Who remembers 5th November = Cracker Night/Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes Night ?..Back in the 'Olden Days'
Goldfinger said
11:46 PM Dec 12, 2018
Any kid in Australia in the 1950's/1960's early 70's will remember the anticipation we all felt as 5th November came round....Cracker Night...Bonfire Night...Guy Fawkes Night....in the
days when all the kids in the Street/Neighbourhood invariably knew each other...the talk was all Jumping Jacks, Double Bungers, Tom Thumbs, Roman Candles, Flower Pots,
Sky Rockets, Throw Downs, spinning wheels....etc etc....how most of us survived mostly unscathed is a near miracle.....blistered/burnt fingers was "normal"....but we all understood our eyes
would be put out if we looked at the sky rocket taking off from our Rosella Sauce bottle...ended in the late 70's because of fires/accidents/stupidity/vandalism...the new Australia.
Now its checking for drugs/ice at concerts etc..sad for our youth they never experienced neighbourhood comraderieIMO....
My late father was 37 years in the Australian Infantry..he forgot a lot of things but never ever failed to bring home boxes of 'crackers' on cracker night...together with his Military Signal Pistol/Very Gun....which would light up the sky at our neighbourhood bonfire.....memories...bet you have plenty as well.....Hoo Roo
-- Edited by Goldfinger on Wednesday 12th of December 2018 11:53:29 PM
I think you forgot the thruppeny bangers, penny bangers & hapeny bangers oh those were the days :)
i remember we would be building thebonfire for a week or so everyone from the area would contribute there bit, it ended up a good 20 foot tall & round, everything would go in there and some
think maybe i am showing my age a little
Hewy54 said
06:46 AM Dec 13, 2018
My wife's birthday is the 5th of November, so I remember the day well.
Even as late as 1986 it was still possible to buy fireworks in Adelaide and get a permit to use them.
Nowadays it is just the illegal ones from NT.
We used to hook into it in May on Empire Night. The local tyre dealer would give us a few old retreads and we would set up the pole with the tyres inside and then stack branches and timber all over it. The neighbourhood hoons would try and light it up the night before so vigilance was the order of the day. Any person that had annoyed the local kids in the twelve months prior would get a tuppenny bunger in their letterbox as a calling card. The following morning we were all up bright and early to go and find the fizzers and spend the rest of the day letting them off.
My old dad was one of the local coppers so us local kids would all pile into the back of the police car and get a ride around the block with the siren on and the lights flashing.
Imagine doing any of those things today.
Aus-Kiwi said
10:15 AM Dec 13, 2018
In our day it was more sausage sizzle, sky rockets . Great event for community. These days it would looked as a terrorist event ?
rockylizard said
10:23 AM Dec 13, 2018
Aus-Kiwi wrote:
In our day it was more sausage sizzle, sky rockets . Great event for community. These days it would looked as a terrorist event ?
Gday...
There were actually some who always considered cracker night a 'terrorist event' ... to quote DMaxer "Any person that had annoyed the local kids in the twelve months prior would get a tuppenny bunger in their letterbox."
It was those who were amongst the agitators for the end of cracker night ... and fireworks in general.
But hey it sure woz fun back then
Cheers - John
The Belmont Bear said
10:36 AM Dec 13, 2018
I believe that they banned the sale of fireworks in NSW sometime in the early 90s. I dont remember doing anything on the 5th November I thought when we were kids that cracker night was held on the Queens Birthday weekend.
Cheers
BB
moamajohn said
10:51 AM Dec 13, 2018
Yep I lived beside the Moonee Valley racecourse and we had a big vacant corner that all the local kids would bring bits and pieces of timber etc in anticipation for the big "bonnie night " the big kids always made a Guy Fawkes and balanced him in an old chair in the middle of the fire .Jeeze they were memorable nights ! sadly never to be ever had again.
Fortunately my grand children are nearing that age that we can take them out 5 minutes away to the Murray for a nights camping and an education of campfires marshmellows and fishing with a hand line first, then showing them how to set the shrimp net etc .Fair dinkum I reckon poppy will be as excited as the kids ! Cheers.
Thanks John, that sounds like he was next to to us!!
Aussie Paul.
Stretch60 said
11:43 AM Dec 13, 2018
Yes, the letter box story was very familiar in Watsonia Victoria around 1970-71. Yes will put my hand up to being a bit silly in those days.
Desert Dweller said
11:45 AM Dec 13, 2018
We used to have a communal bonfire on a vacant block at the end of the court that I grew up in.
All the kids in the neighborhood built it over a period of months.
Everyone gathered on bonfire night to let their crackers off.
We kids used to let off Tom Thumb bangers while holding them in our teeth.
When the fire burnt down to glowing embers someone would throw a sack of washed potatoes into them to roast in their jackets.
Once roasted, cut in half, sprinkled with salt & butter melted into them they were delicious!
aussie_paul said
12:08 PM Dec 13, 2018
Desert Dweller wrote:
We used to have a communal bonfire on a vacant block at the end of the court that I grew up in.
All the kids in the neighborhood built it over a period of months.
Everyone gathered on bonfire night to let their crackers off.
We kids used to let off Tom Thumb bangers while holding them in our teeth.
When the fire burnt down to glowing embers someone would throw a sack of washed potatoes into them to roast in their jackets.
Once roasted, cut in half, sprinkled with salt & butter melted into them they were delicious!
Oh, so true DD.
Aussie Paul.
LLD said
12:28 PM Dec 13, 2018
Ditto to all of the above. You can still get crackers in NT for their Territory Day. This pic was taken earlier this year. Crackers shop next to a pub. What a great idea!
BB is right, celebrations were held on Empire Day which was changed into Commonwealth Day during the Robert Menzies era. A piece of gal water pipe threaded one end fitted a screw cap & small hole for wick of penny bunger - fired a marble through both sides of a corrugated iron shed - No wonder they were eventually banned.
LLD said
01:16 PM Dec 13, 2018
It's the 24th may
it's empire day
if you don't give us a holiday
we'll all run away.
LLD said
01:19 PM Dec 13, 2018
Bull-horned handle bars turned upwards stuffed with whatever made good cannons - like jousting on bikes.
Radar said
04:27 PM Dec 13, 2018
Commonwealth Day.
Best day ever, half day at school, down to the local theater for Queens message in the 1950/60.
Pick up the snags, exchange any bottles found on the way home from school to buy more for works.
The great times, the great memories of growing up at The Entrance NSW.
fwdoz said
05:41 PM Dec 13, 2018
Crackers in letter boxes? Might have been responsible for a couple of those back in the day. The grumpy old prick in the next street was my target. Used to ride past on my bike on the way home from school & he would yell obscenities for no reason, so he got entered on my hit list.
Other than that we were always responsible & set up everything on an old long armed coat stand with metal tubes on the ends to house the arsenal to be let off later.
Remember going to the local corner store to stock up. She always rationed them as every kid wanted them. Would go back several times dressed differently or with a beanie & my dads glasses on just so I could get extra.
LLD said
09:03 PM Dec 13, 2018
The old fashioned Coles stores used sell fireworks. My grandfather was always first in on November 6th and buy all he could as Coles wanted to unload stock ASAP. They sold them 1/2 price. Then he'd save them till the next year. He reckoned that after a year of "drying out" they made a bigger bang.
We used have a big bonfire that took 3 months to build on a large vacant allotment. All the street would come on cracker night. Grandfather used love putting bungers in old paint tins to see how high he could send the lid, or the tin upside down with no lid under some old woman's chair.
Joda said
09:46 PM Dec 13, 2018
Talk about a reign of terror!, Brings back a lot of memories, lived next door to a milk bar when me & my mate used an old bike pump as a cannon, shot ballbearings at the corrugated iron fence next door, had enraged shop keeper telling Dad next day that some of his stock of tarax stored in his yard had been smashed by His kids!
Double trouble, whacked by the old man & no more freebies from a pissed off shopkeeper!
John.
landy said
09:59 PM Dec 13, 2018
Possum3 wrote:
BB is right, celebrations were held on Empire Day which was changed into Commonwealth Day during the Robert Menzies era. A piece of gal water pipe threaded one end fitted a screw cap & small hole for wick of penny bunger - fired a marble through both sides of a corrugated iron shed - No wonder they were eventually banned.
Dont worry about the hole for the fuse Possum just light the banger before you drop it in the pipe and the marble strait on top , worked just fine. Landy
Blues Man said
08:09 AM Dec 14, 2018
Yep i made a cracker gun when i was a little tacker , they worked great very powerful .
I suppose it was very similar to a muzzle loader ,except you used crackers .Oh them good 'ol days, never to be seen again.
Tony Bev said
05:19 PM Dec 14, 2018
Plenty of bonfire nights in England
We would start storing our fireworks for at least a month, but not allowed to set them off until bonfire night
One year a local bonfire, (we lived near a wooded area), was so high, they were not allowed to light it, without a fire engine being in attendance
Came to West Australia in 1965, and can not remember a bonfire
LLD said
07:33 PM Dec 14, 2018
I cannot remember being able to buy fireworks after the last year I was in primary school (1962). Also cannot remember cracker night being other that Nov 5th. Just read an article about the passing out of fireworks in Victoria. It's a Melbourne based article and Melbourne based people are often totally unaware of life outside Melbourne. We could only buy fireworks in the weeks leading up to Nov 5 but the article is saying that it was only on Empire day. I can never remember fireworks being available in May.
Blues Man said
09:15 AM Dec 15, 2018
LLD wrote:
I cannot remember being able to buy fireworks after the last year I was in primary school (1962). Also cannot remember cracker night being other that Nov 5th. Just read an article about the passing out of fireworks in Victoria. It's a Melbourne based article and Melbourne based people are often totally unaware of life outside Melbourne. We could only buy fireworks in the weeks leading up to Nov 5 but the article is saying that it was only on Empire day. I can never remember fireworks being available in May.
Hey LLd ,that thing you say about not remembering ,...............comes with age ,bugger
rockylizard said
09:28 AM Dec 15, 2018
Gday...
The last cracker night in NSW was on June 7, 1986, after the State government banned it for safety reasons.
Public access to fireworks and their use in Western Australia was banned in 1967
Queensland banned unlicensed people buying, selling, using or having fireworks in 1972.
The Australian Capital Territory banned fireworks in August 2009. It had a cracker night on the Queens Birthday long weekend.
The celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday on May 24 was renamed Empire Day in 1903 after her death in 1901. It was celebrated throughout the British Empire culminating in fireworks and bonfires in the evening. The last celebration of Empire Day in Australia took place in 1958.
In SA fireworks continue to be illegally sourced from the Northern Territory, despite being outlawed in SA in 2002.
NT fireworks retailers, who are restricted to selling only on Territory Day, July 1, between 9am and 9pm, say they are bombarded with calls from interstate, including SA.
So, the 'tradition' has been taken from us for some time now.
Any kid in Australia in the 1950's/1960's early 70's will remember the anticipation we all felt as 5th November came round....Cracker Night...Bonfire Night...Guy Fawkes Night....in the
days when all the kids in the Street/Neighbourhood invariably knew each other...the talk was all Jumping Jacks, Double Bungers, Tom Thumbs, Roman Candles, Flower Pots,
Sky Rockets, Throw Downs, spinning wheels....etc etc....how most of us survived mostly unscathed is a near miracle.....blistered/burnt fingers was "normal"....but we all understood our eyes
would be put out if we looked at the sky rocket taking off from our Rosella Sauce bottle...ended in the late 70's because of fires/accidents/stupidity/vandalism...the new Australia.
Now its checking for drugs/ice at concerts etc..sad for our youth they never experienced neighbourhood comraderieIMO....
My late father was 37 years in the Australian Infantry..he forgot a lot of things but never ever failed to bring home boxes of 'crackers' on cracker night...together with his Military Signal Pistol/Very Gun....which would light up the sky at our neighbourhood bonfire.....memories...bet you have plenty as well.....Hoo Roo
-- Edited by Goldfinger on Wednesday 12th of December 2018 11:53:29 PM
i remember we would be building thebonfire for a week or so everyone from the area would contribute there bit, it ended up a good 20 foot tall & round, everything would go in there and some
think maybe i am showing my age a little
Even as late as 1986 it was still possible to buy fireworks in Adelaide and get a permit to use them.
Nowadays it is just the illegal ones from NT.
Gday...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Xkf9DYTjk
cheers - John
We used to hook into it in May on Empire Night. The local tyre dealer would give us a few old retreads and we would set up the pole with the tyres inside and then stack branches and timber all over it. The neighbourhood hoons would try and light it up the night before so vigilance was the order of the day. Any person that had annoyed the local kids in the twelve months prior would get a tuppenny bunger in their letterbox as a calling card. The following morning we were all up bright and early to go and find the fizzers and spend the rest of the day letting them off.
My old dad was one of the local coppers so us local kids would all pile into the back of the police car and get a ride around the block with the siren on and the lights flashing.
Imagine doing any of those things today.
Gday...
There were actually some who always considered cracker night a 'terrorist event' ... to quote DMaxer "Any person that had annoyed the local kids in the twelve months prior would get a tuppenny bunger in their letterbox."
It was those who were amongst the agitators for the end of cracker night ... and fireworks in general.
But hey
it sure woz fun back then 
Cheers - John
Cheers
BB
Fortunately my grand children are nearing that age that we can take them out 5 minutes away to the Murray for a nights camping and an education of campfires marshmellows and fishing with a hand line first, then showing them how to set the shrimp net etc .Fair dinkum I reckon poppy will be as excited as the kids ! Cheers.
Thanks John, that sounds like he was next to to us!!
Aussie Paul.
We used to have a communal bonfire on a vacant block at the end of the court that I grew up in.
All the kids in the neighborhood built it over a period of months.
Everyone gathered on bonfire night to let their crackers off.
We kids used to let off Tom Thumb bangers while holding them in our teeth.
When the fire burnt down to glowing embers someone would throw a sack of washed potatoes into them to roast in their jackets.
Once roasted, cut in half, sprinkled with salt & butter melted into them they were delicious!
Oh, so true DD.
Aussie Paul.
Ditto to all of the above. You can still get crackers in NT for their Territory Day. This pic was taken earlier this year. Crackers shop next to a pub. What a great idea!
it's empire day
if you don't give us a holiday
we'll all run away.
Commonwealth Day.
Best day ever, half day at school, down to the local theater for Queens message in the 1950/60.
Pick up the snags, exchange any bottles found on the way home from school to buy more for works.
The great times, the great memories of growing up at The Entrance NSW.
Crackers in letter boxes? Might have been responsible for a couple of those back in the day. The grumpy old prick in the next street was my target. Used to ride past on my bike on the way home from school & he would yell obscenities for no reason, so he got entered on my hit list.
Other than that we were always responsible & set up everything on an old long armed coat stand with metal tubes on the ends to house the arsenal to be let off later.
Remember going to the local corner store to stock up. She always rationed them as every kid wanted them. Would go back several times dressed differently or with a beanie & my dads glasses on just so I could get extra.
We used have a big bonfire that took 3 months to build on a large vacant allotment. All the street would come on cracker night. Grandfather used love putting bungers in old paint tins to see how high he could send the lid, or the tin upside down with no lid under some old woman's chair.
Dont worry about the hole for the fuse Possum just light the banger before you drop it in the pipe and the marble strait on top , worked just fine. Landy
Yep i made a cracker gun when i was a little tacker , they worked great very powerful .
I suppose it was very similar to a muzzle loader ,except you used crackers .Oh them good 'ol days, never to be seen again.
We would start storing our fireworks for at least a month, but not allowed to set them off until bonfire night
One year a local bonfire, (we lived near a wooded area), was so high, they were not allowed to light it, without a fire engine being in attendance
Came to West Australia in 1965, and can not remember a bonfire
Hey LLd ,that thing you say about not remembering ,...............comes with age ,bugger
Gday...
The last cracker night in NSW was on June 7, 1986, after the State government banned it for safety reasons.
Public access to fireworks and their use in Western Australia was banned in 1967
Queensland banned unlicensed people buying, selling, using or having fireworks in 1972.
The Australian Capital Territory banned fireworks in August 2009. It had a cracker night on the Queens Birthday long weekend.
The celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday on May 24 was renamed Empire Day in 1903 after her death in 1901. It was celebrated throughout the British Empire culminating in fireworks and bonfires in the evening. The last celebration of Empire Day in Australia took place in 1958.
In SA fireworks continue to be illegally sourced from the Northern Territory, despite being outlawed in SA in 2002.
NT fireworks retailers, who are restricted to selling only on Territory Day, July 1, between 9am and 9pm, say they are bombarded with calls from interstate, including SA.
So, the 'tradition' has been taken from us for some time now.
cheers - John