PUPILS at St Peter’s School in York will not be celebrating November 5 with a bonfire.

The private school in York will be maintaining its tradition this year of not putting a Guy on the bonfire.

The reason for this is that Guy Fawkes, pictured, born 1570, is probably the school’s most well-known and notorious old boy.

He attended the school in the 1580s when Elizabeth I was on the throne and life was very difficult for Catholics. Although born a Protestant, after his father died his mother married into an important extended Catholic family, many of whom at the time were secret Catholics including the head master of the period John Pulleyn.

At school with Guy Fawkes were Christopher Wright and his brother, John, both of whom became fellow gunpowder plotters and were put to death by James I.