">      Some of the sports are the Games are international: the high jump and the long jump, for example. But other sports happen only at the Highland Games. One is tossing the caber. “Tossing” means throwing, and a “caber” is a long, heavy piece of wood. In tossing the caber you lift the caber (it can be five or six metres tall). Then you throw it in front of you.

      At the Highland Games a lot of men wear kilts. These are traditional Scottish skirts for men. But they are not all the same. Each clan has a different “tartan”. That is the name for the pattern on the kilt. So at the Highland Games there are traditional sports and traditional instrument – the bagpipes. The bagpipes are very loud. They say Scots soldier played them before a battle. The noise frightened the soldiers on other side.

      The world’s most famous tennis tournament is Wimbledon. It started at a small club in south London in the nineteenth century. Now a lot of the nineteenth century traditions have changed. For example, the women players don’t have to wear long skirts. And the men players do not have to wear long trousers. But other traditions have not changed at Wimbledon. The courts are still grass, and visitors still eat strawberries and cream. The language of tennis has not changed either.

      There are some British traditions and customs concerning their private life. The British are considered to be the world’s greatest tea drinkers. And so tea is Britain’s favourite drink. The English know how to make tea and what it does for you. In England people say jokingly: ‘The test of good tea is simple. If a spoon stands up in it, then it is strong enough; if the spoon starts to wobble, it is a feeble makeshift’.

      Every country has its drinking habits, some of which are general and obvious, others most peculiar. Most countries also have a national drink. In England the national is beer, and the pub “pub”, where people talk, eat, drink, meet their friends and relax.

      The word “pub” is short for “public house”. Pubs sell beer. (British beer is always warm). An important custom in pubs is “buying a round”. In a group, one person buys all the others a drink. This is a “round”. Then one by one all the people buy rounds, too. If they are with friends, British people sometimes lift their glasses before they drink and say: “Cheers”. This means “Good luck”.

      In the pubs in south-west England there is another traditional drink-scrumpy.

      Pub names often have a long tradition. Some come from the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Every pub has a name and every pub has a sign above its door. The sign shows a picture of the pub’s name.

      And as you know, the British talk about the weather a lot. They talk about the weather because it changes so often. Wind, rain, sun, cloud, snow – they can all happen in a British winter – or a British summer.

      Hundreds of years ago, soldiers began this custom. They shook hands to show that they did not have a sword. Now, shaking hands is a custom in most countries.

      Frenchman shake hands every time they meet, and kiss each other on both cheeks as a ceremonial salute, like the Russians, while Englishmen shake hands only when they are introduced, or after a long absence.

      Victorian England made nearly as many rules about hand shaking as the Chinese did about bowing. A man could not offer his hand first a lady; young ladies did not shake men’s hands at all unless they were old friends; married ladies could offer their hands in a room, but not in public, where they would bow slightly.

      I have chosen the topic British customs traditions because I enjoy learning the English language and wanted to know more about British ways of life and traditions. Working on this topic I have to conclusion that British people are very conservative. They are proud pf their traditions and carefully keep them up. It was interesting to know that foreigners coming to England are stuck at once by quite a number of customs and peculiarities.

      So I think of Britain as a place a lot of different types of people who observe their traditions. 
 
 
 

I. Britain round the calendar.

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AND CELEBRATIONS

 

      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 and Late Summer Bank Holiday. In Scotland, the New Year’s Day is also a public holiday. Most of these holidays are of religious origin, though it would be right to say that for the greater part of the population they have long lost their religious significance and are simply days on which people relax, eat, drink and make merry. All the public holidays, except Christmas Day and Boxing Day observed on December 25^th and 26^th respectively, are movable, that is they do not fall on the same day each year. Good Friday and Easter Monday depend on Easter Sunday which falls on the first Sunday after a full moon on or after March 21^st. the Spring Bank Holiday falls on the last Monday of May or on the first Monday of June, while the Late Summer Bank Holiday comes on the last Monday in August or on the first Monday in September, depending on which of the Mondays is nearer to June 1^st and September 1^st respectively.

     Besides public holidays, there are other festivals, anniversaries and simply days, for example Pancake Day and Bonfire Night, on which certain traditions are observed, but unless they fall on a Sunday, they are ordinary working days. 

NEW YEAR

 

      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 celebration it in one way or another, the type of celebration varying very much according to the local custom, family traditions and personal taste.

      The most common type of celebration is a New Year party, either a family party or one arranged by a group of young people. This usually begins at about eight o’clock and goes on until the early hours of the morning. There is a lot of drinking, mainly beer, wine, gin and whisky; sometimes the hosts make a big bowl of punch which consists of wine, spirits, fruit juice and water in varying proportions. There is usually a buffer of cold meat, pies, sandwiches, savouries, cakes and biscuits. At midnight the wireless is turned on, so that everyone can hear the chimes of Big Ben, and on the hour a toast is drunk to the New Year. Then the party goes on.

      Another popular way of celebrating the New Year is to go to a New Year’s dance. Most hotels and dance halls hold a special dance on New Year’s Eve. The hall is decorated, there are several different bands and the atmosphere is very gay.

      The most famous celebration is in London round the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus where crowds gather and sing and welcome the New Year. In

Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.

Trafalgar Square there is also a big crowd and someone usually falls into the fountain.

      Those who have no desire or no opportunity to celebrate the New Year themselves can sit and watch other people celebrating on television. It is an indication of the relative unimportance of the New Year in England that the television producers seem unable to find any traditional English festivities for their programmers and usually show Scottish ones.

      January 1^st, New Year’s Day, is not a public holiday, unfortunately for those who like to celebrate most of the night. Some people send New Year cards and give presents but this is not a widespread custom. This is the traditional time for making “New Year resolutions”, for example, to give up smoking, or to get up earlier. However, these are generally more talked about than put into practice.

      Also on New Year’s Day the “New Year Honours List” is published in the newspapers; i.e. a list of those who are to be given honours of various types – knighthoods, etc.   

     In Canada New Year’s Day has a long tradition of celebration. New Year’s Eve in French Canada was (and still is) marked by the custom of groups of young men, to dress in COLOURful attire and go from house to house, singing and begging gifts for the poor. New Year’s Day was (and is) a time for paying calls on friends and neighbours and for asking the blessing of the head of the family. The early Governors held a public reception for the men of the community on New Year’s morning, a custom preserved down to the present day. While New Year’s Day is of less significance in English Canada than in French Canada, it’s a public holiday throughout the country. Wide spread merry-making begins on New Year’s Eve with house parties, dinner dances and special theatre entertainment. A customary feature of the occasion that suggests the Scottish contribution to the observation is the especially those that couldn’t be arranged for Christmas, are held on New Year’s Day. New Year isn’t such important holiday in England as Christmas. Some people don’t celebrate it at all.

    In USA many people have New Year parties. A party usually begins at about 8 o’clock and goes on until early morning. At midnight they listen to the chimes of Big Ben, drink a toast to the New Year and Sing Auld Lang Syne.

    In London crowds usually gather round the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus and welcome the New Year.

    There are some traditions on New Year’s Day. One of them is the old First Footing. The first man to come into the house is very important. The Englishman believes that he brings luck. This man (not a woman) must be healthy, young, pretty looking. He brings presents-bread, a piece of coal or a coin. On the New Year’s Day families watch the old year out and the New Year in.

       

Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.

    In Scotland the New Year’s Day is also a public holiday. 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 local custom, family tradition and personal taste.

      The most common type of celebration is a New Year party, either a family party or one arranged by a group of young people. This usually begins at about eight o’clock and goes on until the early hours of the morning. There is a lot of drinking, mainly beer, wine, gin and whisky; sometimes the hosts make a big bowl of punch which consists of wine, spirits, fruit juice and water in varying proportions. There is usually a buffet supper of cold meat, pies, sandwiches, savories, cakes and biscuits. At midnight the wireless is turned on, so that everyone can hear the chimes of Big Ben, and on the hour a toast is drunk to the New Year. Then the party goes on. 
 

Hogmanay Celebrations 

      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 ancient Druids. There is a procession of townsfolk in fancy dress carrying large torches. They are led by pipers. When the procession has completed its tour, the flambeaux (torches) are thrown into a pile, and everyone dances around the blaze until the torches have burned out.  
 

      The Night of Hogmanay 

      Nowhere else in Britain is the arrival of the New Year celebrated so wholeheartedly as in Scotland.

      Throughout Scotland, the preparations for greeting the New Year start with a minor “spring-cleaning”. Brass and silver must be glittering and fresh linen must be put on the beds. No routine work may be left unfinished; stockings must be darned, tears mended, clocks wound up, musical instruments tuned, and pictures hung straight. In addition, all outstanding bills are paid, overdue letters written and borrowed books returned. At least, that is the idea!

Most important of all, there must be plenty of good things to eat. Innumerable homes “reek of celestial grocery” – plum puddings and currant buns, spices and cordials, apples and lemons, tangerines and toffee. In mansion and farmhouse, in suburban villa and city tenement, the table is spread with festive fare. Essential to Hogmanay are “cakes and kebbuck” (oatcakes and cheese), shortbread, and either black bun or currant loaf. There are flanked with bottles of wine and the “mountain dew” that is the poetic name for whisky.

Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.

      

      In the cities and burghs, the New Year receives a communal welcome, the traditional gathering-place being the Mercat Cross, the hub and symbol of the old burgh life. In Edinburgh, however, the crowd has slid a few yards down the hill from the Mercat Cross to the Tron Kirk – being lured thither, no doubt, by the four-faced clock in the tower. As the night advances, Princes Street becomes as thronged as it normally is at noon, and there is growing excitement in the air. Towards midnight, all steps turn to the Tron Kirk, where a lively, swaying crowd awaits “the Chaplin o’ the Twal” (the striking of 12 o’clock). As the hands of the clock in the tower approach the hour, a hush falls on the waiting throng, the atmosphere grows tense, and then suddenly there comes a roar from a myriad throats. The bells forth, the sirens scream – the New Year is born!

      Many families prefer to bring in the New Year at home, with music or dancing, cards or talk. As the evening advances, the fire is piled high – for the brighter the fire, the better the luck. The members of the household seat themselves round the hearth, and when the hands of the clock approach the hour, the head of the house rises, goes to the main door, opens it wide, and holds it thus until the last stroke of midnight has died away. Then he shuts it quietly and returns to the family circle. He has let the Old Year out and the New Year in. now greetings and small gifts are exchanged, glasses are filled – and already the First-Footers are at the door.

      The First-Footer, on crossing the threshold, greets the family with “A gude New Year to ane and a’!” or simply “A Happy New Year!” and pours out a glass from the flask he carries. This must be drunk to the dregs by the head of the house, who, in turn, pours out a glass for each of his visitors. The glass handed to the First-Footer himself must also be drunk to the dregs. A popular toast is:

      “Your good health!”

      The First-Footers must take something to eat as well as to drink, and after an exchange of greetings they go off again on their rounds. 
 

ST. VALENTINE’S DAY – FEBRUARY 14 

      I’ll be your sweetheart, if you will be mine,

      All of my life I’ll be your Valentine … 

      It’s here again, the day when boys and girls, sweethearts and lovers, husbands and wives, friends and neighbours, and even the office staff will exchange greetings of affections, undying love or satirical comment. And the quick, slick, modern way to do it is with a Valentine card.

      There are all kinds, to suit all tastes, the lush satin cushions, boxed and be-ribboned, the entwined hearts, gold arrows, roses, cupids, doggerel rhymes, sick sentiment and sickly sentimentality – it’s all there. The publishers made sure it was there, as Mr Punch complained, “there weeks in advance!”

Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.

      

      In his magazine, Punch, as long ago as 1880 he pointed out that no sooner was the avalanche of Christmas cards swept away than the publishers began to fill the shops with their novel valentines, full of “Hearts and Darts, Loves and Doves and Floating Fays and Flowers”.

     It must have been one of these cards which Charles Dickens describes in Pickwick Papers. It was “a highly coloured representation of a couple of human hearts skewered together with an arrow, cooking before a cheerful fire” and “superintending the cooking” was a “highly indelicate young gentleman in a pair of wings and nothing else”.

      In the last century, sweet-hearts of both sexes would spend hours fashioning a homemade card or present. The results of some of those painstaking efforts are still preserved in museums. Lace, ribbon, wild flowers, coloured paper, feathers and shells, all were brought into use. If the aspiring (or perspiring) lover had difficulty in thinking up a message or rhyme there was help at hand. He could dip into the quiver of Love or St. Valentine’s Sentimental Writer, these books giving varied selections to suit everyone’s choice. Sam Weller, of Pick wick Papers fame, took an hour and a half to write his “Valentine”, with much blotting and crossing out and warnings from his father not to descend to poetry.

      The first Valentine of all was a bishop, a Christian martyr, who before the Romans put him to death sent a note of friendship to his jailer’s blind daughter.

      The Christian Church took for his saint’s day February 14; the date of an old pagan festival when young Roman maidens threw decorated love missives into an urn to be drawn out by their boy friends.

      A French writer who described how the guests of both sexes drew lots for partners by writing down names on pieces of paper noted this idea of lottery in 17th century England. “It is all the rage,” he wrote.

      But apparently to bring the game into a family and friendly atmosphere one could withdraw from the situation by paying a forfeit, usually a pair of gloves.

      One of the older versions of a well-known rhyme gives the same picture: 

            The rose is red, the violets are blue,

            The honey’s sweet and so are you.

            Thou art my love and I am thine.

            I drew thee to my Valentine.

            The lot was cast and then I drew

     And fortune said it should be you. 

      Comic valentines are also traditional. The habit of sending gifts is dying out, which must be disappointing for the manufacturers, who nevertheless still hopefully dish out presents for Valentine’s Day in an attempt to cash in. and the demand for valentines is increasing. According to one manufacturer, an estimated 30 million cards will have been sent by January, 14 – and not all cheap stuff, either.

Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.

     

     “Our cards cost from 6d to 15s 6d”, he says, but “ardent youngsters” want to pay more.” They can pay more. I saw a red satin heart-shaped cushion enthroning a “pearl” necklace and earrings for 25s. Another, in velvet bordered with gold lace, topped with a gilt leaf brooch, was 21s (and if anyone buys them … well, it must be love!).