Tentatively, I turned the blue-lined pages of my exercise book, until I found the last one that I had filled with pencil. There it was! Next to the neat ‘Very good’ in red pen, was the five-pointed star of gummed paper, that was my ticket to a sweet treat. The teacher kept a special tin in her desk drawer, and proud but embarrassed, I scraped back my small wooden chair, and walked to the front of the infant class to claim my prize.
I chose the chocolate eclair that I knew would be there, as I had earlier been given the privilege of selecting my favourite sweets to go in the coveted tin, for having gained the most stars. The long-lasting caramel finally gave way to soft melting chocolate, as I happily sucked my starry reward.
On Bonfire nights, some years later, toffee was usually associated with a very different type of star, one that came in a brightly decorated, long cardboard box labelled ‘Fireworks’. These occasions were small localised affairs. Just a few streets put together, and fiercely guarded, each bonfire pile of collected scrap wood and dead branches.
When the long-anticipated evening finally arrived, we would gather excitedly around the blazing crackling stack of wood, on the waste ground between the houses, with family, friends and neighbours. All muffled against the November cold, with old woollen gloves, hats and scarves. Clasped in our arms were the precious boxes of fireworks, with magical names and promising designs.
Using a glowing red taper, everyone took turns to light the inviting twist of dark blue touch-paper at the top of Roman candles, bravely held at arm’s length by a yellow plastic handle. We gazed in bright-eyed wonder as fountains, volcanoes and cascades of coloured stars exploded into the dark night, from the lines of small cardboard tubes and pyramids set on old bricks. Bang! Blue stars. Whizz! Green stars. Whoosh! Silver, red and gold. Mesmeric plumes of silent snowstorms and crackling golden showers, traffic lights of changing colours, all filled the air with the smell of gunpowder and smoke.
Narrow spiral tubes were pinned through the middle to a nearby fence post, so the squealing wheels could spin in their ring of bright sparks. Rockets on wooden sticks stood waiting for blast-off, in empty milk bottles nearby, to shoot up in vibrant mushroom cloudbursts, then rain down fading glitter. When all the larger fireworks were spent, we gripped the thin wire ends of sparklers, pushing their tips amongst bonfire embers to ignite the spitting white starlight. Brandishing them, we drew patterns in the air and wrote glowing messages in persistent trails, using each dying one to set off the next, till piles of hot black rods were all that remained.
Numb fingers and toes, ears and nose, were warmed by a welcome flask of hot tomato soup, which left an orange moustache. We shared chunks of home-made parkin, and of course, the dark treacle toffee that stuck your teeth together.
A magnificent display of nature’s own fireworks was witnessed much later in life, and far from home. Tents glowed in the flickering light of the scout campfires, as we lay on the shadowy grass of a balmy summer’s evening. The white-tipped waves lapped the Guernsey shore with a soft rhythmic hiss, illuminated by the myriad stars in the velvet twilight above us.
Frequent arcs of brilliant light marked the paths of shooting stars. They were spellbinding, it was hard to look away for fear of missing any of them. The meteor shower seemed so near and lasted so long, on such a clear night and far away from the cities spilling their light. You could almost feel our planet crashing its way through the cloud of dust in space, causing the shattered fragments to blaze a shining trail through our atmosphere as they fell. The universe was suddenly very real and all around us, not just some distant starry backdrop.
One special dark night of childhood was during a power cut, a common feature of the miners’ strike. The open coal fire, and the candles on the table where I was doing my homework, were casting ever-changing shadows around the dim room, when a loud knock came at the back door. Bob, our neighbour, had called to invite me out to see the amazing night sky, his own girls long since grown up.
We stood below the powerless street light in the cold cul-de-sac, our necks craned upwards as he introduced me to the deep blackness, packed with twinkling stars undimmed by electric light. Bright white diamonds sparkled against the coal-black background. They shone out crisp and clear, far more than I had ever seen before. He picked out the constellations for me, naming them and recounting their tales.
Later in the week he called round again, generously bringing me a marvellous illustrated book which I sadly no longer have. Legends of the Stars, crammed with fantastic stories of myth and magic, woven around the star patterns he had shown me that night, sparking a lifelong interest.
To compensate for the cloudy and lighter nights usually experienced at home, we created our own glow-in-the-dark map of the heavens. Over a hundred pale-green plastic stars studded the ceiling, not randomly but carefully arranged. Each one was held up by a peelable glue dot, and painstakingly sited to reproduce the starry sky above. Though they didn’t move in procession as the night progressed, nor change with the seasons, as the real stars did, they accurately reflected their relative positions.
A planisphere mounted on a tower of boxes on the bed was used to align them, a tiny central bulb of light casting shadows from the imprinted clear dome. Standing precariously on a chair, each projected dot was faithfully marked on the ceiling by a luminous star, until the northern constellations slowly emerged. Energised by daylight, they returned a steady glow once evening fell, and we could always lie beneath a canopy of stars.
