WHEN I were but a lad, there were things we called crofts at the back of our rows of terraced houses - basically just an area of waste land, inhabited by stained mattresses and scabby dogs.

The crofts were where we built our bonfires, raiding wood from the houses slated for demolition and from other gang's bonfires.

(And people's garden gates. Sorry, Mrs Thingy at number 24. ) This blatant piracy meant that as the great day drew near - and it was a really big deal back then - a shift system would be brought in whereby the bigger lads would take it in turns to sleep in the bonfire to guard against marauders.

Sure, kids occasionally died if someone was careless with matches, but that went with the territory. And at least we left them the means to defend themselves and alert the rest of us - a sturdy leather glove, a Roman Candle and a box of matches. The Taliban look like pussies by comparison.

Little did I think that 40 years later, people would be sleeping by their bonfires again - only this time on the orders of the health and safety Nazis. It has come to my attention that bonfire organisers across the country have been told that as a condition of their entertainment licence (and what a puritanical Roundheaded laugh that procedure is), they must remain by their bonfire until it is completely extinguished.

Apparently small children and passing animals might otherwise accidentally wander into the embers and be incinerated. (Cases to date? None. ) So we now have the prospect of the nice men from the Round Table having to camp out alongside the embers for as long as it takes for them to go out.

This could take several days.

Now I'm no fan of accountants, but even they have to go to work sometimes. If only to annoy the rest of us.

Still, as long as there are 45year-old, grey-suited, social-climbing, would-be Freemasons prepared to put up with such nonsense, it avoids the situation that has arisen in Ilfracombe in Devon, where the local rugby club has given up completely and has settled for a "virtual bonfire" to accompany their charity fireworks.

The "virtual bonfire" is a video of a previously-filmed bonfire projected. On to a 22ft wide by 15ft high screen hanging between the goalposts. Loudspeakers have been arranged to relay the sound of crackling and fizzing.

There will also be gas heaters arranged to give those nearest the screen a rosy glow.

Is this what it has come to? How long will it be before your local firemen push drawings of fireworks through your letterbox so you can show your kids what used to happen? And what would those kids on the croft have made of it all?

NICE TO see Madonna doing her best to be a typical English woman. She's a single mother who lives on an estate and has three children of different colours by three different fathers. Oh, and her husband appears to be unemployed. Top marks all round.