The village bonfire night has taken a sinister turn

The children walked with flaming torches ahead of the float bearing the bonfire queen which was headed for the towering monstrosity of pallets and tree branches on the village green.

The builder boyfriend and I stood at the front of the crowds lining the road as the procession came through in the darkness and it struck me, as it always does, how disturbing bonfire night really is, especially when it’s done with this much enthusiasm and attention to detail.

A tractor was pulling a livestock trailer upon which were sitting on chairs two figures wearing fancy dress, adorned in heavy make-up, looking like nothing so much as the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter, and all to the tune of a marching band.

As the procession came through, men shaking buckets shouted boisterously at us to donate money because all of this had to be paid for.

The atmosphere was not what you would term uplifting. Pagan, Neanderthal, macabre, I would call it. And as much as I like a good baked potato with a sparkler and a firework display, I always feel particularly weird on bonfire night, I can’t help it.

‘I think I had better get out of the way before they throw me on the bonfire,’ I joked. I’m not the only Catholic in the village, of course, but the only other ones I know are the local travellers, and they are definitely not flavour of the month round here.

I’m not flavour of the month either. Never have been, never will be. And my latest foot- in-mouth moment is to do with my persistent complaints about why the parish council is not repairing the track to my house.

It has become progressively more potholed since we moved in five years ago, and when this summer a lad attempted to patch it together with some scalpings that bounced straight back out of the holes once people drove down it, I asked the parish clerk where the public money had gone that they were supposed to be spending on essential maintenance.