the coast. If the weather is fine many families take а 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 а 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 Ме 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 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
Holidays and traditions in English – speaking countries.
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
