PAUL WALSH'S 2001 DISPLAYS

Guy Fawkes:

Owing to lots of so called friends crying off at the last minute decided not to bother with a display on Nov 5th now planning one huge New years come Birthday come House warming spectacular .

One good thing to come out of it was, you know who your real friends are and also we decided to go to Lewes instead which this year was quite out of this World. If you have never been you must go at least once! A modest crowd of 30,000 people (can be 60,000 when its on a Fri or Sat) Over £25000 worth of fireworks spread over 5 Displays all spread out around the town but all more or less overlapping, so wherever you looked the sky was ablaze with color and noise. I think that night was as close as you can get to Pyro Heaven.

And as for being a poxy salesman! I'm a poxy postman and have to get up at 3.30 in the morning, now that really sucks!!

One last thing before I get back to repairing the house, I see your a member of CAMRA, ever tried BONFIRE BOY from Harveys of Lewes if not maybe I can send you a bottle or better still bring a crate when the UKFR has its get together [yes please - Pete!]

Love the site, learnt lots spent lots (girlfriend hates it spent the dishwasher money on fireworks).

New Year:

A brief list of the event: Weather : Bloody cold even the pound was frozen and there was 2inches of snow on the ground but nobody seemed to mind because they were all quite merry.

Started of with a shock wave rocket (fi) a bit of a dull thud wouldn't buy another followed by 6 Spanish salute rockets( all fired perfectly nice loud bang) with a few medusa rockets (kb), that was followed by Jewelled Barrage (Fi) crowd liked it followed by Star Bombard excellent!
Then had a few smaller cakes Martian Attack (fi) Wild Geese (gl) (I thought this was good value) and then laser bombard (fi) (one to review I think had a little bit of everything) then some Achilles rockets (kb) no whistling ascent.

Next one of the stars of the night Scorned Dragon has Fury (gl) 25mm candle used 3 together the best one is black with a blue top large spiralling tailed white comets which then break into hundreds of red twinkle things and end with an air bomb,I'm sure your describe it better also used green with red top not quite as good but you still got large spiralling tailed comet but this time burst into a white crackle, next door neighbour had the third type which is same comet to large bang and there only £4 or less. 2 Happy Holiday (fi) long lasting crackling gold comets probably better with something else, 2 sky monkey (gl) fired perfectly nice effects good value. Enough of the little stuff Happy Monk (gl) Excellent still a best buy, Big Bertha (sandling) my personal favourite, huge shell breaks good variety has to be a best buy even at £40, East meets West fan cake(sandling) did fill the sky and was good but not worth £60, finished with 1 Thunder Blitz ( the only dud) 2 Triple H bombs ( I can see why they are so popular) and a Giant Kruger park(really intense and fast firing)

That's about it,all I can say is it's worth spending time setting the stuff up properly as it makes life so much easier and also I think I'm going to experiment more with candles as the effects seem better and certainly go higher than smaller cakes.

Above: Paul's stash included THB, Star Bombard, Kruger Park, Medusa rockets, Laser Bombard, Happy Monk, Sky Monkey and other assorted heavyweights. This man clearly knows how to pick the best ones.

Above and below: A line of sparklers in the snow makes a pretty start.

Above: Snow can actually enhance a display. Look at the way the ground lights up as Jewelled Barrage gets underway.

Above: Boom! Paul seemed to be having a competition with a neighbour. Strike one to Paul!

Above: More aerial mayhem.

Above: The audience enjoy some more sparklers.

Above and below: Some nice silver effects from, amongst others, Scorned Dragon Has Fury.

Above and below: Some serious stuff now. Big Bertha provides some powerful effects.

Above: Paul's neighbour's fate is sealed as Big Bertha is followed by "instant professional fan in a box" East Meets West (an expensive fan cake, but it hits the spot).

Above: The best response from next door is this limp effect. They should have joined UKFR!

Above and below: Paul ends with two Triple H Bombs and the sublime Kruger Park fired together. Check out the mass of silver with the power of THB brilliantly enhanced by the colour of Kruger Park. Well done Paul, classy ending.

Above: Answers on a postcard, heheh....

 

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©2002 UK Firework Review. Pictures courtesy of, and with thanks to, a video from Paul Walsh