My Grandad hated fireworks
My grandad is 98 and still going. He was in the home guard during the war and manned the guns on Wanstead Flats in East London.

His favourite trick if approached/called by any sales person was to utter the phrase "Let me tell you about the war" and then regale them with stories till they were dying to get away.
He found it so funny to act the part of some stupid old duffer that he would literally cry tears of laughter about it and has never managed to finish telling us the story.

When he told real stories of the war (to us) it was usually about shooting the big guns at the planes coming over (and maybe the v1,v2). his main story was how the guns were so loud that he and several of the other men, would involuntarily shit themselves every time they were fired.

However he never told me the story about why he hated fireworks (and anything else that goes bang). My cousin told me while grandad lay almost dead with pneumonia about a year ago.

He was working at a factory in the docklands when the air raid siren came on. As you (should) know, the docklands were one of the main targets during an air raid.
Everyone was ordered down into the shelters and marched off. Except my grandad who was (and still is) inseparable from my nan.
He wanted to be at home with his wife and kids. so ignoring all the shouts to get under cover, my grandad gets on his pushbike and rides off.
Now its night time, everywhere is blacked out and he's riding like the clappers on this crappy old bike, the fear of god making his legs pedal as fast as he can.
Then it starts. Bombs start falling over London, explosions are hitting the docklands, others falling all over east london.
And my grandad is pedaling like fuck.

Halfway home he has to ditch the bike, he is shaking so much he cant ride it anymore. So he runs.
Up ahead, he can see East Ham and the streets of his home. As he runs there is a series of explosions up ahead.
All over the area the only light is coming from buildings burning and more explosions as the bombs fall.

He finally gets to his street to find his house is a pile of burning rubble.
I can't even imagine what must have been going through his head at that moment. My cousin didnt know and I have a feeling that my grandad has never, ever spoken about it.
Luckily, there is no need to. My nan, my mum and her two brothers had been at a neighbours house when the siren went off and were safe.

To this day he doesn't talk about it much, but at least I know why he never had fireworks at his house when I was a kid.
(EvilMeister, Fri 3 Jun 2011, 9:49, 1 reply)

Click!
'cos my mate (Falklands vet) is rubbish at fireworks, even now he's only ok if he's lighting them...
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Fri 3 Jun 2011, 22:29, closed)