Thursday 5th November

Guy Fawkes, though we hardly realized it at the time was probably a fall-guy, a ruse for the Establishment of the day to provoke some anti-Catholic feeling.  The Religious wars fought in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth Centuries were pretty vicious and we can still see their shadow in Northern Ireland today.  As kids in the fifties we didn’t care who Guy Fawkes actually was, it was enough that we were going to have a bonfire and burn an effigy of him on top of it.  It was, next to Christmas Day and the week-long Carnival in the Summer, the most looked forward to event of the year.  There is something elemental about a communal bonfire, something that takes us back to maybe our pre-historic days, when on a damp and misty night the tribe would gather round the fire and feel safe and protected.  Making the guy was always exciting; a pillowcase for the head with a crudely drawn face, an old shirt and trousers stuffed with rags and paper for the body, our guy would be tied onto an old pushchair and wheeled round the town.  We would beg for a “Penny for the Guy”, ostensibly to buy fireworks but more likely spent on sweets.

We lived in a new council estate with a large ‘green’ in the middle and by some unwritten design a new bonfire would start to grow each year, with neighbours contributing wooden branches, old chairs and even a sofa as well as bags of leaves and more than one guy.  Around seven it would be lit and we would all crowd round the conflagration, adults with maybe a glass in hand and us kids running wild.  A few bangers and jumping jacks would be thrown at unsuspecting kids feet causing much hilarity.  Sparklers were held in woolen gloves and often small fireworks too.  Someone would nail a Catherine Wheel to a post and we would all cheer as it whirled round creating a peacock’s tail of coloured sparks.  Whoosh and there went a rocket, exploding into stars high above us.  Maybe some baked potatoes or cake would be handed round.  Gradually as the fire died down families dispersed to their own homes, the Guy successfully burned for another year.

In the morning a few of us boys would be kicking half-burned logs into the still glowing embers causing a mini-shower of sparks to flare up.  Another bonfire night over.  Then slowly Health and Safety issues kicked in and people started to go to organized firework displays, and then even letting off a few fireworks in your own garden became unpopular.  Now November the fifth is hardly celebrated at all, no bonfires and no guys either.  The excitement has all passed over to Halloween now and Mr. Fawkes, guilty or set-up is largely forgotten.