Well the time to start the show came at 11pm everything was to be hand fired and rather than watch from a distance I was at ground zero only a few meters away from the lot. First up to get proceedings going was a collection of Bengal red to blinker (strobing flares) the effect of these was surreal against the darkness of night. Next off (I think I was sooooo excited) were the mortar mines and the flashing thunders+chirping orioles the effect from a load of these going off was pretty good but only a precursor of what was to come.

BOOM!! Fuck shit I thought and leapt about 5 foot to the side as the first of the shells launched into action followed by 2 or 3 more BOOM BOOM BOOM as they broke and more launched while the first set of blockbusters burst into life, next came a cat4 cake and these cakes make the cat3 variety look very tame especially stood so close to them. BOOOM shit run for the hills I thought, that was louder than the rest had something exploded on the ground no it was a larger bore shell launching into the heavens it was at this point with everything going mad that I noticed I was shaking this was scary and exciting being up this close and personal to a pro display was something I’d always wanted to experience and what an experience but pretty soon the shaking subsided and I just stared in awe at everything exploding above my head. Now this was the weird part being at ground zero you don’t see shells burst in nice spheres they just spread out from the centre and look flat and with no point of reference to see them go up absolutely none of them looked as if they had gone high enough (scary).

It’s hard to put it into words what the actual experience was like because there was so much going at any given time, however one thing that will stay with me was the Kimbolton happy star cake this was a beast try to imagine 150 Brightstar atomic meltdown rockets going off one after the other at a much lower altitude THIS THING WAS MADNESS .For those of you who haven’t tried those rockets this is what the firework did. It launched shell after shell that broke with a LOUD report to hundreds of very loud crackling golden stars it went on forever the noise and effects were awesome.

It was at this point I noticed it was absolutely chucking it down but not with rain it was cardboard the place was covered I thought my new years displays made a mess but they were nothing compared to this lot, I had a silent chuckle to myself remembering the signs that were attached to the outside of the tennis courts because they had been resurfaced “NO OUTDOOR SHOES IN THE COURTS TRAINERS ONLY” hehe.

As the display went on all I was thinking was I want this to last forever alas Grenville had moved on to the finale rack BOOOOOOOM what the f%&k now something really has blown up on the ground I thought no it was the first of the 8″ shells sounding its presence as it launched BOOOOOOOM another these were something else the shock wave off these launches has to be felt to be believed especially being so close (no wonder Grenville wore a crash helmet whilst firing) they feel like someone or thing has grabbed you and shook you from the inside and for a moment you don’t know where you are very disorientating , oh well the last shell went up an 8″ crackling willow which broke majestically and hung crackling for a while before becoming nothing more than a trace of smoke followed by a huge applause of appreciation from the crowd.

Operation takedown

Ok shows over nothing to see here what goes up must come down. The next course of action was to check all the racks for miss fires etc a couple of the shells hadn’t played the game and were disposed of and one of the blockbusters had committed suicide halfway through its brief life but other than that everything had gone according to plan, time to separate the racks and pack the vans out with spent gear this took about three quarters of an hour and the smell was lovely (I’m a pyro nut).

After all the gear was put away (all the sweeping up was left till daylight I hear it made a ticker tape parade in America look tidy) it was time to got to the bar and drown in beer the guys were congratulated on an absolutely outstanding display and after that they told me plenty of pyro related stories plus a very funny one that I’d better not tell sorry.