What ever happened to good old “Penny for the Guy”?

There was a time when the streets of Britain at this time of the year would be crowded with youngsters using a badly stuffed dummy to beg for coins in the countdown to November 5.

Those were the days when it was still called Guy Fawkes’ Night and the PC brigade hadn’t managed to force us all into using the more mundane Bonfire Night.

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Growing up in the ’60s and ’70s it was a rite of passage as autumn set in. A group of us lads would beg a few castoffs and stuff an old pair of trousers, a jumper and a pair of socks with rolled-up newspaper to create a passable corpse.

The head would be made separately by filling a paper bag which would then have a face drawn on the front complete with twirly moustache to create that authentic seventeenth century man-about -town look.

If you were a bit flush you bought a cardboard Guy Fawkes mask. In the days before plastic masks, the ones made from cardboard-stiff papier-mâché were all that were on offer. Looking as much like The Devil as a long-dead Catholic conspirator, they were dyed a single bright garish colour that came off on your tongue as you attempted to speak through the mouth hole.

A hat wasn’t always necessary, especially if you could find a balaclava to stuff. Often Dad’s flat cap would be dragooned into use, on the grounds it should be returned to the wardrobe before he noticed it was gone.

Guy finished, we would stake our pitch outside the local shops where the thing would then loll in a drunken pose in a borrowed wheelbarrow or younger sister’s pram.

“Penny for the Guy, Mister?” we would say, in the hope of getting a three-penny bit or sixpence. The aim was to raise money for fireworks, not to use on the night itself at the family display, but to buy whizz bangs to let off over the park without supervision.

Looking back it was shockingly easy to persuade the local newsagent that the assortment of high explosives you wanted in exchange for a pocket load of small change were for respectable use. But then this was the era when children used to buy individual ciggies and no questions asked.

Bangers were the number one purchase; small, cigarette-shaped devices with a short fuse that simply exploded with a loud crack. They were powerful enough to blow a hole in a shoe, I recall, or seriously damage fingers.

Now banned of course, along with the likes of Atom Bombs that sent a projectile a few feet into the air before going off with enough force to vibrate nearby windows, Cracker-Jacks that would chase dogs and small children down the street, and helicopters that took off vertically with a spinning motion but had a tendency to change direction at about head height and attack at speed.

Once November 5 came along, the Guy would take pride of place on someone’s back garden bonfire. Every home would have a fire, even if it was only in the dustbin.

The Guy would be plonked on top to be consumed by the flames, a cheer when the blazing head lolled forward and finally fell off.

Quite why I was never appalled by the thought of the image of a man being roasted alive, I can’t say.

Burning the Guy had been part of English tradition for 400 years. In fact it was the law.

The Thanksgiving Act, made it compulsory until 1859 to celebrate “the deliverance of the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland”. Deliverance was from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

The plan by a group of Catholic conspirators to blow up Parliament and Protestant King James I is perhaps the most famous thwarted act of terrorism of all time. And since he was discovered in the cellars under the House of Lords with 36 barrels of gunpowder, the fuse ready to light, Guy Fawkes became the symbol of the whole scheme even though he was not its leader.

Almost ripped apart on the rack to reveal the names of his fellow plotters, he was not burnt but hanged, drawn and quartered in front of the Parliament buildings.

Rumours that he was, in fact, French proved false. In fact Fawkes was born in York where, even though the residents celebrated November 5, some refused to burn his effigy, most notably those from his old school.

The Penny for the Guy begging tradition is a relatively modern invention that survived until the ’80s, fading out in past two decades.

Today the tradition of burning a Guy lives on in some parts of the country with a modern twist in the village of Edenbridge where each year locals choose someone famous to burn in effigy.

This year it will be a 50ft model of footballer Wayne Rooney.

Whether in 400 years children will stand on street corners with an over-stuffed, badly dressed dummy crying “Penny for the Rooney?” remains to be seen.