Bonfire Night 2007

Isn't it amazing how you never realise how much you love something until it's gone. On 5th November 1995 I began my Australasian adventures, with a smile, a suitcase and a twelve-month visa for a working holiday. It was a great opportunity and I certainly didn't expect to have the encore of escapades that I did. My plane departed from Heathrow in the afternoon, so I missed all the Bonfire celebrations for Guy Fawkes Night. Never mind, I remember thinking, I'll see it next year...

Bonfire Night was one of my favourite times of the year; the fun to be had in collecting flamable objects and storing it in secrecy. Raiding skips of rubbish, finding dead wood, door-knocking for old newspapers and making a guy out of old clothes. Bonfire Night was magic. No work done at school because all the kids were too excited, praying that the rain would stay away, praying the bigger kids hadn't found our bonfire overnight and stolen it for their own, buying our own fireworks to set off once the day had disappeared into the shadows beyond the mountains. Only then could a new generation of pyromaniacs be released into polite society, and the air would be filled with the sounds of bangers.

This weekend was the first Bonfire Night I've had since leaving for Australia. Everything about it was still great. The fireworks, the smell of smoke, the blistering heat from the 4meter pyre, the absolute hypnosis to be found in watching the flames of fire dance before your eyes - there were kids who came for miles around and all pushed and shoved each other just to see a dead crow that had been found by a fence. The fascination in their eyes, and their leaping cheers when someone threw it onto the flames. Everyone from Station Street came to watch our bonfire, came to share, all spent the evening together until the embers began to glow red.

The night before I'd gone to our local rugby club with my dad to celebrate Uncle Rocky's 60th birthday with him and his friends. There are some things that just cannot be replicated elsewhere in this world, and we cannot hope for them to stay the same forever, that's why we must enjoy what we have right now. There are some things that you just cannot recreate with others, moments of shared familiarity with no boundaries, a sense of community and belonging. Being part of a family allows us to reconnect to ourselves and to just be ourselves, who we were, who we will always be.

For all the wonderful places that there are in the world, I would not have wished to have been anywhere else on Friday night - seeing my Uncle Rocky celebrate his birthday with a bar full of men, singing The Fields of Athenry, Myfanwy, Cwm Rhondda, Flower Of Scotland, Molly Malone even Skinnamarink. We can take photographs to try and capture these fleeting moments, but it's only in the appreciation of belonging, found in such communion, which gives each of us something that we can love forever.