"I have always been disturbed by the 'good old country tradition' in Lewes of burning the Pope's effigy on Bonfire Night - and that's as an atheist."

I understand it is not supposed to really be an effigy of the Pope per se - but rather an effigy of a particular Pope who was in office 400 years ago. They also have an effigy of Guy Fawkwes himself - as they do across Britain. The point is in Britain as a whole these things are looked on as traditions which commemorate evidents and conflicts of the distant past. Bonfire Night is commemorating the failure of an early 17thC terrorist attack which was going to be carried out by Catholic conspirators - however modern Bonfire Night isn't in itself anti-Catholic and certainly here in southern Scotland the Catholic kids celebrate it every bit as much as the Protestants do. Throughout most of Britain religious conflict and sectarianism is a thing of the dim and distant past and these festivities are just that innocent festivities.

In Jedburgh where I used to live they play an annual game called Hand-Ba (ball) which is played through the town. By tradition (whether bunkum or not) it was originally played with the severed heads of English captives. That doesn't mean though that the modern game is anti-English in any way. Likewise the various local Common Ridings all contain elements of memory of conflicts with Englishmen. Hawick with Hornshole; Jedburgh with Redeswire; Coldstream and Selkirk with Flodden etc. It doesn't mean the modern participators and organisers are anti-English or that anyone would be offended!