4. Uk special observances with historical background St Valentine’s Day

Traditionally, spring begins on St Valentine’s^* Day (February 14^th), the day on which birds chose their mates. In parts of Sussex Valentine’s Day was called “The Birds’ Wedding Day”.

Each year in Britain, people spend around £503m on cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts for Valentine’s Day. Traditionally these were sent anonymously, but nowadays people often make it clear who is sending each “Valentine”.

There are many traditions and tales associated with romance activities on Valentine’s Day including:

• the first man an unmarried woman saw on 14^th February would be her future husband;

• if the names of all a girl’s suitors were written on paper and wrapped in clay and the clay put into water, the piece that rose to the surface first would contain the name of her husband-to-be;

• if a woman saw a robin flying overhead on Valentine’s Day, it meant she would marry a sailor. If she saw a sparrow, she would marry a poor man and be very happy. If she saw a goldfinch, she would marry a rich person.

Mothering Sunday (Mother’s Day)

Today, Mothering Sunday in the UK is the equivalent of Mothers’ Day in other countries. However, unlike in other countries it has religious origins.

Mothering Sunday is always the fourth Sunday of Lent, which traditionally was a day dedicated to Virgin Mary and the “mother church”. On this day people visited not their local church, but a large church, or more often the nearest Cathedral. Anyone who did this was commonly said to have gone "a-mothering”. In later times, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother Church, usually with their own mothers and other family members. It was often the only time that whole families could gather together, since holidays had not been invented yet, that was the only day in the year that they were allowed off. In the 20^th century, influenced by foreign traditions, people from Ireland and the UK started celebrating Mother's Day, but on the same day that Mothering Sunday was celebrated, the fourth Sunday in Lent. The two celebrations have now been mixed up, and many people think that they are the same thing.

Mothering Sunday is a time when children pay respect to their Mothers. Children often give their Mothers a gift and a card. Many churches give the children in the congregation a little bunch of spring flowers during the Mothering Sunday service, to give to their Mothers as a thank you for all their care and love throughout the year.

April Fools’ Day

April begins with a day of fun and jokes – April Fools’ Day (1 April). No one really knows when this custom began but it has been kept for hundreds of years.

It is commonly believed that April Fool came about because of the change of calendars. In 1582, Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar, called the Gregorian calendar, which is still used today. The new calendar was introduced because the old calendar, called the Julian calendar, was ahead by ten days because each year was a little too long. Gregory moved the new calendar forward by ten days.

In the Julian calendar, the old calendar, New Year was celebrated from March 25^th to April 1^st. The first day of the Gregorian calendar is January 1^st. In France, people were forgetful and other people refused to accept the new calendar, so they still celebrated New Year on April 1^st. Other people would play tricks on them and call them April Fools.

There is a belief among Jews that the custom of making fools on the first of April arose from the fact that Noah sent out the dove on the first of the month corresponding to our April.

April fooling became popular in England and Scotland during the 1700s. April Fool jokes usually involve persuading someone to do something silly, like looking for hen’s teeth, striped paint, a long weight, a left-handed screwdriver or some other non-existent thing. However, one can only play April Fools on people before midday – at midday the fun must stop.

One of the great April Fool jokes took place on April 1^st, 1957. The BBC TV programme Panorama did a documentary on “spaghetti farmers” growing “spaghetti trees”. The hoax Panorama programme featured a family from Ticino in Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest. It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry. The joke was an enormous success. Hundreds of people believed there were such things as spaghetti trees. Soon after the broadcast ended, the BBC began to receive hundreds of calls from puzzled viewers. Did spaghetti really grow on trees, they wanted to know. Others were eager to learn how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC reportedly replied that they should “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best”.