Traditions customs and habits of great Вritain

There is another curious in the Parliament. In front of the Members’ benches in the House of Commons you will see a strip of carpet. When a Member speaking in the House puts his foot beyond that strip there is a shout “Order”. This dates back to the time when the Members had swords on them and during a heated discussion might want to start fighting. The word “order” remind the hotheads that no fighting was allowed in the House. The carpet became the limit, a sort of a frontier.

The day in the Parliament ends with the Speaker leaving the Chamber through the door behind his Chair to the cries of “Who goes home?” and “Usual time tomorrow”. These cries are relict of the days when the streets were unsafe and the members went together for safety and when there were no fixed hours for meetings.

In the House of Commons there are only 437 seats for 625 Members. The admittance of the sittings is not obligatory. And if more than 437 Members turn up for some important debate they to stand.

When the Members of Parliament vote, they “divide”, those voting “yes” file out to the lobby on the Speaker’s right; and “no’s” go through to the lobby to his left. In each lobby they are counted by 2 Members called “tellers”*.

 

2. The Chamber of the House of Lords

At the end of the Chamber stands the Throne. In front of it is the Woolsack* where the Lord Chancellor wearing a full – bottomed wig, court dress and a grown, sits as Speaker of the House of Lords.

The Woolsack is traditionally held to have been placed in the House in the reign of Edward the Third. Records of the House of Lords how that “the Judges shall sit on woolsack” – emblematic of England’s one time the woolsack came to be stuffed with hair. But in 1938 it was restuffed with wool. It is a big square divan with a kind of back in the middle, upholstered in red leather.

 

3. The State Opening of Parliament

The opening of Parliament at the beginning of a session is preceded by a ceremony that is steeped in ancient tradition and dressed in the full panoply of a royal and state occasion. It is the most colourful, as well as the most important ceremony of the year.

Her Majesty* the Queen, attended by a sovereign’s escort of the Household Cavalry*, drives in state from Buckingham Palace to the Sovereign’s Entrance beneath the Victoria Tower at the south end of the Palace of Westminster. The route is lined regiments of Footguards* wearing the black bearskins* which have for so long been a symbol of courage and loyal service.

At the foot of the Royal Staircase which is lined by Household Cavalry, her Majesty is received by the great officers of the State.

The Procession heard by the four Pursuivants* wearing their taburds* embroidered with the royal arms passes through the Royal Gallery and between lines of Beefeaters* and Gentlemen-at-Arms* in uniforms of scarlet, black and gold. The Queen magnificently appareled in robes of state, crowned, and wearing many of the finest crown jewels, enters the House of Lords. The assembly rises to its feet. The peers are in their scarlet robes; the archbishops and judges in scarlet; the Diplomatic corps is blasing with gold and decorations.

Her Majesty occupies the throne and says: “My Lords, pray be seated”. At the Queen’s request the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod* procedes to the House of Commons to command the presence of its members at the Bar of the House of Lords*. The door of  the Commons Chamber is slammed in his face by the Sergeant-at-Arms. Thus do the Commons maintain their ancient right to deny royal access* to their Chamber.

(King Charles I  (1625-1649) was he last English King ever to enter the House of Commons).

Black Rod knocks three times with his rod of office, and the door is opened. He advances towards the Speaker and delivers his message, whereupon the Commons, proceded by the Speaker and the chief ministers, repair to the Bar of the House of Lords.

When the Commons are assembled at the Bar, the Lord Chancellor kneels before the Queen and hands her a copy of the royal speech, which has been prepared by the policy which the Government intends to follow and the measures which it proposes to adopt during the session about to be open. At the conclusion of the Queen’s speech the Commons return to their Chamber. The Queen is escorted to her coach and returns to Buckingham Palace.

 

4. Search the Parliamentary Cellars

Before the opening of Parliament half a dozen “Beefeaters” do the searching of the cellars underneath the Houses of Parliament, in memory of Guy Fawkes and the Gun Powder Plot* in 1605.

Guy Fawkes was the chief instrument in the Gun Powder which was intended to blow up James I and his anti-Roman Catholic Government at the opening of Parliament on the 5^th of November, 1605. the plot miscarried owing to an anonymous warning sent to Lord Monteagle. Fawkes was arrested among the barrels of gunpowder that he had stacked beneath the House of Lords. He was tortured by order of James I  and signer confessions. These  confessions were used as evidence at the trial in Westminster Hall of Fawkes and his fellow-conspirators, who were sentenced to be hanged, drown and quartered.

The 5^th of November is marked in England as Guy Fawkes Day. In the evening bonfires are lit on high hills and fireworks are let off in the streets.

“Please to remember the 5^th of November, Gun Powder Treason and Plot”, are the first lines of the song heard on this day.      

 

 

3. PAGEANTRY

 

Pageantry* and other colourful ceremonies are part of every day life in Britain.

 

1. Royal Ceremonies*

 

The Changing of the Guard

The Changing of the Guard* at Buckingham and St. James’s Palaces era ceremonies of great interest. Each new guard mounts sentries* for 24 hours, though sometimes the guard remains on duty for 48 hours.

The ceremony at Buckingham Palace takes place daily 11.30 a.m. By tradition the duty of mounting the Queen’s Guard is undertaken by one occasionally the honour is given to a Regiment of the Line* or to one of other Services*. The ceremony is attended by one of the Regimental bands.

At the Horse Guards* in the Whitehalf the Changing of the Queen’s Life Guard Of Household Cavalry* takes place at 11 a.m. on weekdays and at 10 a.m. on Sundays.

 

Trooping the Colour*

It is annual ceremony which blends two ancient military custom-guard mounting and lodging the colours. It recalls the day when each company of soldiers had its own colours clearly visible as rallying points in dust and confusion of battle. Each evening the colours were ceremonially carried down the ranks and escorted to a billet be lodged for the night.

From this derives the magnificent display of the marching and wheeling by the Regiments of the brigade of Guards, which marks the Sovereign’s Birthday (in June).                  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __

 

At  different traditional ceremonies you will see bright and very picturesque uniforms worn by the guards, troopers and sentries of her Majesty’s own Royal Guards Regiments. The troopers of the horse Guards regiment which has existed since the 12^th century, have bright red gold uniforms, shining top-boots, golden helmets with features.

The Gurkha soldiers* wear high Gurkha fur hats.

Drums are drumming, banners are flying, the drummer’ sticks and flying up in the air.

 

 

 

 

2. Lord Mayor’s Day

Lord Mayor* of London lives in the City – in the Mansion House* – a big, impressive house with a classic front very much like a Greek temple.

The Lord Mayor is the first citizen of the City and the first Magistrate*. He has the Keys of the City. No troops are allowed to cross the limits of the City, neither King or Queen are allowed to come here without his permission.

The Lord Mayor is elected every year by the Aldermen and every year on the second Saturday in November there is a great ceremony – “The Lord Mayor’s Show”.

The streets are packed with people, nobody wants to miss the great event. The Lord Mayor is dressed in a traditional medieval red velvet robe with fur, and a golden chain, and a fantastic hat. He has flowers in his hands . the escort clad in picturesque 17^th  century uniform according to tradition, the Household Cavalry, the State Trumpeters and several military bands all lend additional splendour to the scene.

The Lord Mayor drives slowly through the cheering crowded streets from the Guildhall* to the High Court of Justice* to receive from the magistrates the key of the City. The gilded historic carriage  (300 years old) is drawn by six horses in red and gold harness. After the election the Lord Mayor holds his Grand Banquet in the Guildhall of the Corporation of the City.

 

3. The Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower

Every night at 9.53 p.m. the Chief Warder of the Tower carries out the time-honored routine of locking up the Tower. Known as the Ceremony of the Keys, this has taken place almost without a break for 700 years. The Chief Warder and his escort of four approach the gates. The sentry calls out:

“Halt, who comes there?”

“The Keys.”

“Whose Keys?”

“Queen Elisabeth’s Keys.”

“Advance, Queen Elisabeth’s Keys. All is well.”

The custodians of the Tower are the Yeomen Warders*, known as “Beefeaters”*. They wear a state dress uniform dating from Tudor times. It consists of funny flat hats, trousers bound at the knee, and the Royal monogram on their breast. These traditional medieval clothes make the old castle look still more fantastic and theatrical. Nowadays these Yeomen-Warders act as guides taking tourists around the Tower and telling them numerous histories and legends associated with place. Usually they are veterans of the Second World War. Often you will see war medals on their traditional uniforms.

A number of ravens have their home at the Tower, and they are officially “on the strength of the garrison”. There is a superstition that when the ravens fly away the Tower will be the sign of the downfall of the British Empire. Because of this superstition the wings of the ravens are regularly clipped.  

The Tower is one of the oldest historical monuments of London. It dates from the 11^th century. In 1088 William the Conqueror, selected this place for election of the White Tower and in later years various kings extended the defences of the fortress.

In its long history the Tower has served as fortress, Royal palace and prison. Sir Thomas More, Author of the famous Utopia, Sir Walter Releigh, navigator explorer and historian, Henri the Eight’s, queens Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey, Guy Fawkes, to mention but a few were among the numerous “privileged” people beheaded in the Tower. Perhaps the blackest of the many crimes committed in the Tower in those troubled time was the murder by the tyrannical Richard the Third of the two boy princes.

Now the Tower is a museum. You can see there a great collection of weapons of different times, tools of torture, knights’ armour, numerous Royal Regalia-swords, scepters, crowns. Tourists are usually attracted by the famous and priceless Crown Jewels. The imperial State Crown, for example contains 2.783 diamonds, 277 pearls, 14 sapphires, 11 emeralds and 5 rubies.

 

 

4. SOME TRADITIONS UF UNIVERSITY LIFE

 

1. Cambridge

Cambridge is situated at a distance of 70 miles from London; the greater part of the town lies on the left bank of the river Cam crossed by several bridges.

Cambridge is one of the loveliest towns of England. It is very green presenting to a visitor a series of beautiful groupings of architecture, trees, gardens, lawns and bridges. The main building material is stone having a pinkish color which adds life and warms to the picture at all seasons of the year.

The dominating factor in Cambridge is University, a center of education and learning. Newton, Byron, Darwin, Rutherford and many other scientists and writers were educated at Cambridge. In Cambridge everything centers on the university and its Colleges, the eldest of which was founded in 1284. They are 27 in number. The college is a group of buildings forming a square with a green lawn in the center. An old tradition does not allow the students to walk on the grass, this is the privilege of professors and head-students only. There is another tradition which the students are to follow: after sunset they are not allowed to go out without wearing a black cap and a black cloak.

The University trains about 7.000 students. They study for 4 years, 3 teams a year. The long vacation lasts 3 months. They are trained by a tutor; each tutor has 10-12 students reading under his guidance. There is a close connection between the University and colleges, through they era separate in theory and practice.

A college is a place where you live no matter what profession you are trained for; so that students studying literature and those trained for physics belong to one and the same college. However the fact is that you are to be a member of a college in order to be a member of the University.  

The students eat their meals in the college dining-hall. At some colleges there is a curious custom known as “sooncing”. If a should come late to dinner or not be correctly dressed or if he should break one of the little unwritten laws of behaviour, then the senior student present may order him to be “soonced”. The Butler brings in a large silver cup, known as “sconce cup”, filled with offender, who must drink it in one attempt without taking the cup from his lips. (It holds two and half pints). If he succeeds then the senior student pays for it, if not, the cup is passed round the table at the expense of the student who has been “sconced”. Now the origin of this custom.

Until 1954, undergraduates (students studying for the first degree) had to wear cloaks, called gowns, after dark, but now they are only obliged to wear them for dinner and some lectures. This tradition is disappearing, but one which is still upheld is that of punting on the Cam. It is a favourite summer pastime for students to take food, drink, guitars (or, alas, transistor radios) and girl friends on to a punt (a long, slim boat, rather like a gandola) and sail down the rive, trying very hard to forget about exams. Many students feel that they have not been christened into the University until they have fallen into the River Cam. This has almost become a tourist attraction.

Students also have an official excuse to “let themselves loose” once a year (usually in November) on Rag Day*.

On this day, hundreds of different schemes are thought up to collect money for charity, and it is not unusual to see students in the streets playing guitars, pianos, violins, singing, dancing, eating fire, fishing in drains for money, or even just lying in beds suspended over the street swinging a bucket for money to be thrown into.

 

Lilies and Roses

On May 21^st every year, Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, honour the memory of their founder, Henry VI, who died very suddenly, and was almost certainly murdered, in the Tower of London on that day in 1471. he is generally supposed to have been killed whilst at prayer in the Oratory of the Wakefield Tower, and here, on the anniversary, the Ceremony of the lilies and Roses now takes place. Representatives of both colleges walk in procession with Beefeaters and the Chaplain of the Tower, and the short service is conducted by the latter, during which a player composed by Henry himself is said. A  marble tablet in the in the Oratory marks the place where the King is believed to have died, and on each side of it flowers are laid – lilies from Eton bound with pale blue silk, and white roses from King’s College, bound with purple ribbon. They are left there for twenty-four hours, and then they are burnt.                                 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

V. SCOTTISH TRADITIONS

 

The thistle is the national emblem of Scotland. This is how, according to a curious legend, this plant came to be chosen as a badge, in preference to any other. Many years ago the Vikings once landed somewhere on the east coast of Scotland. The Scots assembled with their arms and took their stations behind the River Tay. As they arrived late in the day, weary and tired after a long march, they pitched their camp and rested, not expecting the enemy before the next day. The Vikings, however, were near: noticing that no guards were protecting the camp, they crossed the Tay, intending to take the Scots by surprise. For this purpose they took off their shoes so as to make the least possible noise. But one of them stepped on a thistle. The sudden and sharp pain he felt caused him to shriek. The alarm was given in the Scots' camp. The Vikings were put to fight, and as an acknowledgement for the timely and unexpected help from the thistle,  the Scots took it as their national emblem.

 

The Scottish national costume  (Highland dress) includes a kilt worn by men. For day wear, the kilt is worn with a tweed jacket, plain long socks, a beret and a leather sporran, that is, a pouch hanging from a narrow belt round the hips. The Scottish beret — tam-o'-shanter — is a woollen cap without a brim but with a pompon or a feather on top, traditionally worn pulled down at one side.  It got its name after Tam o' Shanter, the hero of Burns's poem of that name.

 

The Clan

The Gaelic word "clan" means "children", and the central idea of a clan is kinship. Nowadays it refers, as a rule, only to Highland families, in Scotland. A clan is a family, and theoretically the chief is the father of it, although not every clansman can be a direct descendant of the founder.

Many people in Scotland today will be surprised to learn that those who founded the present clans were not themselves always Highlanders, but included Normans (Gordon, Eraser), Bretons  (Stuart), Flemings  (Murrey, Sutherland). Irish (MacNeil), and Norsemen (MacLeod), Mac meaning "son of". Concerning that early period of their settlement, which was between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, we must not be dogmatic on the subject of nationality; the important point is that all these were "incomers" to the Highlands.

When the incomers acquired their land they virtually took over a good many people who were living on it, and who, perhaps, were already formed into a family or clan unit. Gradually the old clan came to acknowledge the protection of their new leader, and at last built up a nominal kinship with him.  In course of time intermarriage made it difficult to determine how far this kinship was nominal and how far real.

Under the patriarchal system of clanship, which reached its peak in the sixteenth century, order of precedence was strictly observed. First, after the chief himself, came members of his immediate family, his younger sons and grandsons, and then the clansmen. All of them, whether connected by blood or not, owned a common heritage of loyalty as clansmen. In return for the help and support of his clansmen, the chief was their leader in war and their arbiter in peace. Even in the early days the king was, in theory at least, the "chief of chiefs", and as the royal power spread through the Highlands the chiefs were made responsible for the good conduct of their clansmen. Among the most famous clans were: Campbell, Fraser, Munro, Cameron, Stewart, Murray, MacDonald, Maclean and Mackenzie.

The great period of the clans declined by the beginning of the eighteenth century and the failure of the Jacobite Risings in 1715 and 1745 completed the destruction. But today clan societies flourish in Scotland and, perhaps more ' bravely, elsewhere in the world. These societies are acquiring land and property in their respective clan countries, financing magazines, establishing museums to preserve the relics, founding educational trusts, and — perhaps above all — keeping alive the family spirit.

The Tartan

Tartan is and has for centuries been the distinguishing mark of the Highlander. It has a long history. Evidence can be brought to show that as long as the thirteenth century, and probably earlier, Highlanders wore brightly coloured striped or checked tartan plaids, which they called "breacan". There is some controversy about clan tartans as such. Traditionalists state the Highlanders wore tartan as a badge so that they could recognize each other and distinguish friend from foe in battle. Like many theories, this looks well on paper, but in practice it seems to break down. Even though the old tartans were simpler than the modern ones, they could not easily be recognized at a distance.

On the other hand, various descriptions can be quoted to show that, in the Highlands, the patterns of the tartans were considered important. A district tartan is a very natural development in a country divided into small communities. By the sixteenth century the particular patterns of tartan worn in a district were connected with the predominant local clan. But the study of the portraits shows that there was no uniformity of tartan even in the early eighteenth century.  Members of the same family are found wearing very different tartan and, what is more surprising, many of the men are seen to wear the kilt of one tartan and a Jacket of another. The history of development of tartan was sharply broken in 1747, when wearing of Highland dress was forbidden by law after the failure of 1745.

In the early years of the nineteenth century efforts were made to collect authentic patterns of each clan tartan, but this does not seem to have been very successful. The fashion for tartan was fostered by the amazing spectacle of a kilted King George IV at holyrood in 1822, and demands for clan tartan poured into the manufactures. The wave of enthusiasm for tartan outstripped the traditional knowledge of the Highlanders, and it was at this time and in response to popular demand that a great many of familiar present-day tartans became associated with their respective clans. Some of the patterns had previously been identified by numbers only, while some were invented on the spot, as variations of the old traditional patterns.

The term "Highland dress'' has not always meant the same thing. In the seventeenth century the ki1t was not worn. Clansmen wrapped themselves in a generous length of tartan cloth some sixteen feet wide. The upper portion covered the wearer's shoulders, and it was belted at the waist, the lower portion hanging in rough folds to the knees. In the eighteenth century, this belted plaid was superseded by the kilt. Modern Highland dress consists of a day-time kilt of heavy material, sometimes in a darker tartan, worn with a tweed jacket, while for the evening finer material, possibly in a brighter "dress" tartan, can be matched with a variety of accessories.

Food and Drink

What sort of food has Scotland to offer the stranger? Scotland produces a number of dishes: Scots collops – a savoury dish popularly known as "mince", small mutton pies which must be served piping hot and the immortal haggis. And no country has a greater variety of puddings and pies, creams, jellies, and trifles.

The excellence of Scottish soups has been attributed to the early and long connection between Scotland and France, but there are some genuine soups, such as Barley Broth, Powsowdie or Sheep’s Head Broth. Hotch Potch or Harvest Broth. Baud Bree (Hare Soup) is flavoured with toasted oatmeal and Cullen Skink is made with a smoked haddock.