It’s time we extinguished Guy Fawkes

NZ has better, home-grown events to enjoy

The sight, sound and smell of Tom Thumbs and Double Happys blowing up were a wonderful memory as a child. In the weeks leading up to Guy Fawkes, my best friend and I would save up our pocket money, then as the day approached we would jump on our Raleigh 20 bikes and race down to Sue’s Green Grocer in College St and calculate how many Poha, Moon Travellers and Roman Candles we could buy for the $3.23 we had managed to scrape together by raiding the ashtrays for shrapnel in our mums’ cars.

Our deep caveboy instincts to destroy came to the surface as we inserted firecrackers into lemons and launched them into the sky to watch them explode, or when we converted a steel pipe into a bazooka and launched mini skyrockets over the neighbour’s fence. At school, each class would make its own effigy of Guy that was chucked on the bonfire and we cheered as it burned.

For two 10-year-olds with spare change in our pockets and the typical early 80s freedoms we had, we loved Guy Fawkes. We did not think or care about the pets, the accidental fires, the environment or even our own fingers as we satisfied our pyromaniac and Neanderthal urges.

As we matured, the price went up, the quality and availability of the fireworks went down, and the burning of effigies slowly disappeared. Guy Fawkes faded away from our radars as we started to spend our pocket money on a sixpack of Lion Red Stubbies rather than a pack of Pohas.

It wasn’t until years later while listening to an Irish Catholic friend that I started to realise that it was bizarre and maybe even a little sinister that we Kiwis were celebrating this footnote in the notso-United Kingdom’s history. For Irish Catholics living in England, right up into the 80s, Guy Fawkes was a time to lock the doors and pull the curtains while the Protestants burned effigies of the Pope and created mayhem in the name of their version of the God both faiths shared.

Meanwhile back in God’s Paradise at the bottom right-hand corner of the world, kids were losing eyes and thumbs, pets were scared out of their wits, our firefighters were working double shifts and our environment got worse as we burnt our hardearned cash.

We can study the historical context of what Mr Fawkes attempted to do, but we do not need to celebrate it. We have plenty of better, home-grown events to enjoy, like the mana wahine of the Black Ferns who are redefining sport and equality right now!