St George's Day
April 23rd is St Georges Day. It is a strange day in the English calendar because barely anyone celebrates it, or even knows about it. In most people’s minds St George is best known for slaying a dragon.
April 23rd is the birthday of our greatest playwright and poet William Shakespeare. He might possibly have been born the day before but as it was customary at that time to baptize babies on or a day after their birth it is likely that the date is correct. Shakespeare also died on 23rd April but obviously not in the same year! Little is known about his early life as distinct from our other great playwright of that time Christopher Marlowe. He was definitely born in the same year as Shakespeare but possibly not killed in Deptford on May 30th 1593.
The conspiracy still holds water that an unknown sailor was killed in his place and Marlowe was secretly got out of the country and lived in exile in Padua, Italy and wrote the Shakespeare canon from there. Marlowe’s patron was Sir Thomas Walsingham whose brother Sir Francis Walsingham, was head of Queen Elizabeth’s secret service. As Othello said: ‘I have done the state some service and they know it’; considered a reference to Marlowe’s earlier work as a secret agent in Rheims. However this is a longer story and I may come back to this at a later time on this blog if enough readers would be interested.
The strange thing about the English is that we eat haggis and drink a toast to Robbie Burns on Burns Night and drink copious pints of Guinness on St Patrick’s night but do nothing on St George’s Day.
Some people considered mildly eccentric like myself will wear a rose and drink a pint of English bitter in a traditional English pub but I will be one of the few. If you are lucky to live in a village you may find the local Morris Men dance on the village green, or outside the village pub – if it remains.
These are just a few of the things that make us English. I read that Canada is doing away with the one penny coin. It costs more to produce than it is worth. The English penny costs less to produce than it is worth but most people find it a major inconvenience. All you have to do is put the spare coins in a charity box.
If the penny were to disappear then so would a lot of our English phrases – ‘spend a penny’ for instance has long been a term for going to the toilet as most public toilets used to take a penny in the slot to gain entrance. You can read all about English currency and its influence on our language on my web page.
The loss of traditional English culture is a recurring theme in my novels and is explored once again in The Last Resort. It may be a little irreverent, offbeat and very English but if you have watched the fabric of England disappear as I have done then it may strike a very sympathetic chord.
The Last Resort
April 23rd is the birthday of our greatest playwright and poet William Shakespeare. He might possibly have been born the day before but as it was customary at that time to baptize babies on or a day after their birth it is likely that the date is correct. Shakespeare also died on 23rd April but obviously not in the same year! Little is known about his early life as distinct from our other great playwright of that time Christopher Marlowe. He was definitely born in the same year as Shakespeare but possibly not killed in Deptford on May 30th 1593.
The conspiracy still holds water that an unknown sailor was killed in his place and Marlowe was secretly got out of the country and lived in exile in Padua, Italy and wrote the Shakespeare canon from there. Marlowe’s patron was Sir Thomas Walsingham whose brother Sir Francis Walsingham, was head of Queen Elizabeth’s secret service. As Othello said: ‘I have done the state some service and they know it’; considered a reference to Marlowe’s earlier work as a secret agent in Rheims. However this is a longer story and I may come back to this at a later time on this blog if enough readers would be interested.
The strange thing about the English is that we eat haggis and drink a toast to Robbie Burns on Burns Night and drink copious pints of Guinness on St Patrick’s night but do nothing on St George’s Day.
Some people considered mildly eccentric like myself will wear a rose and drink a pint of English bitter in a traditional English pub but I will be one of the few. If you are lucky to live in a village you may find the local Morris Men dance on the village green, or outside the village pub – if it remains.
These are just a few of the things that make us English. I read that Canada is doing away with the one penny coin. It costs more to produce than it is worth. The English penny costs less to produce than it is worth but most people find it a major inconvenience. All you have to do is put the spare coins in a charity box.
If the penny were to disappear then so would a lot of our English phrases – ‘spend a penny’ for instance has long been a term for going to the toilet as most public toilets used to take a penny in the slot to gain entrance. You can read all about English currency and its influence on our language on my web page.
The loss of traditional English culture is a recurring theme in my novels and is explored once again in The Last Resort. It may be a little irreverent, offbeat and very English but if you have watched the fabric of England disappear as I have done then it may strike a very sympathetic chord.
The Last Resort
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