Family responsibilities
Family responsibilities are central to the British way of life. Most of us have a ‘family tree’…
May Day
May Day is on 1st May and it is an ancient pagan celebration of the seasonal warming…
Harry Potter
The ‘Harry Potter‘ series of seven fantasy novels was written by Joanne Rowling (pen name J.K. Rowling)…
Income tax
Income tax was first used to finance wars. This began in 1799 with the Napoleonic wars and…
Sir Walter Raleigh
Born in Devon, Sir Walter Raleigh (1552/4-1618) seemed to be following in the footsteps of Sir Francis…
The BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is known the world over and is the oldest and biggest state…
The Romans
It has long been taught in UK schools that the Romans transformed the country with their civilising…
Gentlemen’s clubs
Once the city coffeehouse trend of the 1700s had faded, it was the gentlemen’s clubs which slipped…
The Presbyterian Churches
Presbyterianism is a system of church governance in which ‘presbyters’, or elders, represent the congregation in the…
No Future Tense
Although there are several ways to construct a future meaning in English, there is no stand-alone future…
Historic counties
The country was first divided up into regions, called ‘shires’, in the eighth or ninth centuries. Each…
Shelters and Refuges
The Industrial Revolution, which began in the 1760s, brought with it some social problems. Many people moved…