Happy Easter

Happy Easter

Last year the Club Update looked at Easter traditions in France, you may like to know what happens in the UK too:

The Friday before Easter Sunday and the Monday after are a bank holidays here, however our Easter traditions start on Thursday when the Queen gives out Maundy money. Christians remember this as the day of the Last Supper. The word Maundy comes from the Latin – ‘mandatum’ = to take command’ and this refers to Jesus commanding his disciples to love one another.
The ceremony involving the Queen dates back to Edward 1, (1239 – 1307) The Queen distributes Maundy money to deserving pensioners - they number a man and woman for every year of the monarch’s age. (Quite a crowd at present!) The ceremony used to take place in Westminster Abbey but now takes place in any one of our many Cathedrals. (This year the ceremony was at St Edmund's Cathedral in Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk) Each recipient is given two purses or pouches, a white purse contains silver specially minted Maundy coins, and the red purse contains ordinary money. (To spend!!!) The pouches are carried by the Yeoman of the Guard. Before 1689 the King or Queen would also wash and kiss the feet of the poor (it should be noted that this was actually the equivalent of light rinse, the dirt had already been removed from the feet by the Yeoman of the Laundry, it’s hardly surprising that this tradition has been changed!)

Good Friday is traditionally Hot Cross Bun Day (Yum!). These are small fruited yeast buns with a cross on top, either where the baker has slashed them or where they are marked with plain dough. There is a traditional rhyme for the occasion too;

Hot cross buns,
Hot cross buns,
one ha' penny,
two ha' penny,
hot cross buns.
If you have no daughters,
give them to your sons,
one ha' penny,
two ha' penny,
Hot Cross Buns

Easter Sunday is for Easter Eggs, just like in many other countries. When I was small on Easter Sunday we would have boiled eggs for breakfast, my mother had added food coloring to the water, so that the eggshells would be pink, blue or orange. Of course we had chocolate eggs too, but not until we had eaten ALL our breakfast. (In the UK often children eat boiled eggs with fingers of toast, known as ‘soldiers’)
We sometimes have Easter egg hunts for children where small chocolate eggs are hidden around the garden and the child that finds the most is the winner, but every participant gets to eat their finds
In some places they still have egg rolling where hard boiled eggs are rolled down a hill, the owner of the last egg shell to become cracked, wins.
And of course there is also an Easter Parade in Battersea, London, where home made Easter Bonnets are worn……

Easter is often the first time that we start seeing Morris men out and about after the winter, Morris dancing dates backs to the middle ages and perhaps further, men dress up in white costumes, don hats with ribbons and wear bells around their ankles. They often wave white handkerchiefs and clap throughout the dance. The men dance through the streets in a kind of jog trot and often attract audiences outside public houses; sometimes there’s a hobby horse, sometimes a fool, and often one Morris Man carries an inflated pig’s bladder on the end of a stick. Sometimes he will hit a young eligible woman over the head with the pig’s bladder – it’s supposed to be lucky!!!

Easter Monday tends to be a big day for sport here, but there is one problem – in the UK Easter can be very cold and often wet, if that happens there is only one thing for it, we just HAVE to stay indoors and eat all that chocolate!!!

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter…….

PS. Here is a report about another odd custom http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7996823.stm