3--2-1 .
 

Admit it . For some of us our obsession with ancient firearms developed as children from the romance of history and in a simple kinesthetic delight in things that go bang. . So here as nostalgia for those old enough to remember and amusement for those who are not, in memory of Guido Fawkes as he preferred to be called, is a small selection of fireworks from the early sixties.

Rarest of all the Astra thunder, or penny banger which for those of us who were connoisseurs of these things in the fifties could lift a dustbin lid 3 feet but by the sixties was a mere shadow of its former self. Superseded by Standard Cannon, which cost a pre decimalisation 2 pence or if you could afford it the 321 Zero at 3 pence. And of course the jumping jack.

Light the blue touch paper and stand well clear

This appears to be a setup to eventually post in humorous 'support' of a relative topic discussion but, starting a thread with it ... :confused:
Well, we don't all have the same tastes, do we, Raf ? :shrug:

Many of them were handmade I'll bet. ;)

And they do go boom. :o

As long as you don't loose a couple fingers when handling them :shrug:

Thank you Raf!

A little bit of our own culture.

As a ten year old in 1950's Oz I grew up in a pretty blood thirsty culture.

We actually killed things, and did totally unacceptable things by today's standards, things like catching rabbits, wild cats, wild dogs & etc and then killing them in various ways.

One of those ways was by shooting them with cracker guns:- length of water pipe, screw on cap with a hole, wooden stock, charged with a penny bunger, chewed up paper and a marble. Accurate enough at close range and with enough punch to terminate a cat. You lit the wick sticking out through the hole.

But now they've banned rabbit traps, banned penny bungers, in fact banned just about everything that was fun. Ten year olds today cry if they see blood, and as for a broken bone --- MY God!!! that's life threatening.

I live in a nation of wooses.

I really do hope we never have to fight a serious war.

Thank you Raf for reminding me of the Good Times.

Meaning they were totally acceptable by then ? ... just kidding ;) .

It was a different world Fernando.

Yes, within the segment of society that I grew up in, it was expected that little boys would discover pain, blood and death pretty early in life. How do you cut a pig's throat, or a lamb's throat if you can't see a rabbit off?

How do you survive in life if you can't handle a broken bone or the loss of a bit of skin?

I had my own rifle, along with responsibility for it at age 8, I'd used borrowed rifles at a much younger age, but I didn't get turned loose unsupervised with firearms until I was about 11 or 12. Thus the need for self manufactured firepower.

The whole ethic of society was different to now, quite simply if it grew, you cut it down, if it moved, you shot it.

We walked miles and miles through the bush and were gone all day, sunup to sunset. Never got lost. Committed all sorts of anti-social acts --- by today's standards.

My grandkids are supervised out of existence.

My grandkids, who are 7 through to 16 are not permitted out of their own little local neighbourhood, and they've got this touchy-feely tree hugging attitude. I gave a couple of them pocket knives --- which they were permitted to have --- under supervision. This is 8 and 10 year old kids I'm talking about. I had knives from the time I could walk. When I was 5 or 6 an uncle gave me a monster bowie that he'd made.One these young blokes carved his initials into a tree. Crime of the century!!! His pocket knife got confiscated by his mother (a school teacher) until she deemed that he had learnt that trees are to be cherished. That woman never has quite come to terms with my attitudes. She thinks I'm a barbarian.

People who don't learn to use knives young tend to cut themselves.

People who don't learn to use firearms young tend to regard firearms as something other than tools.

Yeah, I'm a dinosaur --- along with most people in this country of my generation. The thing was this:- in the late 1940's and early 1950's Australia was flooded with refugees from war torn Europe. Every family had lost men in this war, the Japanese were on our doorstep in Papua New Guinea. The Japanese did not invade Australia, principally because it was considered that the rifleman ethic of Australians would result in too high a loss of Japanese life --- plus the fact that they were stopped on our doorstep. We were raised with the fear of war drummed into us, along with the fear of invasion from the north. Essentially the way kids were brought up was so that if necessary they could go to war and survive.

Like I said:- it was a different world.

After 1996 and Port Arthur --- a Black Op if ever there was one --- our beloved PM decided guns were a bad idea and Australians suffered a significant incursion on our freedom.

Best if I leave this subject right here. I could well make some politically unacceptable, anti-social comments and get myself banned from this Forum.

You ain't alone!

Twenty years ago my cousin brought her kids down from Boston, MA to Louisiana. While visiting with the old folks, they had a look of boredom that only ten year olds can have, so I suggested we go outside ( in the suburbs, mind you!) so we could engage in a little target practice with a BB gun. Their eyes popped open, and the first words were, " What about the police?" Not to worry, this is OK here!

The boy AND girl almost knocked me over, running past their overprotective Mom, my very liberal cousin, and had the time of their lives after five minutes ov instruction and the basic ground rules.

This wouldn't even have gotten a smirk in my day.

And, to think, neither one shot their eyes out, became serial killers or even damaged any of the neighbors property!
Probably one of their fondest childhood memories of life down south.

WE ALL ENJOYED OUR FIRECRACKERS/ FIREWORKS. THE THREE MOST READILY AVAILABLE IN MY EARLY YEARS WERE THE CHERRY BOMB, M-80 AND SILVER SALUTE THEN THEY WERE BANNED. ALL THREE OF THEM HAD THE GREEN WATERPROOF FUSSES AND WOULD EXPLODE UNDER WATER. THE FIRST ONE I REMEMBERED BEING BANNED WAS THE GIANT AND AFTER THAT THE TORPEDO ( A CHERRY BOMB SIZED BALL THAT EXPLODED WHEN THROWN AGAINST SOMETHING. IT WAS THE MOST DANGEROUS AS IT COULD GO OFF ACCIDENTALLY BY SITTING ON IT OR BUMPING AGAINST SOMETHING WHILE IT WAS IN A SACK OR POCKET. THE BABY GIANT WAS BANNED NEXT AND LATER THE CHERRY BOMBS AND THE M-80. WE GREW UP BLOWING UP STUMPS AND BIG ROCKS WITH DYNAMITE SO FIRECRACKERS JUST SEEMED LIKE TOYS TO US BUT WE STILL KNEW WHAT THEY COULD DO SO WERE CAREFUL AND NO ONE EVER GOT SERIOUSLY HURT.
WHILE DRIVING AROUND IN OZ IN THE 1980'S I USED TO LISTEN TO JOHN WILLIAMSON AND ONE OF HIS SONGS WAS "CRACKER NIGHT" THIS REMINDED ME OF THAT.

Speaking of things that go boom! Anyone else here have a Big Bang Carbide Cannon in their youth?

I started shooting when I was 8 with my Mother's match grade .22; she was a competitive shooter at Wellesley College (imagine that)!
My first firearm was an Iver Johnson 12 ga. that I 'found' in the trunk of an old rustbucket in a junkyard. It made a great sawed-off shotgun. :D
First pistol I shot was a Walther ppk at about age ten; one of my older brother's pals had one and he rode his bike over to the house with it in his jacket pocket.
I bought my first shotgun (Remington Wingmaster pump) at the age of 14; all I had to show the guy in the gun shop was the $$$.
Good old days and a different world back then.

Anyway, we used to launch old golf balls skyward from a heavy pipe with M80's; those green fuses were great weren't they Barry? ;) :)

I couldn't help but think of Michael while I was writing this.

Great personal records, guys.
Eventually i was also ten years old in the (late) fifties, but in this part of the world, actually Alan's antipodes, life was not so thrilling and the fire cracks offer was not so diverse; which turned out to be a good thing, as i was born so poor i couldn't afford to buy them; only by Carnival some cheap microscopic 'snaps', almost soundless, composed of a sphere the size of small buck shot involved in fire powder, wrapped in thin paper, all the size of a fingernail.
Whereas in the bone area i am not behind competition; a couple broken ones showed me how fun it was. Until i grew up and had another couple sawed off, to remind me that real fun was yet to come. The only odd part is that i couldn't tie my shoe laces any longer; but having changed to the velcro soultion, problems ended :cool: .
I will skip the animal chasing part; will leave it for the tough guys ;).
But i don't find it hard to understand that Authorities currently restrict the use of manual fireworks; statistics show that the number of guitar players has decreased; you need all fingers to play the thing :eek: .


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I chose the words romantic and kinaesthetic with some care. The classic definition of romanticism being action contemplated in repose. That is a reflection on an experience containing an element of danger, but one of which you are no longer a part. It started in the late eighteenth century with the pursuit of the sublime in nature; wild, uncultivated and terrifying and ends up in the nineteenth century with the gothic novel and a confused aesthetic based on experiences that were often entirely imaginary. Hence the century is shot through with revivalist styles of one kind or another. Not unique to this century as we see a similar thing happening in the sixteenth century with the revival of chivalry. Romantic reflection on the past is thing that occurs at the point at which something is about to become lost.
Kinaesthetic, as in aesthetic as referring to the senses, but also kinetic, as referring to movement which taken together describe the sensation of the pleasure in handling things and things that move. Implying an aesthetic that is developed or understood through an actual tactile experience as opposed to simply looking at something. One based on real experience of materials, process and activity. Things that I would have thought relevant to a study of ancient arms and amour and also say something about why we like the things we do. Which of course is also described by the reflections of contributors whose personal history becomes part of the how they understand the subject and how an aesthetic is formed. Whether they are acceptable or desirable from a modern standpoint is entirely irrelevant. But it does explain why I think a debate about ancient arms and amour can never be wholly academic.

Thank you for your post, Raf.
Perhaps i wasn't sensitive to the point of considering your original post as relative to the theme of ancient arms and armour ... notwithstanding the romantic and kinaesthetic introductions. In any case, as a topic in itself, with its contents, is better placed in the Ethno Miscelania section, once we have one available.
On the other hand, it is more than visible that, the majority of discussions that take place in these fora, is far from being locked into an academic ambiance.
It is however interesting to notice that, your last post may hardly be found distant from an academic one; however naturally worth to appreciate.
All the best.


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Thanks for that . I will try to be less oblique in future.

Political correctness goes amok these days. I just read that a 9 yo boy who wrote a love letter to a 9 yo girl was officially accused of being a sexual harasser. In one of my ( purely medical) papers I referred to a 5 yo patient as a girl. A highly respected medical journal demanded changing it to "a 5 yo woman".
My kids grew around all things sharp and pointy, thank Heavens, and I took them to the Gun and Knife shows when they were 6 or 7. They are likely to be the only human beings in our university ivory tower town to know the meaning of such words as shamshir, panabas and shibria. Tofu steaks are the next step....

I think that the Y-chromosome is slowly but surely vanishes from the genetic composition of the so-called "industrialized" societies.......

No wonder that pharmaceutical companies are so successful in promoting the diagnosis of " low testosterone syndrome": they are undoubtedly correct in identifying its epidemics.

I think that the Y-chromosome is slowly but surely vanishes from the genetic composition of the so-called "industrialized" societies.......


I agree absolutely Ariel.

Not only do I agree, but this phenomenon is able to be predicted from two existing bases:-

1) behaviour of animals when overcrowding in an animal population occurs

2) human behaviour in times of peace

Before everybody jumps on me and tells me that we are currently at war and points at the prevalence of acts of terrorism, I would suggest that the 38 million people killed in WWI, and the 60 million people killed in WWII rather indicates that although we do currently have problems, we are now, and have been for some time, living in an era of peace.

Other things can be reasonably predicted from the above two bases also, but we won't go there.

Incidentally, the editor of your "highly respected medical journal" was way out of his depth, both politically and grammatically when he insisted on referring to a 5 year old girl as a "woman".

The word "woman" means a mature human female.

In Old English the word "woman" did not exist, the word used was "wifmon, or wif", which gives the Modern English "wife", a married human female.

Surely your editors were not suggesting that a 5 year old girl was fit for marriage?

If these editors were trying to achieve some misguided form of political correctness they should have insisted on the use of "female", not "woman".

Words are important, and should be chosen with care.

Different perspectives, different ways of being in life, different cultures.
My heir happens to be a female; society environment determining which are the right toys per gender, i didn't have much difficulty to discourage her from playing with toy weapons, nor my options included narrating my war memories to put her asleep; notwithstanding that she is now a grown up and appreciates my present passion for antique arms ... in their non lethal aspect. I am glad that i live in a less industrialized area of the globe and the chromosomal levels are not yet so unbalanced :rolleyes: .
I must say i hesitated before feeding this line of conversation; i have a feeling that it will lead to a more than political incorrectness.
Herewith my regret :o .

Let us carry the discussion further and talk about armor ; have you seen what is mandated by law for a child to ride a bike in this country? Headgear, elbow pads, knee pads, heck, you would think that the kid was going to joust !
I can remember one particularly steep hill, that we would go down at full speed, often times, someone would be sitting on the handle bars as well and while both parties didn't always arrive at the bottom at the same time, there was no limit as to how much we laughed !In the winter we would go down that same frozen hill in a rusty car hood.

Hi drac, I live in Australia.

I raced bicycles for 26 years, started to race at 16years of age. I still ride a bike, but I no longer race.

The whole time I was racing we were not required to wear crash helmets in any races other than track races.

Several of my friends died from head injuries received in crashes.

I had concussion more than ten times, and was once in hospital unconscious for 3 days, in hospital for over a week.

About 25 years ago mandatory laws requiring all cyclists of all ages to wear crash helmets when riding were introduced.

Now you see all the big name pro cyclists in the big European tours and road races wearing head gear that makes them look like aliens.

I absolutely hated it when those mandatory laws were introduced, and I still hate wearing a crash hat every time I go on a public road.

But the fact of the matter is that if you fall and whack your head with a crash hat on, you don't get concussion, and you most likely won't die.

So --- kids must wear crash hats as well as other protective gear?

Yeah, maybe a bit overdone, but how old is a "child"?

Under 12? Under 8? Under 5?

Realistically I must admit that compulsory crash hats are wise, even though I dislike wearing one.

Greetings back.I guess one must strike a happy medium.As a child I always engaged in some type of contact sport,wether it was a crude game of football we called in the United States "Smear,"or wrestling in high school and the University, or Union rugby for many years.My how that game has changed and probably for the better, but as a front row, I still lament, how they no longer allow the barge, lifting the opposite front row or turning him into his own hooker; in my opinion it takes some of the skill away, where a smaller pack could compete with a bigger one.Yes I know, it has saved broken necks and spinal injuries, but on the other side what is next, helmets ?
In conclusion there must safety rules, but a kid must be allowed to enjoy his childhood ( for those few that come out of their rooms, from playing video games),where he learns what it means to have physical contact and an unkind word might get you a black eye.
Happy New Year

Yeah, no argument from me on the over protectivity thing.

But who & what do we hang this on?

24 hour media cycle?

a series of "limited" wars, probably encouraged, if not arranged, in order to avoid major conflicts that are bad for business, not to mention the social management benefits of these "little wars"?

a generally softer society --- at least in developed countries?

Probably best not to get started on the wrap-in-cotton-wool mentality.