I was in London on Guy Fawkes Day, which went from somewhat cute to annoying when the neighbors went overboard with the fireworks…
Guy Fawkes Day In London
As I stepped off the London Underground, I heard the crackle of firecrackers and saw fireworks bursting overhead. I didn’t give it much thought, but as I walked to my sister-in-law’s house, the fireworks continued. My brother-in-law, who is quite the humorous one, greeted me with, “Let’s burn the Catholics!” Ah, yes, it was Guy Fawkes Day.
Guy Fawkes Day, observed each year on November 5th in England, commemorates the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Guy Fawkes was part of a group of English Catholics who conspired to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening, hoping to kill King James I and restore a Catholic monarch. Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder beneath Parliament and arrested. He was tortured in the Tower of London until he revealed details of the plot and was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, though he avoided this fate by jumping from the scaffold and breaking his neck.
The government encouraged annual celebrations of the plot’s failure, and November 5th evolved into “Bonfire Night,” with fireworks and the burning of effigies (“Guys”). Today it is a largely secular cultural festival, though its origins in political violence remain widely remembered.
It was the first time I’ve been in the UK on this holiday and I thought it was an interesting cultural phenomenon going back to when the country was much more Protestant.
As we ate dinner, the fireworks not only continued, but increased in frequency and intensity as the neighbors seemed to have an endless supply of fireworks. That was all fine and good until one of the fireworks slipped while the fuse was burning, so instead of launching vertically, it launched horizontally…toward the house. The emerald green firework exploded outside the window, creating a deafening BOOM and rattling the windows.
You’d think after that mishap, the fireworks would stop, but they continued…and the same thing happened again! There were three children under four in the house and it all felt so unnecessary to me…though fireworks are legal in London and opening the window and yelling at the neighbors was probably not going to accomplish much.
Years ago, I was launching fireworks myself when one also slipped and launched…directly at me. Thankfully, it veered left and explored over the swimming pool was I standing next to. Had it exploded over me, I might not be typing this today…ever since that incident, I’ve been reluctant to launch fireworks myself, which was only reinforced in Germany on New Year’s a few years back when a firework exploded in front of us on New Year’s Eve.
So yes, an interesting Guy Fawkes Day for me in London, but I do prefer to watch fireworks from a distance…
image: Peter Trimming
definitely not your usual layover story.
Some celebrations are best left in the history books
Of course a fervent follower of Presidente Gordo Naranja Bastardo would have issues with Guy Fawkes Day
Yikes. Yeah, fireworks are just annoying. Not interested in the ”bad for animals” angle, the climate change angle, the “oooh” angle – they’re just annoying. Sure I enjoy looking at them sometimes, but on the whole, it’s a pass. And very little interest in a drone light show.
Nature gives us some pretty spectacular sunrises and sunsets. Fireworks can’t hold a roman candle to nature’s quiet splendor.
Ah, yes, “remember, remember, the fifth of November…” time for a post on… *checks notes* December 2nd.
Only our fair cousins across the pond would celebrate someone trying to blow up their own government. To each their own I suppose.
I love fireworks but pets don’t and it’s cruel to blast them next to homes and apartments.
There’s a reason why firework stores are most prominent in the South.
Would you make so much of a fuss with fireworks for divali – where a lot more fireworks go off than bonfire night! And they dont give a toss about animal welfare
We all “learn what we live”. As a retired ER doc, having seen all sorts of injuries as a result of (Letterman‘s) stupid human tricks, I have a very healthy respect for anything that has a very high risk/reward ratio. (Similar to the way ER staff often refer to motorcycle riders as “organ donors“.)
Physician residency training usually ends on June 30, as did my emergency medicine residency many years ago. My first or second shift as an attending, on July 4th, I saw a patient who had been launching fireworks himself.
In keeping with “what could go wrong“ and Murphy’s Law, one of the fireworks hit him in the middle of his forehead, I don’t recall when and where it exploded. He had a burn in the middle of his forehead, almost a perfect circle, slightly depressed, about 3 inches in diameter, that looked like charcoal, probably full thickness to the bone. I called the plastic surgeon on call who told me “there’s nothing we can do for it right now, tell him to make an appointment in a few weeks when it’s completely healed and then we can consider a wound/scar revision”.
Even to this day, over 30 years later, whenever I think of doing something that’s arguably stupidly unsafe, I think about that man walking around for at least a few weeks, with basically a piece of charcoal stuck in the middle of his forehead and then the rest of his life with a significant scar in the middle of his forehead.
20 years after that experience, a physician assistant in another emergency room regaled us with details of his annual July 4th fireworks parties in which he personally launched fireworks. First time I heard those stories I thought “idiot“ until he showed me pictures of the productive suit and headgear he wore which appeared to be similar to the firefighting equipment that sailors wear on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. That’s the correct way to launch fireworks (yourself).