Today, November 5th, Bonfire Night will once again be celebrated in the United Kingdom. Fireworks will light up the skies, bonfires will be built and, in some places, the traditional effigy of Guy Fawkes will be consigned to the flames.

I remember celebrating this event from an early age. In Lewisham Park, where I grew up in London, a huge bonfire was lit in a large hollow and people from the neighbourhood gathered around it. It was one of those occasions when the whole district seemed to come together. Children would make an effigy of Guy, carry it around asking for a penny for the guy, and collect money towards buying fireworks.

But what exactly were we celebrating? The failure, in 1605, of a group of Roman Catholic conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament, kill the Protestant King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding the explosives beneath Parliament and was subsequently condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered. It was a particularly gruesome punishment, designed to demonstrate the power of the state and to deter anyone contemplating treason.

For centuries, November 5th was not simply an evening of fireworks and bonfires. It was also a celebration of the survival of Protestant England, and a rather pointed reminder of the supposed dangers of Roman Catholicism. Effigies of the Pope were sometimes burned alongside that of Guy Fawkes. One might therefore wonder whether the tradition, with its anti-Catholic origins, is quite as innocent as it appears today.

I have always had a fear of loud and sudden noises. My mother, in a rather misguided attempt to strengthen me, once took me past the great steam locomotives at Victoria Station in London and later at Milan’s Stazione Centrale. The impulsive belching of steam from these mechanical monsters frightened the life out of me. I have since come to regard them with considerable nostalgia, but I cannot say that the noise has ever become particularly endearing.

Fireworks were hardly likely to improve matters. Penny bangers and their more powerful descendants were enough to put me off, although I did rather enjoy the quieter varieties, particularly Roman candles.

Our own celebrations were sometimes family affairs. My father would occasionally give my brother and me a pound note to buy a small selection of fireworks from the local newsagent. On other occasions we went to visit an uncle in Beckenham, where there would be a bonfire of our own.

One particular November 5th remains especially vivid in my memory. It was 1959, the year Guenther Podola was hanged in Wandsworth Prison. Podola, a German-born man of Polish descent, had been found guilty of murdering a policeman during a burglary. His trial had attracted considerable controversy, not least because of questions surrounding his mental condition and claims of amnesia. He became the last man in Britain to be executed for the murder of a police officer.

We were visiting my uncle that evening. I remember my mother being particularly downcast. She was opposed to capital punishment and had clearly been deeply affected by the execution that morning. I can still picture her holding a sparkler, its little sparks flickering across her face, while the rest of us were supposed to be enjoying the festivities.

My mother was born in Italy and was a Roman Catholic. I suspect that, quite apart from her opposition to hanging, she was also conscious of the uncomfortable history behind the celebration. Guy Fawkes had been a Catholic, and the annual burning of his effigy was a reminder of a time when religious intolerance was very much part of English public life. My mother’s own faith was not something she could simply put aside for the sake of a bonfire.

There was another, much sadder family connection with Bonfire Night. A much-loved uncle of ours was killed in a road accident while returning from the great celebrations at Lewes. We had been intending to meet him there, but in those days, before mobile phones, the crowds were enormous and we failed to find one another. The opportunity to spend the evening together slipped away, and the news of his death cast a shadow over the occasion for many years. Much later I was grateful to meet his widow again, by then remarried, in the company of my own wife. It was a small but moving way of bringing a family circle to a close.

Yet these memories have not entirely robbed me of my enjoyment of Bonfire Night. Sandra and I once braved the crowds at Lewes together.reaching it on my trusty Honda CB360 motorbike to beat the traffic. We were interested not only in the extraordinary spectacle but also in the old, rather uneasy echoes of anti-Catholic sentiment that still linger around the celebrations.

We also went to Edenbridge’s november event on several occasions. One year we arrived through a fog so thick that the whole journey seemed to belong to another world. I was weaving my way past stationary cars on a motorbike, trying to reach the festivities. More recently, we enjoyed the great fireworks display at Alexandra Palace in North London. There, at least, the atmosphere seemed entirely inclusive. The old religious hostilities had disappeared and the fireworks were simply a magnificent spectacle shared by thousands of people.

I sometimes wonder why people continue to set off so many fireworks in their own gardens, when accidents and injuries occur every year. In Italy loosing eyes or even a limb in traditional new year celebrations is usual – quite apart from the terrible trauma these do to animals both domestic and wild. Surely organised communal displays are safer, more spectacular and, in many ways, more enjoyable. There is something rather satisfying about standing among a large crowd and watching the whole sky illuminate at once.

Bonfire Night itself has now also had to compete with other celebrations. Halloween, which has made a remarkable return to Britain, is in many ways a re-importation of an older European tradition, now dressed up with pumpkins, witches and rather elaborate commercial trimmings. We have sometimes attended the Halloween festivities at Borgo a Mozzano. The crowds were enormous, however, and on occasion we have decided to give it a miss.

Another festival that has made its mark in Britain is Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. In some parts of the country its fireworks displays are now every bit as spectacular as those of November 5th. Halloween, Diwali and Bonfire Night may have different religious and cultural origins, but they all have something in common: the use of light and fire to mark the changing seasons and the triumph of light over darkness.

Here in Italy, of course, there is no Guy Fawkes Night. But that does not mean that the Italians are strangers to bonfires. Indeed, some of the local traditions have roots far older than the Gunpowder Plot.

At nearby Cerreto, for example, there is the Festa della Baldoria, when a gigantic bonfire is lit to celebrate the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. The ceremony has ancient pagan origins, subsequently absorbed and adapted by the Roman Catholic Church, and is associated with both Saint John the Baptist and Easter. I have described the occasion in an earlier post, Mayhem in Cerreto.

There are also the great winter bonfires of the Garfagnana. In Minucciano, for example, a huge fire is lit on Christmas Eve, accompanied by the ringing of the church bells and the singing of the Ave Maria. These fires can be more than forty feet high, built by weaving juniper branches around a chestnut pole. They are placed in prominent positions so that their flames can be seen from far across the valley.

The tradition has been associated with the ancient Roman festival of light and has also acquired a Christian interpretation: the fire provides a symbolic warmth and welcome for the birth of the Christ-child. Whatever its precise origins, there is something quite extraordinary about seeing these great flames rising above the dark mountain landscape.

I find it interesting that so many different cultures have developed festivals involving fire at this time of year. The ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, Halloween, Diwali, the Italian winter bonfires and Britain’s Bonfire Night all remind us that the shortening days and lengthening nights have always had a powerful effect on human imagination.

Perhaps this is why the tradition has survived even as its original religious and political meanings have faded. We may no longer need to celebrate the defeat of a Catholic conspiracy or burn an effigy to demonstrate our loyalty to a Protestant monarch, but we still seem to need a reason to gather together, light a fire and watch the darkness illuminated.

There is also something very elemental about fire itself. The ability to make and control it marks one of the great thresholds between primitive existence and civilisation. It gives warmth, provides light, cooks our food and brings people together. It can, of course, also destroy, and the history of Bonfire Night is a reminder of how easily fire can become an instrument of violence and intolerance.

Now, as we approach another winter here in Tuscany, we have our own little fire festival. Our cast-iron stove glows in the living room, fed by wood gathered from our land. Outside, the evenings draw in and the mountain air becomes colder. We find ourselves gathering around the flames, enjoying the warmth and the comforting crackle of burning wood.

Perhaps that is the real meaning of these ancient celebrations. Not vengeance, not religious division, and certainly not the burning of unpopular figures, but the simple pleasure of coming together as the seasons turn.

As Saint Francis wrote in his Canticle of the Creatures:

“Praise be to you, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you light up the night; and he is beautiful and cheerful, robust and strong.”

And so, while fireworks explode over Britain tonight, we shall be content with our own much quieter display.

Here, the flames are gentle. And they are ours.

There are various etiquette gurus around these days who are always telling us the correct way to do things. How to eat a banana, for example. I’m not actually particularly interested in the correct way to eat a banana. I’m much more interested in the correct way to act in an Italian restaurant, which is where we happen to be at the moment.

And there are three things which, although perfectly acceptable today, were not always quite so acceptable in the past.

The first is something known in Italian as fare la scarpetta, which literally means something like ‘making a little shoe’. What it means in practice is that, when you’ve finished your plate of food and there is still some delicious sauce left on it, you take a piece of bread and use it to mop up the remains.

Italian bread is particularly well suited to this activity, being wonderfully absorbent, and I have to say that, for me, it is often the most delicious part of the entire meal. There’s something immensely satisfying about getting every last bit of that sauce, rather than leaving it stranded on the plate.

Why is it called fare la scarpetta? I have no idea, although I rather like the theory that the piece of bread resembles a little shoe scraping up whatever is left behind. There are other explanations, no doubt, but whatever its origins, the practice is widespread in Italy and is perfectly acceptable. Indeed, refusing to mop up a particularly good sauce seems to me almost a waste of the cook’s efforts.

Of course, there may be situations in which one should exercise a little discretion. But in an ordinary Italian trattoria, provided you’re not flinging bread around or licking the plate, I see no reason why one shouldn’t enjoy oneself.

The second thing is the doggy bag. The expression sounds rather strange in Italian, where you might ask for una vaschetta per portare via or simply ask whether you can take the leftovers home. The idea is straightforward enough.

Sometimes Italian restaurant portions are simply too large for one person to finish. This is particularly true when you have ordered several courses, as one is sometimes encouraged to do. You may have enjoyed your antipasto, your primo and your secondo, but by the time the last of these arrives, there is only so much room left.

What is the point of leaving perfectly good food behind? It is wasteful, environmentally as well as economically, and it seems to me a pity to throw away something which somebody has taken time and trouble to prepare.

I would go further. Asking to take the leftovers home can be a compliment to the restaurant. It means that the food is good enough to enjoy a second time. You may not have the capacity to finish it all there and then, but you certainly don’t want to waste it.

Sandra and I have been asking for containers to take our leftovers home for years. We frequently find that we cannot manage the portions served to us, and so the following day we have another little meal waiting for us. It is economical, sensible and, provided the food is stored and reheated properly, perfectly practical.

And this applies to almost everything on the menu. Well, perhaps not quite everything. There is one category of food for which we seldom need to ask for a container: sweets. Somehow, we always seem to find room for those.

The third point is about tipping.

In Italy, you are not expected to tip in the way that you might be in the United States, where tips can form a substantial part of a restaurant worker’s income. Italian restaurant staff are not generally dependent on customers providing tips in the same way.

There is also the coperto, which is a charge that may appear on your bill for the place setting and the associated service. Depending on the restaurant, this may cover such things as the tablecloth, cutlery and bread. It is worth remembering, though, that coperto is not itself a service charge, and that the precise arrangements vary from one establishment to another. Some restaurants charge it; others do not.

So there is certainly no need to feel obliged to add a tip on top of the bill. If you have enjoyed the meal, a sincere grazie mille, a compliment to the cook or a promise to return will usually be warmly received. Naturally, if you particularly want to leave a little extra for good service, that is your choice, but it is not an obligation.

My only concern is that customs imported from elsewhere can gradually become expectations. If everybody begins tipping as a matter of course, it may eventually be assumed that customers ought to do so. I would rather we kept the pleasure of eating out separate from the anxiety of working out how much extra we are supposed to pay.

So there we are: three simple things to remember when eating in an Italian restaurant.

First, don’t be afraid to fare la scarpetta and mop up that delicious sauce with a piece of bread.

Second, if you cannot finish your meal, ask to take the leftovers home. There is no virtue in wasting perfectly good food.

And third, don’t feel obliged to leave a tip. A heartfelt thank you, a compliment and the promise of another visit can be worth a great deal.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some sauce left on my plate.

It is quite remarkable that a little village like Monti di Villa, perched in the hills above Bagni di Lucca, has its own theatre, the Circolo Teatro, and manages to put on such interesting events. Sunday evening was a particularly good example, bringing together art, music, chestnuts and, above all, a very friendly gathering of local people.

The occasion featured the work of Tyler Moorehead, an American-born artist who has settled in the Bagni di Lucca area. A graduate of London’s Royal College of Art, Tyler works with sculpture and installation, often exploring folklore, identity and the stories contained in everyday materials. Her striking installation, a tall construction of dark timber, gilded shapes, woven materials and a bright blue stone, provided an intriguing centrepiece, a kind of primaeval guardianship shrine.. We were encouraged to get close and explore its different textures by touch.

The music was equally unconventional. Alessia Anastassopulos on violin, Eugenio Sanna on guitar and Giuliano Tremea adding vocals created what I would call a kind of aleatoric improvisation. Rather than a conventional concert, it was a spontaneous sound conversation, with violin, guitar and voice weaving in and out of one another.

And then, of course, there were the chestnuts. With the autumn harvest in full swing, we heard a little about their importance to the history and traditions of these mountains and were treated to samples of some really excellent castagnaccia and even a little chestnut soup. Both were delicious.

What made the evening particularly enjoyable, though, was the atmosphere. It was as much a social occasion as an artistic one, with neighbours and friends chatting over an aperitivo, enjoying the music, discussing the artwork and sampling the local food.

It is wonderful that a small village like Monti di Villa can sustain its own theatre and use it to bring people together for events of this kind. A little art, a little experimental music, some excellent chestnut cooking and a great deal of good company. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday evening in the hills!