Hi, I’m Nick Simcock, an English Language coach. I help Italians to unlock their English.

A full transcript of this podcast with a language focus can be found on my website: speakwithnick.it podcast

Memories of Bonfire Night in England

Well, in my last podcast about Halloween I mentioned Bonfire Night.

What is Bonfire Night? Well, it’s also known as Fireworks Night, or more precisely Guy Fawkes Night. It’s an annual commemoration observed on the 5th of November in Great Britain, involving bonfires and fireworks displays.

And to understand the history we need to go back, back to London in 1605 and to the events of the 5th of November …

Guy Fawkes, was a member of the Gunpowder Plot, and he was arrested while guarding explosives that Catholic plotters had placed underneath the House of Lords. So this Catholic group intended to blow up the Houses of Lords and assassinate the protestant king James the First and his parliament. So, the attempt to kill the king failed and celebrating this, people in London started to light bonfires and have a big party basically.

Months later, the “Observance of the 5th of November Act” was passed. And it was said that every 5th of November there must be a holiday and a thanksgiving for the fact that the houses of parliament weren’t blown to smithereens and the king survived. It’s no longer an official holiday, but it is definitely an important celebration, an important festivity in the British calendar.

And over the years Guy Fawkes has become a cultural icon. So, he was seen as a very negative character obviously to begin with, but then he took on this sort of hero persona. He’s the main character in the comic book series from the 1982 V for Vendetta, well, is he the main character? Because the main character wears a Guy Fawkes mask. And also in the film version in 2006 starring Natalie Portman. And today the use of Guy Fawkes’s masks has become widespread internationally among anti-establishment protest groups. Interesting right?

Anyway, so enough history, let’s talk about, what is, Bonfire Night in England. So, Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes Night, Fireworks Night, I have some amazing memories of this exciting night of bonfires and fireworks.

We learnt about the history in school, right, about who Guy Fawkes was. And then one of the things we used to do, I remember doing this when I was a child with my Mum, was making an effigy of Guy Fawkes, you know like a doll. So, simply we took a pair of old trousers – that maybe, we were growing as kids and they didn’t fit us anymore – so an old pair of trousers, an old jumper, we put them together, we stuffed them full of newspaper and made this body. And then I don’t remember exactly but I think we put a balloon for his head and he probably had some kind of hat. And then our “Guy” was thrown on our local village bonfire with all the other Guy’s that other children had made  – I don’t know whether people still do that but I remember doing it.

And when my Mum was a child they used to make “a Guy”, because this effigy is called simply ‘a Guy’ as in Guy Fawkes, and then they used to take him around the streets shouting “A penny for the guy, A penny for the guy”. And they would collect these pennies and I believe they used to use the money collected to buy fireworks.

And talking of fireworks, well that was the most exciting thing about Bonfire Night. I remember my Dad coming home with a box of fireworks to set off in our back garden. And I can still remember the smell of the gunpowder!

First we had sparklers, those thin metal wires that you hold in your hand that burn really brightly. And you can make big patterns in the night, in the night air, by waving them around. Then I remember my dad lighting various pyrotechnics in the back garden! There were Roman Candles and Fountains that shot out big coloured flames and stars. There were other smaller fireworks that didn’t look impressive but made enormous bangs that made the windows of the house rattle. I also remember Catherine Wheels that my Dad attached to the fence. This firework you attach it somewhere and then when they are lit they rotate at high speed from the force of the sparks and the flames, creating a huge flaming wheel, amazing!

And then the highlight of the fireworks evening in the back garden with my Mum and Dad and my sister – it really was a high-light, okay – Skyrockets, a couple of Skyrockets.

So a Skyrocket is, what is it? It’s a tube of cardboard full of gunpowder and stars, obviously not stars but I like to think of them as stars. And a long wooden stick that you placed in an old bottle in the middle of the lawn. And then there was always the same thing written on the firework: Light the blue touch paper at arms length and retreat to a safe distance! And we would watch from a safe distance as the touch paper burned dimly and slowly. And then whoosh the rocket flew at high speed up up into this dark night sky, and for a moment it disappeared from sight, before exploding into a small display of coloured stars! Pop pop! Magic, really magic! And I remember the day after we would go for a walk and find the sticks, the wooden sticks of the rockets in nearby fields.

It was all quite dangerous really, which obviously made it extremely exciting for us kids!

There’s a famous nursery rhyme about Guy Fawlkes and it was written in the 1600’s, not long after the gunpowder plot, and it starts “Remember, remember the 5th of November”.

And I have to say the propaganda worked, it’s now 2023 more than 400 years after the Gunpowder Plot, and I will certainly never forget bonfire night or Guy Fawkes!

I’m Nick Simcock, you’ve listened to my podcast. A full transcript with a language focus can be found on my website: speakwithnick.it, where you can also find out more about me. Thanks for listening! Ciao for now!