"A Penny for the Guy"

Until recently, a common sight in English streets, in the weeks leading up to November 5, was of youngsters standing beside home-made effigies of Guy Fawkes, demanding, "A penny for the Guy!" Bonfire night was a children's festival, when boys and girls built their own bonfires and set off fireworks.

The guy may have worn a home-made beard and a tall black hat, or a cardboard Guy Fawkes mask bought from a shop. Often a guy was little more then a stuffed jumper with a ball of newspaper for a head. There is a long tradition of strange-looking guys. Writing in 1825, William Hone remarked, "It is not to be expected that poor boys should be well informed as to the Guy's history, or be particular about the costume." Guys were also placed on prams and push-chairs and wheeled through the streets. The better the quality of the guy, the more likely adults were to give money.

The children were often not clear about why Bonfire Night was celebrated. Richmal Crompton, in her Just William stories, has this exchange between William and one of his gang:
"So... why d'we celebrate that he didn't blow somefin' up, by blowin' things up?" William thought for a moment. "Well... maybe people were just let down that they never got to see it. I mean, the Houses of Parliament blowin' up into the air like that..."

In The Lore And Language Of Schoolchildren, their classic 1959 study of children's customs, Iona and Peter Opie recorded rhymes used by children as they begged for money or burned their guys on bonfires. The commonest was this verse which goes back to the 18th century:
Please to remember
The fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

The Opies found that children also composed their own variations on these rhymes. In Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, they chanted:
Please to remember
The fifth of November,
The poor old guy
With a hole in his stocking
A hole in his shoe
A hole in his hat where his hair comes through.

The phrase "poor old guy" shows that he was often viewed with affection. However, there were also violent verses, such as this one, chanted in Northampton:
Guy Fawkes, Guy
Hit him in the eye,
Hang him from the lamp-post
And leave him there to die.
Umbrella down the cellar,
There I saw a naked fella
Burn his body, save his soul,
There I saw a lump of coal;
If a lump of coal won't do,
Please give me a ha'penny.

The money collected with the guys was used to buy fireworks, such as bangers, sparklers, and jumping jacks.
Children also spent weeks collecting wood for big bonfires, where the guy would be placed on top. Rival gangs of children built their own bonfires, and would steal wood from each other's piles. In Yorkshire, this was known as "chumping", while in other places it was called "wooding". One girl told the Opies, "In our village, we have started collecting wood for the bonfire already (October 14) and we have competitions between ourselves to see who gets the biggest bonfire". Another girl described the fire: "The boys light the bonfire at about half past six in the evening. It is always lovely when the fire is blazing, the sparks fly and the sky turns a lovely orange colour... We make a ring and dance around the fire. We see who can collect the most used fireworks. We put potatoes on sticks and cook them in the embers."

Today, children are no longer allowed to buy fireworks or light their own bonfires. The Fireworks Act of 2003 prohibited people under the age of 18 from carrying fireworks in public. Bonfire night is now strictly controlled by grown-ups. Due to the influence of the US, Halloween has replaced Bonfire Night as children's big autumn festival. Even the cardboard Guy Fawkes masks have disappeared from most of our shops, to be replaced by Halloween masks and skulls. But some children do still build guys and go out to collect pennies.