Burgess Hill Bonfire

Burgess Hill's celebrations are amongst the earliest in the Sussex Bonfire season and a large group of beautifully turned out drummers met in the Cyprus Road car park on Saturday 25 September. As the sun set, the car park filled with Bonfire Boys & Girls from many different Bonfire Societies and some splendid new costumes were clearly getting an outing.

The Pentacle Drummers were not to be outdone, on the appearance front and a deal of creativity had been put into costumes and face paint. We abandon our green tatters for a much darker, Gothic, look for Bonfire and with new lights and drum trimmings, we looked quite the business at Burgess Hill.





After some early "tuning up", the Captain of Bands soon invited us to fall into place in the procession and some serious drumming started. The linked video (below) gives an indication of just how awesomely audible we were.

Now Burgess Hill is an "urban bonfire" - which basically means marching along roads as opposed to wading through fields full of cowpats or wandering down long country lanes full of absolutely nothing at all. The route is long and energetic for all that and those of us who had opted for new, glow in the dark sticks soon realised that this wasn't the greatest of ideas once hands got hot and "glowy"! It was also a generally warm evening and after the first procession, some layers of extra underpinnings got discreetly abandoned while we took a brief break before the Grand Procession to the firesite.


Reforming to march down through the town, we put our all into the performance and were really on form. We got a tremendous, and very much appreciated, response from the spectators and this raised our game even further. Finally reaching the firesite and fairground we rewarded ourselves with some light refreshments while waiting for the fireworks and judging of the fancy dress and visiting societies and bands. Would we regain the trophy for best band, we wondered? While waiting to discover that we hadn't, some of us entered the competitions and we really thought we had a chance in the children's class but hopes were dashed by a very small child wearing a very great deal of Tudor costume!


After the firework display it was time to enjoy a brief warm by the fire and All The Fun of the Fair.



All good things have to come to an end and finally, it was time for the long walk back to the car park - return journeys always seem so much longer without a procession or a drum - and home. Everyone had enjoyed a fine Bonfire Night in Burgess Hill and we left looking forwards to more successful outings during the Sussex Bonfire season.

Video link
The Pentacle Drummers can be heard from the start, two minutes into the video we actually make an appearance!

Pictures by Roz South