Bonfire night was the biggest night of the year when I was a kid. All the local streets had their own bonfires and our fire was attended by about 10 families. We started collecting wood from greengrocers and fish mongers (yea those boxes stank) from the beginning of September and stored the wood in our back gardens. For a time 5 Nov was a school holiday in our area. Accidents with fireworks seemed to be commonplace and the fire brigade used to be kept busy with out of control fires. When we became teenagers we added to their work by setting fire to rival bonfires on Nov 4th. Dress code in the earlier days included balaclavas knitted by our mums and may be duffel coats. Fingerless gloves were an optional extra. Halloween was unheard of.

^ Happy days !

Conkers !  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers

Hot Cider Punch.

burning the bonfire of a rival gang the weekend before.....

I can recall during my first Michaelmas Term at Oxford, I was accosted by a little boy saying, "Penny for the Goy." "I beg your pardon?" I replied. He indignantly repeated himself, "Penny for the Goy!" "I have no idea what you're talking about," said I and went my way. I know that "Goy" and "Goyim" are Hebraic terms for gentiles, but I didn't quite figure how that fit in this context. When I told my English friends about this, they clued me in.

When I was in England (1963-5), I was amazed at how freely fireworks were sold, even to children. The laws were much more lenient back then in England than they were in the States, in contrast to our respective gun laws, then and now.

Bit quiet around Kingston tonight!

Antonia Fraser wrote an interesting article in the London Evening Standard last night
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/celebrate-bonfire-night-but-dont-burn-the-guy-8281961.html
As a Catholic she wasn't too keen on burning effigies of Guy Fawkes and got the name of her local party in Kensington changed from Guy Fawkes Night to Bonfire Night. We always called it Bonfire Night perhaps because I lived in an area where quite a few Catholics lived.  Having said that my Dad, a Catholic, loved us making a Guy and begging for money at the local tube station. He always supplied us with a old boiler suit so that our Guy looked like Winston Churchill circa 1942.He hated Winston Churchill.
According to today's Standard there was a bit of a kerfuffle in Parliament Square last night.

My friends used to go up to it every year when we were down Brighton, I never bothered, I wonder if 12bar ever made it up there?

Last night, down by the Harbour in Bristol, the restaurants and pubs were all quiet and the sky looked and sounded like the Blitz (Kinda). I popped into Bills for a bottle of vodka and they'd been quiet too - People were all at parties or just doing their own thing with their families & friends.

We'd had our fireworks already at home by then & I was busy mixing up some lethal punch for the grown ups...

You can't beat a baked potato outdoors, can you ?

It was a perfect night for it all.