Cats, thanks. This is fascinating.

Each of the Lewes Bonfire Societies blows up a huge effigy of someone or something which has attracted disapproval during the year: usually a tyrant or bully of some kind. The subject of the tableau, as it's called, is kept secret until it actually appears in procession on the streets or at the firesite of the individual society. In the past we have blown up, amongst countless others,Idi Amin, Margaret Thatcher, Ayatollah Khomeni,John Major, the Scots, Russia and China, Slobodan Milosevic, George Bush, road developers, Bill Clinton, dinosaurs, Tony Blair, Greene King the brewers, Gordon Brown, local councillors, Osama bin Laden and Ian Paisley. Every year we also blow up Guy Fawkes and the Pope who was in charge at the time of the Lewes Martyrs, Paul V: not the current Pope, nor Popes in general, but a single specific historical figure. The main focus of attention is the tableau.

About a quarter of the evening is taken up with wartime Remembrance as each society processes to the War Memorial, solemnly discharges fireworks, plays The Last Post and lays a wreath. This is very moving.

Bonfire is a fire festival, a festival of the dead, and a public protest against various forms of tyranny. It's also extraordinarily stirring.

Valmai (Lewes)