Fireworks

This 'news' is nearly a month old, but probably just about worth mentioning. On November 5th we went to the Guildford fireworks, not knowing quite what to expect. People gather in the High Street and are issued, for a charge, with a torch, namely a stick holding a tube of what seems to be sacking coated with red candlewax, the whole thing being about 18" long, which is then, at a signal, lit and held in procession along the streets behind a band to Stoke Park where the fireworks take place. Somewhat incongruously the reddish-pinkish wax seems to be scented with raspberry, or at least mine was. We weren't expecting something as highly organised - the park held some thousands of people milling around a glaring funfair to which we gave as wide a berth as we could. Fireworks celebrations now very commonly include a procession of some kind from a central point to the location of the fireworks, whether that includes a bonfire or not. I don't remember this happening when I was a child: the first time I came across it was when I was in High Wycombe and went to the Downley Bonfire, an event which one of my colleagues who'd lived in the area for over twenty years had never heard of and yet involved, when I eventually got there, a bonfire some thirty feet in circumference and about three thousand visitors. That had the sense of participating in something a bit occult and forbidden. The trouble with events such as the Guildford fireworks, with the funfair, wretched toilets, and inane commentary from local radio that you could very much live without, is that the sheer size means you sacrifice some of the charm. I think that if we're going to do this next year we'll go to one of the villages.