I sit here at my laptop on a chilly autumn afternoon, the sun making Chagall patterns on my wall and bookcase. It is a particular light that I am used to in late Autumn: a hint of winter brightness, far more intense than summer’s softer, Turneresque touch. 
The night before last, November 5th, was bonfire night. Despite a second Lockdown, the English tradition of “celebrating” Guy (or Guido to give him his proper name) Fawkes and comrades’ failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605, went ahead. The night sky was periodically shot through with fireworks: a symbol of the unlit gunpowder.
The tradition includes a bonfire that, in my younger days, was not illegal. People had them in their gardens, or on village greens, as did my Quaker boarding school, accompanied by Catherine Wheels and Bangers and all sorts of fireworks that are now banned. The Quaker principle of pacifism didn’t deter the school from building a huge bonfire and placing a straw Guy dressed in a collection of old rags on top. I recall watching the token Guy benignly seated at the pinnacle of this tipi-shaped pyre. In my first year I and another boy, as the youngest pupils in the school, were given the task of throwing matches into the stacked wood until it caught. I was mortified by the applause from schoolchildren and teachers as the wood sputtered and crackled into life. I hated watching the Guy sag and disappear in the flames. Is this why I have always retained a dislike of the tradition? Who can tell. But I can still see my small self mortified at being watched by the whole school. Little was I to know then, as an extremely shy 10 year old, that I would become a singer and perform in front of thousands of people. But now that I am past my performing days, my shy self has returned and my “performance” is on the page, to an unseen audience. As I write I throw the matches of imagination from mind to fingertips until the page bursts into flame in a shower of words.
As for the political implications – the unrest in 1605 compared to what we have now… well, that’s a discussion I prefer to leave as I enjoy my newly-lit fire.
