Gunpowder, treason and plot: Bonfire night in England

Bomb plots, religious extremists, figures of hate? Nothing new about that in England. But when it's all wrapped up with roasted bangers and chestnuts and a spot of fireworks, it seems quite benign - a bit of family fun rather than a metaphor for religious intolerance.

 

Last night we joined the people of Cookham Dean Village in Berkshire for the annual burning of not just one guy, but quite a few, on this pyre on the village green.

These guys were made, following longstanding tradition, by local school children. Though it seems the tradition of dragging them around the neighbourhood on wheeled carts shouting "A penny for the guy!" (which I remember from childhood days in London) is over.

Observe the resemblance! This one below is practically the spitting image of Guido himself!

Fawkes was not actually the leader of the gang of Catholic conspirators who, fed up with continued oppression of their faith, plotted to blow up both King and parliament on the 6th November 1605. He was the powdermonkey, the explosives man, and therefore the one unlucky enough to be caught in the cellars under Parliament the night before (5th November), waiting to detonate 36 barrels of gunpowder.

King James I responded by cracking down even harder with the anti-Catholic measures and apparently decreed that all loyal (read Protestant) subjects should celebrate by lighting bonfires every year on the anniversary of the foiled plot. No, I don't quite follow the logic of that last bit either, but it must have seemed a good opportunity to give vent to fear and prejudice by burning effigies of the Pope or, in more recent history, Guy himself.

More than that, the date happened to tie in quite neatly with All Hallows Eve (Hallowe'en) and the much older Celtic festival of Samhuin (still celebrated in Scotland - read here) marking the chasing out of summer by winter at the start of November, in which bonfires played a big part.

The area around the village of Cookham Dean was settled 4000 years ago. Successively, Celts, Romans, Saxons and Vikings have made their lives here, so no doubt all of these rites have played out on or around this green for millennia. It appears in the Domesday book of 1086 as Cocheham (containing '32 villagers, 21 cottagers, 4 slaves, 2 mills, 2 fisheries and woodland at 100 pigs'). 

This is also the site of the Wind in the Willows:  Kenneth Grahame lived and wrote here, inspired by the Thames at Cookham to  enjoy nothing better, like Ratty, than 'simply messing about in boats', while the adjoining Quarry Wood in Bisham was the original Wild Wood.

As the guys went up in flames one by one, the fireworks started, lighting up the sky for miles around with pyrotechnic colours.

Whether or not one harbours either pagan or anti-Papist sentiments, we set the clocks back on 31st October, bringing suddenly darker evenings and the prospect of increasingly longer nights. There's something about fire - the warmth and comfort, driving out of darkness - that has undeniable appeal at this time of year.

Happy bonfire season to one and all...

Pumpkin time

They came from around the neighbourhood bearing their pumpkins ...

(some with more efficient means of transport) ...

... lanterns showing the way

to our annual pumpkin-carving event.

These kids are pros: no instructions, no health and safety warnings required; they rolled up their sleeves and got to work, taking up their knives like seasoned surgeons with scalpels ...

... no squeamishness or avoiding the messy parts ...

though some preferred the floor

and for one or two it was all just too much

And while their parents got down to the more relaxed business of a glass of hot mulled wine on a crisp autumn evening ...

the carvers were ready to proudly display their achievements ...

And it was time for ghoulish snacks in the kitchen ...

And all that's left ...

is to wish you ...

a very ...

(and on a different note, don't miss this darkly funny (Belgian Waffle's trademark) picture of Halloween in Brussels over here)

Of violins, lobsters and vintage cars

Prague houses were once known (and located by the postman) by a quaint system of allegorical symbols - many with alchemical significance. The Mala Strana quarter, and in particular Nerudova  street, where we stayed (at the Castle Steps), has the highest concentration of these original signs above the doorways ...

'House of the three fiddles', said to be haunted by a demented, screeching trio on moonlit nights

 

So it's possible to say here, "I live in the house of the golden urn" or "... the house of crazy hair guy"

'House of the two suns' was the birth place of Czech poet Jan Neruda, for whom the street is named.

It took until 1770 for Empress Maria Theresa to stamp her elegantly-shod foot and bring some Habsburg order from Vienna to Prague, by insisting on house numbers ...

A green lobster? What were they smoking when they thought this one up?

Perhaps none of this is as confusing as the case of our Serbian taxi driver, who claimed he'd lived in the same house all his life, but in four different countries! I think this is possible, though I can only get three for sure - Yugoslavia to Serbia-Montenegro to Serbia - but maybe his house was in an area of shifting borders (Bosnia & Herzogovina?) Balkan history makes my head spin a little.

I was not surprised to notice that every third car in Prague was a Skoda, but even to someone like me, to whom cars hold very little interest, it was pretty obvious that vintage cars are quite the thing here. You can hire one of these jaunty buggies above along with a driver who will be your tour guide for the city, while you snuggle up in the back under one of those fleecy blankets and spare your feet the walking. (No, we did it the hard way, pounding the cobble stones on foot, can't think why now).

These lovely old cars were everywhere. I'd want to be dressed like the lady in pink, though, to look just right.

 I don't know the make of these cute old cars below, but a lovely sight one morning was a convoy of these putzing their way down the steep cobbled streets, part of a rally of some kind ...

... Petr looked pleased as punch to be off on this outing, while Miriam handled the wheel with a look of determination ...

... and Milan took both hands off the wheel to give me a double thumbs-up, while Martina frowned at the map (clearly it's the women who are required to be level-headed in this game) ...

Now, if I could've only persuaded the owner of this lovely vintage Skoda sports model to part with it, I'd be driving home across Europe right now, getting to grips with all the name-changing states ...