This week’s photograph was sent to us by Roz South, a member of the Cliffe Bonfire Scoiety and a professional photographer. “To me the image epitomises everything that Lewes Bonfire Night is all about,” she says. “Those simple words say everything about the occasion. We won’t be pushed around, and this is our night.” She reminds us of the reason that Bonfire Boys wear smugglers costumes. “After the 1847 Riot Act it became an offence to do many things associated with Bonfire Night. So it became the thing for everybody to wear smugglers costumes and blacken their faces so one person could not be distinguished from another. There was no prison cell in the country that could hold every Bonfire Boy in town.” She tells us she was particularly taken by the guy on the left, ‘looking up in affirmation of what he is carrying’.
You can see more of Roz’s Bonfire Night pictures here.