Lewes Bonfire 2013
Nov. 6th, 2013 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenI got there about 7:15 & went back to the station for about 10:15. It was a very intense 3 hours, in places.
I'd planned food, drink & wandering. All that happened according to plan. I had some quite tasty veggie potato stew with banana curry and spicy bean curry, a bag of donuts, 2 pints of Harvey's Best & a mulled cider.
I got boxed in repeatedly by the police, who I presume had a plan to their semi-random-seeming pattern of temporarily-closed streets. The procession seemed to go wherever it wanted, pretty much, narrow streets included.
Some marching pirates had flares; at times, it was very very bright. Many had bangers - proper, serious ones, not toys. In the narrow streets of a market town, they left my ears ringing & I had to wear earplugs after a while. I got hit in the leg by some shrapnel, too.
I never made it to any of the actual bonfire sites, which were all out of town. Most were ticketed - only a fiver, but I spent too much as it was. I tried to find one of the free sites but the signposting was almost nonexistent, and movement through the crowds very slow.
I saw few actual fireworks, and those only above buildings. Happily, the train back to London went right next to one of the fields revealing a horde standing around an impressively-large blaze. If there was an effigy on it, I couldn't tell.
It's a vastly more intense experience than any ordinary local council fireworks display. The processions are quite varied - many marchers are dressed as "pirates", meaning a striped jersey, white trousers, black boots and perhaps a cap, but there were also priests, Roman legionaries, red indians, more traditional Caribbean-style pirates and all sorts. Some carried banners, some flaming crucifixes or insignia, some carried effigies, some modern maritime flares, painfully bright in the narrow streets. There were marching bands of varying degrees of musicality. And the bangers - did I mention the bangers? Literally deafening.
Apart from some pubs and festival-type snack-bars, almost all shops and businesses were shut except for some of the pubs - and not all of them by a long shot. There were also street stalls selling beer - either Harvey's Best (nothing else) or the usual vile canned piss. A wine shop called Symposium had offered some other ales but they were long gone when I got there.
Would I recommend it? Most definitely, so long as you're OK with crowds, mess, noise and so on. The marchers drop their torches as they go out, and while each procession has some sweepers-up snatching up the firebrands and tossing them into half-oil-drums on wheels or burning barrels, some fall or bounce out and they miss some. So not only are the streets littered with the usual rubbish from a large crowd - including many kids, some very drunk, a small number of scrotes and ne'er-do-wells - but some of the rubbish is actually on fire.
It's incredibly loud, chaotic and intense. While it's much smaller, it makes the Notting Hill Carnival seem organised and disciplined. I felt like I was watching some ancient, historic rite.
I'm tired, stiff and sore from all the standing and walking, and I can still smell smoke now, the next day, despite rinsing my sinuses with everything short of bleach.
But hell yes, I'd recommend it. Great for older sprogs, too.
You can see some of my photos from the event on Flickr, here.
I'd planned food, drink & wandering. All that happened according to plan. I had some quite tasty veggie potato stew with banana curry and spicy bean curry, a bag of donuts, 2 pints of Harvey's Best & a mulled cider.
I got boxed in repeatedly by the police, who I presume had a plan to their semi-random-seeming pattern of temporarily-closed streets. The procession seemed to go wherever it wanted, pretty much, narrow streets included.
Some marching pirates had flares; at times, it was very very bright. Many had bangers - proper, serious ones, not toys. In the narrow streets of a market town, they left my ears ringing & I had to wear earplugs after a while. I got hit in the leg by some shrapnel, too.
I never made it to any of the actual bonfire sites, which were all out of town. Most were ticketed - only a fiver, but I spent too much as it was. I tried to find one of the free sites but the signposting was almost nonexistent, and movement through the crowds very slow.
I saw few actual fireworks, and those only above buildings. Happily, the train back to London went right next to one of the fields revealing a horde standing around an impressively-large blaze. If there was an effigy on it, I couldn't tell.
It's a vastly more intense experience than any ordinary local council fireworks display. The processions are quite varied - many marchers are dressed as "pirates", meaning a striped jersey, white trousers, black boots and perhaps a cap, but there were also priests, Roman legionaries, red indians, more traditional Caribbean-style pirates and all sorts. Some carried banners, some flaming crucifixes or insignia, some carried effigies, some modern maritime flares, painfully bright in the narrow streets. There were marching bands of varying degrees of musicality. And the bangers - did I mention the bangers? Literally deafening.
Apart from some pubs and festival-type snack-bars, almost all shops and businesses were shut except for some of the pubs - and not all of them by a long shot. There were also street stalls selling beer - either Harvey's Best (nothing else) or the usual vile canned piss. A wine shop called Symposium had offered some other ales but they were long gone when I got there.
Would I recommend it? Most definitely, so long as you're OK with crowds, mess, noise and so on. The marchers drop their torches as they go out, and while each procession has some sweepers-up snatching up the firebrands and tossing them into half-oil-drums on wheels or burning barrels, some fall or bounce out and they miss some. So not only are the streets littered with the usual rubbish from a large crowd - including many kids, some very drunk, a small number of scrotes and ne'er-do-wells - but some of the rubbish is actually on fire.
It's incredibly loud, chaotic and intense. While it's much smaller, it makes the Notting Hill Carnival seem organised and disciplined. I felt like I was watching some ancient, historic rite.
I'm tired, stiff and sore from all the standing and walking, and I can still smell smoke now, the next day, despite rinsing my sinuses with everything short of bleach.
But hell yes, I'd recommend it. Great for older sprogs, too.
You can see some of my photos from the event on Flickr, here.
