Charming old traditions

[esterwin]

I have been talking to my Aunt today and we have been having a nostalgiafest about the past. Remembering fetes, maypole dancing and being given a piece of hot cross bun at church on Easter Sunday.
Does anyone have charming old traditions from their childhood that have either died out or are far less common these days?

As a child going on holiday, family members would give you spending money before you went.
They called it ferrin

I once bought a small painting from a shop, they only accepted cash and I literally had to give them the last coins from my wallet. The owner/artist gave me £1 back and said in Ireland we never let anyone leave without a last coin left in their pocket. Lovely.

Telling the bees.

Bees had to be told of all important family news - including births, marriages and deaths - lest they get offended and stop making honey.

@esterwin

I remember at school church service at a certain time of year we would get a bit of bread with honey on it. But I have no idea of the significance.

Think this is something to do with Moses being in the dessert before he got to the promise land and there was famine. God sent 'manna' falling from the sky which is basically bread and honey.

It's so interesting to learn about traditions I'd never heard of. I guess some of them are very regional, or have regional variations. Think I was vaguely aware of people giving coins to new babies, but have no recollection of it happening in my childhood, and I'm in my late 60s, but always in London so maybe it wasn't such a thing.

What strikes me about many of the traditions is that they were practices/events that anyone could participate in - no matter if you had no relationship to the organisers/babies etc. - and were often made to happen by the community, or maybe the parish council or church, but not by some anonymous higher authority.

I don't think anyone has mentioned well dressing, I know that's still a huge thing in Derbyshire.

A lot of these are still going strong in Guernsey. One of the church summer fairs had a bran tub and I had to explain it to DH as he didn’t know what it was (he’s not British). I thought it was much more fun than the Tombola!

[quote iklboo]@Kathunk - no we're just outside Manchester. This is Ziggy Scaredust from this year. [/quote]
I may live in the same place as you!

We had church walks in my home town. They were created in the 1830s to distract people away from the local racecourse! It was traditional for people in the crowd to run out and give a silver coin to any children they knew in the parade - the kids had special drawstring bags for the purpose. It was great because you then had loads to spend in the fair that evening!

The dark haired visitor just after midnight at New Year, my mother called it First Footing.

When we make the Christmas cakes we all have to stir the mixture and make a wish before it goes in the oven. My grandma did it and now we do too. I assume that my great grandmother did it but Sadly I can't remember.

@miltonj Thanks. I only remember it happening when I was very young, so I could not remember the significance. I do remember at the end of the service there were bits left over and the Minister let us kids eat up all the leftovers. My mother was big on healthy eating, so that much sugar was a big treat.

@iklboo which village please? I remember seeing one a few years ago, is it Abergavenny area?

If you're where I think you are iklboo, we came for a wander and loved this one.

@TroysMammy @PolkadotsAndMoonbeams - no we're just outside Manchester. That one looks amazing!

That one is just outside Manchester — also has a famous parish council.

In Germany there is a very sweet tradition for St. Martin's Day which is in November, all the nursery and primary aged children will make a lantern which they hang on a stick and then they will meet up in the evening (when it's dark) with their teacher and go on a lantern parade. You see more parents using LED candles or lantern-sticks with LEDs attached these days, but a good few still use actual tea lights with real fire :o even for the three year olds!

They sing this song which translates to "I go with my lantern, and my lantern goes with me". The parade is also sometimes accompanied by someone dressed as St. Martin, on horseback. It ends either at the Kindergarten or in the town/village square where there is usually a bonfire and the children are given bread which needs to be broken in half and shared, which symbolises something about the St. Martin legend.

I still have a milkman who delivers milk in glass bottles and we still have an ice-cream man as well.

And as for the village show- well you would have thought it was the ONLY event in the social calendar judging by the local reactions. Its taken very seriously here. My kids usually enter the vegetable classes with the veg they grow in pots in the back garden.

@BertieBotts

In Germany there is a very sweet tradition for St. Martin's Day which is in November, all the nursery and primary aged children will make a lantern which they hang on a stick and then they will meet up in the evening (when it's dark) with their teacher and go on a lantern parade. You see more parents using LED candles or lantern-sticks with LEDs attached these days, but a good few still use actual tea lights with real fire :o even for the three year olds!

They sing this song which translates to "I go with my lantern, and my lantern goes with me". The parade is also sometimes accompanied by someone dressed as St. Martin, on horseback. It ends either at the Kindergarten or in the town/village square where there is usually a bonfire and the children are given bread which needs to be broken in half and shared, which symbolises something about the St. Martin legend.

St Martin tore his cloak in half and gave it to a beggar. I went to a school where he was the patron saint and there was a very bright mural of that very event drawn on the dining hall wall. I could still probably draw it from memory if I could draw,

That sounds right, I knew there was something to do with a cloak.

Egg jarping.
Easter Sunday or Monday tea, usually outside.
We would have dyed the hardboiled eggs a few days earlier, using leaves and flowers from the garden and onion skins, all tied up in newspaper parcels then boiled. The shells then rubbed with bacon rind to make them gleam for the table display over Easter weekend.
Eggs were then either rilled down the hill to break the shells, or jarped.
Jarping is essentially conkers with hard boiled eggs. Two players take their eggs and choose what they think is the strongest end. Player A holds their egg still and upright. Plàyer B holds their egg like a weapon and 'jarps' Player A's egg with one end of theirs. Take turns jarping until one egg is the winner. Then challenge another.
Linked tradition - jarping someone's head with a hard boiled egg when they are unprepared. Hilarious to everyone except the jarpee.
North East England.

@HoldontoOneMoreDay
We had an ancient mildew spotted filmstrip with reel to reel tape brought out every St. Martin's day at school. The story teller put on the French accents, so when Martin tired of soldiering, he said ' My 'art ees not in it' in true Allo Allo style.
Brilliant.

@Stompythedinosaur

They also run races for a 10p prize. It is all very sweet.

Club Day! Once a year weekend.

It started about Thursday when the bunting was brought from the previous village to be put up along the parade route.
Friday the fair would arrive, with them opening that evening with "danger night".
On Saturday morning a parade, our village was done by the churches, with all the children dressed up, and one child chosen as the "Rose Queen" from each church. There would also be the "uniformed organisation" (Brownies etc) and the local silver band and a bagpipe band you hoped not to be just in front of if you were walking as they were very noisy. The parade always started with two police horses.

Then Saturday afternoon the village children's sports.
They would be opened by one of the Rose Queens and then a cheerleading group did a display.
For 4- 11s, there were running races with a prize of 20p and a pen for everyone. 20p got an ice cream from the van back then. The toddlers all got a ball, and older than that and the speciality races (like obstacles) only gave prizes for 1/2/3.
We'd go to the fair in the afternoon, and walk back with candifloss.

On Sunday they had adult races, which included a half-marathon, and I think things like tug of war, but we never really went to that, so I can't remember.

The fair would leave on Monday I think and then the usual suspects would be up in arms about the "mess" they'd made of the grass.

My parents called it Mad Saturday.

We still have Wells Dressings here & one of our churches has a Clypping Service (but not last year)
The word "clipping" is Anglo-Saxon in origin, and is derived from the word "clyp-pan", meaning "embrace" or "clasp".[4] Clipping the church involves either the church congregation or local children holding hands in an outward-facing ring around the church. Once the circle is completed onlookers will often cheer and sometimes hymns are sung.

[quote Scarby9]@HoldontoOneMoreDay
We had an ancient mildew spotted filmstrip with reel to reel tape brought out every St. Martin's day at school. The story teller put on the French accents, so when Martin tired of soldiering, he said ' My 'art ees not in it' in true Allo Allo style.
Brilliant.[/quote]
That sounds brilliant. Is it wrong that, in these more enlightened times, I miss really bad cod accents? Also, did he actually do anything else? Surely he didn't just get canonised for cutting up his cloak...

@LucysSkyDiamonds

Classica isn't this called hanseling?

My grandma had barely two pennies to rub together but she left each of us grandchildren £5 each (in coins) in a well sellotaped envelope with Hansel written across it ❤

This is so lovely.