Lewes Bonfire: an outsider's perspective

Although I'm an occasional visitor to Lewes, I have never actually been to the town for the annual November 5th celebrations before.  This year as "Bonfire" fell on a Saturday I decided to make the 150 mile each way journey.

Leaving home in the South West of England early on Friday evening I was tempted to turn around and head home as torrential rain made visibility very difficult and surface water was already causing surface water to pool on the main roads, and with weather forecasts predicting the weather to be even worse in the South East, and knowing that Lewes is susceptible to flooding, it seemed to be the whole affair could be a rather miserably damp squib rather than a fantastic visual display, a whimper rather than a bang, yet I'm glad I persevered as apart from a few spots of rain on Saturday afternoon, the weather was almost perfect throughout.  

These good weather conditions (and the fact that the event this year fell on a Saturday) probably helped to swell the crowd; apparently there were in excess of 60,000 onlookers and in certain places (particularly around the War Memorial where a wreath-laying ceremony took place and the bridge in the centre of town), it was almost impossible to move.  Luckily my friends who live in Lewes were knowledgeable of the town's layout and we were able to nip in and out of various alleys to miss the main throngs.

For an outsider like me "Bonfire" was definitely a unique experience; walking around in daylight beforehand the town (and especially the pubs) was filling up with people, while huge bonfires waited to be torched; later in scenes reminiscent of American states preparing to be battered by a hurricane or perhaps communities anticipating a riot, I was intrigued to watch as scores of shopkeepers nervously shut-up for the day and feverishly boarded up their windows, while during the parades there was an almost perpetual red haze across the town as the smoke and flames lit up the sky.

And it was interesting to watch the parades as participants from the six rival bonfire societies marched through the town centre carrying burning torches covered in kerosene and 17 huge flaming crosses the latter of which represent the burning to death of 17 Protestant martyrs around 50 years before the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot.  The firecrackers being let off randomly were less fun, especially when people weren't able to escape from the bottlenecks and at one point we saw a group of three girls being scorched on the back of the legs by bits of bangers that were carelessly tossed in their direction, and I'm certainly glad my pals furnished me with earplugs for the evening.

After observing the parades and listening to boos as a large effigy of David Cameron passed, followed a quick pint or two at the very friendly Lewes Arms we headed off to watch the Waterloo Bonfire Society firework display (near to my friends' house).  We arrived around 10pm, and the massive bonfire was ignited around 15 minutes later in front of a crowd of several thousand people.  Near to this huge effigies of Guy Fawkes and Rupert Murdoch (with a flaming flame haired Rebekah Brooks) astride his back exploded in flames as thousands of fireworks exploded from and all around them.  

Now I've seen plenty of firework displays in my time, both home and abroad, yet not one of them has been able to rival the illuminations of this awesome aerial pyrotechnic display that went on for 20 to 30 minutes with tens of fireworks being launched simultaneously.  The sight and sound was fantastic, and this was just one of several that were occurring around the town at the same time.

It was a great evening; very sociable and as far as I can tell passed off with very little trouble.