October
2012
1. Land of traditions
2. Unusual customs
calendar anniversaries
3. Interesting to know
4. Famous people
Parliament represents the people. It is where we send our chosen representatives to represent our
views in the House of Commons.
Parliament is where politicians (MPs) meet to decide laws and make decisions for the United
Kingdom. It is not the same as the Government (which runs the country). One of the jobs Parliament does is to
check that the Government is running the country properly.
The main functions of Parliament are: to pass laws; to provide, by voting for taxation, the means
of carrying on the work of government; to scrutinize government policy and administration, including
proposals for expenditure; to debate the major issues of the day.
Parliament is made up of three parts:
The Queen
The House of Lords
The House of Commons
The Queen is the official Head of State. Britain has a constitutional monarchy where the Queen
only rules symbolically; in reality, power belongs to Parliament. So, although the Queen 'opens' Parliament
each year and laws are passed in her name, the Queen herself plays no part in determining decisions made in
Parliament. The Queen has the final say on whether a bill becomes law. The last Monarch to reject a law that
was wanted by both Houses of Parliament was Queen Anne. She died in 1715.
The House of Lords is made up of people who have inherited family titles and those who have
been given titles because of their outstanding work in one field or another. There are 675 members of the
Lords. The main job of the House of Lords is to 'double check' new laws to make sure they are fair and will
work.
The House of Commons has 659 members who have been elected by local residents to represent
an area of the country in Parliament. The members are called MPs (Members of Parliament). Each MP
represents one of 659 constituencies (areas) in the UK and is a member of a political party, such as New
Labour or the Conservative party. The Commons is the most important place for discussing policies and
making laws.
1st October 1870
The first official issue of the post card was made in Britain by the Post Office together with the
introduction of the halfpenny postage stamp.
1st October 1908
The first Model T Ford was introduced by Henry Ford.
1st October 1974
American fast-food chain, McDonald's, opens its first British outlet in London.
2nd October 1925
The first of London's now traditional red buses - with roofed-in upper decks goes into service
after the lifting of restrictions that had prevented such buses being used in the capital city.
3rd October 1906
S.O.S. was established as an international distress signal.
3rd October 1916
James Herriot (famous vet and author) was born.
6th October 1769
British explorer Captain James Cook, on board his ship the 'Endeavour' discovers New Zealand.
8th October 1965
The Post Office Tower (now Telecom Tower) in Maple Street, London was opened.
10th October 1881
In London, the Savoy Theatre, Britain's first public building to be lit by electricity, opens with a
performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Patience'.
11th October 1968
Apollo 7 was launched from Cape Kennedy, making it the first manned flight of the Command
Module that would carry men to the moon.
12th October
Columbus Day – USA.
13th October 1884
Greenwich Mean Time started.
14th October 1884
Photographic film patented.
14th October 1926
Winnie-the-Pooh was first published. Written by A.A. Milne (1882-1956).
16th October 1834
The original Houses of Parliament in London are almost completely destroyed by fire.
18th October
St. Luke’s Day. One of the four Gospel writer’s and patron saint of doctors.
20th October 1966
The first message was sent between two computers in California, USA.
21st October 1805
The Battle of Trafalgar.
24th October
United Nations Day
25th October
Anniversay of Battle of Agincourt fought in 1415.
25th October
Anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade, from the Battle of Balaclava in 1854
28th October
Feast of St. Jude. Patron saint of ‘hopeless cases’.
31st October
Halloween / All Hallows Eve.
Facts about October
Gemstone: Opal
Flower: Calendula
In the old Roman calendars, October was the eighth month of the year and
got its name from the word 'Octo' meaning eight.
The Saxons called it Wyn Monath because it was the season of wine making.
During October, the leaves begin to change colour,
transforming England’s landscape into an array
of autumn colours.
Weather-lore, beliefs and sayings
Rain in October
Means wind in December.
When birds and badgers are fat in October,
Expect a cold winter
When berries are many in October
Beware a hard winter.
In October dung your fields
And your land its wealth shall yield.
If ducks do slide at Hallow tide,
At Christmas they will swim;
If ducks do swim at Hallow tide
At Christmas they will slide.
Always will there be Twenty-nine fine days in October.
If the October moon comes without frost,
expect no frost till the moon of November.
On October 31st,
people celebrate Halloween, thought to be the one night of the year when ghosts, witches, and
fairies are especially active.
Halloween comes from All Hallow Even, the eve (night before) All Hallows day.
Therefore, Halloween is the eve of All Saints Day.
Why do we celebrate Halloween?
The easy answer to this question is that no one really knows the origins of Halloween.
What we do know for sure is that Halloween is on the eve of a major Catholic festival, All Saints
(1st November) and the eve of the pagan Celtic festival known as Samhain.
The three days between 31st October and 2nd November see pagan and Christian
celebrations intertwined in a fascinating way and is a perfect example of superstition struggling
with religious belief.
Currently, it is widely thought that Halloween originated as a pagan Celtic festival of
the dead related to the Irish and Scottish Samhain, but there is no evidence that it was connected
with
the
dead
in
pre-Christian
times.
The Facts
Neither the word Halloween or the date 31 October are mentioned
in any Anglo-Saxon text indicating that it was just an ordinary day a thousand
years ago.
From the Medieval period (1066 - 1485) through to the 19th
century, there is no evidence that 31 October was anything else other than the
eve of All Saints Day.
From the 19th Century to the present day, 31st October has
increasingly acquired a reputation as a night on which ghost, witches, and
fairies, are especially active.
Trick or Treat
The custom of trick-or-treat is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a
ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians
would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread
with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would
promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the
dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a
soul's passage to heaven.
Jack-o-Lantern
The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man
named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack
then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal
with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.
According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of
his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil
gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a
hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.
The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came
to America, they turned to hollowed-out pumpkins lit with an ember.
Ghost Stories
Telling ghost stories has been a tradition of Halloween for a long time. The
first ghost stories, however, were not associated with Samhain. In the first century CE, the
Roman author and statesman Pliny the Younger authored one of the first ghost stories in
his letters, which became famous for their vivid account of life during the heyday of the
Roman Empire. Pliny reported that the specter of an old man with a long beard, rattling
chains, was haunting his house in Athens. The Greek writer Lucian and Pliny's fellow
Roman Plautus also wrote memorable ghost stories.
(18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956)
A. A. Milne was a British author, best known for his books about the
teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne
was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of
Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.
Alan Alexander Milne was born in Hampstead, London. He was the youngest of three sons born to John Vine
Milne and Sarah Maria Higginbotham. His father was a schoolmaster at the Henley House where Alan did get his first
education. He continued his education at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a
degree in mathematics in 1903. Milne's first literary efforts were published in the humorous magazine Punch, where, in
1906 Milne started to work as Assistant Editor. In 1913 Milne married Dorothy de Selincourt, the God-daughter of Punch
editor, Owen Seaman.
With the out break of the First World War, Milne joined the army as a signaling officer in February 1915,
despite being a pacifist. He was sent to France in the Spring of 1916 but he left the front lines later that year suffering from
fever. After his recovery he was placed in charge of a signaling company at Fort Southwick until his discharge from the
army in February 1919. After leaving the army, Milne resigned his post at Punch and concentrated on writing plays. In
1923 his first children's poem 'Vespers' was published in Vanity Fair. The poem featured his son Christopher Robin.
In 1924, after the success of 'Vespers' Milne published a book of children's poems entitled 'When We Were
Very Young', with drawings by Punch illustrator, Ernest Shepard. This book includes a poem about a Teddy Bear who
"however hard he tries grows tubby without exercise". This was Pooh's first unofficial appearance in A.A. Milne's writing.
'When We Were Very Young' proved to be an instant success and sold over 50,000 copies within eight weeks.
The real stuffed toys owned
by Christopher Robin Milne
and featured in the Winniethe-Pooh stories.