Gunpowder, Treason and Plot

Last year I mentioned November 5th, a time of year where we have parties all across the breadth of Britain, running round with naked flames and fireworks and generally keeping the fire brigades busy.

Bonfire Night celebrates the scuppering on a gunpowder plot by the 17th Century’s Public Enemy Number One, Guy Fawkes, a miserable terrorist who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

These days we’d probably give him a medal, but back then the Royal Court encouraged a commemoration of the event where we burn Guy in effigy. I thought that the inhabitants of the USA never miss an excuse for a party, but this holiday seems to have slipped by – and on the 400th anniversary of the botched bombing, too. So I was pleased to find a crowd of Revolutionary re-enactors who knew the words to, “Remember, remember the fifth of November” better than me.

They lit a bonfire at the end of their Camden Fair, filled a Care Bear with fireworks and let rip. I think Guy would have approved (apart from the bit where he’s thrown on the bonfire, of course).