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 wrote:

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In our day it was more sausage sizzle, sky rockets . Great event for community. These days it would looked as a terrorist event ?

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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

 

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.

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 wrote:

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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!

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 Oh, so true DD. 

Aussie Paul. 

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.

Bull-horned handle bars turned upwards stuffed with whatever made good cannons - like jousting on bikes.

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.

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.

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.

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.