Bonfire night

So I’m the only one who hated bonfire night😳. My wellington boots were always too small so my feet were always cold. I hated sudden bangs and still do. I hated the whole idea of the guy and still do. We were never allowed to go close enough to the fire to put our potatoes in properly so they didn’t bake. Our Catherine wheels always stuck and stuttered. Apart from that….

I don't think for one moment that you are the only one who hated bonfire night winterwhite. Every year casualty departments used to have an influx of people with firework/bonfire related injuries. Some of them life changingly serious and often involving children.
Now bonfires and displays are more regulated there has been a sharp decrease in injuries.

on year my brother and sister dressed me ( the youngest) as a guy, old clothes and a plastic mask, sat me outside our house, on the cold pavement and done "penny for the guy" we were on a main route to the town and people walking home from work , not sure what we done with the money possibly sweets.
There used to be a bonfire in the compound near by , we would try and put potatoes in to cook but they were usually black on the outside and raw inside. It was a bit of fun. The older children always looked out for the younger ones.

Jaberwok

I wonder how many people actually know or understand the origins of Guy Fawkes night and the significance of the fireworks? Mind you, perhaps best to encourage ignorance as it might put ideas into peoples' heads! The bonfire is in fact the celebration of the failed plot, the Guy represents Fawkes, who was in fact hanged. (drawn and quartered was the sentence but he jumped!)

When our sons were away at a Catholic school bonfire night was never celebrated.

When I was a child we used to have a shared bonfire event on some wasteland in our street in our small town. One of the construction engineers from a major bridge building project lived in our street and was able to get leftover wood to add to the bonfire. It usually arrived by tipper truck a couple of weeks before and the dads and boys built the bonfire. Potatoes were wrapped in foil and put to cook. I don’t know who made the guy - the older boys I think. People used to cheer if the guy eventually fell into the fire. I think the guy was made of straw. We took our own sparklers. We also had a few fireworks in our garden - a Catherine wheel or two and a rocket placed in a milk bottle. When we moved to a bigger town, bonfires were not common- perhaps the houses were too close together.

We always had a big fire, as did most people in the neighbourhood. Family and friends would turn up and we'd spend hours by the fire- with wonderful food; baked potatoes, chestnuts done on the fire, bonfire toffee and parkin. The firworks were always a bit rubbish but good fun the next morning finding all the cases and spent rockets. We sat up late into the night.
We didn't have a guy though because we were Catholic but also knew our politics- a strange mix really and quite puzzling to any foreign visitors!
When my kids were little we did the same thing- though not late into the night and the fireworks were much better!
Halloween had only just started to get commercial- I rember what hard work it was making turnip lanterns but much preferable to those horrible pumpkins.
In more recent years we don't bother much- bonfire night has become too censored by the be kind to animals brigade and halloween has just got out of hand as a money making enterprise.
Such a shame really... but the memories are there. No humans are animals ever got hurt. Not at our bonfires.

Obviously Catholics are not very likely to celebrate the foiling of a Catholic conspiracy!

Animals may not get hurt, but they certainly get frightened, which for me is not a good thing.

As a child in late 50/60’s my brother and I always made a guy and collected stuff for the bonfire with our dad. On the 5th,always the actual night my grandparents would come around and we had sausages and jacket potatoes cooked in the bonfire. Dad would let off our fireworks and it was a lovely family night. We never celebrated Halloween it was just an American thing!
Nowadays we go with our DD and GC to an organised village display and have fish & chips together afterwards.
I do Halloween activities crafting bits etc with GC and we carve pumpkins together but we batton down the hatches and don’t open the door as I don’t like the trick and treating. It is daddy’s turn for Halloween this year he will take the children trick and treating but on DD turn she is of the same view batten down the hatches let the children dress up and do family activities.

I don’t think I knew ( as a child) why we built bonfires on bonfire night. It still seems odd to celebrate NOT blowing up the Houses of Parliament - and the king - with a bonfire!

The trouble with the organised displays, as opposed to the traditional back-garden events, is that the fireworks are likely to be much bigger and louder, with the associated deafening bangs.
There is more than one such big and monumentally noisy display not far from us every year.
I don’t remember our back-garden jobs ever being incredibly noisy.

Bonfire night is a big occasion in this town. It's run by the Round Table. Before the fireworks, there's a procession along the High Street, floats, fancy dress, torches (used to be real fire, now electronic). Then a huge bonfire, fireworks, food stalls, it's gret evening out for families. DH and I used to go long after our DS and DD were grown up.

Romola

Bonfire night is a big occasion in this town. It's run by the Round Table. Before the fireworks, there's a procession along the High Street, floats, fancy dress, torches (used to be real fire, now electronic). Then a huge bonfire, fireworks, food stalls, it's gret evening out for families. DH and I used to go long after our DS and DD were grown up.

Are you in Lewes?
I know that traditional bonfire night celebrations are a big deal there.
We are hoping to move near there on the South Downs, and is something we are very much looking forward to.

Slightly off topic but Guy Fawkes's lantern is on display at the Ashmolean in Oxford. It is amazing to look at it and imagine the scene that 5th November.
I grew up in Scotland and we had both Bonfire night with fireworks, communal blaze and baked potatoes and 'guising' which meant going to houses and 'doing a turn' (for me it was reciting a poem about pansies). We also did apple bobbing at Halloween and our some odd game of eating bread and black treacle that had been pinned on the kitchen clothes line (yes really!).

winterwhitewe never had a guy.
I've always hated them.
Thrte was a village bonfire on the green which I know had a guy - but we were busy at home.

We had carved our turnips for "Halloween" and used them until bonfire night when mine went onto the fire when I went to bed.

My school was Catholic. We knew what bonfire night was about.

Always afraid of bonfire night itself as the local boys would chase the girls and throw bangers at them and my mother would tell us horror tales of accidents with fires. Loved the lead up to the night, very territorial and we children would collect wood and raid the bonfire stashes from other streets' fires.

After my dad changed jobs from ambulance mechanic to ambulance driver my mum made a guy out of his old overalls and sat it on the toilet wearing his driver's cap. Dad didn't need any laxatives that night he went to the loo

I grew up in Scotland in the 1950s and 60s - at that time we celebrated Halloween with guising, bobbing for apples and so on, but only children with English parents had Bonfire night.

I was sickened the first time I saw a bonfire with a guy on it, I think I was twelve at the time. I don't care for the Danish traditon of burning a witch in effigy on the bonfire on St. John's Eve either.

Is it not time to get rid of these mementos of savage capital punishment and just have the bonfire.

And Fawkes wasn't burned, either!

Remember ‘rip-raps’? They jumped about on the ground, used to terrify me!

Jaberwok

Animals may not get hurt, but they certainly get frightened, which for me is not a good thing.

Actually , animals do get hurt or even killed .
Dogs get spooked and escape gardens and get run over by cars . Also, other animals including livestock . There are so many unexpected fireworks that it is difficult to judge when you can safely walk your dogs .

grandtanteJE65

I grew up in Scotland in the 1950s and 60s - at that time we celebrated Halloween with guising, bobbing for apples and so on, but only children with English parents had Bonfire night.

I was sickened the first time I saw a bonfire with a guy on it, I think I was twelve at the time. I don't care for the Danish traditon of burning a witch in effigy on the bonfire on St. John's Eve either.

Is it not time to get rid of these mementos of savage capital punishment and just have the bonfire.

And Fawkes wasn't burned, either!

You have made me think. I too grew up in Scotland (and have lived in Denmark, agree about the witches) and while we did have a bonfire it did not have a Guy, I think more of burning autumn rubbish and baking potatoes with neighbours., part of acknowledging the coming winter. Like another poster I carved a turnip for Halloween and this came to the bonfire with a candle inside. It was all very low key and not at all commercial.

We used to have a huge bonfire & a few fireworks, & sparklers for the children ( I have 26 cousins who grew up locally to us although some were not yet born when I was little). A love / hate time for me - one of my favourite times of the year as a child, & my first kiss was at a bonfire party when I was 16. But then we have had multiple family tragedies in early november over the years, so personally I no longer enjoy it, but still think it was more fun than Halloweeen is.

My step mum was letting off fireworks for me as a child, as dad was on a late shift. The wind caught one rocket and it went up her flared skirt, right through it burning a large hole. Thankfully she wasn't hurt but it did put me off. OH did fireworks with our DC or we went to a display. Must admit I've always seen them as a huge waste of money like burning thousands of pounds.

Someone near me has made a big guy with a picture of Starmers face stuck on the front. I’d pay good money to see that on top of the village bonfire🤣