Every year on 5th of November we celebrate the fact that on this date in 1605 someone named Guy Fawkes failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament….

Yes you read that right! We celebrate something that didn’t quite happen…..

Guy Fawkes and his friends were unhappy with the monarchy and decided to take fairly extreme measures to get who they wanted on to the throne. They packed explosives into the basements at Westminster and planned to set these off at the State opening of Parliament when the King was present. The plot was discovered and the conspirators were executed.

We celebrate this foiled attempt by making a stuffed person (like a scarecrow) of Guy Fawkes and burning him on top of a bonfire! We also set off fireworks in place of the explosions that didn’t happen.

In the UK most people enjoy this tradition and look forward to attending their local bonfire to ‘oooh’ and ‘aaaah’ at the brightly coloured firework displays.

We absolutely appreciate that if you have spent time this year sheltering in basements from real rockets intended to terrify and harm you and your families you may not feel quite the same way about this tradition. Forewarning might help a little bit to understand why this is happening and to expect that you will see and hear these fireworks over the coming weeks.

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