In 1992 Edenbridge achieved the record for the largest primed guy in Great Britain towering over 50ft in height. In recent years at Edenbridge the effigy of James Hewitt and French President Jacques Chirac and many more including Tony Blair last year have met their fiery fate.

It is not certain when Guys were first introduced to the proceedings and in some places they were not thought essential items for the 5th November. In other places they were regarded as most important; Exeter, Hereford, Lewes, Bridgewater and Edenbridge to name but a few.

It seems strange that although James I was James VI of Scotland before becoming King of England, that the Scots do not celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, and to this day it is hardly known in Scotland. On the other hand the Scots make much more of Halloween and it was usual to burn effigies of witches on bonfires on the 31st October.

Here seems the real link as to why guys became so popular in England. It was probably James and his Scottish ministers, well versed in the Halloween witch burning tradition who introduced the idea of burning an effigy of the hated Guy Fawkes on celebration bonfires. Besides, the burning of enemy effigies goes back to the dark ages and is truly a pagan practice. In Mexico and other parts of the world it has been the custom to burn a model of Judas, the man who betrayed Jesus, on certain Saint days.

In France there is a story of a soldier who stabbed the statue of the Virgin Mary in a fit of temper and was consequently lynched by the mob. His effigy was burned for many years after this to commemorate the event.

Other enemies of the Country have over the years been burnt on November 5th and the Pope was probably the most popular. The feeling against Catholicism was very strong and it was well into the present century before places like Lewes in Sussex would tolerate a Catholic Church in the vicinity.

Models of Napoleon were burnt during the Napoleonic wars, the Czar during the Crimean war, the Kaiser during the First World War and of course Adolf Hitler during the Second World War.

Today in Edenbridge we do not celebrate a sprit of intolerance, but strive solely to provide a traditional evening's entertainment for all the family.