Within seconds, their faces were warped beyond recognition. As the cardboard grins of the Gypsy children vanished among the flames, onlookers cheered. The 'pikeys' had been given their comeuppance. By popular consent, the hamlet of Firle had staged another memorable Guy Fawkes display.
Those celebrations have since turned sour. The decision to torch a caravan with Gypsies painted on it has thrown into question the validity of the centuries-old and hugely popular bonfire culture of Sussex.
The police, under growing pressure, last week began arresting those who decided to paint a family of travellers on the side of the vehicle before towing it through Firle and setting it alight at the village's bonfire night.
In this affluent corner of rural England, bonfires more than anywhere else resemble 'bone fires' - burnings at the stake - according to local historians. Effigies of local hate figures are paraded and torched with a medieval zeal. That tradition explains why the threat of prosecution as well as the cloud of racist allegations hangs over Firle's picturebook cottages. By Friday, all 12 of the bonfire organisers had been arrested over suspicions of allegedly inciting hatred against a minority.
Yet for many travellers encamped near Firle, the police investigation has highlighted a very modern problem. Firle's 'caravan of hate' is not the first time this year that travellers' vehicles have been deliberately set ablaze in Sussex. In Peacehaven, a petrol bomb attack against Gypsies was reported to police. At Crawley, Margaret Murphy woke last April to the smell of burning. A petrol-soaked firework had been lit beneath a van next to her caravan. Within seconds, the vehicle was engulfed in flames. Her three-month old puppy, Spot, stood no chance.
'If the alarm on the van hadn't gone off, the gas canisters and petrol generators would have exploded, the whole camp would have perished. Hundreds would have been killed,' she said.
Now camped 40 miles south in a park above Brighton, she feels safe. Yet travellers nearby say that, only a few weeks ago, they were attacked with a barrage of fireworks aimed at the renovated coaches they call home. Others claim to have found stockpiles of rockets alongside petrol cans close to their camp. Bricks hurled through windows and verbal abuse are among a dossier of complaints.
Elsewhere, 'No Travellers' signs have been hung outside a launderette at nearby Hove and also at a pub in Lewes. Although there is no connection between events in Firle and such complaints, campaigners insist the occupants of the 62 official travellers' caravans in East Sussex are by far the most persecuted minority in the region.
'Attitudes towards travellers remain comparable to those experienced by Black Americans in the 1950s', said a spokesman for Brighton-based Friends, Families and Travellers.
Last summer, the 12-strong committee of the Firle Bonfire Society faced a familiar challenge to choose the 'Enemies of Bonfire', the reviled local figure or group whose effigies would be burnt and paraded along the single narrow street of their village. As always, it was a heated debate for the committee of 'everyday working folk', whose members include an electrician and carpenter. 'They're just good village lads basically,' said George, a lifelong resident of Firle.
George Bush and Tony Blair were discussed, but they had previously been torched. So had Osama bin Laden, their MP Norman Baker and even the local police officer. Yet there was one target outstanding, a group whose behaviour had been dominating gossip in Firle's only pub, the Ram Inn, for weeks.
Travellers arrived on the Firle estate last August. Soon afterwards 200 pheasants were killed in a field belonging to the estate, home to Henry Gage, the eighth Viscount Gage. Later, human excrement was found on the front doorstep of the estate's gamekeeper.
The travellers were evicted last September. Photographs taken by residents reveal mounds of rubbish including bathtubs and abandoned cars. They were blighting the area. Yet Firle had a traditional weapon of revenge - its bonfire.
'The Firle display was Sussex bonfire at its best. Don't forget the pikey contingent did a lot of damage,' said one member of the East Sussex Association of Bonfire and Carnival Societies.
Preparations began soon after their eviction to build a half-size caravan from wood and cardboard. The charred chassis, along with its numberplate P1 KEY, can still be found on a farm near Firle. At some point though, the society decided to attach images of a Gypsy family inside the vehicle, a 'stupid, grievously bad' decision, according to one villager. Local children were commissioned to paint the grinning features. One of the children can be seen wearing an Arsenal shirt.
For three days after Firle's celebrations, no one made an official complaint. It was only when a villager with a Romany heritage complained to the local media that condemnation and bafflement from as far away as Scotland was unleashed. The police investigation, in the wake of damaging allegations of racism among officers, was announced soon after. Whether charges are brought will not be known until the New Year. One resident, Nic Challinger, believes Firle is paying the price for the present sensitivity on such issues.
Most of the 200 villagers remain shocked that their friends could face conviction, despite having apologised and insisting there was no racist motive. Most, too, are sympathetic to the bonfire society, dismissing the furore as a 'storm in a teacup'. Others seethe that no action was taken against the travellers. The local paper has defended the act as a 'fiery commentary' on local issues and the 'ideal opportunity for letting off steam in a pointed and uncompromising manner'.
According to those close to the organisers, the ultimate humiliation was being banned by police from attending the largest Guy Fawkes celebration in East Sussex, held at Lewes. The Lewes bonfire remains infamous for glorifying its past as a Protestant stronghold, with revellers chanting anti-Papist slogans and waving 'Death to Rome' banners. Dummies of Pope Paul V are burnt, along with the Catholic Guy Fawkes, as residents march in memory of the Protestant martyrs of 1556.
Last night Sussex's bonfire season witnessed its final Guy Fawkes celebration of 2003 in Robertsbridge. As is the norm, the main effigy was a closely guarded secret.