Bonfire nights

The ancient tradition of lighting bonfires in November has been a feature of my life as long as I can remember and, as a gardener, it is also a key seasonal milestone when the accumulation of twigs, prunings, some pernicious weeds and infected material, is reduced to useful ash.  What I mostly remember from childhood are the fireworks and the burning of the guy while reciting the incantation “remember, remember the 5^th of November, etc”.

Even when I was living in Brussels with young sons, we continued this tradition and invited our neighbours to join us – explaining of course that the anti-Catholic theme that was attached to the bonfire custom after 1605 had been thoroughly displaced by a more general condemnation of terrorist violence.  Nowadays we burn Guy Fawkes not because he was a Catholic but because he tried to blow up Parliament.  Some of our friendly Belgian neighbours may have been aware that Guy Fawkes himself gained his practical experience of explosives while serving in the army of the Spanish Netherlands (of which Belgium is the southern part).

This knowledge has thankfully retreated into obscurity along with religious and national prejudice and, since the 20^th century wars, Brussels has developed a distinctly anglophile atmosphere which is made explicit in the existence of Avenue Winston Churchill, a statue of General Montgomery and a statue of Edith Cavell plus a street and a hospital named after her. Also, there is the annual re-enactment of the battle of Waterloo.

In recent years, we have taken to burning effigies not of Guy Fawkes but of some more contemporary opprobrious figure.  This new approach started with Jimmy Savill who was, of course, already dead but we continued with mostly prominent living individuals, although we did once burn the Covid virus – suggested by a grandson.  Our rogue’s gallery included Kim Jong Un (after he had his uncle executed by anti-aircraft gun).  Recent events here in London seem to vindicate our action last year when we consigned an effigy of Elon Musk to the flames.  Interestingly, we had a German visitor with us at the time and she was slightly shocked to see a human effigy thrown onto the fire – and with children present!  Germans might have stopped doing this but some of their neighbours are still keen – mostly burning effigies of witches.

I told her that this tradition serves to remind us all of the dark forces that are latent in the British and which are kept in check by a thin veneer of civilisation upon which we place a very high value.

Any suggestions as to whom we should immolate this year would be gratefully received.