To wonder why we never see any Penny for the Guys anymore?

[Ceridwen83]

I'm mid 40s. I'm remembering when I was a kid and into my teens.

l used to see tons around this time of year! Kids with "guys" and a hat open next to it for donations etc. They were really common.

I was just struggling to remember the last time I actually saw one! 🤔

Are they still a thing?

Not always the case.

Was huge in Glasgow when I was growing up in the 70’s.

I remember it.

HA! A knob biscuit isn't really a biscuit, it's little round bread roll that's cooked very slowly so it dries out as a way of preserving them to last. Tolerable with cheese, but not as nice as pretty much anything else you can buy. That's why it's important that they last.

Should probably be on the government's stockpiling list. You would eat them after a zombie apocalypse but probably not before you've eaten everything else in the cupboard including your sheepskin slippers.

People no longer know what a penny is snd most have no idea who Guy was!

It’s interesting how many people on here mention the religious side of guy fawkes - it was never a thing for us as kids - not the focus at all.
maybe that varied by area.

Most of our church attenders are elderly so still put money in the plate. We have an envelope system so they can still claim Gift Aid.

@mumumental I haven’t set out to attend a service at every church in the UK and produced a spreadsheet! I was speaking purely from my own recent experience - of course there must be other ways of doing things.

I’ve only seen one or two in my lifetime. Did the kids collect for charity or themselves? When I go to bonfire societies there are usually people shaking buckets for charity donations, but the guy is already on the bonfire by that point. It’s also quite rare to see it called Guy Fawkes night around here. I’ve only heard the poem recited a couple of times and found it a bit intense at the end when everyone shouts “Burn him!! Burn him!!!”

Yes, such a shame. If you asked school children who Guy Fawkes was how many would know ? Sadly, not as many as when I was small I would guess.
It was always the thing. Guy Fawkes night. 5th November. Bonfire night. Firework night. Far more than Halloween which was an American import.
And yes, you hunted out an old shirt, stuffed it with who knows what, made a Guy. And went out showing it off hoping for a few coins for your efforts from passing adults.
The day after Guy Fawkes you went out and looked for where the Rockets had landed. Small home flown fireworks.
Remember it well. It was fun.

Same. It's nothing to do with being an almost cashless society. It started dying out years before.

I assume it is because most people go to organised fireworks events now rather than having a bonfire in their own garden so people just don't build a Guy anymore.

Sort of understandable due to the cost of fireworks and safety concerns. However, I do have fond memories of the ones we had in the garden when I was a child with the neighbours round and the Dads taking charge of the fireworks.

My favourite bit was building the Guy the day before but we never went round begging with it. Mum wouldn't have approved at all. Actually I remember my Dad being most indignant when he heard a kid in the street asking for a shilling for the Guy! To make it worse it wasn't even a proper Guy just a big Teddy with a mask on.

Sounds very much like Discworld Dwarf bread! 😂

Which I think shocking.

I googled this yesterday. The last time I saw one was in the early eighties. I saw a guy being wheeled around in a push chair with a mask on, being wheeled around pubs . It was actually a small child 😂 someone lifted up the mask and gave the kid a sip of beer . People were being generous giving more than just pennies. 😂

Exactly that. Brilliant.

When I was a kid, you could actually buy something with an old penny. 4 black jacks or 4 fruit salads. For 4d you could buy a bag of plain crisps c/w a blue bag of salt that you sprinkled in. A box of banger fireworks for 6d. Take them up the field and stick them in a cow-pat and watch cow poo fly everywhere.

I agree with a PP. Guy Fawkes Night is hard to commercialise because sales of fireworks are rightly controlled, and it's essentially British only.

So Halloween has been pushed and pushed to supplant it, because you can flog a whole range of plastic tat for that event.

I work on a supermarket checkout and roughly 50% of customers pay with card and 50% pay with cash. I always use cash.

That sounds like my childhood memories too. Good times, so we thought until we got older and understood the devastating effects of them on animals and wildlife.

its all about halloween

Jumping jacks were good until one jumped into the box of fireworks that the Sunday School superintendent had left open, and they all went off at once. The poor caretaker thought he was back at El-Alamein. Noone was hurt luckily.

Thinking back, there were plenty of war veterans still around in the 1960s/70s and some must have suffered when the fireworks went off every year.

It was not begging. It was simply a small token people gave to children to acknowledge their efforts made.

I still see kids outside my local Sainsburys asking for "Penny for the guy" and people (usually the elderly) give them coins. I saw one old man go into the shop and come out with sweets for the kids. I remember when I was about 10 my Uncle did a bonfire in his garden and I made a guy to put on it!

I should imagine bonfires and plastic lawns are a poor combination.