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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Churches and bonfire night compatible?
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scuffleball
Shipmate
# 16480
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Posted
Is it okay for churches to celebrate bonfire night even if they don't burn a statue of Guy Fawkes? Because it is just celebrating the King being saved from a terrorist act. Or has it irredeemably been co-opted by sectarianism. Or can we just enjoy the fireworks as a symbol and not take it literally reclaim it from sectarianism.
Also is it okay for churches to collaborate with orangists. Although Anglican Privilege is nowhere near what it once was and the UUP is in decline almost to being the 5th party in Northern Ireland - unlike 50 years ago - is it okay for Anglican ministers to be chaplains of Orange lodges and to do the twelfth bonfires.
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SPK: I also plan to create ... a Calvinist Ordinariate
ken: I thought it was called Taize?
Posts: 272 | Registered: Jun 2011
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pererin
Shipmate
# 16956
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
Is it okay for churches to celebrate bonfire night even if they don't burn a statue of Guy Fawkes?
I thought burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes was a step in a conciliatory direction in itself. A more senior figure was the original recipient of this honour. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
Because it is just celebrating the King being saved from a terrorist act. Or has it irredeemably been co-opted by sectarianism.
It might be worth remembering that in the good old days before Queen Victoria abolished the special service for November 5th from the Prayer Book, it wasn't just Gunpowder Treason that was being commemorated. The second collect gave thanks for the arrival of William III. Somehow I don't think that is likely to make matters any better... ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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"They go to and fro in the evening, they grin like a dog, and run about through the city." (Psalm 59.6)
Posts: 446 | From: Llantrisant | Registered: Feb 2012
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Just go down to Sussex. We do Bonfire properly there
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Just go down to Sussex. We do Bonfire properly there
Any idea who will be burnt at Lewes? It's usually someone topical so my money is on Ed Milliband.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Scuffleball wrote:
quote:
Because it is just celebrating the King being saved from a terrorist act. Or has it irredeemably been co-opted by sectarianism. Or can we just enjoy the fireworks as a symbol and not take it literally reclaim it from sectarianism.
Out of curiosity, just how anti-Catholic IS Bonfire Night these days?
From what I've seen, outside of the UK, the perception exists that Guy Fawkes is actually an admired figure. You hear him cited positively(granted with hyperbole) by people with a general animus against government(eg. "The only man to enter parliament with honourable intentions"). V For Vendetta and the Anonymous movement have obviously contributed to this, but the sentiment predates those things.
I once asked a young English co-worker if Guy Fawkes Day is still celebrated with a sectarian tinge, and he said it was not, and indicated that he considered my question a little strange.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I think burning people in effigy is gruesome.
Sorry.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I think burning people in effigy is gruesome.
Sorry.
Yeah, I'm totally with you. And the manic GLEE in which the effigies are burned... gives me nightmares. Those wacky English.
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God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Just go down to Sussex. We do Bonfire properly there
Any idea who will be burnt at Lewes? It's usually someone topical so my money is on Ed Milliband.
I'm perplexed as to how Ed Milliband counts as a topical 'villain' for the Lewes bonfire societies...Lewes is not exactly Daily Mail land.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Scuffleball wrote:
quote:
Because it is just celebrating the King being saved from a terrorist act. Or has it irredeemably been co-opted by sectarianism. Or can we just enjoy the fireworks as a symbol and not take it literally reclaim it from sectarianism.
Out of curiosity, just how anti-Catholic IS Bonfire Night these days?
From what I've seen, outside of the UK, the perception exists that Guy Fawkes is actually an admired figure. You hear him cited positively(granted with hyperbole) by people with a general animus against government(eg. "The only man to enter parliament with honourable intentions"). V For Vendetta and the Anonymous movement have obviously contributed to this, but the sentiment predates those things.
I once asked a young English co-worker if Guy Fawkes Day is still celebrated with a sectarian tinge, and he said it was not, and indicated that he considered my question a little strange.
The only place I've ever encountered anti-Catholic sentiment on Bonfire Night is Lewes, which is almost certainly due to Lewes using November 5 to commemorate its Protestant martyrs as well as Bonfire Night - and its Protestant martyrs pre-date Bonfire Night. Never seen any anti-Catholicism at a standard Bonfire Night celebration, and to be honest I think a lot of people in the UK now are either unaware of or not bothered about Guy Fawkes' Catholicism.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
I don't think every bonfire burns a guy either, and there will certainly be some, maybe many, who don't associate the name of the effigy burnt on the bonfire with the proper name of a person.
Incidentally,–
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
Is it okay for churches to celebrate bonfire night even if they don't burn a statue of Guy Fawkes? Because it is just celebrating the King being saved from a terrorist act.
not just the king, the king and parliament.
And I do think it is a wholly secular celebration nowadays in which the king and parliament memory is barely there in any meaningful way, just a nod to history,
[ 13. October 2013, 05:57: Message edited by: BroJames ]
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
In my experience the idea of having, or burning, a "guy" has largely died out during my lifetime.
For most people the night has just become a dead metaphor, an opportunity to have a bit of fun as winter draws in. Indeed, more connections may be being made with Samhain or even Diwali than with 1605.
Except, clearly, in Lewes.
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I don't remember November 5 at all when I was a child in Northern Ireland. Hallowe'en was when you lit bonfires, let off fireworks and pigged out on nuts.
Effigy burning was for the bonfire on the eve of the Twelth - and you were burning Lundy, not Fawkes. Though 'Lundy' was given some topical or satirical character - I remember one was a police uniform with a dog's head.
I remember some correspondence about this in The Guardian some years ago when people were citing other local instances where the effigy was 'Judas'.
It seems there is a need - much older than any of the histories to which it has subsequently been attached - for a communal celebration in which that worst of enemies, The Traitor, is purged with fire.
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Trickydicky
Shipmate
# 16550
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Posted
I've been in places where the biggest bonfire and the biggest guy have been run by the local Catholics. Have they no sense of history??
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If something's worth doing, its worth doing badly. (G K Chesterton)
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I think virtually everyone lighting a bonfire or collecting a "penny for the guy" (though I remember one occasion when asked that in September when presented with a black bin bag shoved in a supermarket trolley the lads got quite indignent when all I pulled out of my pocket was a penny) has no sense of history. That rhyme starts "Remember, remember the 5th of November" - but how many people actually remember the next line? "There's something about gunpowder, treason and plot? Isn't there?" may be all you get if asking most people. "Guy" is often taken to mean "some random bloke" than as an actual name of an actual historic figure. The plot assumed to be some protest similar in aims to abolishing immoral taxation, defending the rights of the working class or something, rather than a violent attempt to destroy a Parliament for suppression of Catholicism.
So, yes, no sense of history.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
My contention - as above - is that the history is irrelevant. It's the ritual that's important.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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pererin
Shipmate
# 16956
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Effigy burning was for the bonfire on the eve of the Twelth - and you were burning Lundy, not Fawkes. Though 'Lundy' was given some topical or satirical character - I remember one was a police uniform with a dog's head.
Lundy too was a villain of a peculiarly inept sort...
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"They go to and fro in the evening, they grin like a dog, and run about through the city." (Psalm 59.6)
Posts: 446 | From: Llantrisant | Registered: Feb 2012
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
We were going to abandon our family Bonfire Night as we felt it difficult either to ask our neighbours, Catholics with whom we had been doing everything that year, or not to ask them. (The ghost of Lewes sat behind my east Sussex parents.)
Then our neighbours, Southern Irish Catholics, asked us to theirs.
I gather, from a book on the subject, that there are Catholics in some of the Lewes Bonfire Societies.
(The first time I went there, to counter what my mother told me her mother told her - nice young ladies don't go to Lewes that night - the first thing I saw was the Cliffe Society's collection of crosses, which was a bit of a shock.) I've been to some other firegrounds there, and none of those did anti-Catholic stuff. One of them burned a Pokemon effigy!
[ 13. October 2013, 12:40: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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Anglo Catholic Relict
Shipmate
# 17213
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Posted
I do not associate today's Catholics with an attempt some 400 or so years ago to destroy the Houses of Parliament and everyone in them.
I think it would be very bizarre of any Catholic to make this association, and be offended by Bonfire Night or its celebrations. I have also never actually seen an effigy burned on a bonfire. Lots of bonfires; no Guys. Maybe I attend the wrong kind of parties.
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
I'm surprised to hear of anyone attaching religion to it at all. For me, it was about a terrorist of his time, who tried to get rid of democracy with his attempt to blow up the houses of Parliament. I was never sure about burning him on the fire, whatever mask was attached to his face.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Fireworks (if not bonfires) are now, thank God, often associated with many other events throughout the year. New Year in particular, and in a church context, Easter (we've always tried to set off a few rockets after the Vigil).
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
That rhyme starts "Remember, remember the 5th of November" - but how many people actually remember the next line? "There's something about gunpowder, treason and plot? Isn't there?" may be all you get if asking most people.
In the opening of the movie V For Vendetta, those lines are recited intact, bizarrely so, given that the scene in question is intended to make us feel sympathetic to Guy Fawkes being strung up on the gallows. But the word "treason" is never used to describe actions you support.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
The rhyme is:
Please to remember the Fifth of November
Gunpowder Treason and Plot
We know no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
I can remember us learning it at my primary school - where we had a bonfire party with an effigy in a cassock - wonder who that was meant to be ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
As for the question up-thread about ministers of religion having membership or being chaplains to Lodges of the Orange Order - I'd take the same line as I would with Freemasonry: NO minister of religion should get himself involved with these pernicious organisations.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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scuffleball
Shipmate
# 16480
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trickydicky:
I've been in places where the biggest bonfire and the biggest guy have been run by the local Catholics. Have they no sense of history??
Funnily at uni one of the strongest protagonists of the Tory interpretation - that bonfire night commemorates the salvation of the British monarchy from a terrorist attack - was a Roman Catholic, and was quite miffed that the monastery that ran her Roman Catholic boarding school banned its commemoration there, as well as banning "Jerusalem" and other nationalist songs.
ISTM that in mainland Britain Roman Catholics - especially those not of Irish descent - have become keen on the monarchy, Toryism, flag-waving and so on to counter any accusation of disloyalty.
[ 13. October 2013, 18:48: Message edited by: scuffleball ]
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SPK: I also plan to create ... a Calvinist Ordinariate
ken: I thought it was called Taize?
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Ah, I have learned something: Guy Fawkes day is a celebration of the fact that he failed, not the fact that he at least attempted, to blow up Parliament.
This had not always been clear to me.
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Our kids' Catholic school has a massive Bonfire Night - it's one of its three (if not the biggest) fund-raising events of the year, attended the last couple of years by >4000 people. I have remarked on one or two occasions of the supposed irony of a Catholic institution celebrating the failure of a Catholic plot to subvert the Protestant Establishment but have usually got the response that "it's part of our history" - they definitely see themselves as British first and Catholic second it seems.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I've long got the impression that there has been a strong tradition in indigenous, recusant, English Catholicism, particularly since 1689, of making the point that 'we are not foreigners/Spaniards/Frogs/Fenians etc in disguise. We are as English as the rest of you'.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Yes; similar sentiments reared their heads last year for Brenda's Jubilee celebrations. I remember one English Catholic friend told me that he'd been asked by an Anglican chum why he had joining in the flag-waving and he was both astonished and indignant to even be asked the question. He replied something like "Because she's my Queen, I owe her my allegiance and we pray for her at Mass every Sunday - do you?"
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
This is a turn up - we normally don;t get this until after the "how can you celebrate Halloween and call yourself a Christian" thread. And it normally comes from across the pond.
In truth, Halloween, Bonfire Night and Harvest Festival are all related, and all about the end of the fertile summer with the long days, and the start of the dark winter. They are also about the clearing out of the rubbish.
On top of this, we have tended to put a whole lot of religious significance. If these religious attributions help you, then fine. But to consider that the events are wrong because of them seems churlish.
Is it wrong to burn a guy? Well tasteless, maybe, given what the Protestants did to so many Catholics. And the Catholics to so many Protestants. But maybe it should be a reminder of putting that intolerance behind us too, losing that religious arrogance.
It is all symbolism. If we cannot use symbolism, and adapt it, then what is the point.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
they definitely see themselves as British first and Catholic second it seems.
So why do so many people seem convinced that Muslims will never be loyal citizens?
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
they definitely see themselves as British first and Catholic second it seems.
So why do so many people seem convinced that Muslims will never be loyal citizens?
I'm not sure I would make that comparison, but presumably one of the differences between the groups is that a lot of Catholics regard themselves as British as opposed to, say, Italian or 'from the Papal States', whereas some Moslems still regard Pakistan, say, as the mother country rather than the UK?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Baptist Trainfan is right, the 'guy' is largely on the way out when it comes to Bonfire Night celebrations. I put this down to the popularity of municipal and regulated celebrations with professional pyrotechnic displays rather than the street party bonfires we used to have when I were a lad.
We never really thought of the 'guy' as representing anyone as far as I remember ... we knew it was meant to be poor old Guido Fawkes but it didn't really register in the celebrations themselves. Unless you were in Lewes ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
they definitely see themselves as British first and Catholic second it seems.
So why do so many people seem convinced that Muslims will never be loyal citizens?
Partly a matter of time? People have had well over a century to get used to the acceptability of Catholicism. And even then, for many people it still seems rather foreign. (I suspect that most people today have more awareness of working class imported Catholicism than the recusant type.)
Widespread awareness of Muslim communities in this country has only existed for a few decades. Moreover, I think Islam exists in a different social and identitarian space. It's a greater 'Other' than Catholicism because it has more points of difference from English Christianity, which means it's more resistant to assimilation. Most of its adherents are physically different, whereas Catholics aren't, so it's more likely that they'll be treated differently. Also, family and group cohesion is stronger in Muslim culture, which means there's less need to appeal to the wider society for validation.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
they definitely see themselves as British first and Catholic second it seems.
So why do so many people seem convinced that Muslims will never be loyal citizens?
I'm not sure I would make that comparison, but presumably one of the differences between the groups is that a lot of Catholics regard themselves as British as opposed to, say, Italian or 'from the Papal States', whereas some Moslems still regard Pakistan, say, as the mother country rather than the UK?
Of course. But the important word is 'still'. It won't always be thus, as it wasn't with the Catholics. I know the difference is that the core of British Catholicism has always been British, but historically this has been overtaken by Irish and later immigrants.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Several reasons I would say:
1. There are far fewer visible 'differences' in culture, dress, appearance, customs etc
2. It's not radically different from the Established Church in terms of practices at least; historically of course it was regarded as 'other' by good CofE people but, 'foreign' element to one side, not much more than the non-conformists - and no-one has ever doubted their 'Britishness'.
3. It's much more home-grown; Catholics would argue that the presence of Catholicism in this country pre-dates any other form of Christianity (Orthodoxen would disagree!) and therefore they are more 'indigenous' than the CofE; even if this is not accepted, recusancy has been around over four centuries.
4. Catholicism in the UK has long since dropped any intention to 'convert the country back to the One True Faith; the same cannot be said for some strands of Islam in the UK
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
And even if Guy Fawkes is remembered and burned in effigy, how many doing so remember the actual reason he tried to blow up parliament? I would hazard a guess that most only remember that he tried and are commemorating his failure, not that he was doing it as a Catholic.
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
In general I'd agree with all this, although I think that Jengie might have something to say about how the loyalty, if not the Britishness, of some nonconformists was perceived at different periods.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
Bonfires were popular here in Scotland even 50 or 60 years ago when Hallowe'en in its earlier non-American form was even more popular.Few people were aware of its seemingly anti Catholic origins,and even fewer would have been aware that its earlier origins were festivities at the beginning of the Celtic New Year on 1st November.
I've never heard of any anti Queen resentment in Catholic churches in Scotland.In the olden days there was the prayer for the Queen at the end of Sung Mass but until the Sunday of the Queen's jubilee,when I happened to be in England, I had never heard 'God save the Queen' sung in a Catholic church.
Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I've long got the impression that there has been a strong tradition in indigenous, recusant, English Catholicism, particularly since 1689, of making the point that 'we are not foreigners/Spaniards/Frogs/Fenians etc in disguise. We are as English as the rest of you'.
This biography of Alfred Hitchcock quotes a brochure that his Jesuit school gave to inquiring parents, which defended the school's use of corporal punishment as being "very English". I'd imagine that a non-Catholic school wouldn't have thought it neccessary to defend the practice on patriotic grounds.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
My mum used to live in a bungalow on a hill overlooking a small Greek town on the island of Kos, and a few years ago she decided to hold a traditional bonfire night for the local English residents. As the bonfire could be seen from several miles away, she thought it was only wise to go to the local police station and attempt to explain that they would be burning a guy, and it was nothing to be worried about....
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
The cluster of festivals also includes Remembrance - the Lewes processions always include a visit to the war memorial.
Yesterday, someone round here decided to let of massive bangey things at several times in the day. First one, I thought was something falling down, so looked out to make sure none of my stuff in the garden had toppled over. Then there were three or four (this in daylight, mark you) and someone else went out to see what was afoot and saw the things going off. I couldn't, becasue they were in line with the line of the terrace, but I did see the puffs of smoke drifting away. They were quite low for rockets, and only one concussion for each one, and no whoosh.
Later, in the evening, they were at it again. And no illumination from sparks or anything.
I think there's a Hindu festival around, but it's early for Diwali.
They sounded very aggressive pyrotechnics.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Just go down to Sussex. We do Bonfire properly there
Any idea who will be burnt at Lewes? It's usually someone topical so my money is on Ed Milliband.
All sorts of people! There are loads of different societies and they each burn different effigies. Someone or other manages to burn an effigy of the current prime minister pretty much every year, and Leaders of the Opposition and US Presidents are quite common too. French Presidents used to be back in the days when we could remember who they were this year. There are usual a few local figures as well. Enemies of Bonfire.
I have some pictures here
(And others here , here , and here )
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Out of curiosity, just how anti-Catholic IS Bonfire Night these days?
Pretty much zero. Most people won't even know that it was anythign to do with religuion in the first place.
Also remember there is effectively zero general anti-Catholic (or indeed anti-Protestant) prejudice in the parts of the south-east corner of England where Bonfire is most celebrated. What there is of it in Britain these days tends to be at the opposite end, in the North-West of England and in Scotland. The only exception being in and around Cliffe High Street just over the river from Lewes, where you can see what must be the only No Popery banner flown in England anywhere south-east of the Mersey for about a century now. I doubt uif you ever see them north of the Mersey any more, not in England anyway - odd things happen in Lanarkshire. I'm not saying that south-easterners aren;t capabnle of being racist bigots, of course they are, bnut just that ther prejudice is much more likely to be diercte against Muslims and Gypsies than
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Baptist Trainfan is right, the 'guy' is largely on the way out when it comes to Bonfire Night celebrations. I put this down to the popularity of municipal and regulated celebrations with professional pyrotechnic displays rather than the street party bonfires we used to have when I were a lad..
Yes, the bureacracy and corporatisation has largely killed off proper Bonfire in most places, even in much of Sussex - we uised to do it in public in Brighton when I was a kid and it hardly happens now, One reason why the remaining places that do keep it up are determined to carry on. Its at least partly sort of cultural and communal resistance to having everything run by officials and professionals.
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
The cluster of festivals also includes Remembrance - the Lewes processions always include a visit to the war memorial.
Yes. That is a really important part of it. There is a very large Remembrance aspect. Not just one visit to the War Memorial either - there will be comings and goings and wreath-layings by different grosups and societies all day and half way into the night
Bonfire, All Saints, All Souls, Halloween, St Martin's Day, and Remembrance Day are all part of the same thing really. Its just that Bonfire is the popular tradition of the south-east of England - I know it happens elsewhere as well, but when I was a kid in Brighton, Bonfire was the second biggest day of the year, just a smidgen behind Christmas - and easily the biggest public festivity of the year.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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L'organist
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My friends have a massive bonfire every year and their grandchildren compete to make guys - there is a Mr Fawkes plus usually someone who they decide is a wart and deserves to be burned in effigy - Jimmy Savile is likely to be so honoured this year.
The bonfire is always lit by our friend Guy - guess when his birthday is...
We celebrate All Saints (not Hallowe'en) and All Souls we'll all be at the Requiem.
Around here trick-or-treaters tend to get short shrift but we'll have apple-bobbing.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
That rhyme starts "Remember, remember the 5th of November" - but how many people actually remember the next line?
Pretty much everyone I know, or knew, at home would remember the short version of the rhyme already quoted here.
Peopl whio associate themselves with any of the Bonfire Socieites or who often attend the Lewes celebrations are likely to know some or all of one of the longer versions - of which it seems there are loads from all over the southern half of England, often in various now-extinct local dialects. Some are ruder about the Pope than others. This is a sort of bland one:
quote:
Remember, remember, the 5th 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 the 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, let the bells ring
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip Hoorah!
Hip hip Hoorah!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Penny S
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I haven't been able to get down there recently. I first went one year on a Thursday after a planning meeting at school which had led to me feeling seriously peeved with a year leader who had very strong religious views I didn't agree with, so I had a "wunt be druv"* feeling. I know, I thought, I'll see how long it takes to get to Lewes, so that next year, it being a Friday, I'll go down to see it properly.
As I drove, the radio was constantly interrupted by traffic warnings telling people not to go to Lewes. That it was only for locals. ("My great grandfather was in it," I thought, feeling more "wunt be druvish".) That the roads were blocked with traffic. I decided to get as far as I could, possibly park in the layby where my great grandfather used to take his sheep up on the Downs and walk in. As it was, I got right in as far as the Tesco's car park by the river, where there were spaces. Which is why the first society I saw was Cliffe, with the crosses and the No Popery stuff.
I've been to a few since, but the person I do fireworks with prefers to do it nearer home, and my village has good displays which compare well with the Lewes societies. (Locally organised by local people, but no actual bonfire, and no history).
*Sussex expression, meaning "won't be driven". This is an appropriate attitude for Bonfire, since, as ken has intimated, part of what keeps it going is the determination not to let the powers that be impose controls on it. Which is very right and proper.
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betjemaniac
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# 17618
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Posted
I've never made it to Lewes. I did my first degree in the sunny south west, at Exeter, and the Guild of Students ran coaches every year to bonfire at Ottery St Mary, which is bonkers. Running around the streets wih burning tar barrels on your back isn't dangerous at all...
Here in Oxfordshire bonfire night is still a massive occasion (one of my favourite nights of the year, although it tends to be a chance for the local Round Tables/Lions/Rotary to raise money rather than to make any sort of political/religious point. Having said that, the one I go to always has a guy, and he is supposed to be Guy...
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And is it true? For if it is....
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Penny S
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They do that with tar barrels? Wow! My disappointment with Lewes was the sort of barrels that other rebellious peoples turned into musical instruments, or others into impromptu barbecues being towed along the street on wheels like prams.
Don't Bridgewater in Somerset do something similar?
I remember a sociology type programme on BBC Radio 4 some years ago about a village in East Anglia which did Bonfire, and on that night, one year, the church organ was burned, and nobody was ever able to identify who was responsible.
There was a lot of discussion about open and closed villages. This one was open, but there was a big house family which disagreed - ie they thought everyone owed them everything and ought to do what they were told.
The vicar was a scion, or at least an appointee of the family, and he had imported the organ in order to get rid of the west gallery band. These bands (see Hardy) would often claim control over choice of hymns, psalms, etc, and could make life difficult for an unliked vicar. (There is stuff in the psalms which could be construed as offensive, I understand.)
So while the village was out burning an effigy of someone, somebody set a fire by the organ. Somebody with access to the church key.
The village was also the sort where the people in power thought things would be better organised if the village did not have bonfires and burn effigies. Try to suppress that sort of thing, and other things pop up like gophers.
I wonder if the attempts to control places like Lewes are bluff, so that the Societies are so busy defending their right to process to the bridge with their flaming barrels while letting off explosives, that they don't get involved with opposing other things.
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
They do that with tar barrels? Wow! My disappointment with Lewes was the sort of barrels that other rebellious peoples turned into musical instruments, or others into impromptu barbecues being towed along the street on wheels like prams.
Google Ottery St Mary tar barrels and go to google images.... Madness.
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And is it true? For if it is....
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Ethne Alba
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# 5804
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I guess some churches want to be 'seperated out' and grasp for 'biblical truth' (which could be tricky on this topic....)
While others are quite happy to join in with whatever is going on in their locality and welcome the chance to hang out altogether and have some fun.
Do a small churchy thing?
Or join in with our local community?
I know which one i'd enjoy the most.
There is a third option, up our way one of the local churches now almost runs their town's bonfire and fireworks display.
[ 21. October 2013, 09:45: Message edited by: Ethne Alba ]
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L'organist
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# 17338
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Posted
We have a choir bonfire party, held at the home of the choir member with the largest garden.
MASSIVE bonfire, with effigy (definitely Fawkes, although we did have the Archdeacon a couple of years ago) and lots of very loud fireworks.
Course, we don't do this to enjoy ourselves, oh no - its purely in the name of choir bonding
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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