20. Royal traditions

Britain is a royal country. The British king or queen has a place in London – Buckingham Palace. Queen Elizabeth lives there now. Tourists stand outside and see the Changing of the Guard. There are always guardsmen outside the palace. Every day a new guard of thirty guardsmen marches to the palace and takes the place of the “old guard”. The changing of the guard is not a big ceremony. London has important royal ceremonies too. The State Opening of Parliament and the Trooping of the Colour are too of these.

Parliament, not the Royal Family, controls modern Britain. But traditionally the Queen opens Parliament every autumn. She travels from Buckingham Palace to the House of Parliament in a good carriage – the Irish State Coach. At the Houses of Parliament the Queen sits on a “throne” in the House of Lords and reads the “Queen’s Speech”. At the State Opening of Parliament the Queen wears a crown.

The Trooping of the Colour. The Queen is the only person in Britain with two birthdays. Her real birthday is on April 21^st, but she has an “official” birthday, too. That’s on the second Saturday in June. And on the Queen’s official birthday, there’s a traditional ceremony called the Trooping of the Colour. It’s a big Parade in London. A “regiment” of the Queen’s soldiers, the Guards, march in front of her. At the front of the Parade is the regiment’s flag or “colour”. The Guards are trooping the colour. Millions of people at home watch it on television.

Maundy Money. Maundy (страстный) Thursday is the day before Good Friday, at Easter. On that das the Queen gives Maundy money to a group of old people. This tradition is over 1,000 years old. At one time the king or queen washed the feet of poor, old people on Maundy Thursday. That stopped in 1754.

The Queen’s Telegram. This custom is not very old, but it’s for very old people. On his or her one hundredth birthday, a British person gets a telegram from the Queen.

The British people like the Queen and the royal family. They like important occasions too.

21. Traditions in the uk

TEA

The British people are the world’s greatest tea drinkers. They drink a quarter of all the tea grown in the world each year. Many of them drink it on at least eight different occasions during the day. They drink it at meals and between meals.

The love affair has been going on since 1657, when an enterprising coffee-house owner in the City of London started serving tea by the cup.

Tea is a peculiar meal. In upper class circles it is a snack of thin bread and butter and cups of tea with small cakes. For the working class people tea is a fairly substantial meal, often consisting of boiled ham and salad or a boiled egg, bread and butter and jam, and tea. On weekdays, for some families tea is the main evening meal.

GARDENING

Every Englishman is a countryman at heart, and perhaps that’s why gardening is a favourite pastime in England. The unique style of some major English gardens dates from the 18^th century, when a back-to-nature tendency was greatly in vogue.

Gardens were designed to take advantage of the natural contours of the land. Owners of broad lands built enormous landscape gardens that included lakes, small woods, and classical temples.

The British like making things grow whether it is in a window box outside the kitchen, or in the garden of many acres. That’s probably why many people prefer to live in houses rather than flats.

Flower-shows and vegetable-shows are very popular. The competitors get prizes for the best exhibits.

PETS

Britain is famous for being a nation of animal lovers, and many people in Britain keep pets. More than 50 per cent of British families own a pet. They keep some 7.7 million cats, 6.6 million dogs, one million budgerigars and 18 million goldfish. And they are increasingly adopting exotic creatures such as small farm animals, snakes, tropical fish, and spiders; an estimated 2,000 households now have reptiles.

PUBS

The word “pub” is short for “public house”. 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 you can always go to Scotland – the pubs close later there! 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 buy rounds, too.

Grammar: Present Continuous / Past Continuous, a/an/some/any, much/many, a few/a little, telling the time