AUTUMN is upon us, and before long we will once again have to endure that tiresome seasonal ritual - relentless fireworks.

I could live without fireworks - they’re over in a flash, so pretty overrated in terms of visuals, but more significantly they create appalling noise pollution, are potentially dangerous, and cause huge distress to birds and animals - both wildlife and domestic pets.

It would be fine if the wretched things were only lit once a year, at Bonfire Night events, but fireworks regularly go off for days, sometimes weeks, leading up to and after November 5. Then there are New Year’s Eve fireworks (a post-Millennium trend) and wedding fireworks. It’s too much; we shouldn’t have to put up with this anti-social nuisance all year round.

Now it looks like firework use is finally being tackled, thanks to a report being sent to all five Bradford area committees. The issue has been taken up by Eccleshill Lib Dem councillor Brendan Stubbs who, approached by several residents complaining about post 11pm noise, has been working to bring it to a Council agenda, despite the Government saying there is to be no overhaul of current fireworks legislation.

Cllr Stubbs, with fellow ward councillors Geoff Reid and Nicola Pollard, has been sending out letters to 2,000 constituents

stating that the way to reduce distress caused by fireworks is ‘to work with industry, retailers and others to promote the safe and responsible use of fireworks’ and ‘to ensure that appropriate action is taken against those that break the rules’.

Taking action to control firework use is long overdue, but by consulting with each other, the council and emergency services, and residents, can hopefully iron out a plan to ensure that firework laws are enforced. The next step would be for the Government to restrict the sale of them to limited times of year only.

* NICE to see Henry Winkler win an Emmy this week - 42 years after he was first nominated. It was the sixth time the Happy Days star, 72, who won for his role in US comedy Barry, had been up for an Emmy, in a six-decade career.

I was lucky enough to meet Winkler a few years ago when he was in Bradford talking to schoolchildren about his struggle with dyslexia. Much-loved by my generation as The Fonz, the veteran actor revealed he wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until his thirties. As well as having difficulty reading scripts, he couldn’t even ride The Fonz’s famous motorbike, as dyslexia affected his physical co-ordination too. He was the epitome of ‘cool’, but felt anything but.

“When I was a child in the 1950s, nobody knew about learning difficulties. My parents called me ‘dumb dog’ and said I was lazy. I studied hard but had no idea what I was reading,” he told me. “Years later, I realised I wasn’t lazy - what I was had a name.”

Winkler’s experiences of dyslexia inspired his best-selling Hank Zipzer children’s books, about a wise-cracking dyslexic boy, made into a TV series shot in Calderdale.

To the youngsters he met in Bradford, ‘The Fonz’ meant very little. But his natural easy-going charm spoke volumes, especially to those children with dyslexia. “A learning-challenged child already feels bad about themselves, they don’t need to feel any worse,” said Winkler. “We should celebrate all children, not just the top ten per cent in the academic field.”

If only someone had told that confused kid, labelled lazy and stupid more than 60 years ago, that one day he would be proudly clutching an Emmy.

* The fame game doesn't have to be a family affair

ANOTHER day, another Beckham brood photo opportunity. From posing rather awkwardly with Nerf guns in a Vogue photo-shoot to taking front row seats at their mother's catwalk show, the Beckham youngsters have been trotted out quite a bit lately. Being thrust into the limelight must make for a strange kind of childhood.

I admire celebrities who keep their children anonymous. It can be done - just ask Meryl Streep or Bono. Both A-list superstars in their lines of work, yet I have no idea what their offspring look like.

Celebrities often moan about invasions of privacy, yet are happy to invade their kids' privacy when it suits. There's something unnervingly Faustian about dragging children through the red carpet flashbulbs.

* Running out of steam as train trip de-rails

PUNCTUALITY on Britain’s railways has reached a 12-year low. One in seven trains missed the industry’s Public Performance Measure of punctuality in the 12 months to August 18, according to Office of Rail and Road figures. Tell me about it.

I waited an hour for a delayed train to Manchester Airport recently. When it arrived we were packed on like sardines then, mid-journey, it was announced that, due to the delay, the train was no longer going to the airport! I ended up on a draughty platform at Manchester Piccadilly, waiting for another delayed train...