Halloween and Guy Fawkes night on the horizon.

 Halloween and Guy Fawkes night on the horizon. 

So here we are rapidly approaching the end of October and it often feels as if the year has just passed us by in a whirlwind of broken hearts and lives abruptly ended by a global pandemic that has now taken us to the twilight zone of the year. The winter solstice is now sending a cold and icy shiver down the spines of millions and millions of people around the world and none of us can figure this one out.  

In a couple of weeks time families and children will be gathering their piles of branches and anything they can find that is remotely combustible, a night that will always be associated with that famous old arsonist Guy Fawkes. You remember him surely. He was the one who threatened to blow up the Houses of Parliament all those hundreds and hundreds of years ago. That he failed miserably probably says more about the man himself than any premeditated plot to get rid of the occupants who shout, holler, hector and harangue until many of them finally develop a sore throat. Fawkes was a dangerous loose cannon and maybe his opinion of mainstream politicians is one widely reflected by many of us. But then perhaps we'd stop short of blowing up Westminster. That would be going too far and just unacceptable. 

Before then of course the end of the month brings us Halloween,one of those mysterious days in the year when huge groups of kids run around the streets in a wide variety of comical outfits trying their utmost to scare the whole of your neighbourhood with repeated requests for either money, sweets or any other thought that happens to enter their minds at the time. It happens every year and has done for as long as any of us can remember. But Covid 19 has dominated the year's news agenda and Halloween may be cancelled.

It's all very well for young children to sit on street corners pleading for a Penny for the Guy with some weird looking stuffed puppet. But this year more than most reminds you of those destitute young chimney sweeps who would do anything to earn a crown or two during the Victorian era. True, we are not quite in Dickensian territory but you sense that this year may not be the one for children to loiter in dark doorways and asking for more from sir. 

You are taken back to your youth when the organised fireworks display at Valentines Park in Ilford, Essex was something to be savoured and remembered for quite a while. You can recall traipsing through acres of thick mud on Melbourne Fields and questioning your sanity. Who on earth would want to come out on a bitterly cold November night on a Saturday night when the dogs and cats were chattering their teeth and petrified? Far better to stay inside in the toasty warmth of our living room.  

You can still see those peeling green railings next to the park, the lengthening and excited queues, becoming aware of the breathless anticipation, children rubbing gloves together as if frost-bite were somehow imminent. Then some of the more daring of kids would sneak their way mischievously past the other kids, squeezing under a forest of legs and then overcoming all the odds by crawling through the tightest of gaps and into the park itself. 

Guy Fawkes always felt like a survival of the fittest, a demanding assault course that eventually ended in success but seemed like too much hard work. So you ran across the mudbath that was Melbourne Fields, racing like crazy to get to the ever colourful mini fun fair, light bulbs in varying shades of orange and yellow, beckoning you into that tempting world of much-coveted goldfish or just a thrilling ride on the dodgems. 

And yet by way of a supporting act to the main event there was a film to feast your eyes upon. In the distance there was a cinema projector screen which looked so out of place that you had to blink your eyes just to make sure that you weren't imagining it. Suddenly you were subjected to the entire repertoire of Disney characters, flickering across your peripheral vision and then becoming much more vivid if you happened to be near the front of the screen. 

There was the inevitable Mickey Mouse accompanied by Donald Duck, Pluto and those lovably childish titans of the silver screen entertaining families from all over the neighbourhood, kids whose imaginations had been captured and seized by something they thought they'd see in a much warmer environment than the one they were about to see now. 

So there we were, battered by pouring rain, shoes caked by mountains of mud, freezing cold biting deeply into our fingernails and wishing we could be anywhere but a treacherous playing field when there had to be other distractions. For this should be an evening for spending cosy nights drinking hot toddies, hot bowls of steaming tomato soup with heavenly hot jacket potatoes. True the kids love Fireworks night because once again they can scream with delight and incredulity at those deafening bangers and Catherine wheels, the sparklers that whizz around for what seem like the best part of a week or so. 

But the problem we have with this year's Guy Fawkes celebrations is that those organised firework extravaganzas are off this year. Besides how morale boosting would something like a carnival of light and sound be when it could have been so different. Sadly there are no fireworks with friends and families because there are bound to be more than six members of the family and you'll have to wait another year. Patience is a virtue. It almost seems though absurd that here we are acknowledging one of the most explosive nights of the year only for that evening to be overshadowed by the most dramatic year of our lives. 

There is an air of stunned disbelief once again about the year but when one of those timeless traditions has now been sabotaged by a savage and brutal global pandemic that has rippled then ripped through the planet like a sharp pair of scissors cutting through every page of a thick writing pad. We might have been looking forward to those whoops of joy when a rocket of fire soared majestically into the heavens, climbing higher and higher before fizzling out in much the way it always has.

 Still, we could always try again next year when that celebrated pyrotechnical wizard who almost destroyed that equally as well known seat of democracy will be spoken of again. Boris Johnson for one may be looking forward to November 5. We could probably do with some fireworks on those green House of Commons benches. It's been a long time now but perhaps the further away they keep from us the better it'll be for all of us. Mind you some of us still miss Dennis Skinner. Now there was a firecracker if ever there was one.