Remembering, Remembering...

Remember remember the fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder, treason

Should ever be forgot...

So says the old English rhyme. Today in England it's Guy Fawkes Day, when we remember the successful overthrowing of the Gunpowder Plot.

On the 5th November 1605 Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament with several dozen barrels of gunpowder. He was subsequently tried as a traitor with his co-conspirators for plotting against the government. He was tried by Judge Popham who came to London specifically for the trial from his country manor Littlecote House in Hungerford, Gloucestershire. (Amazing what you can find out on the Internet). Fawkes was sentenced to death and was hung, drawn and quartered,quartered which reflected the serious nature of the crime of treason.

The event is celebrated with bonfire night, when traditionally we enjoy firework parties. Nowadays people tend to go to organised displays, but we usually held our own. This would involve standing outside in the freezing cold with only a jacket potato to keep us warm (for American readers that's baked potatoes. We didn't actually wear them).

Grumpy would be in charge of lighting the fireworks at the end of the garden while the rest of us clung to the back of the house hoping he wouldn't go up in flames.

The children would be given sparklers to hold, which they would wave in the air making neon like patterns before they burned out and were thrown into a bucket of water. (The sparklers, not the children, although some years I wish we could have).

We lit a bonfire onto which a guy was thrown to burn. A guy is an effigy of Fawkes, traditionally made by stuffing newspaper into old clothes with a mask on the top. When I was a child, we would wheel this somewhat forlorn figure up and down the street asking for a "penny for the guy" to pay for the fireworks. These days I understand all major credit cards are accepted.