Stop me if you've heard this before, but I am going to talk about Bonfire Night. Now, I'm fairly sure that I've written about this before, but after searching through my blog, I can't find anything.I've checked with maria, and she was convinced there should have been something, but there's nada. In the deep, dark recesses of my memory, just over there, behind the hidden memory of being molested as an altar boy, I faintly remember telling Efrain about Bonfire Night. So that might be it. However, as I said, if you've heard this before, stop me.
My parents lived through a war. My mum, at the age of fourteen, volunteered to be an Air Raid Warden. This meant it was her job to ride through Sheffield, at night, checking that no lights could be seen from outside a house. This is so that bombers couldn't get a pinpoint on where Sheffield was, and thus bomb the place. This job my mum did for four years, every night, even the nights the bombs fell. My dad ran away to sea. As a pacifist he didn't join the Royal Navy because that would have involved shooting at people. Nope, my dad signed up for the Merchant Navy. Mainly because there was a shortage of Merchant sailors, what with all the convoy ships (bringing food from the USofA) being sunk. Yep, my dad signed up for the branch of the services that had the highest death percentage. Anyhoo, the point of this paragraph is to point out the fact that my parents lived through a war. Bombs didn't scare them. Death didn't scare them. Maiming didn't scare them.
When Henry VIII decided to leave the Catholic Church and take his country with him, he really pissed off some people. When his daughter, (Bloody) Mary, tried to drag England back into the Catholic Church she really pissed off some people. No one messed with Elizabeth. And then there was James I. So, a bunch of Catholics decided that this was their opportunity to kill a monarch. They hired a ninja assassin (or in this case a Spaniard), and paid him to kill the king and all of the elected representatives. Sr. Guido Fawkes (or Mr. Guy Fawkes) filled the basement of the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder, and waited until the king came to visit. Fortunately/Unfortunately (depending on your religious persuasion) one of the hirers decided to tip off a Catholic member of Parliament. This led to the basement being searched and Guy Fawkes with his gunpowder being discovered. Mr. Fawkes was hung, drawn, and quartered (that is: hung by the neck for a bit, taken down whilst still alive, then having your innards drawn out of you, before cutting your arms and legs off - the best [hahahaha] executioners would keep you alive through at least a limb loss.) and James I was saved, along with all the members of Parliament.
The Gunpowder Plot (it was 1605, they were hardly going to call it FawkesGate) is remembered fondly by people in England. Every November 5th (the anniversary of Guy Fawkes arrest) bonfires are lit. On the top of these bonfires are placed effigies of Guy Fawkes, these are burnt. And to celebrate his massive failure, in a sort of fuck-you-sunshine moment, the citizens of England launch fireworks into the night. Basically it shows that although Guy Fawkes might not have been able to light his gunpowder, the citizens of England can - yah-boo-sucks.
We celebrated Bonfire Night. When I say we I mean my family, and when I say celebrated I mean back in the 60s, early 70s. My brother and I would start collecting wood in September, bringing back logs from the woods. Through October we would pester our father to take us to buy fireworks. And then, when he did, we would buy our fireworks from an iron mongers round the corner. He would open his back room, and loose, on the table, he would have over a thousand fireworks, all mixed up. My brother and I would root through the pile. We had a large paper bag, and we'd pick fireworks from the pile, read the description, and either reject or select them. My father would take care of rockets and catherine wheels, the rest would be left to us. We knew we had to pick a certain amount of oooo-ahhhh fireworks, but we liked the thump-bang fireworks. Any firework that had a plastic spike on the bottom was a cool firework. The ones that had no added bottom, and would have to be put in a bucket of sand were the ones that mum would like. We'd fill our bags and then Mr. Ryan (wow, 38 years later and i still remember his name) would take each firework out of the bag, write the price down, charge my dad, and we'd go home.
Every night we'd play with our fireworks in the living room. We'd get out our bags, choose a firework, read the description, and then charge round the room pretending to be that firework. In retrospect, what makes the whole thing even weirder, we had a fire in the living room. Yes, an open fire with one hundred+ fireworks laid out in front of it. At some point, the weekend before Bonfire Night, we would make our Guy. An old set of jim-jams or trousers and a jumper, these we would stuff with newspaper and attach with safety pins. The head would be a paper bag with a face drawn on it, and also stuffed with newspaper. We never went door-to-door asking for "a penny for the Guy" because my mother felt it was begging, and we already had our fireworks. She would, though, always give sixpence to any children who came to our door. My brother and I always felt this was unfair!
We'd build the bonfire and place the Guy on top. Often we'd do this days before Bonfire night. My dad would tear it down and rebuild it. We'd find more bits of wood and thrown them on. He'd rebuild it.
And then it was the night.
Sometime after seven, my father would douse the bonfire with petrol (after we'd checked it for hedgehogs - we were Blue Peter viewers) and then set fire to it. We'd stand and watch the fire burn, the Guy burn. My father wouldn't let us light any fireworks until he felt that the whole fire thing was done with. My mother would bring out minestrone soup in mugs, and we would sip while watching the fire. At this point, tin-foil wrapped potatoes were introduced to the embers. When my dad was ready, he would set of a barrage of rockets, to announce to the skies that the Kay family firework display was about to take place. Then a coin was tossed. The winner got to choose the first firework from his bag. Alternately, we would choose a firework, to be handed to my father, who would ceremoniously take it to the launch area and light it. At odd moments he would also light the fireworks he had bought. An odd rocket or catherine wheel. When it was felt that the third-of-the-way point had been reached my mum would produce hot dogs.
As we sat and ate, small fireworks would be set off. Jumping-jacks, bangers would be thrown at each other (ah, good times) and sparklers would be waved around. After the hot dogs (and mayhem) back to the fireworks. Another third done and we'd eat the baked potatoes, pulled from the fire. My mum would pas amongst us, spooning huge dollops of butter onto the potatoes. We'd fork out the potato and then get another dollop of butter to help eat the skin. Through all this we'd drink mulled wine. My brother's and my cup diluted with hot water. And then it was the finale. We'd know to keep the best fireworks until the end. The last twenty minutes were full of colour, full of raw violence, full of fun. At the end, my dad would let off the last volley of rockets, and we were done.
The dead fireworks were collected and thrown on the fire. A spade was loaded up with chestnuts, and placed in the embers. My brother and I were sent running round the house with sparklers in our hands. The chestnuts would pop. We'd sit around peeling them, talking about our favourite fireworks. We'd go to bed, smelling of smoke, laughing about the near misses.
Yes, we celebrated Bonfire Night. We'd build our bonfire, we'd burn our Guy, we'd launch our fireworks. We would celebrate the fact that the evil Catholic assassin Guy Fawkes had been captured and killed. We would celebrate the fact that the Protestant king and his Protestant Parliament had been saved. We would celebrate the fact that those evil Catholics had been beaten down and England was saved. Would this be the time to mention that the very first Church of England Bishop is on my family tree? Except, he's on the Catholic side of my family. Oh, I forgot to mention? My mum is a Catholic. We were bought up as Catholics.
The roof the roof the roof is on fire
The roof the roof the roof is on fire
The roof the roof the roof is on fire
We don't need no water let the motherfucker burn
Burn motherfucker burn.
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