The Come-Back Kid ..

It was all about come-backs yesterday! The Stone (Yawn) Roses are to play again next summer and they're set to bring back Star Trek - ironically a programme about the future - in the New Year!..

My come-backs were all from my Archive. I spent yesterday gathering together another set of 100 images to add to my collection in the Mary Evans Picture Library. How topical that I found a shot of kids collecting wood to build a bonfire. I was talking about November 5th in a recent blog though, unlike Captain Kirk and The Roses, I don't think Bonfire Nights of old will be making a come-back anytime soon...  

Scary ..

I'll hold my hands up! I don't 'get' Hallowe'en! I have no idea why so many people get so much fun from it! Brought up as a Catholic, I only ever really knew the end of October as All Souls', the time when - get this - the veil between earth and purgatory grows thinner so that we can get a glimpse of all the poor sinners stuck over there! That's who we prayed for on Hallowe'en, see? And somehow now there's a big party night out of it!? So, in our over-commercialised world, that means all I see is shop after shop selling ton after ton of tacky, plastic crap that people will wear once and throw away. Like Christmas, with corpses.
Bah, humbug .. or whatever the Hallowe'en equivalent is ..

When I was growing up it was all about Bonfire Night. Never mind dressing up as a zombie - all we could think about was getting a big pile of scrap wood together to build a bonfire in our back garden. Then it was Catherine wheels, bangers, rip-raps and sparklers waved in each others' faces as a huge pile of timber blazed away just feet from our houses! What's not to love?..

In a way I suppose it's sensible that we don't have all of that health and safety nightmare anymore. Kids today will just have to make do with thinking that dressing up in fake blood is exciting. Scary..

Ps: Sorry, a picture of Black Flag's Henry Rollins was about as ghoulish as I could get for today's photo...

Remember, remember..

And so to November, and what used to be some of my most exciting days as a kid .. the lead-up to Bonfire Night. The gangs on our estate would all, at this time of year, be ardently guarding their soggy, wet 'bonty' wood - trying to prevent the pilfering of the pile of pallets, planks and discarded furniture that they planned to see go up in smoke on The Fifth! And I see some things never change. Here's a 'Then and Now' of kids collecting 'Penny for the guy' outside shop doorways (Although I'd hardly call stuffing a teddy bear into a t-shirt an effort worth rewarding, would you?) The settings are interesting, though. Thirty five years ago that kid was sitting outside a boarded-up shop and, Lord knows, he'd have had any number of choice of doorways in today's recession but, interestingly - and perhaps more astutely - our 'modern' lad's plonked himself outside a 'Cash Converter' store, where people sell their unwanted items for dosh! Come to think of it, he made £1.50 in the time it took to take this photo! Now that's a conversion!
Quick! Get me a teddy bear......