The Bonfire of 1970

Maybe 1970 was a year like any other; Perhaps nothing or very little had altered the normal course of our lives in those first six months already lived out of a portico year of a new decade.

With the end of May we reached that traditional annual stadium where, in our group of friends, a magical and meaningful date for all reached an authentic nature letter : the night of San Juan with its bonfires . It was, therefore, a time to begin the preparations for which, since 1962, it had become our particular great night of the year.

As we had been doing since that distant year in 1962 , it was time to start planning our fire ; To think of the trickery to put into practice when removing the fuel element necessary for the lumerada and the necessary collection of the funds necessary to acquire all kinds of pyrotechnic devices that, next to the traditional paper balloon, ; One of the few that had miraculously been saved from disappearing in the tragic "burning" of the mid-1960s and which meant the disappearance of a good part of the fires that burned in our area, and in general in All La Coruña, every night of San Juan.

At the beginning of the first meetings, we realized that the newly released majority of a part of us demanded to vary, to some extent, the course of what had until that moment been only a child's play and for that reason, the first measure adopted Was to accommodate the girls who were part of our gangs and that, by those years, had already begun to forge with us the first juvenile idylls.

After a long debate, through which other possible denominations paraded, we concluded that the figure of the "Meiga" was the one that best identified with the night of San Juan in the popular imaginary and therefore the one that best fit the That we were looking for and from there came the name of Meiga Mayor , which has reached our days.

With great haste and with little pause, we began the procedures to carry out the new project; Permissions, scheduling, budgets, contacts, etc.

In a few days I was named the Major Meiga, Estrella Pardo Castiñeiras , and it was she who appointed her Meigas de Honor, Angeles Astray, Puri Arias, Maca González and Lourdes Castiñeiras.

Everything seemed to go on wheels. The First Major Meg, Brown Star, and their Meigas de Honor were named; We had closed the contracting of a session of fires; We had completed the installation of a stage where to proclaim the Meigas and had even made the bands that they would wear on their costumes.

And finally the day came, waiting, on June 23. That morning we got up as early as we could because the night before we had gone to bed, closing the last fringes before the great night of San Juan.

Soon the work began on the installation of the Bonfire on the wide street of Paseo de Ronda (today Calvo Sotelo), which was ready in the middle of the afternoon.

Then, after an endless day full of problems and setbacks that on more than one occasion was about to make us throw in the towel and thanks to the intercession of Mr. San Juan we managed to save almost "in extremis", we look forward to the arrival of the night.

The Meigas drove to the plaza amid applause from the crowded crowd. Star dressed in a nice witch costume, and Maca, Lourdes, Puri and Angeles in regional costume. The night of San Juan was reaching its zenith.

Then, with more circumstance than pomp, they were proclaimed the first Meigas of the coruna cornueril history, imposing them the Bands accrediting. Afterwards, the group "Aturuxo" put the folk note to the act , after which the colorful fireworks session went off, and finally, Estrella, lit the fire that carried the fire to the entrails of the bonfire that burned for the four sides .

And with that concluded that first great night of bonfires, the Night of the Burning. Without knowing it we were beginning to make history.

The following day, after thanking San Juan and the Virgin for the favors received, we gave the party a conclusion, not without seeing before, with emotion, as the Television of the three of the afternoon of TVE echoed our first Night of Burning . Undoubtedly another sign of a promising future.