http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Guy_Fawkes_Night<\/a><\/p>\nIt was basically all about religion – isn’t it always. Interestingly enough, after the execution of Guy Fawkes, parliament passed a bill, called the “Thanksgiving Act” which remained for 250 years as a day of Thanksgiving for the preservation of parliament.<\/p>\n
Would the idea of Thanksgiving actually have started with this act and would the emmigrants from Britain to America have perhaps carried this special time with them? Who knows?<\/p>\n
I do, though, remember when I lived in London passing a few effigies of Guy Fawkes, created and attended by young people asking for, “a penny for the old guy”. I gave them the penny – one of those very large, very heavy pennies that were, before I came to England, actually subdivided into farthings – hence the “penny farthing” bicycle. The large wheel was the size of the penny and the small wheel was the size of the farthing or a quarter of a penny – well the scale for the bicycle was much bigger, but you get the idea.<\/p>\n
I lived in London before the conversion to the metric system. I know, I am dating myself. I still have fond memories of the thr’p’nny bit or threepence (pronounced thr’pence) and two pence was tuppence. I was even there before they phased out the halfpenny, pronounced (hayp’nny). I always remember buying vegetables at a stall from an ancient women who annouced that I now owed her tuppence, ha’p’nny. I suppose there are guide books that would translate, but, how do you translate an era?<\/p>\n
I went to London looking for Charles Dickens and for the most part, I found him. I found a turn of phrase, a set of customs, a “stiff upper lip mindset” that permeated British literature, and I have to believe Britain itself, at the time of Dickens and his contemporaries.<\/p>\n
A chill still runs through me when I remember sitting in a teacher’s staff room one day and someone asked the time. An old voice from the corner annouced that it was “five and twenty past the hour.” Mrs. Haversham where are you?<\/p>\n
What has this all got to do with knitting and the business of knitting – not that much, except that knitting is a tradition, with a rich heritage – though most of the characters from Emily Bronte did petite point, because, of course, the peasants knit. There is still an understanding that those who knit are part of a very old, even ancient, tradition. It keeps us grounded; it connects us to the past; we pass it onto the future. Knitting doesn’t celebrate terrorism, but it has supported “the war effort” many times and although few women were at the “front” – many were in the rear, clicking away. Celebrate Guy Fawkes, if you like, we need to be reminded that we have a history, not everything, is virtual; but some things are virtuous!<\/p>\n
Dinner? Why Bangers and Mash, of course! You can’t blow up anything with out a “banger” – sausage and the resulting destruction is a mash – potatoes (mashed) and you are allowed to smother the whole meal with Ketchup and, if you really want to be British – do not serve anything “green”.<\/p>\n
Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Terrorism is not new. It has been with us since the beginning. On November 5, Britains “celebrate” one of the most “celebrated” acts of terrorism – Guy Fawkes Night. Here is more than you want to read about a “guy” in the 1600’s, 1605 to be exact, who set out to blow up the British Parliament. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unicorns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1166,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions\/1166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}