By Nick Hancock

I wanted to share this one with you as it’s just the kind of Pandemic Positivity (!) that we need in Harrogate.

It’s the wonderful idea for a Virtual Firework night to replace the Harrogate Round Table charity bonfire and fireworks on the Stray.

This plan was hatched live on Your Harrogate’s Facebook on Wednesday night as I stood on the Stray at 7pm (not one of my best ideas… it was cold and dark and not as ‘atmospheric’ as I had hoped!!!) but special thanks to Mark, David and Christian from the Round Table for coming out to talk about the idea.

It is very simple to get involved with this one. On Bonfire night (Thursday 5th November) at 6.30pm we are asking EVERYONE in Harrogate to “shine a light”. Now your light can be anything that is appropriate a torch, a candle, an actual firework if it’s safe and legal and covid-friendly blah blah (!)

The gesture of us all doing this at the same time has some great benefits. Firstly we are all going to miss the Stray Bonfire this year (apart from the mud… last year whilst hosting it was more like Glastonbury on the Stray and I even saw one guy lose a welly in the mud!) The Fireworks are one of the best supported events that we have in Harrogate and you have probably grown up going as a kid to then taking your own children.

I love the idea that we can try and recreate a bit of that amazing community spirit that we had back in ‘proper lockdown’ with the Thursday night clap. We all miss community spirit. We all miss being part of bigger things. So we can all “shine a light” and be together… wherever we are and whoever we are with.

Normally about 10,000 people come and stand on the Stray to watch the Fireworks. If just ten per cent of those people joined in with “shine a light” it would be pretty epic.

You can read all the details here