My childhood memories at this time of year are not dissimilar to those of centuries of Englishmen: huddled around a makeshift bonfire in someone’s back garden or on a village green, watching an effigy of an obscure man disintegrate into cinders, blithely accepting the grown-ups who informed you that he was a bad man who deserved it.
Yet it seems I will be among the last generation for whom this was a staple of this time of the calendar year, a fixture of early November as much a ritual to us as Thanksgiving is to Americans. On 31 October, BBC News asked, “Is Bonfire Night being replaced by Halloween?” and it is hard to say it isn’t. The pathetic dribble of one or two fireworks that could be heard overhead across the country last week only seemed to confirm it.
