November 5, 2007

York Journal

Guy Fawkes Is Spared, and England Is Restive

By SARAH LYALL

YORK, England, Nov. 2 — Deep in the bowels of the York Dungeon, visitors were being treated to a dramatic rendition of the horrific torture and bloodcurdling screams of Guy Fawkes, the city’s most famous deceased resident. Up at the cash register, Kate Stapylton, the duty manager, was talking about the health and safety regulations governing the attraction.

No wet floors. No obstructions in the passageways. Many well-lighted emergency exits. But even with her respect for such policies — “You don’t want anyone to hurt themselves,” she said — Ms. Stapylton said it was a bit much that, apparently because of health and safety rules, York would not be sponsoring a traditional fireworks celebration for Guy Fawkes Night on Monday.

“Personally, I think it’s a bit silly,” she said.

York, along with many other municipalities, has often been the scene of huge events — fireworks, bonfires, the burning of creepy effigies of Fawkes — to commemorate the failure of Fawkes’s plan to blow up Parliament and the king in 1605, a shocking moment in British history. But in the face of increasingly onerous regulations, none are taking place in the city this year.

No one — not the local government, nor any local group — wanted to spend the money to “address the health and safety measures of having large numbers of people in close proximity to the fireworks,” a spokeswoman for the City of York Council said.

Many residents think it is perverse not to have an official Guy Fawkes celebration in Guy Fawkes’s hometown. But Steve Galloway, the council leader, explained in an interview that a fireworks display would be prohibitively expensive — perhaps $200,000 or more, what with crowd control, temporary lighting, crash barriers and the like, not to mention the fireworks themselves.

The decision has made things awkward for the York Tourism Bureau, which likes to play up the city’s relationship to Fawkes.

“We get hundreds of calls from people saying, ‘We want to Celebrate Bonfire Night in the home of Guy Fawkes, and what are you doing?’” said Gillian Cruddas, chief executive of the bureau. “We have to say, ‘Actually, nothing.’ It’s quite embarrassing, really.”

Beyond that, York’s fireworks-free day has provoked a degree of soul-searching in Britain, which loves even its gruesome traditions and is ever alert to new examples of how safety regulations are thwarting people’s efforts to enjoy them.

“You name it, and somebody, somewhere behind a desk, will quickly find a regulation that bans it,” Michael Nicholson, a television correspondent, wrote in an opinion column in The Daily Express. He gave other examples, like the banning of an annual pantomime show in Kent after the local vicar was told he had to pay about $1,400 to “weight test” an Iron beam carrying a light bulb, and the organizers were forbidden to store costumes and scenery behind or beneath the stage.

Christmas-light displays in towns, as much a seasonal feature as eating plum pudding and slumping in front of the television with the family after lunch, are another fraught issue. Stephen Alambritis, a spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses, said many municipalities and businesses were unwilling to spend the money to comply with safety rules governing their installation.

Only registered electricians can put up the lights, and they are required to use cherry pickers, not ladders, Mr. Alambritis said in an interview. Every bulb has to be tested every year to ensure that it is electrically safe and that “it won’t flash in someone’s eyes,” he said.

He said he heard of one municipality that left its Christmas lights up year around rather than pay the $100,000 or so to put them up and take them down.

“It’s a sad state of affairs,” Mr. Alambritis said. “Each year, it becomes more difficult, as local authorities become more risk averse.”

But at this time of year, when the air is thick with smoke from bonfires and full of the sound of fireworks, people are focusing on what they see as the dwindling of one of their favorite old customs. They mention the risible situation last year, when rather than trying to meet the safety requirements for building an actual bonfire, a rugby club in Devon showed 1,400 spectators a short movie of a previous bonfire.

“It’s just ridiculous,” said Rob Anderson, the leader of the Labor opposition on the Slough Borough Council, which decided not to have a bonfire this year. (It will have fireworks, though, along with an Asian Elvis impersonator.) “On Bonfire Night, you have a bonfire. Unfortunately, the people running the council seem to have other ideas, but they don’t seem too clear about the reason why not.”

Among other things, the Slough authorities have argued that a bonfire would violate environmental laws, upset residents from foreign countries with no tradition of Guy Fawkes Day and kill animals that settle into the wood before it is set alight and are unable to escape.

“In past years I have gone and looked at the embers of Slough’s bonfire, and you could see hundreds of animal bones,” Richard Stokes, the council leader, told The Slough Observer.

Supporters of the tradition point out that in the absence of organized fireworks and bonfires, revelers are likely to build unsafe bonfires in their backyards or set off private fireworks recklessly (although tough new fireworks regulations have made it harder to get hold of the really dangerous ones that used to blow people’s fingers off).

York officials are convinced, though, that they have done the right thing. “If you were someone who had been hit by a firework, particularly one of the more powerful ones, you’d take the view that your health and safety are more important than making a few fairly cheap points about bureaucracy,” Mr. Galloway said.

although i must say, I am amused at the idea of showing a film of a bonfire, in lieu of actually having one. it has an absurd, monty-phythonesque feel.

I am afraid they are!

Hello No We Are Not! But The Stupid Powers That Be Are, Its All Health And Safety This Health And Safety That Or Its The Data Protection Crap, Lots Of Things Are Getting Banned Here And Lots And Lots Of Us Are Against Them Being Banned. So I Am Just Off To Go And Do Something Dangerous Like Play Conkers.

Hmmm, the question would probably be nearer to the truth if it were worded, 'are the english so tied up by beaurocracy that they have to ask permission to breathe for fear of being prosecuted for infringement of other possibly non breathing members of society's human rights that may find it offensive'

Nothing as socially stifling as a nanny government is there...