I lived in Oxley Grove in Weoley Castle from 1955-1961, us kids used to have a bonfire in the circle at the top of the grove as back then hardly anyone had a car. Searching for stuff to burn became our main objective for about a month before Nov 5th and every other grove/ road etc had kids doing the same. Then you would wake up one morning and find some of your bonfire wood had been raided in the night so we would seek revenge and raid someone else's bonfire!
Our parents bought a few fireworks each week, all made in the UK, non from China and I would keep looking at them imagining what they would go off like. One particular favourite was Wilders "calling all cars" which sounded like a siren when it went off.
Us boys would buy penny bangers with our pocket money and do stupid dangerous things like wait till it fizzed and then drop it in a Brasso tin & screw the top on as fast as we could. The explosion would completely flatten the tin out, thinking back how easily we could have lost our fingers as the bangers then were much more powerful than todays poor efforts. Another one was lighting a banger and putting it down the barrel of our cowboy guns & rifles, it would shoot out right across the road.
Another one was tying a banger to a stone, wait till it fizzed and the throw it in a deep part of the stream, it would continue to burn underwater and send up big white bubbles of smoke followed by a thump and eruption in the water. Another banger in a red wrapper was called a Cannon and cost 2 pence, this gave a huge deafening bang which you maximised by letting it off in a narrow space such as between two houses.
After the bonfire had burned down and collapsed on Nov 5th we would frantically start looking for something else to throw on to keep it going, kids running out with their dads evening mail, Radio times and even their comics would get thrown on, then we would give up and go off looking for rockets that had come down in the nearby roads. And finally give up and go home to bed, that is if we could find our way home through the smoke & smog!
Happy days