like the White City Stadium, mainly all kinds of athletics. There are also

horse rасe meetings all over the country, and most traditional of all,

there are large fairs with swings, roundabouts, coconut shies, а 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 а 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 а broad road which is blocked with а solid,

almost

Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.

immovable mass of humanity on those days when the fair is open. The walk is

not more than а quarter of а 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. Неге 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 а hundred and one other things of

value.

А 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 а 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

о'clock (Sunday excepted) а vast audience assembled at the Royal Albert

Hall rises for the playing and singing of the National Anthem. А 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 а very great number of people,

because the ВВС 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 а great audience is attracted is that the Proms

present every year а large repertoire of classical works under the best

conductors and with the best artists. А season provides an anthology of

masterpieces.

Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.

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 а 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 nо 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

Hall had become а casualty of the air-raids (in 1941), and was gutted.

HALLOWEEN

Halloween means "holy evening" and takes place on October 31st.

Although it is а much more important festival in the USA than in Britain,

it is celebrated by many people in the United Kingdom. It is particularly

connected with witches and ghosts.

At parties people dress up in strange costumes and pretend they are

witches. They cut horrible faces in potatoes and other vegetables and put а

candle inside, which shines through their eyes. People play different games

such as trying to eat an apple from а bucket of water without using their

hands.

In recent years children dressed in white sheets knock on doors at

Halloween and ask if you would like а “trick” or “treat”. If you give them

something nice, а “treat”, they go away. However, if you don’t, they play а

“trick” on you, such as making а lot of noise or spilling flour on your

front doorstep.

GUY FAWKES NIGHT (BONFIRE NIGHT) — NOVEMBER 5

Guy Fawkes Night is one of the most popular festivals in Great

Britain. It commemorates the discovery of the so-called Gunpowder Plot, and

is widely celebrated throughout the country. Below, the reader will find

the necessary information concerning the Plot, which, as he will see, may

never have existed, and the description of the traditional celebrations.

Gunpowder Plot. Conspiracy to destroy the English Houses of Parliament

and King James I when the latter opened Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605.

Engineered by а group of Roman Catholics as а protest against anti-Papist

measures. In May 1604 the conspirators rented а house adjoining the House

of Lords, from which they dug а tunnel to а vault below that house, where

they stored 36 barrels of gunpowder. It was planned that when king and

parliament were destroyed the Roman Catholics should attempt to seize

power. Preparations for the plot had been completed when, on October 26,

one of the conspirators wrote to а kinsman, Lord Monteagle, warning

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him to stay away from the House of Lords. On November 4 а search was made

of the parliament vaults, and the gunpowder was found, together with Guy

Fawkes (1570 — 1606), an English Roman Catholic in the pay of Spain (which

was making political capital out of Roman Catholics discontent in England).

Fawkes had been commissioned to set off the explosion. Arrested and

tortured he revealed the names of the conspirators, some of whom were

killed resisting arrest. Fawkes was hanged. Detection of the plot led to

increased repression of English Roman Catholics. The Plot is still

commemorated by an official ceremonial search of the vaults before the

annual opening of Parliament, also by the burning of Fawkes's effigy and

the explosion of fireworks every Nov. 5.

Thanksgiving Day

Every year, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. Families and friends get

together for a big feast. It is a legal holiday in the US. Many people go

to church in the morning and at home they have a big dinner with turkey.

People gather to give the God thanks for all the good things in their

lives.

Thanksgiving is the harvest festival. The celebration was held in 1621

after the first harvest in New England. In the end of 1620 the passengers

from the Mayflower landed in America and started settling there. Only half

of the people survived the terrible winter. In spring the Indians gave the

settlers some seeds of Indian corn and the first harvest was very good.

Later, Thanksgiving Days following harvest were celebrated in all the

colonies of New England, but not on the same day. In October 1863 President

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving. In 191, the US Congress

Named fourth Thursday of November a Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving Day is a

“day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with

which Canada has been blessed”. Regular annual observance began in 1879.

Since 1957 Thanksgiving Day has been observed on the second Monday in

October.

St. Andrew’s Day

In some areas, such as Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire,

and Northamptonshire, St Andrew was regarded as the patron saint of lace-

makers and his day was thus kept as a holiday, or “tendering feast”, by

many in that trade. Thomas Sternberg, describing customs in mid-19th-

century Northampton shire, claims that St Andrew’s Day Old Style (11

December) was a major festival day “in many out of the way villages” of the

country: “… the day is one of unbridled license- a kind of carnival;

village scholars bar out the master, the lace schools are deserted, and

drinking and feasting prevail to a riotous extent. Towards evening the

villagers walk about and masquerade, the women wearing men’s dress and the

men wearing female

Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.

attire, visiting one another’s cottages and drinking hot Elderberry wine,

the chief beverage of the season …”. In Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, a

future of the day was the making and eating of Tandry Wigs. A strange

belief reported Wright and Lones dedicate that wherever lilies of the

valley grow wild the parish church is usually to St Andrew.

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS

Christmas Day is observed on the 25th of December. In Britain this day

was а festival long before the conversion to Christianity. The English

historian the Venerable Bede relates that “the ancient peoples of Angli

began the year on the 25th of December, and the very night was called in

their tongue modranecht, that is ‘mother’s night’. Thus it is not

surprising that many social customs connected with the celebration of

Christmas go back to pagan times, as, for instance, the giving of presents.

Indeed, in 1644 the English puritans forbade the keeping of Christmas by

Act of Parliament, on the grounds that it was а heathen festival. At the

Restoration Charles II revived the feast.

Though religion in Britain has been steadily losing ground and

Christmas has practically no religious significance for the majority of the

population of modern Britain, it is still the most widely celebrated

festival in all its parts except Scotland. The reason for this is clear.

With its numerous, often rather quaint social customs, it is undoubtedly

the most colourful holiday of the year, and, moreover one that has always

been, even in the days when most people were practising Christian, а time

for eating, drinking and making merry.

However, despite the popularity of Christmas, quite а number of

English people dislike this festival, and even those who seem to celebrate

it wholeheartedly, have certain reservations about it. The main reason for

this is that Christmas has become the most commercialized festival of the

year. The customs and traditions connected with Christmas, for example

giving presents and having а real spree once а year, made it an easy prey

to the retailers, who, using modern methods of advertising, force the

customer to buy what he neither wants nor, often, can reasonably afford.

It is not only children and members of the family that exchange

presents nowadays. Advertising has widened this circle to include not only

friends and distant relations, but also people you work with. An average

English family sends dozens and dozens of Christmas cards, and gives and

receive almost as many often practically useless presents. For people who

are well off this entails no hardship, but it is no small burden for

families with small budgets. Thus saving up for Christmas often starts

months before the festival, and Christmas clubs have become а national

institution among the working class and lower-middle class. These are

generally run by shopkeepers and publicans over а period of about eight

weeks or longer. Into these the housewives pay each week а certain amount

of money for their Christmas bird

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and joint, their Christmas groceries and so on, the husband as а rule

paying into the club run by the local pub, for the drinks.

As much of this spending is forced upon people and often means that а

family has to do without things they really need, it inevitably leads to

resentment towards the

festival. Needless to say that it isn’t the old customs and traditions that

are to blame, but those who make huge profits out of the nationwide

spending spree which they themselves had boosted beyond any reasonable

proportion.

The Christmas Pantomime

А pantomime is а traditional English entertainment at Christmas. It is

meant for children, but adults enjoy just as much. It is а very old form of

entertainment, and can be traced back to 16th century Italian comedies.

Harlequin is а character from these old comedies.

There have been а lot of changes over the years. Singing and dancing

and all kinds of jokes have been added; but the stories which are told are

still fairy tales, with а hero, а heroine, and а villian. Because they are

fairy tales we do not have to ask who will win in the end! The hero always

wins the beautiful princess, the fairy queen it triumphant and the demon

king is defeated. In every pantomime there are always three main

characters. These are the “principal boy”, the “principal girl”, and the

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