LAST night (November 5) we were “treated” to several hours of the usual annual cacophany of bangs and flashes all around, as nearby residents let off fireworks for “Guy Fawkes night”.
How many of them, I wonder, have the faintest idea what they are supposed to be commemorating and why? In 1605 Guy Fawkes and his gang of rebels tried and failed in their attempt to blow up the Parliament of England, which at the time was a foreign country. The Gunpowder Plot had no relevance at all for the people of Scotland at the time or since.
Certainly two years earlier we had begun sharing a king, but the new united parliament was still a century away. So if the people of England want to celebrate the failure of Guy Fawkes, that’s up to them, but it makes no sense for us to do so north of the Border. Let’s save the fireworks and celebrations to welcome the arrival of the New Year, whatever that may bring.
Iain AD Mann,
7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.
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