In early Victorian times, around the country a number of organisations were set up to make improvements in farming and to educate the labouring classes. One of the main initiatives were the founding of the Royal Agricultural Society of England in 1840.
I GREW up about two miles from the Grand Union Canal and spent quite a bit of my childhood watching the narrowboats navigating their way through the locks.
Hal an tow, jolly rumble oh We were up long before the day oh To welcome in the summer To welcome in the may oh The summer is a-comin' in And winter's gone away oh In the Middle Ages it was the custom, in the south of Britain and in other places in Europe, on May morning for people to gather flowers and foliage to celebrate the coming of summer. This was known as "bringing in the May", and was even mentioned by Chaucer in his "Court of Love" in which he explained how all the Court "fetch the flowers fresh and branch and bloom". Malory's Mort D'Arthur also contains reference to Queen Guinevere going to the May woods dressed in green silk to collect fresh herbs, flowers, and mosses.
ROBERT Staff, who formerly kept the Maid's Head Inn at Stalham Norfolk, opposite the churchHe and two other menwatched the church porch, opposite to the house, on St Mark's Eve The above passage, recorded in 1849, is one of many accounts of a macabre ritual carried out by brave parishioners who wished to gain knowledge of who would die or be married in the next twelve months. In this article I would like to explain more about this practice; consider the significance of the church porch and the lych gate and attitudes to the dead in the past; and finally look at a modern homage to death customs in the form of the Lyke Wake Walk.
LATER this year the Government will finally recognise the selfless efforts of thousands of women who worked on the Home Front to provide food and timber during the 1939-45 war.
The grey old man in the corner Of his father heard a story, Which from his father he had heard, And after them I have remembered. In the east of Carmarthenshire, in the south west of Wales, there lies the parish of Myddfai. Situated in a landscape of contrasts, with rugged barren mountains, rich fertile dales and woodland with streams and rivers flowing through, it is not far from the Mynydd Myddfai standing stones and the Black Mountain. It has all the ingredients for a place of magic and healing, and it has such a heritage.
GEORGE Ewart Evans was a pioneer in the field of oral history (or "spoken history" as he preferred to call it) who from the 1950s recorded interviews with people in rural areas. He taped interviews with many people including blacksmiths, ploughmen, drovers and shepherds and edited the results into a number of books including "Where Beards Wag All" and "Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay."
In the autumn of 1406 Henry Despencer, the Bishop of Norwich was laid to rest in a tomb beneath the High Altar in the Cathedral. He had led a full life which included playing a major role in the ending of the Peasants' Revolt and also taking part in two religious crusades in Europe which led to the death of many innocent civilians. Some of these activities took place whilst he was Bishop.
