Ghosts, fireworks and tea: autumn in Apple Country
This is my favourite time of the year here in the middle of nowhere.From Hallowe'en through to Bonfire Night, and into the drizzly no-man's land running up to Christmas, it's everything I like best about beingEnglish, up to and including the weather. Chilly, leaf-rustling, glove weather. It’sbasically what we – and our potato-friendly national cuisine - are designedfor.
Out here on the rural Welsh border, things takea misty turn around October, and the air smells of apples, woodsmoke and spookiness.Hallowe'en is a perfect example of the British obsession with supernaturalshivers and history in general. We're effectively history's attic, stuffedwith ghostly boxes of discarded wars and pageantry and costumes, and ourHallowe’en is less about ‘dressing my pug in a Batsuit’, and more about scaryourselves silly with ghost stories. The British love a ghost story. Even people in brand new houses gobble up talesabout the plague pit/mine/workhouse that used to be there before the estate wasbuilt. Show me the Brit who isn't fascinated by the story of the workmen in aYork house who saw a Roman legion marching at waist height only to be toldthey were two feet above the original Roman road and I'll show you anAustralian barman. Why else would monarchs have kept imprisoning andslaughtering their immediate family in the Tower of London, if not to create awell-stocked hauntery for generations to come?
This gruesome celebration of history and gore peakswith Guy Fawkes Night, six days later, in which the whole country celebratesthe thwarting of a 17th century terrorist incident, and – very British – thesubsequent saving of a really rather nicebuilding. We do this by encouraging gung-ho dads to release their innerteenager and let off domestic fireworks in their back garden. Nowadays, theBritish are far more Health and Safety conscious and attend pyrotechnicspectaculars in parks, but when I was younger and the world was a lesslitigious place, every back garden had a display, mounted from a rusty biscuittin full of Roman Candles, Traffic Lights and Catherine Wheels - itself a'celebration' of a saint put to death on a spinning wheel (oh dear).
My family were typical: Dad in gleeful charge oflighting the blue touchpaper with an unreliable Zippo, Mum standing as far awayas possible by the back door, clutching a damp tea towel in case of emergency.Once the firework was lit, he'd sprint back as if seconds away from an Acmenuclear explosion, while my sister and I sucked treacle toffee and stickyparkin, wide-eyed at the possibility of a stray spark setting light to nextdoor's hedge, as the seven seconds' worth of gunpowder fizzed ineffectually inthe damp sea air.
Obviously, it never did. Which is, in itself, a truecelebration of Guy Fawkes.
These days, I stand on myseventh-floor balcony in London and watch the same thing happening all overClapham, Balham and Streatham, as far as the tower on Crystal Palace hill, andthe corrugated terraces of Tooting: little red and green pops and sparkles of fireworksbeing lit, and Dads sprinting backwards in hundreds of patchwork gardens below. It always gives me a warm glow, knowing that families are sharing the same 'oohs' and 'aahs' all over the country, and a simultaneous shiver, knowing that, more than Christmas or Easter, this night connects us with the real roots of our families: just as gruesome, just as keen for a party, probably eating the same traditional baked spuds and toffee.
Maybe there's something about thesombre, misty weather at this time of year that seems to bring the shared pastback to us – never more so than during the long silence at the Cenotaph onRemembrance Day, the nearly unbearable moment in which the entire country stillseems to pause. Which isn’t to say I don’tget as excited as everyone else when Christmas is on the way – when the redcups arrive in Starbucks, and Baileys Irish Cream goes on special offer atTesco – but these rather melancholy few weeks makeme feel particularly English. Pensive, chilly, and never morethan six feet away from a reviving pot of tea. But oddly happy, all the same.
Get more on Hester Browne at SimonandSchuster.com
Out here on the rural Welsh border, things takea misty turn around October, and the air smells of apples, woodsmoke and spookiness.Hallowe'en is a perfect example of the British obsession with supernaturalshivers and history in general. We're effectively history's attic, stuffedwith ghostly boxes of discarded wars and pageantry and costumes, and ourHallowe’en is less about ‘dressing my pug in a Batsuit’, and more about scaryourselves silly with ghost stories. The British love a ghost story. Even people in brand new houses gobble up talesabout the plague pit/mine/workhouse that used to be there before the estate wasbuilt. Show me the Brit who isn't fascinated by the story of the workmen in aYork house who saw a Roman legion marching at waist height only to be toldthey were two feet above the original Roman road and I'll show you anAustralian barman. Why else would monarchs have kept imprisoning andslaughtering their immediate family in the Tower of London, if not to create awell-stocked hauntery for generations to come?
This gruesome celebration of history and gore peakswith Guy Fawkes Night, six days later, in which the whole country celebratesthe thwarting of a 17th century terrorist incident, and – very British – thesubsequent saving of a really rather nicebuilding. We do this by encouraging gung-ho dads to release their innerteenager and let off domestic fireworks in their back garden. Nowadays, theBritish are far more Health and Safety conscious and attend pyrotechnicspectaculars in parks, but when I was younger and the world was a lesslitigious place, every back garden had a display, mounted from a rusty biscuittin full of Roman Candles, Traffic Lights and Catherine Wheels - itself a'celebration' of a saint put to death on a spinning wheel (oh dear).
My family were typical: Dad in gleeful charge oflighting the blue touchpaper with an unreliable Zippo, Mum standing as far awayas possible by the back door, clutching a damp tea towel in case of emergency.Once the firework was lit, he'd sprint back as if seconds away from an Acmenuclear explosion, while my sister and I sucked treacle toffee and stickyparkin, wide-eyed at the possibility of a stray spark setting light to nextdoor's hedge, as the seven seconds' worth of gunpowder fizzed ineffectually inthe damp sea air.
Obviously, it never did. Which is, in itself, a truecelebration of Guy Fawkes.
These days, I stand on myseventh-floor balcony in London and watch the same thing happening all overClapham, Balham and Streatham, as far as the tower on Crystal Palace hill, andthe corrugated terraces of Tooting: little red and green pops and sparkles of fireworksbeing lit, and Dads sprinting backwards in hundreds of patchwork gardens below. It always gives me a warm glow, knowing that families are sharing the same 'oohs' and 'aahs' all over the country, and a simultaneous shiver, knowing that, more than Christmas or Easter, this night connects us with the real roots of our families: just as gruesome, just as keen for a party, probably eating the same traditional baked spuds and toffee.
Maybe there's something about thesombre, misty weather at this time of year that seems to bring the shared pastback to us – never more so than during the long silence at the Cenotaph onRemembrance Day, the nearly unbearable moment in which the entire country stillseems to pause. Which isn’t to say I don’tget as excited as everyone else when Christmas is on the way – when the redcups arrive in Starbucks, and Baileys Irish Cream goes on special offer atTesco – but these rather melancholy few weeks makeme feel particularly English. Pensive, chilly, and never morethan six feet away from a reviving pot of tea. But oddly happy, all the same.
Get more on Hester Browne at SimonandSchuster.com
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