Where Burning Effigies (Not Just Guy Fawkes’s) Is Part of the Fun
Donald J. Trump was in good company on Saturday when his image went up in flames not far from those of the British prime minister, Theresa May, and of a 17th-century pope.
In the streets, firecrackers exploded, blazing crosses were carried and the air filled with smoke as the people of Lewes, in southeast England, paraded in a dazzling array of costumes on Nov. 5, the anniversary of a failed plot to blow up Parliament in London in 1605.
More than four centuries later, many throughout Britain still commemorate the event — known as Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes Night (after one of the plotters) — though its distinctiveness is being usurped as it sometimes merges with Halloween, a relatively recent import here, or the Hindu festival of Diwali.
But not in Lewes.
“It is the only thing in the whole year which marks us out from everyone else,” said Graham Mayhew, the mayor and a historian. “People are very proud of it and determined to protect it,” he said, adding that residents “love the fact that nobody else does this.”'>>>
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