The English are so weird!

...sure, we Americans have our own strange customs and oddities, but this trumps:

Bonfire night is officially on the 5^th of November, but we had our celebration on Saturday evening. It celebrates the failed plot by Guy Fawkes to blow up the King and his Parliament with a boat full of gunpowder over 400 years ago.

"Remember, remember the fifth of November,

The gunpowder, treason and plot,

I know of no reason

Why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent

To blow up the King and Parliament.

Three score barrels of powder below,

Poor old England to overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip hoorah!"

This year I went with a handful of friends from the neighbourhood and church to a local park where the scouts were hosting a bonfire night celebration.

In the centre of the park was a massive, thirty to forty foot tall tower of old crates, doors, chairs, studs, and scrap wood. An effigy of Guy Fawkes was on the top, tied to an old wooden chair, perched on top on a broken shipping pallet. It was already very dark out, but there was just enough ambient light to see the scratchy, irregular outline of the tower against the skyline.

This is when it got surreal.

A spotlight focused on the wooden mountain in front of us. Suddenly it looked like Guy Fawkes spontaneously tipped back in his chair as if to fling himself backwards off his pyre. But then, the whole pallet supporting him rocked back and a man crawled out of the middle of the tower, taking the place of Guy at the top. His face was painted green and white, and he had a megaphone in his hands. At first I thought we were about to witness an immolation, but then he shouted some safety announcements into a megaphone – all very weird.

Then the crowd started a countdown as the green and white man scrambled back into the mouth of the tower. By “zero” the man had escaped out the back, and then to the side we heard the whoosh of a firework’s rocket. Turning to look, we saw that the firework was attached to a zip-wire and was heading straight into the tower, presumably to spark the bonfire. It flew along the wire for a split second, but then got stuck on some invisible knot in the wire. We all watched, mesmerised and terrified, as the rocket tried in vain to get past the knot. It gave up. A spit second of silence. BOOM. The firework exploded into sparkles about 50 feet in front of us… and about 50 feet away from the wooden mountain. When our temporary blindness wore off, we saw the Guy still sitting untouched and unlit atop his pyre, now resembling a throne. Determined to prevent a smiling effigy from having the last laugh, a couple scout dads ran sheepishly in with torches and lit the base of the tower.

Eventually the fire made its way to the top, consuming all the old doors, window frames, and chairs along the way. The Guy went up in flames and smoke, his embers joining the thousands of other sparks that fled, crazed, into the night sky.

It was the stuff of nightmares.

The rest of the evening was good fun. There were fireworks, hot tea, sparklers, tomato soup, and good friends. The park was on a hillside, overlooking Sheffield. It was all very beautiful.

Cheers y'all!

Will