It was a family tradition and national pastime from when we were knee high to a towering grasshopper, that on the bonfire night of 5th November we would burn, baby, burn. As kids we would spend the day collecting old pallets, defunct furniture and fallen branches, pile it all together in a heap, and excitedly wait for night to fall.
After a few squirts of engine oil – and divesting of the old and in with the new – the freshly ignited, crackling bonfire of the vanities would sing to our young primal need’s. We would stand around, friends and family, shivering, waving sparklers and spelling our names in the coal black air, as the fire lit up our faces like grinning devils of the night.
And so, it was for the years of childhood. Remember, remember, the Fifth of November. Remember chipping teeth on cement hardened toffee apples. Remember nailing the roman candle to the apple tree and watching it violently erupt and spin in rainbow colours. Remember the rocket launching into space and wishing on a star, as the neighbourhood dogs howled from under the kitchen table. Remember, remember, the Fifth of November. Gunpowder. Treason. And Plot.
My earliest memories of the iconic figure of Guy Fawkes came from a well-thumbed Ladybird book I would spark over every year after the Halloween parties had died down. The beautifully illustrated pictures of the early 1600’s – all bayonets, beards, and ruffs – filled my young head with anarchic ideas of romance, rebellion and revolution. I bought into this famous conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament and seen through this child’s eyes it seemed a noble and just cause celebre. I would choke back a solitary child’s tear on reaching the page where this band of brothers were strung-up for their crimes, round the corner from the scene of the failed coup d’état.
So, one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist, I ponder, as the clock’s tick down till the first screaming rocket kicks off the festivities here on the south coast of England.
Down the road, Lewes was always the regional ticket to celebrate bonfire night, full of pagan ritual and political intrigue, burning effigies of the incumbent Home Office cabinet minister or the borough’s Chief Constable, on a giant stack of wooden pallets towering into the sky.
I am reminded the bonfires of childhood and the revolutionary zeal of Guy Fawkes still burns inside and wonder whether we might all still carry a penny for the Guy. Either way, we still have a base desire to burn the effigies of our rulers and overlords.
So, with no pallet or garden fire pitch, I’m going to build a bonfire of the mind, to mentally relive and revive old traditions for the next generation. It’ll be a bonfire of the vanities – out with the old, in with the new. Chuck on a few effigies, fling on a few affirmations to purge the soul, sprinkle with a little anarchy dust, and watch the sparks fly upwards into the dark November sky.
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