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TROOPING ÒÍE COLOUR

During the month of June, à day is set aside as the Queen’s official birthday. This is usually the second Saturday in June. On this day there takes place on Horse Guards’ Parade in Whitehall the magnificent spectacle of Trooping the Colour, which begins at about 11.15 à. m. This is pageantry of ràrå splendour, with the Queen riding side-saddle on à highly trained horse.

The colours of one of the five regiments of Foot Guards are trooped before the Sovereign. As she rides on to Horse Guards’ parade the massed array of the Brigade of Guards, dressed in ceremonial uniforms, await her inspection. For twenty minutes the whole parade stands rigidly to attention while being inspected by the Queen. Then comes the Trooping ceremony itself, to be followed by the famous March Past of the Guards to the music of massed bands, at which the Queen takes the Salute. The precision drill of the
regiments is notable. The ceremony ends with the Queen returning to Buckingham Palace at the head of her Guards. The Escort to the Colour, chosen normally in strict rotation, then mounts guard at the Palace.

Midsummer's Day

Midsummer's Day, June 24th, is the longest day of the year. On that day you can see a very old custom at Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, England. Stonehenge is one of Europe's biggest stone circles. A lot of the stones are ten or twelve metres high. It's also very old. The earliest part of Stonehenge is nearly 5,000 years old. But what was Stonehenge? A holy place? A market? Or was it a kind of calendar? We think the Druids used it for a calendar. They used the sun and the stones at Stonehenge to know the start of months and seasons. There are Druids in Britain today, too. And every June 24th a lot of them go to Stonehenge. On that morning the sun shines on one famous stone - the Heel stone. For the Druids this is a very important moment in the year. But for a lot of British people it's just a strange old custom.

HALLOWEEN

Halloween means "holy evening" and takes place on October 31st. 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 à candle inside, which shines through their eyes. People play different games such as trying to eat an apple from à 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 à “trick” or “treat”. If you give them something nice, à “treat”, they go away. However, if you don’t, they play “trick” on you, such as making à 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. 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 à group of Roman Catholics as à protest against anti-Papist measures. In May 1604 the conspirators rented à house adjoining the House of Lords, from which they dug à tunnel to à 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 whenone of the conspirators wrote to à kingsman warning him to stay away from the House of Lords. On November 4 à search was made of the parliament vaults, and the gunpowder was found, together with Guy Fawkes, an English Roman Catholic/ 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.




Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1041


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