In order to scare away all the mischievous behaviour from Devils night, most children around the world dress up in scary costumes, the night after devils night, to scare all the devils away. This is known of course as ‘Halloween’. And to follow we are blessed with All Saints day. This is what we Canadians are used to doing for Halloween.
Throughout the years I would have my parents rack their brains in trying to come up with wonderful ideas for Halloween costumes for me. The biggest challenge for my parents was to think of a great costume that would be able to fit over a snowsuit or 3 layers of clothes. Although my costumes were never really that scary, I mean if you count the year that I was a ‘Pepsi can’ or the one that I was a ‘dice’ I assume I did not do a great job of scarring off any evil spirits.
Why the trip down memory lane? Because, believe it or not the British celebrate this time of year differently than us. They must not have many devils surfacing from the grave yards on October 30th because there were little to no celebration on the 31st.
The week leading up to Halloween Ryan and I noticed that there were no Halloween decorations around the ‘toon’. I started to ask a few locals about the absence of Halloween decorations, and I learned that here in England it is not a commercial festivity. Like many things that the Canadians and the US have made into a money grab the English have remained untouched by the spooky music playing, pumpkin lights, stuffed dummies that sit on porches, scarecrows looming in yards, and pumpkin carving extravaganza madness. I do have to say I did miss the big nonsense around my neighbourhood. The worst part was the absent excited children walking about their streets with their friends and family trick-or-treating!
On Halloween I was heading home from work, when I noticed that even though it had started to get dark there were many children on the metro not in costumes or getting ready to go out and trick-or-treat. I didn’t think much into it and decided to get off at a stop before my regular stop to walk the streets and see the trick-or-treaters, still nothing.... ummmm what is going on??? I saw a few pumpkins glowing from a far that I assume where either Canadians or Americans par taking in the event, but I saw 1 witch hat walk by and an older guy wearing leopard print tights (which could have been a normal day for him).
What I did learn is that even though there was no Halloween commercialized craziness going on in England, the British do celebrate another festivity a week later. Don’t get your hopes up, because this event doesn’t have anything to do with spirits or saints it has to do with bombs and parliament with an undertone of anti-Catholicism.
This festivity is known as the, Guy Fawkes Night and it falls on the 5th of November. I am soooo upset to announce that our computer decided to acquire a virus about a week ago, and my wonderful pictures of this night are nowhere to be found. Thus, it will be hard to explain just what it was like here on the 5th of November.
First things first, the history of Guy Fawkes; Guy Fawkes was a member of the Gunpowder plot, and was planning to place explosives under the Parliament houses of England. King James, who served a long reign over Scotland, Ireland and England was the main target of this plot, but ultimately survived the great ordeal. The commemoration of November 5th is amongst other things to celebrate his survival.
Today in England the British celebrate the survival of the explosions by having their own explosive parties.
The day of November 5th, I noticed a large flat bed truck filled with enough wood to build a house (no lie) travel down our street to the alley way behind us. I thought that someone must be planning a remodel on their home. The wood was dropped off and sat in a hump behind my house for the rest of the day. Ryan and I, and our roommates were getting ready to go and see a friend’s band in the ‘toon’ when I spotted a huge flame outside our living room window. Mind you, we live adjacent to one of the largest parks in Newcastle (Jesmond Dene) so I was weary at first that some hooligans had set fire to one of my favourite spots in Jesmond L. My roommates quickly let me know that the Dene was in fact in fine shape and that our neighbours were just commemorating King James and his survival by celebrating Guy Fawkes. I soooo wish I could find my pictures because the size of this fire was unreal! We went outside and made our way to the massive wood pile, which stood about 10 feet tall, and its base was about 10 feet thick.
We walked up to a fire that had started to create a crowd of about 15-20 people. The people were all neighbours and have made their way up to the blaze either out of us curiosity like us, or out of tradition of being there year after year. We were offered food from one family and asked about where we were living and getting to know the neighbourhood.
Then out of nowhere a shriek of fireworks blared in the distance. These fireworks were not like what we are used to during the July 1st july 4th celebration that we see at the river front every year. This sounded like Newcastle had started a war of bombs!!!!!!! It was absolute madness! And again I am sorry about the absent photos! My heart was pumping and the bombs continued to blast away as we watched our neighbours add huge pallets to the fire! It was all so different and great to experience.
One of our neighbours is a history teacher at a secondary school here in Newcastle. He explained how this exact fire has been lit every November 5th for the past 97 years! This fire is almost as old as Windsor itself! He assured me that over the 97 years Jesmond Dene has never gone up in smoke! So I felt better about the situation and was able to relax a bit and enjoy their celebrations.
Even though mine was a better .... here are some pictures from flicker that will give you an idea of the night:
