There are eight public, or bank holidays in Great Britain, that is, days when banks and offices are closed. They are: Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Mayday, Spring Bank Holiday and Late Summer Bank Holiday. The observance of these days is no longer limited to banks. All the public […]
Every nation and every country has its own customs and traditions. In Britain traditions play a more important part in the life of the people than in other countries. Englishmen are proud of their traditions and carefully keep them up. It has been the law for about three hundred years that all the theatres are […]
The English usually have 4 meals a day: breakfast, lunch, tea (5 o’clock), and dinner. Breakfast can be a full “English breakfast” of corn flakes with milk and sugar, or bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade, tea or coffee. Some people, however, have just a cup of tea or coffee with a toast. This is […]
The English proverb says: every cook praises his own broth. One can not say English cookery is bad, but there is not a lot of variety in it in comparison with European cuisine. The English are very particular about their meals. The usual meals in England are breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. Breakfast time is […]
The celebration of All Saints Day or just Halloween takes place on October 31st. The tradition of Halloween began in the fifth century B.C. This day the Irish Celts celebrated their New Year at that time, because they organized their year according to the agricultural calendar and marked the transition from one year to the […]
British nation is considered to be the most conservative in Europe. It is not a secret that every nation and every country has its own customs and traditions. In Great Britain people attach greater importance to traditions and customs than in other European countries. Englishmen are proud of their traditions and carefully keep them up. […]
There are only six public holidays a year in Great Britain, that is days on which people need not go in to work. They are: Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Spring Bank Holiday (The terra bank holiday applies also to Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Easter Monday, and dates back to the […]
In England the New Year is not as widely or as enthusiastically observed as Christmas. Some people ignore it completely and go to bed at the same time as usual on New Year’s Eve. Many others, however, do celebrate it in one way or another, the type of celebration varying very much according to the […]
Hogmanay is a Scottish name for New Year’s Eve, and is a time for merrymaking, the giving of presents and the observance of the old custom of First-Footing. One of the most interesting of Scottish Hogmanay celebrations is the Flambeaux Procession at Comrie, Perthshire. Such processions can be traced back to the time of the […]
The custom of men welcoming in the New Year by carrying- pans of blazing tar on their heads is still kept up at Allendale, Northumberland, on New Year’s Eve. Each of the “carriers”, in fancy costume, balances on his head the end of a barrel (or “kit”) filled with inflammable material. The procession is timed […]
