A Penny For the Guy

Guy Fawkes in Christchurch NZ in the 1960s

Now and then I think back to those simple days. Making effigies of Guy Fawkes, towing them around on a pram, and trick or treating for money to buy firecrackers in New Brighton, Christchurch. This is a very British tradition, but back then, New Zealand was very British.

Every country probably has a night when people set off fireworks. In Holland, it was Old Year’s Eve (that’s what we called the last day of the year there). In New Zealand, it was November the 5th.

Guy Fawkes was a prominent figure in British history known for his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The Gunpowder Plot was a failed conspiracy by a group of Catholic extremists who aimed to assassinate King James I of England and destroy the Protestant-dominated English Parliament by detonating explosives beneath the House of Lords.

Guy Fawkes, a member of the conspirators, was assigned to guard the gunpowder that was stockpiled in a cellar beneath the Parliament building. He was known to be an expert with gunpowder. However, the plot was foiled when authorities received an anonymous letter warning them of the impending attack. Fawkes was discovered on the night of November 5, 1605, surrounded by gunpowder barrels.

He was subsequently tried for high treason, along with other surviving conspirators. The trial took place in January 1606. He pleaded and was found guilty by the court. The punishment for high treason at that time was typically execution by hanging, drawing, and quartering.

However, Fawkes managed to avoid the gruesome fate of being hanged, drawn, and quartered by jumping from the scaffold and breaking his neck, resulting in his immediate death. His body was then quartered and distributed to various parts of the country as a warning to other potential traitors.

This year there will be very few fireworks, but cast your mind back. Sadly I don't have any old Guy Fawkes photos. But it was pretty much like the photo, below.

We built a guy out of whatever we could find and we dressed him up with a coat, stuffed it with newspaper, and put a hat on his head. Then we sat him in a pram (toddlers pushchair) and went from house to house trying to raise money to buy fireworks.

We sang nice little children's songs like this:

"Guy, guy, guy, stick him up high
Stick him on a lamp post and make him cry."

and

"A penny for the guy, a penny for the guy.
If you haven't got a penny, a halfpenny will do
If you haven't got a halfpenny (pronounced haypenny) then God bless you."

Most people would give us one of those and we would race up to the local corner store, known here as a ‘dairy’ and when we ran out of money, we would repeat 2 or 3 nights in a row leading up to November 5.

Some people would tell us not to be greedy and others would give us another coin. We would share out the spoils equally, and our pockets would be heavy. I remember putting my right hand in my pocket and feeling the weight and shape of all those coins.

My father said I wasn’t allowed to spend any of the money until he or my mother came with us, and we couldn’t light them until Guy Fawkes night, at a neighborhood bonfire, with plenty of adults. If we were lucky the adults would let us play with a sparkler. Of course, by then we had let off many fireworks ourselves, but what they didn’t know didn’t hurt them.

Even at the age of 5 or 6, dairy owners would happily sell us fireworks. Maybe not the Mighty Canons and Jumping Jacks, but Tom Thumbs, Double Happys, Penny Rockets, and Throw-Downs that looked like lollies, and they exploded with a good bang when you threw them on the footpath.

I couldn’t find original photos from back in the day, but it seems they still make and sell them in Asia.

They were later banned in New Zealand because some kids picked them up thinking they were lollies and damaged their mouths and teeth.

Here's where I got naughty and in trouble, maybe another reason they got banned (not me in particular). I discovered that if you threw them on the ground in front of people who weren’t expecting it, they would jump with fright, which as a mischievous little boy, I thought was marvelous.

A couple of my victims were old ladies, now I probably thought an old lady was someone over 30, but anyway, one fright too many, and somebody told my parents. It wouldn’t have been the dairy owner, because they wanted more of my pennies, but it was a small community, where everyone knew everyone else. That resulted in a well-deserved smack.

Then on Guy Fawkes night, there would be a huge bonfire on the beach. People would bring food and drink, and it would be a neighborhood party. The Guys would all be hoisted to the top of massive piles of wood, with the stuffing making sure they put on a good display, perhaps with a few rockets in their hats, to add to the excitement and danger.

So how about it? Were you there? What do you remember of those days and traditions?

#GuyFawkes #Fireworks #firecrackers #pennyfortheguy #bonfire #Christchurch