The other night, I held a much anticipated fireworks night for my children, postponed several times from the traditional 5th November due to other commitments. The kids loved it of course, as kids always have. Being a (mostly) sensible chap, I remained sober, and read all the instructions on each firework before – as they used to say – lighting the blue touch paper and retiring a safe distance. 

Children of all ages in attendance had a great time, and the only injury was a minor burn to my thumb when a fuse facing the wrong way caught alight more quickly than I had expected. Nothing ten minutes under the cold tap couldn’t fix.

I couldn’t help noticing in the following days a complete absence of Nanny State-ish calls for all fireworks to be banned completely because some clown or clowns had injured themselves. There were reports of the odd injury – as there will always be when we indulge in potentially dangerous pursuits – but a conspicuous absence of calls for complete bans because of the behaviour of a few fools.

I am convinced that if we had not had a change of government, Guy Fawkes 2009 would probably have been the last time parents like me could entertain their children at home with $50 worth of fireworks from the Warehouse. Nanny was wagging her finger vigorously and tut-tutting last year, and had the socialist still been in power, I feel sure some pretext would have been found to ban home fireworks displays completely in favour of “organised” ones.

Ironically, the major news this year was a report of an organised fireworks display in Whakatane going spectacularly awry when all the fireworks went off at once.  “The best laid plans of mice and men….” and all that. Thank God for a government which credits the average person with some common sense, and accepts that sometimes, unfortunate things happen. Thank God for a government which trusts parents to send their kids to school with healthy lunches – and provides fruit in schools for those families unable to provide it – rather than banning pies and other traditional tuck shop fare.

Long may Nanny remain in exile.