The fusillade

Friday, 5th November – Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. At about eight o’clock I attempted to take the dog into the garden, but he was too frightened by the noise of fireworks and refused to leave the house. I went along the front of the house, across the lawn and through the gate in the hedge to stand in the lane.

From the lane I had a sweeping view of the black night, which was interspersed by the lights of far-off houses and the distant sodium glow of the local town. Crackles, bangs and fizzes filled the air – considering there were no fireworks going off within half a mile, the noises were surprisingly loud. Pale gleams darted into the sky, and exploded into showers of coloured light.

In the fields around me I could hear the anxious calls of wild birds, woken by the fusillade.

In the television dramatisation of Return of the Native (a great book, although the TV adaptation was flawed) on Guy Fawkes Night Catherine Zeta-Jones lights her own bonfire as a desperate signal for a lover to appear (which he does, with tragic results).

In The Golden Bough (another great but flawed work) Sir James Frazer writes that Guy Fawkes Night is a survival of the great European fire-festivals where village communities would light bon-fires, leap over them, and carry charred sticks back to their houses as protection against lightning and house fires over the coming year.