Each year the bonfire location would move up or down the street, depending on who had last had it outside their house. Sometimes it was hotly contested, but eventually it was always agreed.
Graham Newby
Born in Leeds in the 1950’s, I spent some of my early childhood at Welton Mount, in the Hyde Park area of Leeds. One of my most vivid memories is around Bonfire Night. We always celebrated the event with a bonfire in the street and everyone was involved in deciding the location. The street consisted of terraced houses, each with a small yard, with many still having an outside toilet. Each year the bonfire location would move up or down the street, depending on who had last had it outside their house. Sometimes it was hotly contested, but eventually it was always agreed.
There was the traditional ‘Penny for the Guy’ where you annually made a guy of old rags, filled either with old newspaper, rags or straw. We would place him in our homemade buggy and take him down outside Hyde Park Picture House where we’d ask passers-by for a “Penny for the Guy”. The money collected would be used to buy fireworks.
The children in the street would also go ‘chumping’: this was collecting wood and combustible material for the bonfire. Groups of us would go around the area searching for any bits of wood going spare; sometimes asking local residents if they had any, but many a time some privet hedge got ‘shortened’, so to speak. Once collected, we would store them on the flat toilet roofs, but as Bonfire Night drew nearer, they would be stacked together in the location of the bonfire. We would make a small den inside the centre and keep watch there, in case children from other streets with rival bonfires decided to ‘borrow’ some of our wood. This happened on a regular basis and I must admit we did the same, particularly when we needed to bolster the size of our bonfire.
When the day arrived, there was growing excitement as we waited with anticipation for darkness to fall. Once the fire was lit, parents brought out pie and peas and parkin; when the bonfire was well on it’s way, chestnuts and jacket potatoes would be cooked in the embers. Fireworks would be let off in the backyards, children with sparklers would be dancing around the fire, while mums and dads would be seated on discarded old armchairs and rickety broken chairs, which would be put on the fire later.
I remember one year, a rocket which had been placed ready in an empty milk bottle (one of the methods used at the time) had been accidentally knocked and went shooting through our kitchen window, narrowly avoiding my dad, who was walking past it with a tray of parkin. No health and safety in those days!