Beacon Villages
Belstone - South Tawton - South Zeal - Sticklepath
Under Cosdon Beacon Dartmoor Devon UK
Under Cosdon Beacon Dartmoor Devon UK
| Sticklepath Fireshow - The Story |
| According to "The Story of Sticklepath", Sticklepath Women's Institute 1955, "Before the first World War ...Guy Fawkes celebrations included the drawing of a lighted tar barrel through the street, and a bonfire in front of The Taw River Inn - an anxious occasion, one feels, for neighbouring householders with thatched roofs." With the development of a proper metalled road through the village and concerns for the safety of people and property, this practice was discontinued, being replaced with individual bonfires and fireworks in peoples gardens. However, for the last twenty years, Sticklepath has held a 'Fireshow' to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day - "A feast of music, puppets, drama, a fabulous stage set, exciting storyline and an awesome firework display." Sticklepath Fireshow was the Wren Trust's first big community event, which they worked on, with local people, for 5 years and which has carried on ever since. To quote Dave Goodwin, a community development worker with the Trust, "the Sticklepath Fireshow .showed me what a fantastic medium community music and arts can be to help bring communities together and foster a sense of common purpose." Every year, the annual theme is kept a secret until the day itself, but maintaining the bonfire night tradition, Guy still goes up in flames, when the carefully built and lovingly painted stage is set alight, in front of a crowd of thousands, and a spectacular firework display brings the evening's performance to a close. Growing up a child in Britain, one can remember getting disused grown-up's clothes, stuffing them full of paper, straw or other combustible material and 'making a guy, a human effigy. First a pair of old trousers, then a shirt or pyjama top, these were tied or stitched together with old gloves, stuffed, for the hands and an old pair of boots or shoes tied on as the feet. The making of the head was a test of imagination - an old paper bag (just fancy, there were no plastic bags then!), a sack or maybe a woollen garment, stuffed into a ball. And then a face to be drawn on paper and maybe held on with an elastic band. Finally the whole was completed by a jacket or overcoat and a hat. A hat was essential to cover the evidence of manufacture of the head. And there we had it - a guy. Not for us Guy, with a capital G, just a 'guy'. But not the American expression for a man, either. A guy was something that you put in an old barrow or pram, took down to the shopping street or the railway station and stood with, while you asked passers by for 'a penny for the guy?' and you held out an old hat or maybe a tin. A tin was better because you could rattle it! It was always a question of timing, when one could go out collecting. Grown ups always would remark how they are 'getting earlier and earlier, every year', just as they do today, about the shops preparing us for Xmas. Generally two weeks before November 5th was the earliest one could expect a friendly reception and thus make collecting financially worthwhile. This meant, of course, preparation and making the guy needed to begin by the middle of October. Every evening, after the crowds had dwindled or the last homecoming train departed, the counting took place. There was much comparison of how we had done. "He gave me sixpence". "That lady had no change, so she gave me a shilling." Of course, all coinage that is unfamiliar to today's' British children, let alone people from other countries. Then would come the day to spend the money. It was collected for and spent on fireworks. The days and days of looking in shop windows at displays of rockets and bangers and Catherine wheels and sparklers were over. Now came the moment of choice. What to buy? Of course, the boys wanted to buy bangers and jumping jacks. The girls wanted the pretty ones. And these were boys and girls of all ages, from five to ninety. Mums and Dads, of course, were needed to help make the guy. But also they were useful to help build the bonfire. Fist, an area of the garden had to be designated, far enough from the house to be safe and also away from neighbouring fences for the same reason. A place where summer salads had not yet been replaced by winter and spring veg. There was an art in building bonfires that will light properly and instantly, that only grown ups seemed to possess. Us children would scout the neighbourhood for additional materials to put on top of the framework built by Dad. And, if possible, an old chair to sit on top and provide a comfortable throne for the guy. I am among the first to moan nowadays when I hear a firework let off before November 5th. What a hypocrite! I can remember myself and my friends, having spent some of our collection on pocketfuls of bangers (Standard Firework, red covered, one penny, three ha 'pence or twopenny ones), going around blowing tin cans into the air and having 'banger fights' where we would chase and throw them at each other! Parents would disapprove, but that is the job of parents. We didn't mind too much. On the day, we would have no choice but to let Dad set and light the fireworks. Sometimes we were allowed to light a rocket or a fountain but under supervision, with gloves on. Mum's job was to provide an endless supply of sausages and baked potatoes with cups of tea for the other Mums who came round with their kids. There was beer for the Dads! And why did we do it? Because it was fun! It was something to do, together with our friends. Something to look forward to, something to enjoy and something from which to gain a sense of achievement and satisfaction with ourselves. In fact, rather like today's Carnivals or Fireshow, except that everybody did it. Today we have those who do it and those who watch. That is not to say anything against being a spectator except that spectators miss out on an awful lot of the pleasure. I know that today we have much more entertainment available. But I wonder if a youngster these days will be able to look back at his childhood, seventy years from now, and recall the fun he had watching television or playing computer games? As over 50% of the visitors to this web site are from other countries, a brief historical explanation of 'Guy Fawkes Day' may be helpful. From prehistoric times, religious and civil leadership have been very closely connected. In Western Europe, until the early 16C, there was a power balance between various kings and emperors and the Pope, head of the church in Rome. In 1531, Henry 8th declared himself head of the Christian church in England, although he had little time for the 'Protestant' ideas coming from Germany, and thus started a conflict of allegiance between state and religion, which had more to do with politics than with religious belief. When Mary Tudor became queen, she tried to restore the old religion but when Elizabeth I came to power, she drove the Catholics further underground. Her Second Act of Supremacy made refusal to accept the crown as supreme head of the church punishable by death which led to a secret underground movement with priests being smuggled in from the continent to enable Catholics to practice their faith. Elizabeth's beheading of Mary let to outrage in Europe and in 1588, to the (failed) Spanish Armada against Elizabeth, to avenge Mary and depose her. Elizabeth died in 1603 and was replaced by James I who proved to be no more tolerant of the Catholics than Elizabeth. A young Catholic, Robert Catesby decided that violent action was the answer and suggested to some close friends that they should blow up the Houses of Parliament, to kill the King and those Members of Parliament who were against the Catholics. Besides Catesby, the conspirators included the brothers Kit and John Wright, Francis Tresham, brothers Thomas and Robert Wintour, Robert Keyes, Thomas Percy, Sir Everard Digby, Ambrose Rookwood, Hugh Owen and John Grant. Guy Fawkes, an Englishman born in York in 1570, had converted to Catholicism and worked in the house of Viscount Montague, before enlisting as a young man in the Spanish army, where he could openly practice his religion. On his return to London in 1604, he met up with the conspirators, who set about their plan by obtaining 36 barrels of gunpowder and storing it in a cellar, just under the House of Lords. However someone sent an anonymous letter warning Lord Monteagle, to stay away from Parliament on November 5th. News of this letter reached the King, whose forces caught Fawkes in the cellar when they stormed it in the early hours of November 5th. He was tortured and executed. Other conspirators, taken afterward, were killed in flight, imprisoned, or executed. The tradition of celebration bonfires began the very same year as the failed plot by Londoners, celebrating the saving of their king. Later people began adding effigies and the tradition has continues to this present day. It was celebrated in the English colonies, in New England up to the 18C known as 'Pope Day', and still persists in some areas of New Zealand and Canada. For more details try : http://www.bonefire.org/guy/index.php |