Sometime long ago (in about 1951, we think), in a Hall of Residence far far away (well, just over the path from Plas Gwyn) a unversity warden stopped the practice of saying grace at meals. The resulting upset became the start of Bangor University's one and only tradition.
I don't know for certain who instituted it, or why, but it seems to have
prevailed each Bonfire night. As you will have heard, the male members of
Reichel Hall take part in a 'solemn meal' eaten in silence (or as silent as
a room full of students can be, probably punctuated only by the hurling of
an odd bread roll at another set of diners). The guys then load up their coffin
(which is in the dining room as well, complete with dummy), and then walk
along the playing fields towards the most convenient route down to the Menai
Strait. This route naturally falls beyond the roadways beside the adjacent
halls of residence, and this is all well known about, so the Reichel guys
take lots of fireworks or water bombs or flour bombs or whatever ammunition
comes to hand probably, and they march, with the objective of getting that
coffin floating in the Menai Strait and on fire. After all, don't we all want
to do that in life? Walk along with a coffin which features a dummy, and then
set it alight while it's floating in the nearest water source to where we
are. Bronwyn must think we're crackers, that's all I can say.
The 'solomn' procession
The funeral pyre.