It begins in October, with the sound of a loud bang in the early evening, followed by an occasional whoosh. It tells me Bonfire Night is almost upon us. Come November, the air will smell faintly of smoke and fireworks—it was the same when I was a boy.
A memory stirs.
I’m back in a 1960s backstreet, clutching a homemade “Guy” and hoping for a penny or two. This is a look back at Bonfire Night, the real story of Guy Fawkes, and the fading sparks of a very British tradition.
Somewhere in Middle England, late 1960s
A small boy stands outside a corner shop with a homemade effigy, whom we call “Guy”. A bundle of old clothes stuffed with newspaper, a hat perched at a slight angle, and a paper face meant to resemble one of the most famous villains in British history: Guy Fawkes.
“Penny for the Guy?” the boy calls, hopefully.
A man passes, uninterested. The boy tries again. “Penny for the Guy, please, sir?”
A young woman looks over, smiles, and rummages through her basket. She pulls out a purse and produces a big copper penny, and then another — pre-decimal coins that felt like real money.
“Be careful with those fireworks,” she says kindly, handing them over.
He grins, pockets the coins, and can already hear the whoosh and bang of rockets in his imagination.
I was that boy, out on dark nights, asking strangers for a few pennies so I could buy fireworks to celebrate a tradition that, at the time, I had little understanding of. Except we were told that Guy Fawkes was a bad man.
The Spark Behind the Celebration
For those unfamiliar with the roots of Bonfire Night, it all goes back to 1605, when a group of English Catholics plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. It was called the Gunpowder Plot, and its aim was simple but spectacular—to assassinate King James I and wipe out much of the Protestant ruling class in one fiery blast.
The ringleader was a man named Robert Catesby. He believed that Catholics were persecuted under Protestant rule — and, in fairness, they were. Catesby’s “solution”, however, was not one that would have gone down well in any century.
Enter Guy (or Guido) Fawkes, a soldier and explosives expert who had been fighting for Catholic Spain. He was recruited to handle the dangerous bit — guarding the barrels of gunpowder and, when the time came, lighting the fuse.
As plots go, it was elaborate, daring, and destined to fail. The conspirators were betrayed before they could strike. Fawkes was caught red-handed in the cellars beneath Parliament with enough explosives to change the course of history.
