The strange case of the ‘alleged bonfire’

The council has told me that what I saw was an ‘alleged bonfire’. When I described flames towering into the sky and black smoke curling over the village, that was an ‘alleged bonfire’.

When the builder boyfriend was shutting the field gate and could see a bright blue explosion, what he was witnessing was the start of an ‘alleged bonfire’.

We often meet at the horses after he finishes work, then we drive home in our separate cars. He let me out the gate first and stayed behind to lock it. After he rang me and told me what he could see on the horizon, I turned round and drove back to the pub, which is just down the lane from the field.

It was now pitch dark and orange flames roared into the sky. Just behind the pub car park, in an adjoining field, was the most enormous bonfire. It was identical to the bonfire they light at this pub every year on 5 November for the Guy Fawkes celebrations.