Transcript: Mrs Edith Fitzpatrick recalls Cracker Night in the early twentieth century near Bringelly

Description

Mrs Edith Fitzpatrick was born in 1899. She was [media]interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960' project. Here she recalls 'Cracker Night' (Empire Day was celebrated with fireworks, which are now outlawed in New South Wales) in the very early twentieth century at her family's remote home near Bringelly.

Transcript

EDITH: We always had a bonfire and the bigger boys used to sometimes play up, they'd light our fire before it was time. But we used to have good fun. Different families around used to come, bring their crackers and we'd have a real good Cracker Night. There was nothing rough about it in those days, the boys, there was no throwing crackers at children like they do today. No. It was just good fun. There was none of that vandalism that there is today.

INTERVIEWER: Can you remember some of the names of the people who came?

EDITH: Oh yes, the Brown family, Anderson and the Gillows. They were all our neighbours. But of course they're all gone now. There's none of them, I don't think there is any of them out there now. Because that's a long time ago. [1]

References

Catherine Johnson (ed). Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900–1960 (Liverpool: Liverpool City Council, 1986). http://mylibrary.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/Electronicbooks/Lookingbackatliverpoolanoralhistory-1900-1960.pdf

Notes