Banners
In a bonfire sense the term Banner can have many meanings. Be it a banner hung across the road wish good luck to a society for the up coming celebrations. Below are the two main ways we as a society use the term banner.
In Littlehampton it is used to refer to the banner that leads the society. Originally they were made out of cloth and could be as wide as the street held by any number of people up to 4 or could carried by a single person. Over the years these have got tatty and burnt. It has been said that in the wind they were more like a sail and very hard to carry. Some example still exist today in lofts of members retired from active duty.
Around the late Eighties the Society changed to a wooden banner nicknamed "Progress" because of the town shield on the front. Where this banner had been varnished it slowly got duller from light where it had been used for London New Years day parade and day time events, this was used up until our celebrations in 2002. This being our Golden Jubilee year the Captain of Banners and committee
had agreed to have a new one created to lead us into the next fifty years.
It was decided that the societies logo "Guy" would be used on the next banner after all he is the reason we celebrate. So after a time the design was agreed upon and this banner was Shown cased in Littlehampton Town museum in an exhibit cerebrating the first fifty years of the Society. the banners was first used on the Children's Procession of the 2002 celebrations.
Fire Banners.
Bonfire Societies also add the word "Fire" to the term Banners. These fire banners in the case of most societies are their initials (e.g. LBS: Littlehampton Bonfire Society, CBS, EHBS etc). We also use a flaming Anchor as regular banner this is because we are a seaside town and we are remembering our heritage as such.. We have also in the past we had a flaming Ship for the same reason. At different stage we have had our one off pieces used like in 1995 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Victory in Europe and Japan we had VE VJ banner.
Also to commemorate mile stones in the societies history there have been banners made like a firework forty in 1992 and a flaming 50 in 2002. In years that we have won the title of Sussex Champions we have had a flaming cup to signify that fact. Also in 2003 we had a local cadet band playing for us for the first time and had a banner made for that
be it on a smaller scale. with the full size being up to 5 feet in height on top of a pole of about 4 feet.