DON'T DRIVE THERE IN ANY FORM.

DON'T TAKE CHILDREN OR ANIMALS.

DON'T WALK ACROSS ROADS WHEN PEOPLE ARE ROLLING BURNING BARRELS OF TAR IN YOUR PATH.

DO WRAP UP WARM.

DO USE THE TRAIN.

DO TAKE DRINKS AND FOOD.

DO BE PREPARED FOR THE MOST AMAZING CELEBRATION IN ENGLAND.

WHEN: NOVEMBER 5th every year

Once a year Lewes, a quaint Sussex town just outside Brighton, becomes like the burning fires of Sodom and Gomorrah.

In England we have a celebration on November 5th called Guy Fawkes night, something to do with a guy blowing up Parliament years ago. Anyway, normally it's an excuse to let off loads of fireworks and get your grannies dentures stuck together on a toffee apple in your back garden. EXCEPT IN LEWES

Every year, 5-bonfire societies compete to have the biggest, most impressive dynamite celebration and the whole evening turns out to be one massive, chaotic, party.

The evening starts with wild processions up Lewes high street with societies trying to out do each other with their costumes, bands, fireworks and burning tar barrels. At the bottom of the hill you'll find many competitions, including the ladies 'how far can you through the barrel of burning tar across the river'! These run all evening and if you can; get to stand by the memorial, which offers the best viewing, half way up the main high street. At the end of the processions each fire society heads for their respective bonfire sites and holds huge firework displays for over an hour. If you can get up on a hill the view would be fantastic as there are over 5 sites all below you and you can watch all the displays, which all seem to happen at once. Get there early, say around 5.30pm.

You can easily get trains from Brighton to and from Lewes on the night. If you can also get a ticket to one of the main bonfires in advance do so. We tried to get into the Cliffe society last year but it was sold out on the night, tickets cost around £10. There is a free society, behind the Tesco's (follow the crowds) but the pay bonfires may be better, I'll get tarred for saying that!

I suggest you take food and drinks as the pubs all get very busy and food is hard to find (except at the bottom of the hill, behind Safeway, where there are many burger stalls and we found an excellent hog roast). Once it's all over run for the trains as fast as you can, as the queues to get into the station stretch back for miles!

Last year they estimated over 200,000 people would attend the celebrations so this is definitely a secret highlight for any traveller to the UK. This is one site seeing that is AYOR, several people often get hurt by fireworks and burning tar so be sensible and have fun. Laters, Al Pictures courtesy of the Argus site www.thisisbrighton.co.uk