Nancy Price in a book called Pagan’s Progress suggests that the
pancake was a “thin flat cake eaten to stay the pangs of hunger before
going to be shriven” (to confession).
Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.
In his Seasonal Feasts and Festivals E. O. James links up Shrove
Tuesday with the Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) festivals or warmer countries.
These jollifications were an integral element of seasonal ritual for the
purpose of promoting fertility and conquering the malign forces of evil,
especially at the approach of spring.”
The most consistent form of celebration in the old days was the all-
over-town ball game or tug-of-war in which everyone let rip before the
traditional feast, tearing here and tearing there, struggling to get the
ball or rope into their part of the town. It seems that several dozen towns
kept up these ball games until only a few years ago.
E. O. James in his book records instances where the Shrove Tuesday
celebrations became pitched battles between citizens led by the local
church authorities.
Today the only custom that is consistently observed throughout Britain
is pancake eating, though here and there other customs still seem to
survive. Among the latter, Pancake Races, the Pancake Greaze custom and
Ashbourne’s Shrovetide Football are the best known. Shrovetide is also the
time of Student Rags.
ST DAVID’S DAY
On the 1st of March each year one can see people walking around London
with leeks pinned to their coats. À leek is the national emblem of Wales.
The many Welsh people who live in London — or in other cities outside Wales
— like to show their solidarity on their national day.
The day is actually called Saint David’s Day, after à sixth century
abbot who became patron saint of Wales. David is the nearest English
equivalent to the saint’s name, Dawi.
The saint was known traditionally as “the Waterman”, which perhaps
means that he and his monks were teetotallers. À teetotaller is someone who
drinks nî kind of alcohol, but it does not mean that he drinks only tea, as
many people seem to think.
In spite of the leeks mentioned earlier, Saint David’s emblem is not
that, but à dove. No one, not even the Welsh, can explain why they took
leek to symbolize their country, but perhaps it was just as well. After
all, they can't pin à dove to their coat!
MOTHERING SUNDAY (MOTHERS’ DAY)
Mothers’ Day is traditionally observed on the fourth Sunday in Lent
(the Church season of penitence beginning on Ash Wednesday, the day of
which varies from year to year). This is usually in March. The day used to
be known as Mothering Sunday and dates from the time when many girls worked
away from home as domestic servants in big households, where their hours of
work were often very long Mothering Sunday was established as a holyday for
these girls and gave them an
opportunity of going home to see their parents, especially their mother.
They used to take presents with them, often given to them by the lady of
the house.
When the labour situation changed and everyone was entitled to regular
time off, this custom remained, although the day is now often called
“Mothers’ Day”. People visit their mothers if possible and give them
flowers and small presents. If they cannot go they send a “Mothers’ Day
card”, or they may send one in any case. The family try to see that the
mother has as little work to do as possible, sometimes
the husband or children take her breakfast in bed and they often help with
the meals and the washing up. It is considered to be mother’s day off.
St. Patrick’s Day
It is not a national holiday. It’s an Irish religious holiday. St.
Patrick is the patron of Ireland. Irish and Irish Americans celebrate the
day. On the day they decorate their houses and streets with green shamrocks
and wear something green. In large cities long parades march through the
streets. Those who aren’t Irish themselves also wear green neckties and
hair ribbons and take part in the celebration.
ESTER
During the Easter Holidays the attention of the progressive people in
Great Britain and indeed throughout the world is riveted first and foremost
on the Easter Peace Marches, which took place for the first time in 1958
and have since become traditional. The people who participate in these
marches come from different sections of society. Alongside workers and
students march university professors, doctors, scientists, and engineers.
More often than not the columns are joined by progressive people from
abroad.
The character of the marches has changed over the years. The high-
point was reached in the early sixties; this was followed by a lapse in
enthusiasm when attendance fell off during the middle and late sixties.
More recent years have seen a rise in the number of people attending the
annual Easter March, as global problems have begun to affect the conscience
of a broader section of the English population.
London’s Easter Parade
London greets the spring, and its early visitors, with a truly
spectacular Easter Parade in Battersea Park on Easter Sunday each year. It
is sponsored by the London Tourist Board and is usually planned around a
central theme related to the history and attractions of London. The great
procession, or parade, begins at 3 p. m., but it is
advisable to find a vantage-point well before that hour. The parade
consists of a great many interesting and decorated floats, entered by
various organizations in and outside the metropolis. Some of the finest
bands in the country take part in the parade. At the rear of the parade is
usually the very beautiful Jersey float, created from thousands of lovely
spring blooms and bearing the Easter Princess and her attendants. It is an
afternoon to remember.
APRIL FOOLS’ DAY
April Fools’ Day or All Fools’ Day, named from the custom of playing
practical jokes or sending friends on fools’ errands, on April 1st. Its
timing seems related to the vernal equinox, when nature fools mankind with
sudden changes from showers to sunshine. It is a season when all people,
even the most dignified, are given an excuse to play the fool. In April
comes the cuckoo, emblem of simpletons; hence in Scotland the victim is
called “cuckoo” or “gowk”, as in the verse: On the first day of April, Hunt
the gowk another mile. Hunting the gowk was a fruitless errand; so was
hunting for hen’s teeth, for a square circle or for stirrup oil, the last-
named proving to be several strokes from a leather strap.
May Day in Great Britain
As May 1st is not a public holiday in Great Britain, May Day
celebrations are traditionally held on the Sunday following it, unless, of
course, the 1st of May falls on a Sunday. On May Sunday workers march
through the streets and hold meetings to voice their own demands and the
demands of other progressive forces of the country. The issues involved may
include demands for higher wages and better working conditions, protests
against rising unemployment, demands for a change in the Government’s
policy, etc.
May Spring Festival
The 1st of May has also to some extent retained its old significance
— that of à pagan spring festival. In ancient times it used to be
celebrated with garlands and flowers, dancing and games on the village
green. À Maypole was erected — a tall pole wreathed with flowers, to which
in later times ribbons were attached and held by the dancers. The girls put
on their best summer frocks, plaited flowers in their hair and round their
waists and eagerly awaited the crowning of the May Queen. The most
beautiful girl was crowned with à garland of flowers. After this great
event Âåãå was dancing, often Morris dancing, with the dancers dressed in
fancy costume, usually
representing characters in the Robin Hood legend. May-Day games and sports
were followed by refreshments in the open.
This festival was disliked by the Puritans and suppressed during the
Commonwealth, 1649 — 60. After the Restoration it was revived but has
gradually almost died out. However, the Queen of May is still chosen in
most counties, and in mànó villages school Maypoles are erected around
which the children dance. The famous ceremony of the meeting of the 1st of
May still survives at Oxford, in Magdalen College. At 6 o’clock in the
morning the college choir gathers in the upper gallery of the college tower
to greet the coming of the new day with song.
TROOPING ÒÍE COLOUR
During the month of June, à day is set aside as the Queen’ s official
birthday. This is usually the second Saturday in June. On this day there
takes place on Horse Guards’ Parade in Whitehall the magnificent spectacle
of Trooping the Colour, which begins at about 11.15 à. m. (unless rain
intervenes, when the ceremony is usually postponed until conditions are
suitable).
This is pageantry of ràrå splendour, with the Queen riding side-saddle
on à highly trained horse.
The colours of one of the five regiments of Foot Guards are trooped
before the Sovereign. As she rides on to Horse Guards’ parade the massed
array of the Brigade of Guards, dressed in ceremonial uniforms, await her
inspection.
For twenty minutes the whole parade stands rigidly to attention while
being inspected by the Queen. Then comes the Trooping ceremony itself, to
be followed by the famous March Past of the Guards to the music of massed
bands, at which the Queen takes the Salute. The precision drill of the
regiments is notable.
The ceremony ends with the Queen returning to Buckingham Palace at the
head of her Guards.
The Escort to the Colour, chosen normally in strict rotation, then
mounts guard at the Palace.
Midsummer's Day
Midsummer's Day, June 24th, is the longest day of the year. On that
day you can see a very old custom at Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, England.
Stonehenge is one of Europe's biggest stone circles. A lot of the stones
are ten or twelve metres high. It's also very old. The earliest part of
Stonehenge is nearly 5,000 years old.
But what was Stonehenge? A holy place? A market? Or was it a kind of
calendar? We think the Druids used it for a calendar. The Druids were the
priests in Britain 2,000 years ago. They used the sun and the stones at
Stonehenge to know the
start of months and seasons. There are Druids in Britain today, too. And
every June 24th a lot of them go to Stonehenge. On that morning the sun
shines on one famous stone - the Heel stone. For the Druids this is a very
important moment in the year. But for a lot of British people it's just a
strange old custom.
LATE SUMMER BANK HOLIDAY
On Bank Holiday the townsfolk usually flock into the country and to
the coast. If the weather is fine many families take à picnic-lunch or tea
with them and enjoy their meal in the open. Seaside towns near London, such
as Southend, are invaded by thousands of trippers who come in cars and
coaches, trains, motor cycles and bicycles. Great amusement parks like
Southend Kursaal do à roaring trade with their scenic railways, shooting
galleries, water-shoots, Crazy Houses, Hunted Houses and so on. Trippers
will wear comic paper hats with slogans such as “Kiss Ìå Quick”, and they
will eat and drink the weirdest mixture of stuff you can imagine, sea food
like cockles, mussels, whelks, shrimps and fried fish and chips, candy
floss, beer, tea, soft, drinks, everything you can imagine.
Bank Holiday is also an occasion for big sports meetings at places
like the White City Stadium, mainly all kinds of athletics. There are also
horse ràñe meetings all over the country, and most traditional of all,
there are large fairs with swings, roundabouts, coconut shies, à Punch and
Judy show, hoop-la stalls and every kind of side-show including, in recent
years, bingo. These fairs are pitched on open spaces of common land, and
the most famous of them is the huge one on Hampstead Heath near London. It
is at Hampstead Heath you will see the Pearly Kings, those Cockney costers
(street traders), who wear suits or frocks with thousands of tiny pearl
buttons stitched all over them, also over their caps and hats, in case of
their Queens. They hold horse and cart parades in which prizes are given
for the smartest turn out. Horses and carts are gaily decorated. Many
Londoners will visit Whipsnade Zoo. There is also much boating activity on
the Thames, regattas at Henley and on other rivers, and the English climate
being what it is, it invariably rains.
Happy Hampstead
August Bank Holiday would not be à real holiday for tens of thousands
of Londoners without the Fair on Hampstead Heath!
Those who know London will know were to find the Heath – that vast
stretch of open woodland which sprawls across two hills, bounded by Golders
Green and Highgate to the west and east, and by Hampstead itself and Ken
Wood to the south and north.
The site of the fair ground is near to Hampstead Heath station. From
that station to the ground runs à broad road which is blocked with à solid,
almost
immovable mass of humanity on those days when the fair is open. The walk is
not more than à quarter of à mile, but it takes an average of half-an hour
to cover it when the crowd is at its thickest.
But being on that road is comfortable compared with what it is like
inside the fair ground itself. Íåãå there are, hundreds of stalls arranged
in broad avenues inside a huge square bounded by the caravans of the show
people and the lorries containing the generating plants which provide the
stalls with their electricity.
The noise is deafening. Mechanical bands and the cries of the
“barkers” (the showmen who stand outside the booths and by the stalls
shouting to the crowds to come and try their luck are equalled by the
laughter of the visitors and the din of machinery.
The visitors themselves are looking for fun, and they find it in full
measure. There are fortune-tellers and rifle-ranges and “bumping cars”,
there are bowling alleys and dart boards and coconut shies. There is
something for everybody.
And for the lucky ones, or for those with more skill than most, there
are prizes — table lamps and clocks and à hundred and one other things of
value.
À visit to the fair at Happy Hampstead is something not easily
forgotten. It is noisy, it is exhausting — but it is as exhilarating an
experience as any in the world.
HENRY WOOD
PROMENADE CONCERTS
“Ladies and gentlemen — the Proms!”
Amongst music-lovers in Britain — and, indeed, in very many other
countries — the period between July and September 21 is à time of
excitement, of anticipation, of great enthusiasm.
We are in the middle of the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts — the Proms.
London music-lovers are particularly fortunate, for those who are able
to obtain tickets can attend the concerts in person. Every night at 7
î'clock (Sunday excepted) à vast audience assembled at the Royal Albert
Hall rises for the playing and singing of the National Anthem. À few
minutes later, when seats have been resumed, the first work of the evening
begins.
But even if seats are not to be obtained, the important parts of the
concerts can be heard — and are heard — by à very great number of people,
because the ÂÂÑ broadcasts certain principal works every night throughout
the season. The audience reached by this means is estimated to total
several millions in Britain alone, and that total is probably equalled by
the number of listeners abroad.
The reason why such à great audience is attracted is that the Proms
present every year à large repertoire of classical works under the best
conductors and with the best artists. À season provides an anthology of
masterpieces.
The Proms started in 1895 when Sir Henry Wood formed the Queen’s Hall
Orchestra. The purpose of the venture was to provide classical music to as
many people who cared to come at à price all could afford to pay, those of
lesser means being charged comparatively little — one shilling — to enter
the Promenade, where standing was the rule.
The coming of the last war ended two Proms’ traditions. The first was
that in 1939 it was nî longer possible to perform to London audiences — the
whole organization was evacuated to Bristol. The second was that the Proms
couldn’t return to the Queen’s Hall after the war was over — the Queen’s
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