Now one of the problems with those annual “Cracker Nights” was that those damned colourful sky-rockets were just too expensive for our weekly allowance of a handful of pennies that us kids got from mum. We liked the idea of the wizz and bang in the sky – but sadly, we just could not afford it. Penny-bungers were about all our allowance could afford. So, it did not take long for David’s mind to conger up a way of turning the humble penny-bunger into the Apollo 10 of space travel. This was David’s design – cut the end off the penny-bunger, place a piece of paper over the exposed gunpowder end, tie it on tight with mum’s white cotton sewing thread and stick the wick back through the paper and into the gun powder core of the bunger. The next stage was to tie the launch vehicle onto a shredded wooden stick made from some old pine packing box and hay presto – a penny-bunger is transformed into a penny-rocket. Now for the launch tower. Trial and error soon delivered the one pint glass milk bottle as the best answer to the height, cost and shape for a penny-rocket launch tower. Everything was set. David’s trial penny-rocket was placed in the bottle and made ready for launch. The wick was exposed and placed over the side of the bottle waiting for the all important ignition and count down. Now all us kids knew that any penny-bunger on a lit fuse required much, much respect – and respect was what we gave our inaugural penny-rocket attempt. Tom, Pip and me were at a very safe distance under the house looking through the slats at David’s brave lighting of his home made penny-rocket. He lit the fuse and ran at great pace to join the rest of us and watched the spitting fuse burn up to the paper and the rocket fuel gun powder. Well – it was a fizzier!!! The gunpowder just gave out a mighty fizz of sparks and smoke and the penny-rocket just lifted a few inches out of the bottle and came to rest back where it began. David’s engineering brain went back to work again and figured out that a certain amount of clay was required to be left in the bunger end to ensure a tighter channel for the explosive energy release. His next attempt saw the penny-rocket finally lift from the bottle but it only made it just over the cloths line and it then fell back limply to the ground. He thinks again??? – an even tighter hole was the solution. Wow!!! – I tell you – the sight of that penny-rocket shooting straight up into the sky with that exhilarating swisssshhhh sound, was just so magnificent. So I got busy and grew with confidence as I created and tested my own personal penny-rockets – but with some rather limited and mixed results. If the weight and balance was not quite right, then the penny-rocket would head horizontally across the neighbor’s yard as they quietly went about watering their lawns. If the hole was too big, the penny-rocket would lift and burn just a few feet with much convulsion, only to fall back as a spent force and lie smouldering as an example of another astro failure on our back lawn. Tom soon became interested in this rocket creating technology and decided to try his hand at building his own penny-rocket rather than just watch his big brothers’ efforts. None of us were particularly confident of his first attempt and joined him under the protection of the house to watch in tight anticipation as his wick burnt down to the expected ignition. Wait for it Nothing – No swisssshhh – No fizz – No sparks – Nothing!! Tom disappointingly wandered over to the launched site and bent over to inspect his failed attempt. Now sadly for Tom, the penny-bunger had not yet become a penny-rocket – yes folks, it was still very much a penny-bunger, but this time, on a rather long fuse. Tom never showed any real enthusiasm again for penny-rockets after the sights and sounds he experienced that day – it was only ever those expensive fancy colourful sky-rockets for our Tom from that day until today.
