GUY FAWKE’S DAY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5497, 6 November 1929, Page 2

GUY FAWKE’S DAY.

LAST NIGHT’S CELEBRATIONS. BONFIRES GALORE. Yesterday was the 324th anniversary of Guy Fawke’s Day, for it was on November 5, 1605, that the plot to destroy the King, lords, and commons in revenge for the penal laws against Catholics was discovered. As Guy Fawkes, the agent for the conspirators, was about to fire barrels of gunpowder, which had been placed undei’ the House of Lords, he was seized. Since that date every year the fortunate escape of Royalty and government has been celebrated by the burning of effigies of Guy. Fireworks were added to illustrate what might have happened had the House been blown up.

Celebrated at first only in England, as the Empire grew so did the sphere of celebrations, so that last night there were millions of little boys and little girls (not to mention many grown-up boys and girls) made gloriously happy at the expense of poor old Guy Fawke’s memory.

• Locally there were fireworks galore —-rockets, Catherine wheels, crackers, and many other of the explosives so dear to the heart of youth. The road from Paeroa to Waihi proved a magnificent sight, with practically a chain of huge beacons at frequent distances burning red and bright against the dark night. Many were just little affairs alongside a lonely homestead ; others, more pretentious, were to be seen where groups of children had gathered to hold a common bonfire ; and yet again there were places like Waikino, where the vicinity of the battery seemed literally a sheet of flame. At one time the bursting of crackers, and the ascent of vari-coloured rockets, brought to mind nothing so much as a minor “strafe” on the western front.

Fortunately no real fires or accidents sometimes attendant on these anniversaries were reported, and so the complete happiness of no one was marred.