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Customs and Traditions /english/

There are cucumber sandwiches and scones. (Scones are plain cakes. You eat them with jam and cream.) There are chocolate cakes and cream cakes too.

CHRISTMAS PUDDING

Some people make this pudding months before Christmis.

A lot of families have thcir own Christmas pudding recipe~.

Some, for example, use a lot of brandy. Others put in a lot of

fruit or add a silver coin for good luck.

Real Christmas puddings always have a piece of holly on the top. Holly bushes and trees have red berries at Chris~mas-ume, and so people use holly to decorate their houses for Christmas. The holly on the pudding is part of the decoration. Also, you can pour brandy over the pudding and light it with a match.

HOT CROSS BUNS

The first Christians in Rome made hot cross buns two thousand years ago. But now they're an Easter tradition in Britain. Here's a storv about hot cross buns. In 1800 a widow lived in a house in East London. Her only son was a sailor and went to sea. Everv vear she made hot cross buns and kept one for him. He never came back, but she kept a bun for him every year. Then, after many, years, she died. Now, her house is a pub. It's called 'The Widow's Son". For a long time people remembered the widow. Every Easter they put a hot cross bun in a special basket in the pub. Now the tradition is different. The owner of the pub sells the special hot cross bun. Then he gives the money to the British Sailors' Societv.

PUBS

Pubs are an important part of British life. People talk, eat, drink, meet their friends and relax there. They are open at lunchtime and again in the evening. But they close at 11.00 (10.30 on Sundays). This surprises a lot of tourists. But vou can always go to Scotland - the pubs close later there!

The word "pub" is short for "public house". There are thousands in Britain, and they nearly all sell pub lunches. One of these is a Ploughman's Lunch a very simple meal. It's ust bread and cheese.

Pubs also sell beer. (British beer is always warm.) The traditional kind is called 'real ale'. That's a very strong beer from an old recipe.

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 other people but rounds, too.

If they are with friends, British people sometimes lift their glasses before they drink and sav "Cheersš This means "Good luck".

In the pubs in south-west Lngland there~s another traditional drink - scrumpy. You make scrumpy with apples, but it's not a simple fruit juice. It's very very strong.

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.

EMBLEMS

Each country also has a national "emblem" or sign. The English emblem is a red rose. The Welsh emblem is a vegetable or flower - a leek or a daffodil. The Scottish emblem is a wild plant - a thistle. And the Irish emblem is another wild plant - a shamrock.

It's traditional in Britain to wear your country's emblem on its saint's day. The leek doesn't go in a buttonhole, so the Welsh often wear a daffodil. These are Britain's patron saints and their days.

England - St George - April 23rd. Ireland - Si Patrick - March 17th. Scotland - St Andrew - November 30th. Wales - St David - March 1st.

The Scots, Welsh and English don't really celebrate their national saint's days. But St Patrick's Day is important for Irish people all over the world. In New York, for example, the Irish people always have a big St Patrick's Day parade.

Costumes and clothes

Many British costumes and uniforms have a long history. One is the uniform of the Beefeaters at the Tower of London. This came first from France. Another is the uniform of the Horse Guards at Horse Guards' Parade, not far from Buckingham Palace. Thousands of visitors take photographs of the Horse Guards, but the Guards never move or smile. In fact some visitors think the Guards aren't real. And that brings us to...Britannia. She wears traditional clothes, too. But she's not a real person. She is symbol of Britain.

Lots of ordinary clothes have a long tradition. The famous bowler hat, for example. A man called Beaulieu made the first one in 1850.

š The very cold winters in the Crimea in the war of 1853-56 gave us the names of the cardigan and the balaclava. Lord Cardigan led the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava (1854). A "cardigan" is now a warm woollen short coat with buttons, and a "balaclava" is a woollen hat.

Another British soldier, Wellington, gave his name to a pair of boots. They have a shorter name today - "Wellies".raced on the river Thames and the Oxford boat won. That started a tradition. Now, every Spring, the University Boat Race goes from Putney to Mortlake on the Thames. That's 6.7 kilometres. The Cambridge rowers wear light blue shirts and the Oxford roWers wear dark blue. There are eight men in each boat. There's also a "cox". The cox controls the boat. Traditionally coxes are men, but Susan Brown became the first woman cox in 1981. She was the cox for Oxford and they won.

ROYAL ASCOT

Ascot is a small, quiet town in the south of England. But in June for one week it becomes the centre of the horse-racing world. It's called Royal Ascot because the Queen always goes to Ascot. She has a lot of racehorses and likes to watch racing. But Ascot week isn't just for horseracing. It's for fashion, too. One woman, Mrs Gertrude Shilling, always wears very big hats. You can see the racecourse in the picture below.

WIMBLEDON

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 don't have to wear long trousers.

But other traditions haven't changed at Wimbledon. The courts are still grass, and visitors still eat strawberries arid cream. The language of tennis hasn't changed either. Did you know that "love" (zero) comes from "l'oeuf" (the egg) in French?

THE LONDON TO BRIGHTON VINTAGE CAR RALLY

š"Vintage" cars have to be.ššš more than fifty years old and in very good condition. Lots of people keep or collect vintage cars. And on the first Sunday in November there's a race or "Tally" for them. It starts in London and it finishes in Brighton, a town on the south coast of England. That's a distance of seventy kilometres.

Before 1896 a man with a red flag had to walk in front of cars. In 1896 that changed. A group of happy drivers broke their flags and drove to Brighton. There they had a party. Now the rally is a sporting tradition.

A lot of the people in the rally wear "vintage" clothes, too. In a 1910 car, for example, the driver and passengers wear 1910 hats and coats.

BOXING DAY HUNTSš

Traditionally Boxing Day is a day for foxhunting. The huntsmen and huntswomen ride horses. They use dogs, too. The dogs (fox hounds) follow the smell of the fox. Then the huntsmen and huntswomen follow the hounds.

Before a Boxing Day hunt, the huntsmen and huntswomen drink hot wine. But the tradition of the December 26th hunt is changing. Now, some people want to stop Boxing Day hunts (and other hunts, too). They don't like foxhunting.