Lewes Bonfire 2013

It was my 12^th Bonfire Night in Lewes. I felt unusually nervous about the event this year but, ultimately, it was memorable.  

Once again I processed as a Cluniac monk with the Southover Bonfire Society. 

I marched at the back of the monks' column, just in front of the brass band, which was excellent.

This year, so-called “rookies” – loud fire crackers used for scaring away birds in the fields – were falling far less frequently than usual which made a pleasant change.

The atmosphere was great!

I feel all should be welcome at Bonfire. It is a time and place where everyone should be able to be comfortable and get along. That’s part of what Bonfire’s about.

A great number of very happy people. 

My fellow monks were extremely friendly. Our ranks have certainly grown over the years and we are a jolly bunch of ancient religious.

Southover’s first parade was very poignant with a small boy reciting a remembrance poem at the main War Memorial in Lewes and other little children laying wreaths.

The march ended up at The Swan Inn where there was vinyl on the record deck and good food in the beer garden.

This year the Southover Bonfire Society led the Grand Procession of all the Lewes bonfire societies, I believe for the first time.   

As always it was a great experience marching down St Anne's Hill, the High Street and School Hill with the pavements brimming over with onlooker and well-wishers. 

It was not quite as boisterous as the two Bonfire Nights on Saturdays in past years (Bonfire Boys and Belles will not parade on the Lord’s Day). But there was still a lot of joy in the air and grins on the faces. 

The third march was the Procession of Remembrance to the Southover Memorial for the Last Post and two minutes' silence. 

I thought of those I have known who have died this year, particularly my beloved niece Emily, and, of course, those who have died in wars and other conflicts.

This year’s Southover theme was Bomber Command – a key part of the Second World War effort which was not honoured until recently and only then thanks to the sterling efforts of a Bee Gee.

It is an interesting historical chapter: how Bomber Command did dirty work for Churchill and were rewarded by being ignored post-war, rather like, decades on, the battered American soldiers returning from Vietnam. 

I was surprised to learn around 55,000 members of Bomber Command had died in the Second World War. 

It seemed a vast number of airmen to perish. Of course the horror hit ordinary people on both sides. 

Strangely enough, my late aunt Erica was a survivor of the bombing of Dresden, a teenager walking out of the firestorm city, tens of thousands of dead surrounding her. She lived on into her seventies but, I guess, never fully recovered from the Dresden ordeal. 

It is absolutely right that airmen of Bomber Command should be honoured for their courage; it should have happened last ago. 

We processed to the Southover fire site for a truly sublime fireworks display, followed by the home procession and midnight prayers outside the Kings Head - a good pub these days.

* It has been a strange week. The night before Bonfire I went to a work do in Parliament and bumped into the England Football Coach, Roy Hodgson, a very likeable chap. We met in the security area - he was on his way to a Football Association bash. 

It's great England made it through [to the World Cup Finals]," said I, stating the obvious like a typical journalist.Grinning like a Cheshire cat, Roy replied: "Yeah, that's the main fing." 

* For the two Saturdays before, I presented my usual shows for Rocket FM - Bonfire's radio station. My old friend, DJ E, came down from t'North to co-present the second one with me. 

He was brilliant! We have been DJ-ing together over a period of 33 years and it was a good, slick show. The best we have ever done. For anyone who's interested, here's the eclectic playlist that came out of our collaboration in a music-packed two hours:

Kiss – Tom Jones  

Pick Up The Pieces – Average White Band

Let Me Know – Roisin Murphy 

The Theme From S-Express – S-Express

My Black Wine – Benna McCartney

Doghouse – Johnson And The Believers

Nag, Nag, Nag – Cabaret Voltaire

Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor

Walk On The Wild Side – Lou Reed

Lady T – Crazy P

Sex Machine – James Brown

Simple Twist Of Fate – Bob Dylan

Yeah The Dum Dum – Splat

Teenage Dream – T.Rex

Playing Bogart – 23 Jewels

Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy – Queen

Death On Two Legs – Queen

I Know You Got Soul – Bobby Bird

The Only Way Is Up – Yazz

Temptation – Heaven 17

Crushed By The Wheels of Industry – Heaven 17

Relax – Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Teenage Kicks – The Undertones

God Save The Queen – The Sex Pistols

Rupert – The Alan Caddy Orchestra & Singers

The Pink Panther – The Alan Caddy Orchestra & Singers

La Vie En Rose – Edith Piaf

No More Heroes – The Stranglers

Bonfire Beckons!

The legendary Lewes Bonfire celebrations are getting very close. This is always a special time of year which I really enjoy.

This year I am triply involved: presenting two shows for Bonfire’s radio station Rocket FM, processing as a Cluniac monk with the Southover Bonfire Society on The Fifth, and staging a special Bonfire Poetry session at Lewes Poetry at the Lewes Arms on Friday (25 October).

The Bonfire Poetry gig is particularly pressing. 

It is the first time I have attempted this and I really hope there is a good turn-out from the bonfire societies. The idea is that the entire evening will be devoted to poetry about Bonfire and remembrance.

I will be compering, in my monk’s habit, and also reading relevant poems. 

Matt Street, Commander-in-Chief of Southover Bonfire Society, wrote a good poem about the late Keith Austin, the Society’s Secretary, which will be read on the night. 

Other poems about Keith and the Lewes Bonfire movement that he so loved will also be read.

Remembrance is a very big part of Bonfire. In the Southover Bonfire Society, we have always majored on it, with an annual theme, commemorating those who have died for their country in wars and conflicts.

I have been working my way through books of war poetry to find suitable poems for the night. I hope the event gets the support it deserves. Doors open at 8.15pm, upstairs at the Lewes Arms, with a show from 8.45pm-11pm. A prize poetry contest for bonfire poems will take place, and there will be a late bar (till midnight).

Of course, I am a little worried that my back – I have torn a muscle – might make compering the show very painful. But whatever happens, the show will go on.

Rocket FM also beckons. 

I have been given two shows, this coming Saturday (26 October) from 7pm-9pm and the following Saturday (2 November) in the same slot, on 87.8 FM in Lewes and the Ouse Valley and also online at: www.rocketfm.org.uk

It is the fifth consecutive year of the Timewarp show – playing the best in “raves from the grave”, as well as featuring guests from the arts world.

This year, I will presenting my first show (on Saturday, 26 October) with the help of poet Laura King and artist and vinyl record expert Guyan Porter.

For the second show (Saturday, 2 November), I will be more than ably assisted by my old varsity friend, DJ E, a.k.a. John Eckersley) with whom I DJ-ed at the University of Hull in the early 1980s.

John is a superb disc jockey and did an amazing job last year when he guested on Timewarp. We chose the music between us. Playing the tunes, the memories came flooding back and the chat flowed like a river.

The Fifth is a bit of a logistical nightmare now I am not longer living in Lewes.

I have taken half a day off from work so I can get into the town easily before it is locked down, and partake in the first procession.

Processing on Bonfire Night is always a somewhat hairy experience. 

However, the bonfire societies have made a real effort this year to reduce the risk of injury by banning the horrendous blue rookies – super-powerful ground fireworks that scare the sh*t out of me.

With the recent demise of our Secretary, it will be an especially poignant occasion.

I always think that when the Fifth falls on a weekday it is particularly special.

When it is on a Saturday or Sunday, the event takes place on a Saturday (Bonfire Boys and Belles will not process on the Lord’s Day) and the town is flooded with tourists who have come from far afield.

I do not object to this as much as many Lewes folk do. Who can blame people from visiting a spectacle as enthralling and photogenic as Lewes Bonfire?

However, it is so much more of a purely Lewes and Sussex affair when the day falls in the week.

As a (re)founder member of Southover Bonfire Society and someone who was persuaded to sign up by Matt Street and Keith Austin, it is always good to see how remarkably the Society has progressed in a relatively short time.

Southover is quite a big chunk of the town and the Southover Bonfire Society’s reformation filled a need and a longing among all the residents of Southover, many of whom, myself included, would otherwise have never joined a bonfire society. (Some other members of the Society are pictured before embarking on the recent Seaford Bonfire Out Meeting.)

 
And, so, I will proudly and with peace and dignity be playing my part in this year’s Lewes Bonfire celebrations. 

* My NUJ (National Union of Journalists) branch meetings in Brighton used to be attended by one man and a dog! Over the past two years, there have been times when we have struggled to get even half a dozen members together in the back room of the Iron Duke. Now that seems to be changing.

The last meeting, on Monday, 21 October, was attended by more than 80 people, thanks in no small part to the guest speaker, investigative journalist Nick Davies (incidentally, from Lewes), who spoke brilliantly. 

I was particularly fascinated by his take on Julian Assange, currently holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy, near where I work. A great meeting! It was a great meeting but can we turn an evening like that into a far more thriving branch for regular meetings?

·       * I have a new favourite public house in Brighton – the Foundry, on Foundry Street. I chanced upon it because I was walking back from my guitar lesson last week and needed a rest from the pain of my back. So, I dropped in. 

      There are incredibly friendly and pleasant in the Foundry and play Scrabble at the bar. Even an old bloke with a stick and a crook back seems to be welcome. The beer is really good and there is an acoustic group on a Monday night. If you don’t fancy an alcoholic drink, they are happy to make you a very pleasant coffee.

E me 

Southover Bonfire Society 2010

Another year, another memorable Lewes Bonfire celebration!

My old friend Melanie Knight, who grew up in Lewes in the 1970s and early 1980s, emailed me while I was doing my Rocket FM show to say that the bonfire societies used to blow up controversial figures such as Margaret Thatcher, but she guessed it was not allowed any more!

I am not so sure. Some of this year's effigies seemed more extreme than ever!

There was the disgraceful business of a Lewes bonfire society (not Southover, I stress) blowing up an effigy of the judge who rightly jailed the firework factory owner and his son who were found to be "grossly negligent" in relation to the disaster in which two firefighters died.

I was shocked to read about that. The society involved was even claiming that there had been a miscarriage of justice, and the factory owner and his son should go free (although its chairman later apologised and an investigation has been launched within that society).

I would certainly not have been very happy if I'd been a member of that society.

Fortunately, I am in Southover - and the Southover Bonfire Society's celebration were very enjoyable. It was an excellent night.

I was slightly puzzled as to why the current pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, was chosen as the subject for an effigy.

Although a Roman Catholic, I was not offended.

But it was hard to see how the current Pope could be regarded as an "enemy of bonfire". He is never down the King's Head causing trouble!

It was easier to understand why a journalist, who had suggested that Lewes was an intolerant place, had been chosen, although no doubt he had been only expressing what he felt at that moment, rather like the tableaux makers.

Lewes is a peaceful and pleasant place to live, and the steam that Lewesians let off on the Fifth is undoubtedly part of the reason for that.

So, provided the tableaux are not totally crass and insensitive (such as the one by Firle Bonfire Society a few years back or this year's judge one), it is probably best not to take the tabs too seriously.

I think what is great about Bonfire is the spirit of comaraderie between the people involved and the people watching, and its rememblance of those lost.

Anyway, here are some pictures from Southover's celebrations this year (with some of the Cliffe marching through my manor!)

I feel our little part of Lewes can feel proud of its Bonfire Society and the way it marched on The Fifth 2010.

Advance, Southover!