It was my father's birthday on Cracker Night and he strung the local kids along by telling us that the bonfires and crackers were to celebrate his birthday.

He got away with it for about 15 years because as we grew up and twigged to it, we did not tell the younger ones.

I think I was about 18 before the last of the younger ones outed him.

By that time he was stringing them along with who his brother was.  Brian Henderson was very big on TV, with Bandstand and the News....our name was Henderson and Dad looked a bit like him, probably because they wore the same glasses.  He got away with that one for quite a while too.:O