Near my home is the small village of Appleton Thorn, where the traditional custom of “bawming the thorn” is performed each spring by children dancing around the thorn tree reputed to be a cutting taken from the Glastonbury Thorn which of course miraculously sprang up when Joseph of Arimathea planted his staff there.
Oh Yes! but it was the brother of the lord of the local manor wot dreamed it up but inconveniently wrote it all down for cynics such as I to see. However the "peasants" dance on bogus or not.
Good for the Tourist Trade they say.
The ultra solemn Coronation Ceremony is now but was never thus. When Victoria was about to be
crowned, they halted the service, as loud chattering disrupted the proceedings.
Has anyone ever noticed that the regimental marches of the British Army seems to be German tunes?
Traditional Humbug ! The Victorians created most of the traditions of England and even in the Americas the Indians had no chiefs until the Europeans arrived. Take me to your leader - etc..
Dickens,Prince Albert, and Walter Scott amongst others merely invented their social climate.
The stage coach ,so beloved of Snowy Christmas Cards, was only a brief interlude between the building of the Canals and the Railways. Likewise the Saga of the Wild West portrayed in a host of Westerns was at the most only 20 years long.
All the Saxon Nobility topped themselves in mediaeval warfare.The current nobility of England
formed from the court of St.James was merely the result of all the liasons legitimate and otherwise of the Monarchs and their families.
They haven't gone away - thery are still there. They may not all be royal bloodlines, which began to get extremely thin but fresh blood was eagerly provided by beer,cotton and coal barons of the Victorian Era
When Blair & Brown stride the world stage delaiming their views to distant lands - do the Palestinians and Burmese and Zimbabweans realize that they actually come from a small,chilly offshore island of Northern Europe? Seems somewhat of a cheek - dont y'know.
But the Myth of Empire, that eventually wakened Queen Victoria from reclusive,desolate widowhood still provides enough ammunition for a certain African Dictator to eliminate his country.
When he rails against the evils of colonialism does the world realise that his Three Degrees were obtained by correspondence course from London?
So when I hear the word "traditional" I snort and shout "gimme ma rifle MaryLou"
