Easter
The English do not all treat Easter in the same way. For Christians it is a sombre commemoration of the cruxifiction of Jesus. However the rest of the country enjoys a festival of cakes, choclate eggs and big dinners with no reference to the cross whatsoever.
This, it can be argued, is largely due to the weather. Easter comes in spring, although the exact easter dates vary from year to year so even asnswering when is easter can be a poser for most English people.
After a long cold northern european winter, as the daffodils burst into flower and the first balmy days come along it seems almost instinctual to celebrate. Our pagan ancesters held spring festivals at this time and even the name easter itself has pagan roots.
The Christian church attached the festival of the assention to the time of the spring festivals and while this may have seemed sensible further south in the Levant, here in Northern Europe it has led to the distinctly split personality of the easter festival.
Most people don't worry about such weighty imponderables and instead get a bit weighty from an excess of chocolate eggs. Around 80 million chocolate eggs are sold in the UK each year. Easter is the festival that everyone feels happy to join in with. English jews, Muslims and Hindus (and other groups) are all as likely as anyone to be unwrapping an egg at Easter.
But what parts of Easter are different in England?
Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday which commemorates Jesus' last supper with the Apostles) has a uniquely English aspect. Since the reign of Edward I (June 1239 - July 1307) the Monarch has been involed in a ceremony of alms giving.
Up until the reign of Charles II the monarch used to wash the feet of poor people on this day and give them money. The second half of this custom survives to this day where "alms" are given in the form of money to one man and one woman for each year of the sovereign's age.
The Maundy money is handed out by the king or queen in red and white purses. The red purse contains regular legal tender. The white purse contains specially minted 1, 2, 3 and 4 penny pieces. Although giving a few pennies may seem a little miserly, they are esteemed by coin collectors and so can fetch high prices if the lucky recipients choose to sell them.
A second uniquely british tradition, (but this time one that everyone can join in with) is eating hot cross buns on Good Friday. These delicious spiced fruit buns are decorated with a cross and are traditionally only available around easter time.
At the 'Window's Son' pub (75 Devon's Road, Bow, London, E3 3PJ) each year since 1824 a hot cross bun has been placed in the window. This is because the widow who lived there knew her son, a sailor, would be coming home from sea and wanted hot cross buns. His ship sadly never returned, but she, and all successive landlords have kept placing a bun in the window each easter, so that there is something for him to eat, should he ever return.