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[Sussex] Lewes Bonfire Societies



shingle

Well-known member
Jan 18, 2004
3,223
Lewes
I have lived in Lewes for 35 years and I just stay in now unless one of my photo agencies asks me to take pics. It's just too much grief with pi$$ed up out of towners being nobs and throwing their weight around. This doesn't apply of course to my small and local society SSB. However I was speaking to one of the top guys in the SS bonfire society yesterday and Bonfire night this year is by no means certain to go ahead with permissions still being awaited from council and police, furthermore he said that if things were going ahead Cliffe were not allowing any members of the public to attend their firework display this year.
 




lawros left foot

Glory hunting since 1969
NSC Patron
Jun 11, 2011
14,070
Worthing
This is culture wars.

Let’s stop a commemoration of an historical event that happened in our county 300 years ago, cos it upsets some highly strung fur babies.

Let’s also stop Up Helly aa, all that fire can’t be good for global warming, the cheese rolling in Gloucestershire, multiple injuries, The Notting Hill Carnival, a troubled history, the Lord Mayor of London parade, rampant capitalism, the Edinburgh Tattoo, militarism, various Pride parades, it upsets some homophobes.

It’s one night a year, live and let live.
 




Wrong-Direction

Well-known member
Mar 10, 2013
13,631
I used to march in Commercial for 10-15 years (illegally) as most of my mates are from Lewes, good laugh, havent been bothered last few years though.

Sent from my SM-A600FN using Tapatalk
 


GT49er

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Feb 1, 2009
49,175
Gloucester
Fantastic news! really don't see the point in it anymore. Hopefully it will also impact the supermarkets so it stops the idiots letting them off through all of November as well!

That can easily be remedied by a change in the laws in selling fireworks to the general public, and could also specify times when it is legal to set them off, and when not. That last part won't stop every idiot, but it'd help. The main benefit would be fireworks only being on sale for three or four days a year.
 
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exKT17

Well-known member
Nov 27, 2016
341
Argyll & Bute
The word is implausible…..

David I rather doubt this person would appreciate your correction! To answer his earlier taunt/question I will not ever reveal what I learned from the police: an enemy of this country, be that a Putin goon or an Islamist loonie might read this thread. There is virtually nothing the police or anyone else can do to stop a weak spot in Lewes’ bonfire day - the cost to a perpetrator would be peanuts but the cost to Sussex/GB taxpayers potentially huge with great threat to life and limb an added danger. Just saying.
 


Bozza

You can change this
Helpful Moderator
Jul 4, 2003
57,283
Back in Sussex
At last Brexit is good for one thing...

About time this antiquated religious bullshite & pageantry is put to bed....
why people still march through street antagonising each other and lighting fires burning effigies of people long gone, is beyond me.

Where would be the best place for me to park and make a quick escape please?
 




GT49er

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Feb 1, 2009
49,175
Gloucester
This is culture wars.

Let’s stop a commemoration of an historical event that happened in our county 300 years ago, cos it upsets some highly strung fur babies.

Let’s also stop Up Helly aa, all that fire can’t be good for global warming, the cheese rolling in Gloucestershire, multiple injuries, The Notting Hill Carnival, a troubled history, the Lord Mayor of London parade, rampant capitalism, the Edinburgh Tattoo, militarism, various Pride parades, it upsets some homophobes.

It’s one night a year, live and let live.
Part of the trouble is, I think, in this internet age, many events which have been carried out for years, mainly for local people (maybe with a few broken bones, but not many, and all in good fun) have just become too well known, too popular - and just too many people turn up.
I've been to the Lewes shenanigans twice (once when the were still actually rolling burning tar barrels down the street, and once in about the late 80s - when Lewes station wasn't closed for the night!) and I'd love to go once more - but I don't think that will happen.
Similar with the cheese rolling in Glioucester - it's rolling a cheese down a very steep hill - there just isn't room for 5,000 people to cram in and watch. It's had to be cancelled in the past (although it was still run clandestinely). How much longer will it be able to keep going, with more and more expenses imposed on the organisers?
There's plenty of other things (again mostly local) under threat because of excessive crowds. Shrove Tuesday 'football' matches (that's football, but not as we know it!)? How many thousands was the Notting Hill carnival planned to cater for?
Spiralling - and compulsory - costs for policing, marshalling and medical teams are an ever increasing problem for many previosly broadly local events ...... and of course more and more people keep coming. We could lose many of these ............. what? I'd call them traditions, but some will sneer at that word. Let's just call them things that were ..... once ..... fun for the community.
 




Jan 30, 2008
31,981
If you're happy to be a weirdo, have you considered moving to Lewes ?

I think if a town full of pyromaniacs decide to inbreed it should be nobody's business but their own :shrug:

No it's a town with a influx of DFL types, some of them got upset about blacking up by members of the BBS..... LMFAO
Regards
DF
 




Frutos

.
Helpful Moderator
NSC Patron
May 3, 2006
36,295
Northumberland
David I rather doubt this person would appreciate your correction! To answer his earlier taunt/question I will not ever reveal what I learned from the police: an enemy of this country, be that a Putin goon or an Islamist loonie might read this thread. There is virtually nothing the police or anyone else can do to stop a weak spot in Lewes’ bonfire day - the cost to a perpetrator would be peanuts but the cost to Sussex/GB taxpayers potentially huge with great threat to life and limb an added danger. Just saying.

You do seem to specialise in hinting that you know something dramatic, but then waffling and dissembling when asked for details about it.

Just saying.
 




Tom Bombadil

Well-known member
Jul 14, 2003
6,106
Jibrovia
David I rather doubt this person would appreciate your correction! To answer his earlier taunt/question I will not ever reveal what I learned from the police: an enemy of this country, be that a Putin goon or an Islamist loonie might read this thread. There is virtually nothing the police or anyone else can do to stop a weak spot in Lewes’ bonfire day - the cost to a perpetrator would be peanuts but the cost to Sussex/GB taxpayers potentially huge with great threat to life and limb an added danger. Just saying.


So the police have invented some outrageously daft scenario, or possibly borrowed it from a batman comic and you like an especially gullible authoritarian have fallen for it. The great thing is you and the police don't have to actually describe this fever dream, you just need to allude to dark forces as you erode civil liberties and hoover all the fun out of life.
 




A1X

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Sep 1, 2017
20,525
Deepest, darkest Sussex
David I rather doubt this person would appreciate your correction! To answer his earlier taunt/question I will not ever reveal what I learned from the police: an enemy of this country, be that a Putin goon or an Islamist loonie might read this thread. There is virtually nothing the police or anyone else can do to stop a weak spot in Lewes’ bonfire day - the cost to a perpetrator would be peanuts but the cost to Sussex/GB taxpayers potentially huge with great threat to life and limb an added danger. Just saying.

Doesn't this basically apply to any mass gathering of people which isn't in a completely security controlled environment?
 


exKT17

Well-known member
Nov 27, 2016
341
Argyll & Bute
Doesn't this basically apply to any mass gathering of people which isn't in a completely security controlled environment?

Possibly for sure but Lewes is different to say London on new years eve, the infrastructure of the town is more vulnerable.
 


WATFORD zero

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 10, 2003
27,751
You do seem to specialise in hinting that you know something dramatic, but then waffling and dissembling when asked for details about it.

Just saying.

You have such a wonderful way with words. I prefer the media of song

 


rippleman

Well-known member
Oct 18, 2011
4,988
That’ll please Sussex Police.

They’ve been on a 40 year crusade to dampen it, stop free movement of folk to visit Lewes and have an enjoyable evening.

I went for many years but the police have now made it so difficult that it's just not worth the effort now. They don't want anybody having fun. Still, I'm glad I got to take the boy when he was young so he got to see the marvellous spectacle.

Must be difficult for traders, pubs etc in the town. And particulartly the charities that benefited from the collections made by the societies.
 




rippleman

Well-known member
Oct 18, 2011
4,988
The police have genuine reasons to be very worried about the fireworks - there is something which could happen - which I will not detail - which would result in a vast logistical problem, not just for Lewes. The event is extremely vulnerable to ne'er-do-wells and worse, however much it may mean to locals & traditionalists, however much fun it may be.

I have been many, many times over the past 5 decades. Whatever you are thinking might happen clearly hasn't. Scaremongering just reinforces the police attitude to the celebration.

You get ne'er-do-wells everywhere. In Brighton on a Saturday night, at the Amex, sat drinking and shouting on a park bench outside my office window. If the police are on a crusade to rid the world of ne'er-do-wells I wish them well.
 




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