworks was as much a part of tradition as charcoaled sausages. Since the Big Boom was scrapped, savvy locals have found the best way to enjoy a free display is to head to Kett’s Hill, the site of the infamous 1549 rebellion.

As darkness descends, you can see for miles as hundreds of garden displays light up the night sky, looking like a Rush concert. This is not merely about budget cuts. It masks a collective neurosis lurking in the soft heads of councillors that fears something far greater: tradition. It’s about public health paternalists pushing an ideological agenda under the guise of ‘harm reduction’, hell-bent on sucking the last vestige of fun out of British civic life.

The result? An annual celebration marking the thwarting of a 400-year-old act of treason is now governed by risk managers and compliance officers. Guy Fawkes may have failed to blow up Parliament, but soulless killjoys managed to put the fire out anyway.