Bonfire Night - Celia Rees

 I've been a History Girl since the very beginning and I've never landed on a really iconic date. That is about to change - I'm posting on November 5th! 

History Girls before me have pretty much covered the whole subject. You can read previous posts here, including my post on Lewes Bonfire in 2014. I confess to cheating a bit on that one because my posting date was 18th of the month but Lewes Bonfire was such a spectacle, I had to write about it.  

I was looking around, quite literally, for inspiration and found it on my kitchen wall. I have a Ravilious calendar and the illustration for this month is his painting November 5th. Painted in 1933, it is the view from the Kensington flat he shared with his wife, Tirzah. 

November 5th, Eric Ravilious, 1933

This painting immediately took me back to the garden of my parents' semi detached house in 1950's Solihull. After Christmas and my birthday, Bonfire Night, or Firework Night (the terms were interchangeable - we never called it Guy Fawkes Night) was the most important event in my calendar. Without in any way realising it, I was following the ancient festivals of the year's turning: my birthday is a few days before Midsummer, Bonfire Night is the Fire Festival that marks the start of winter and Christmas is the Winter Solstice. In those days, children seemed closer to the Old Ways. We played out all the time and were very attuned to the seasons. I would be looking forward to Bonfire Night as soon as summer was over. My friends and I would be making preparations from the beginning of September, buying fireworks as soon as they appeared in the shops. My favourite brand was Brock's. 

My favourite fireworks were Bangers,  Roman Candles, Mount Vesuvius Cones and Rockets. My brother's favourites were anything that made a very loud bang. I wasn't so keen on those, neither was the dog, but my brother was older than me and had more money, so he could afford Big Bangs. No-one liked Catherine Wheels, they were hard to light and fell off the fence. I also liked Sparklers and the strange and rather pointless Bengal Matches, does anyone remember them?

We would spend September and October collecting wood for the bonfire that my father built in the back garden. Adults would join in with this and donate any old wood that was lying about and any cuttings, clippings, pruning from the garden or the allotment. We would also collect clothes to make the Guy. An old pair of trousers and a jumper my mum stitched together and filled with newspaper, a stuffed stocking head and face and an old hat (it had to have a hat). 

 The bonfire would be constructed in the back garden, the guy perched on top. Dad would light the fire and when it was going well, all the conkers we'd collected through the Autumn would be thrown on to pop and crackle. It was a neighbourhood affair and everyone would be there. The dads let off the fireworks, we weren't allowed near them and we would wave sparklers. Last to be lit were the rockets and then we would have the sausages, baked potatoes and gingerbread that my mum had made. All over for another year. Well, not quite. We would spend the next day combing the streets for spent rockets, for some reason the sticks were highly prized. 

This year, I'll be staying in but I might make my mum's gingerbread, very dark and sticky with molasses, for old time's sake. 

Stay safe and look after the cats and dogs!

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com

  

Remember, Remember... Celia Rees

I apologise for writing about an event that has passed but History Girls can't choose their dates. On November 5th, I was in Lewes, staying with my old school friend Charmian, invited to witness the phenomenon  that is Bonfire. Not Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes night. Just Bonfire. 

When I was a child, Bonfire Night was one of the highlights of my year. Preparations began in September, collecting wood for the bonfire, rummaging through the rag bag for bits of clothes to make the guy.  We lived in a far less controlled and PC world back then, when children could build bonfires and buy fireworks and we would go round for weeks before the great day, letting off bangers and arguing about which ones made the best bangs. The bonfire would be constructed in the back garden, the guy perched on top. Dads would light the fire and when it was going well, all the conkers we'd collected would be thrown on to fizz and pop. Then the fireworks would be let off as we waved sparklers and munched on sausages, baked potatoes and parkin. Fire and feasting. As a child, I had no idea that I was taking part in a tradition that went back and back, before the Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes failed attempt to blow up Parliament, before All Hallows Eve, to the Celtic Festival of Samhain and probably before that to some ancient time when people first built fires to drive back the encroaching darkness of the waning year.  I did not know about any of that then but I knew it felt special.

This year, at Lewes Bonfire, I had that feeling again, of excitement, of  spectacle, of the wonder and terror of fire. Bonfire is always held on November 5th, unless that date falls on a Sunday, not the nearest convenient weekend. Always the date itself. Lewes is divided into a number of Bonfire Societies: Cliffe (who do things with burning tar barrels and still burn effigies of the Pope), Commercial Square, Borough, Southover, South Street, Waterloo. The names refer to areas in the town and each Society has its own bonfire site where they have built a huge bonfire and will eventually let off spectacular fireworks. The territorial  nature, the year round preparation, the fierce pride and competition, the level of obsession, the feeling that this is only for Lewes people, that the 40,000 visitors are interlopers, reminded me of Siena's Palio.

 Before the bonfires are lit, the Societies, joined by societies from outlying towns and villages, parade through the streets bearing lighted torches and towing effigies which will be burnt. Many of the marchers wear smuggler uniforms, each Society sporting different coloured stripes. They are led by 'pioneers'  in fancy dress: monks, buccaneers, Civil War soldiers, Mongols, Ancient Greeks and Romans depending on the Society.  The differences and rituals are impenetrable to all but locals. The only thing that a visitor can do is stand back- well back - some of the marchers drop bangers and set off strings fire crackers while spent torches are thrown down to gutter at the spectators' feet - and enjoy the spectacle.

There is something wonderfully anarchic and atavistic about the parade, feet marching, torches flaring, the air thick with tarry smoke. Apart from Guy Fawkes, there are burning crosses for 17 Marian Martyrs, Cliffe still marches under a No Popery banner, effigies of Pope Paul V (Pope at the time of the Gunpowder Plot) are burnt. Not all the effigies are five hundred years old.  There are more topical targets. Vladimir Putin in a mankini was paraded this year and the Bonfire Societies still court controversy. An effigy of Alex Salmond caused a storm of protest on twitter. I saw this one being trundled into position earlier in the day. There were two apparently, one of them was blown up anyway, despite official assurances to the contrary. 

Once the parade is over, each of the Societies heads off for its bonfire site. The bonfires are lit one at a time until it looks as though the whole town is on fire. Then there are the fireworks, the societies competing with each other to light up the sky. 

As I watched it all, I felt as though I'd stepped back in to a different age, into a time of barely restrained wildness and excitement, a time lit by fire. Lewes Bonfire has had a chequered history, with a reputation for being riotous and unruly. The riots have been tamed into processions but there is still an edge of danger about it. Tom Paine lived and worked in Lewes and the county of Sussex has a long history of independence of spirit, of defiance and difference, going back to the Peasants' Revolt and Jack Cade. This spirit, still alive in Lewes at Bonfire, is best summed up by the Sussex watch words...

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com