Nostalgic Sweetshop of Delight

Alice visits the Compton Verney Exhibitions

With the prospect of half term and visiting grand children, I was excited to find that Compton Verney's current exhibitions: ‘Remember, remember: A history of fireworks in Britain’ and ‘Quentin Blake – As large as life’ are certain to delight the youngest of visitors as well as charm the older ones like myself. Of course subjects like fireworks and a children's illustrator, well known to any reader of Roald Dahl's The BFG, are likely to attract the young but the especially colourful displays – many of them at a convenient height for smaller visitors, and the two resource rooms, where you can make your own firework (without the gunpowder of course) or try sketching like Quentin Blake, make them sure to please. The exhibitions are equally appealing to adults, who like me should find themselves smiling at Blake's gentle humour and revelling in the nostalgic cornucopia of fireworks and some fondly remembered names like Standard, Pains, Wessex, Brock's and Astra – firework manufacturers, now sadly gone, overtaken by cheap imports from China where ironically fireworks first originated in the ninth century.

In the first room of the ‘Remember, remember’ exhibition, the multi-media display sets fireworks in a historical context. The references to Guy Fawkes include masks and memorabilia, some of it gruesome and gory. Look out for the black silk curtain which conceals a lurid description of the executions of Fawkes and his fellow conspirators. Not for the squeamish, so grannies beware if you are prone to nightmares – the children, of course, will probably relish it. There are also eye-popping video clips of some of the festivals of fire that take place around Britain in places that apparently have yet to hear of Health and Safety – flaming torches and burning tar barrels are carried through thronging streets often by very young boys.

The main body, and for me the chief delight of this exhibition, is the collection amassed by Maurice Evans, who is now in his eighties and has been an avid firework collector for many years. As an asthmatic child he was not allowed out to enjoy fireworks on November 5^th, but became intrigued with them especially when he found a trunk belonging to his father, a munitions worker in the First World War, which had little drawers full of diagrams explaining how to work with explosives. Later during World War II when there were shells lying around, Maurice used to let them off – as a teenager he lost a finger in the process! Thus began a life-long obsession with fireworks resulting in the large display of vintage boxes, fireworks and posters which will delight any visitor to the gallery. There are indoor fireworks too – see the ‘Exploding Fruits’, enough to put any child off their Five a Day.

Like Maurice, as a child, I was not allowed to go to firework parties because my father felt they were too dangerous. He had been in the Artillery during the war and had a lasting fear of fire. This forbidden pleasure made fireworks especially fascinating to me and I can still remember lingering over them, the vivid colours of their wrappings, arranged neatly in rows under the glass counters of newsagents and toy­shops. They looked good enough to eat – like the yellow paper rolls of Sherbet Fountains. I savoured them as much as any display in a sweet­shop. And here they are all again, this time arranged temptingly under the glass of the display cabinets. The names too enchanted and they are here in Maurice Evans' collection: from the ones that promised to delight the eye with cascading stars and waterfalls of colour – Snow Shower, Chrysanthemum Fountain, Sky Rocket, Roman Candles and Catherine Wheels to the noisy ones that were to be feared – Jack-in-the-Box, Volcano Shell, Thunderflashes, Mines, Bangers and Squibs.

Nowadays we are treated to the computer controlled magnificence of public displays and fireworks that cost many thousands of pounds. Amazing and safe, but they lack the excitement of the family parties that were held in back gardens where the light from a fading torch illuminated the twisted touch papers of rockets arranged in milk bottles or upturned flower pots and tantalising Catherine Wheels that nearly always refused to spin properly before falling to the ground in an exploding heap. The smell of the gunpowder in the cold night air, the heat of the bonfire that burned your face while your back felt chilly, and the fun next morning of seeing how many spent fireworks and rocket sticks you could find on the lawn. ‘Remember, remember’ at Compton Verney brings it all back.

After the vivid oranges, yellows and reds of the posters and fireworks, Quentin Blake's water colour exhibition offers gentler pleasures. Quentin has been commissioned by hospitals in the UK and abroad to produce pictures for public and waiting areas that might make being in, or visiting a hospital feel a less alien experience. This has resulted in several series of pictures, full of detail and activity which encourage the viewer to speculating the stories behind the people in them – a welcome diversion for those waiting for an appointment. In an eating disorder clinic in London the drawings focus on the calming and optimistic pass-times that fill our everyday lives – feeding the birds, playing with pets, shopping or picnicking with friends. The largest picture shows a town centre on market day full of reassuringly familiar scenarios: a young woman holds a dress up against herself for her friend's opinion; an old man with a shopping trolley offers a young child an apple; a bearded man buys some flowers; a woman consults her shopping list – it is like a scene from EastEnders without the angst.

For a young people's health and social centre in South Harrow, Quentin sets his pictures on Planet Zog and uses fantasy and metaphor to engage the viewer. Here the alien creatures may have bandaged fingers or depressive problems or the consultant may be green and have extra arms. As one patient observed “If you had to wait long enough you might get cured before you got to your appointment.”

For an older adults' mental health ward at Northwick Park Hospital, Quentin chose a circus theme as he wanted to show his fellow seniors (he is in his eighties) that they “could still produce wonders of agility and balance even if in a restrained fashion.” Thus there are mature clowns and jugglers, a wonderful large lady in terracotta on the tight-rope and (my favourite) an aged fire-eater blowing out a spout of flames while his female assistant stands at the ready with a bucket of water.

While I defy anyone not to smile if not laugh out loud at this series, it would be impossible not to be moved and charmed by Quentin's largest commission which is for a recently opened maternity hospital in Angers, France. Playing with the idea that babies ‘swim’ in the amniotic fluid in the womb and can also swim naturally for a time after birth, Quentin's prints show a series of mothers and babies meeting for the first time as swimmers – unclothed, surrounded by trails of seaweed in decorative swirls, celebrating and revelling in their new found freedom after the pains of labour. Simple pen and ink drawings with a single colour wash, a different tint for each picture – yet evocative and emotional as it expresses that moment when baby and mother see each other face to face for the first time. Children will love it because they recognise the artist, adults because they may recall the feeling.

‘Remember, remember: A history of fireworks’ and ‘Quentin Blake – As large as life’ are on show at Compton Verney Gallery until 11^th December. O1926 645500 www.comptonverney.org.uk

(I went and emerged with a big grin on my face which hasn't gone since. It's well worth a visit. Ed.)