Take two

Wilf Scott (above, left) and Keith Webb run Pyrovision, the company behind tonight's end-of-festival fireworks in Edinburgh

WILF (60) ON KEITH

I DIDN'T like fireworks when I was a child. I wasn't the kind of kid who would be out in the shed knocking up chemicals in copper tubes and blowing doors off. I came from an artistic background - I wanted to paint the sky.

I've been in the business now for 28 years and things have changed 200% compared to when I started. The beginnings were very primitive, but slowly equipment and technology have enhanced the capacity to fulfil your dreams. And it's safer now because it's all controlled electronically, so most of the time the crew aren't near the fireworks when they fire.

Things can still go wrong, though. A sequence can cross-ignite - one item setting another item off too early. Fireworks have a life of their own, but I suppose that's what makes them so energetic and interesting to look at. We've done shows together for the Queen's Golden Jubilee, the Forth Bridge's centenary and the Fatboy Slim concert on Brighton beach.

Keith is a very disciplined organiser, while I'm an anarchist, so the mix between us is sometimes volatile and always interesting, but we do bounce off each other. He can have a temper from time to time. Because he's an organised guy, when he tells people, "You've got to do it this way," and they don't - that's when it gets a bit frayed. He and I have had a few big arguments, but I think that would be the case with any two people working in such close proximity.

If we disagree we'll discuss it, and if I think his idea is better than mine we'll go with that idea and vice versa. Given my age, though, I think he's the boss now. I still have a lot of contacts and still have a lot of involvement in the shows, but fireworks is a young man's game.

KEITH (46) ON WILF

WHEN I was 16, I failed my exams and didn't know what to do next. My father knew a man who ran Phoenix Fireworks, who was looking for an extra pair of hands for an event, so I went along. I remember one of the old guys firing a product that blew up - he got quite a serious cut on his face, but he carried on because the show must go on. So I'm getting covered in all this burning debris, there's Fred with this gash in his cheek, and there's smoke everywhere - and I just loved every second of it. That was my first taste of fireworks.

I got to work for lots of older people who taught me about all these traditions, whereas Wilf's firework introduction was new and modern in comparison. That's maybe why we work so well together - we can mix and match between new and old.

I'm very precise about what I do and I will try to find key points of the music to work on. Sometimes that leads me into areas where I struggle with certain bits of music. But where I would struggle in randomness, Wilf, thanks to his arts background, can take more of an overview of it.

We don't tend to socialise when we're not working because we see so much of each other when we're away. It's a bit like a marriage, really - sometimes you need a break from each other. When we have an argument, it's generally me who stomps out and says, "Well, if that's the way you want to do it, go ahead."

But we do get on well. We might be in, say, Hong Kong or China looking at new material, and we'll have a right old laugh. Our trips can have a real holiday atmosphere. And Edinburgh, to some extent, is a bit like that. Once we get out of the Castle, we tend to hit the pub in a large group and have a laugh and a joke. We work hard and we play hard, but we understand that we're there to do a job and the job must come first.