Методическое пособие по теме "Britain"

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СОДЕРЖАНИЕ

1. Some Facts about Britain………………………………..………………..4

2.Oxford……………………………………………………………………..4

3. From Rags To Riches………………………………………………………...15

4. Grease……………………………………………………………………17

5.It’s interesting to know…………………………………………………...21

Some Facts about Britain.

• The country used to have many wolves and wild boars.

• It is home to many kinds of hedgehogs, baggers and red foxes.

• It is only 35 kilometers away from France and is linked with France through a tunnel under the English tunnel.

• The most popular pop music band from England is The Beatles. Which changed the music scene throughout the world.

• Unlike the rest of the world, the electricity is 240 volts.

• It was said that the Sun never sets on the British Empire, and now the world says, the sun never rises on Britain (as it is cloudy all the time).

• The traffic system is right handed.

• Policemen are called Bobbies.

• The most unique thing on roads is the Double Decker Bus.

• Union Jack is the official name for UK Flag.

1. Read information about one of the oldest cities in England and do the assignments.

Oxford

Oxford is ninety kilometres from London - about an hour by car, bus or train - and only sixty-four kilometres from Heathrow Airport. The River Thames runs through Oxford, and the River Cherwell joins it there. The Thames then runs south-east towards London. The land is low, but there are hills to the west. Much of the city is old and very beautiful.

More than 110,000 people have their homes in Oxford. But in some months of the year there are a lot more people in the city; thousands of students come from other town for parts of the year.

The city is an important centre for work, shopping and nightlife. But people from all over the work and from different parts of Britain come to Oxford to see the fine buildings, the museums, and the parks and gardens. Oxford is a ve interesting city, and many visitors fall in love with it.

Early days

Oxford is not as old as some other English cities. London, York and Cambridge were already towns in Roman times. But by the tenth century Oxford was an important town.

At that time Oxford was a market town, on the river and with main roads running through it. There were walls around the town, and about five thousand people lived inside them.

The town got bigger in the twelfth century, when a lot of new houses were built. It was a rich business centre, selling cloth and wool. By the year 1200, there were new walls, three stone bridges across the river, a castle, sixteen churches and a palace. There were also the beginnings of a university.

Before that time, religious people went to the University of Paris to study; now they started to come to Oxford. Three colleges were built in the thirteenth century: University College, Balliol College and Merton College. They looked like religious buildings, and you can still see parts of these old buildings today. By the end of the thirteenth century there were 1500 students, and the university was already famous all over Europe.

New business for shopkeepers and other townspeople came from the larger number of university students, but there were also problems between the people of the town and those at the university. In 1209 some students killed a woman; angry townspeople then days, and sixty-two students died. killed two students, and many others moved away from Oxford. Some went to Cambridge and started the university there. In 1355 there was fighting in the streets for

So there were problems, but Oxford was still getting bigger, and by the early fourteenth century it was a rich country town. Then a terrible illness called the Black Death killed nearly a third of the people there. Many who died were important businessmen, and the cloth industry did not bring as much money into the town as before.

The townspeople needed to find new work, and many more people began to work for students and the university. Students started to live in their houses and to eat the food they cooked. So the townspeople now needed the university more than in earlier times.

In his famous book The Canterbury Tales, the fourteenth-century writer Geoffrey Chaucer describes a poor student, The Clerk of Oxford. The Clerk is one of the first of many examples of Oxford students in English writing.

Troubled times

Under the Protestant queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), life in Oxford was easier than under her older, Catholic sister, 'Bloody Mary'; in Mary's time, three men were burned to death outside Balliol College for their religion. They are called the Oxford Martyrs.

In Elizabethan England there were still problems between Protestants and Catholics in Oxford, but the queen liked the city and visited it a number of times.

It was fashionable for rich and important men to send their sons to the university; they used the town's facilities for eating, drinking and sports, and new colleges and university buildings were built.

The Bodleian Library, for example, opened in 1602. The library now has over 120 kilometres of books. Readers cannot take books out of the building, but they can find any British book there.

The Sheldonian Theatre was also built at this time. It was the work of Christopher Wren, who built St Paul's Cathedral in London. The university uses the Sheldonian on special days, but it is also open to visitors and for talks and concerts.

Oxford already had a cathedral (in Christ Church College) and was, by now, called a city. In the 1630s ten thousand people lived there; two thousand of these worked or studied at the university.

Between 1642 and 1646 there was a civil war in England; King Charles I's soldiers were fighting Oliver Cromwell's. Charles and his soldiers moved to Oxford. The king lived in one of the colleges, because most people at the university were on his side. Colleges also gave him their gold and silver. Important people from the city who were against the king went away until the war ended. There was fighting all around Oxford, and in the end Cromwell's soldiers controlled the city. The king got away, but in 1649 they cut off his head.

Out of the past

Some of Oxford's finest buildings are from the eighteenth century. The Radcliffe Camera, the first round library, was built for science books. The Clarendon Building was the home of the University Press which printed, and still prints, books for the university. The front of Queen's College was also built at this time.

Shopkeepers were doing well, and business with other parts of the country was easier after the Oxford Canal opened in 1790. Boats carried in things that were made in the factories of London and the towns to the north. Then, in 1844, the railway arrived in the city. After that even poorer people could travel to and from Oxford The Oxford Canal more easily.

From the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the city was .cleaner, the roads were wider, and there was better street lighting. Oxford started to look like a modern city. A lot of cheaper houses were built in East Oxford and Jericho, mainly for people who worked for the university, the University Press, the railways, and other large businesses. More expensive houses in North Oxford were for richer people - heads of colleges and rich businessmen. Before this time, heads of colleges did not marry; they lived in their colleges. But in the nineteenth century more and more university teachers began to live outside their colleges.

By now the university was also more modern; religion was less important than before, and it was teaching more science. In 1879 the first two of four women's colleges opened. But there were no university degrees for women at that time. The first woman got her degree in 1920. There were no colleges for men and women together until 1974.

All Oxford University students belong to a college. Many of them live and have classes there. Each college has its own facilities. Twenty-two British prime ministers (Margaret Thatcher, for example) studied at the university; many other famous people from around the world (like President Clinton of the United States and Prince Naruhito of Japan) were also students there. Writers like Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley and Oscar Wilde; actors like Richard Burton; scientists like Edmund Hailey ... there is no end to the names of famous students.

Many writers were at Oxford as students and then moved away. . Others, like Charles Dodgson, stayed to teach and write. Dodgson used the name Lewis Carroll and his most famous book is called Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).

Oxford cars

One man who played a very important part in the history of Oxford was William Morris.

Morris lived in Oxford when he was a child and his first job, when he was fourteen, was mending bicycles. He also enjoyed racing them in his free time. Then, in 1893, Morris started buying bicycle parts and making the machines himself. He opened a shop in the city centre to sell them.

He liked cars too, and he made his first car in 1913. Later he opened a car factory in Cowley, in the south-east of Oxford. In the first year he built nearly four hundred Morris Oxfords. The business got bigger and bigger, and by the end of the 1920s Morris was building 100,000 cars a year. By 1938, 10,000 people worked in the factories.

In the 1920s Morris decided to change from wood and metal to steel for his cars. He had talks with an American steel company, and they also started a business in Oxford.

After the Second World War, Morris's company joined with others and changed its name a number of times. The Morris Minor, the little Mini and many other famous cars came from the Cowley factory. In the early 1970s more than 26,000 people worked in the city's car industry, making thousands of cars each week.

Cars are still made in Oxford under the name of Rover. The business is not as important to Oxford as before, but in his time William Morris helped to make Oxford a modern city.

Morris worked until the age of eighty-three. He was very rich, but he had no children and he gave a lot of money to hospitals and for research. He also used his money to open a new Oxford college, Nuffield College. In all, he gave away about £30 million. William Morris died in 1963.

The modern city

The largest industrial company in the 1830s, when it moved to its new building in Walton Street, was Oxford University Press. The Press is still important in the world of books, and it is internationally famous. It has offices in a large number of countries and publishes books in many languages, Other publishers, like Heinemann Educational Books, Nuffield Press and Blackwell's, also have their main offices in Oxford.

Many people work in the city's hospitals, and in scientific research. There are a lot of new but important businesses in the Oxford Science Park.

Oxfam is a charity that started in Oxford during the Second World War to help people in Greece. These people were dying because food could not get to them. After the war the charity decided to help other people around the world who were hungry or homeless. At first they sent food, clothes and other useful things to foreign countries. Now they try to help the poor (in more than seventy countries) to help themselves. In Britain nearly all of Oxfam's money (about £80 million a year) comes from ordinary British people and from the charity's shops. Many of the people who work for Oxfam give their time free.

Oxford each year, and forty per cent of these are from other countries. Visitors to the city need hotels, food and drink, and other facilities, so a lot of people work in the tourist industry.

Like other big cities, Oxford has problems with traffic and the shopping streets are often very crowded. But these show that the city is alive - and working.

Oxford by day

Oxford is a beautiful city by day. The university gardens and the parks and fields around the river make the centre of Oxford a surprisingly green place. In good weather, visitors also love walking through the narrow old streets between the university buildings, and around the Botanic Garden (from 1621), the oldest in Britain.

Many people travel around the city by bicycle. At any one time there are about twenty thousand bicycles on the streets. Another way to see Oxford is from one of the many open-top buses. But if you want to get away from streets and traffic, you can enjoy the river from a punt. In the old days people used these boats to carry passengers and animals down the river, but now students and tourists use them.

Oxford has some of Britain's finest museums. There is the Ashmolean, the home of the university's works of art and the oldest museum in the world that is open to everyone; the Museum of the History of Science; the University Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. The Pitt-Rivers Museum holds over a million interesting things which travellers in foreign countries sent back to Oxford in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To learn how Oxford has changed over the centuries, you can visit the Museum of Oxford or The Oxford Story. They tell the story of the city using pictures, sounds and even smells from different times in the past.

The Covered Market in the centre of the city is an old food market that was built in 1774. Today it sells meat, fish, vegetables, flowers, and other things. There is also a much newer open market place in Gloucester Green, near the bus station.

The old and the new are side by side in Oxford. You can visit modern shopping centres or the smaller shops in the old streets. And if you are looking for books, Oxford is the place to come.

BlackwelPs is the largest bookseller. The family's first shop opened in 1879, and they now have nine bookshops in the city. The Norrington Room, in the main shop, holds more books than any other single room in a bookshop in the world.

Then there are sports. You can play them - or you can watch. The city's football clubs are Oxford United and Oxford City, and a lot of people go to their home matches.

Special days

Very early on May Morning, May 1st, hundreds of people wait in the street outside Magdalen College, and at six o'clock there is singing from the top of the building. The rest of the morning is a street party. People dance, talk, drink and enjoy themselves. A few students make the dangerous jump from Magdalen Bridge into the river below.

St Giles' Fair is in early September. It started centuries ago. People came into the city to buy and sell, eat and drink, and play sports. A hundred years ago it was even fashionable to show strange animals and people at the fair.

The Boat Race takes place on the Thames in London every year. It is a race between the universities of Oxford (in dark blue) and Cambridge (in light blue). People watch from the bridges or the sides of the river, and many more watch it on television Eights Week is a week of boat races on the River Cherwell in Oxford. This time the races are between the different colleges. The river is narrow, so boats race one behind the other and try to touch the boat in front.

Oxford by night

People were already making beer in Oxford seven hundred years ago, and by the late fourteenth century there were thirty-two brewers making beer. In more modern times, one of the most important brewers is Morrell's. Morrell's started making beer in 1792; today the company is still in the same building, and the same family controls it.

You can enjoy Oxford's beers in the very large number of pubs in and around the city. Some pubs are on the busy central streets and squares; others are beside the river or out in the quiet of the country. There are pubs with live music and pubs with popular games.

Many pubs sell food, but if you prefer to eat in a restaurant, you can choose cheap or expensive food from Britain, Italy, China, India and other parts of the world.

There are a number of cinemas in Oxford and two main theatres. The Oxford Playhouse and the Apollo Theatre have theatre, music and dance. The Old Fire Station also has a small theatre, and music in the bar. And, of course, Oxford also has late night live music and discos.

Around Oxford

Oxford is a good centre for visits to the towns and villages in the country around it.

One of the first places to visit is the small country town of Woodstock, about thirteen kilometres away. Most visitors to Woodstock go to Blenheim Palace, the eighteenth century home of the Dukes of Marlborough, and the place where Winston Churchill was born. You can go inside the furniture in beautiful rooms; the Long Library, fifty-five metres from end to end, is one of the longest rooms in an English family home.

You can walk in the palace gardens and the park. The park is very large, so there is a small train that travels across part of it. You can take a boat out on the water, eat, drink, shop and play.

To the west of Oxford are the Cotswold hills with their villages and small towns of yellow-grey stone. On Burford's fine high street you can see houses that were built, long ago, with money from wool and from the many travellers who came through the town. Near Burford is the Cotswold Wildlife Park, which keeps animals, fish and birds.

Other good examples of beautiful Cotswold towns and villages are Chipping Campden (from where you can walk 145 kilometres along the Cotswold

Way to the historic city of Bath) and Bourton-on-the-Water, on the River Windrush. Both of these get thousands of visitors in the summer months.

At Cogges Manor Farm Museum, near the town of Witney, you can watch people using kitchens, farm machines and animals in the ways that they used them a hundred years ago. On different summer weekends, people from the farm show visitors how to make bread, cover books or cut the wool from sheep. There is sometimes singing and dancing there too.

Stratford-upon-Avon (forty-eight kilometres away) is famous as the place where William Shakespeare was born. People from all over the world go there to look at his house, his school and his wife's home. They also visit the theatres in Stratford to see works by Shakespeare and by other important writers. Shakespeare often stayed the night in Oxford when he was travelling from Stratford to London.

Leaving Oxford by the railway towards London, the first stop is at Didcot, which is famous for its Railway Centre. There you can look at old trains, and sometimes it is possible to ride on them.

Down the Thames, south of Oxford, are places like Abingdon, Dorchester and Wallingford, which are all older than Oxford. These and many other places make Oxford an interesting city to travel from.

A visitor study shows that eighty per cent of visitors prefer Oxford to other historic British towns. They do not like the traffic or the crowds, but they do like the buildings, the history and the shops. For most people Oxford is a very interesting place.

1. Are these sentences true (T) or false (F)?

1. Oxford is south of London.

2. It is the oldest city in Britain.

3. Parts of the university are more than 700 years old.

4. The townspeople did not always like the university students.

1. Who...

1. ... built the Sheldonian Theatre?

2. ... lost his head?

3. ... lived in North Oxford?

4. ... could not get a degree until this century?

1. Find answers to these questions.

1. Why is Cowley a famous part of Oxford? 2. What does Oxford University Press do? 3. How does Oxfam get money to give away? 4. How many foreign visitors come to Oxford each year? 5. How can you travel on the river? 6. Where can you learn more about the story of Oxford? 7. Which Oxford bookshop has got most books? 8. Why do people stand outside Magdalen College on May 1st?

1. What...

1. ... does Morrell's make?

2. ... is the Oxford Playhouse?

3. ... is the name of the Duke of Marlborough's home?

4. ... can you see at the Cotswold Wildlife Park?

1. Complete the sentences

1. In the 12th century Oxford was a rich town because ...

2. In the 13th century two students were killed, so ...

3. King Charles I moved to Oxford because ...

4. After the Oxford Canal opened in 1790, ...

1. Put these sentences about William Morris in the right order. Then check your order with pages 8-9.

1. He used steel to make cars.

2. He started selling bicycles.

3. The company name changed to Rover.

4. He mended bicycles.

5. He made cars from wood and metal.

1. You are going to spend three days in and around Oxford. Plan your visit. What are you going to do each day? Then write a paragraph about your plans.

2. Your holiday in Oxford is at an end. Describe one of the days that you spent there.

Project work

Find more information about one of these famous people, and write about him.

Geoffrey Chaucer Oliver Cromwell Winston Churchill

From Rags To Riches

1. Read the text in exercise 2 quickly, and put the following points in order to form a summary of the article.

1. Thousands live on the street.

2. The Big Issue is a financial success, and it generates huge amounts of money to be spent on good causes.

3. Cultural landmarks stand next to temporary shelters for people sleeping rough.

4. In the 1980s, many people arrived in the capital in search of a home and a job.

5. The Big Issue is now an international initiative.

6. The life of homeless people on the South Bank was immortalised in a theatre play.

7. People can offer support through special organisations and by buying The Big Issue.

1. ____ 2. ____ 3.____ 4.____ 5.____ 6.____ 7.____

2. Read the newspaper article about The Big Issue magazine. Five sentences have been removed from the text. Put the correct sentence from A-F below in each space to form a logical, coherent and correct text. There is one extra sentence you are not going to need.

From Rags To Riches

At the southern end of Waterloo Bridge in London, by the banks of
the River Thames, stand the Royal National Theatre, the National
Film Theatre and the Royal Festival Hall. ¹ _____ They have become a mecca for the homeless. The place is littered with the cardboard boxes and old mattresses that they use as beds. It became so popular there in the 1980s that each person had their own, much-prized space that they would guard carefully. ²_____This was also the name of a theatre play directed by the now famous Oscar-winner (for American Beauty) Sam Mendes.

The 1980s saw an enormous increase in people sleeping rough in Britain, as many unemployed came to cities in the south, especially London, where jobs were easier to find. ³____They ended up with no work and nowhere to live. Today the housing charity Shelter estimates there are around 100,000 homeless people in London alone, who are either in temporary accommodation or simply living on the streets. These people often hang around railway stations and other public places asking for money.

The British public are asked by their government not to give money to street beggars.⁴_____Another way you can help is to buy a copy of The Big Issue weekly magazine.

Run for the homeless, The Big Issue is a success on many levels. Its first issue was published in 1991, it won the Magazine of the Year award in 1993, and sells 270,000 copies weekly, which means a readership of over one million. ⁵_____The magazine is actually sold by the homeless themselves, which gives them a chance to earn money and retain a sense of dignity. Encouraged by its success in Britain, The Big Issue has become international, and now seventeen titles throughout Europe are being published.

A But it's virtually impossible to get a job in Britain without a permanent address, and it's very difficult to get somewhere to live if you don't have a job, so most of those people got trapped.

B People sympathetic to the homeless are being told to donate money to charities who specialise in caring for the poor or to offer beggars gifts of food or clothes instead of money.

C It gave them a sense of security and became so permanent that the locals gave the area a nickname - Cardboard City.

D The Labour Party administration claims that many of these people are homeless by choice, and that there are many drug addicts among them. E All profits are reinvested into the magazine or diverted to The Big Issue Foundation, a charity that runs many social support programmes for the homeless.

F In stark contrast to this centre of London's cultural activity, are the subways close by, which offer some relief from the cold at night.

Grease

1. Read the article in exercise 4 quickly. What is it about?

The article is about

1. a very typical British institution.

2. the consequences of an unhealthy diet.

3. the way a full English breakfast is prepared.

2. Read the following extracts from the text. What do you think the underlined words and phrases mean? Work out their meaning from the context (without using a dictionary).

1. These small restaurants are so common that they often go unnoticed, but if they were removed, the country would be on its knees.

To be on one's knees means

1. to be very happy.

2. to be nearly destroyed.

3. to be very difficult to notice.

1. ... there are hundreds of them, fuelling the population with bacon, egg and sausage.

To fuel in this context means

1. to feed, b. to drive, c. to poison.

3 In a typical greasy spoon, you will find people from all walks of life. Poets, builders, hurrying businessmen, students lazing around with huge mugs of tea.

People from all walks of life

1. are not very well-off.

2. come from different social groups.

3. have a lot of free time.

1. Decide which of phrases 1-8 below (taken from the article) have a positive (+) and which have a negative (-) meaning. Write + or –

1. an essential part of life______

2. a sticky, greasy layer_____

3. a huge menu_____

4. clean and functional____

5. cracked linoleum____

6. dangerously unhealthy____

7. absolutely delicious____

8. nothing can beat going to the real thing____

1. Read the article about 'greasy spoons'. Then complete statements 1-5 with the best ending: a, b, c, or d.

Grease

‘Grease spoons’ very rarely appear in guidebooks, but they are an essential part of life in the UK, especially for people living in the bigger cities. These small restaurants are so common that they often go unnoticed, but if they were removed, the country would be on its knees. In London, the capital city of the greasy spoon, there are hundreds of them, fuelling the population with bacon, egg and sausage.

Greasy spoon cafes are so called because any cutlery that comes into contact with the food they offer is immediately coated with a sticky, greasy layer of lard. More calories can be found in a cup of tea in a good greasy spoon than in a whole meal at a normal restaurant.

Greasy spoons are generally found slightly away from the main streets of most towns, they usually have large glass windows, a plastic sign with the name of the cafe - usually containing the name of the owner, e.g. Mario's, Bob's Place, Rita's Cafe - and a huge menu offering a wide variety of delights. Inside they are generally clean and functional. You'll see old wooden seats, tables covered with cracked linoleum and plain walls. Each table has on it a bottle of brown sauce, tomato ketchup and vinegar, and pots of salt and pepper.

In a typical greasy spoon, you will find people from all walks of life. Poets, builders, hurrying businessmen, students lazing around with huge mugs of tea. Some read novels, some stare into space, and others catch up on the day's news. At weekends there will always be large groups of friends, recovering from a night on the town.

The meals here are dangerously unhealthy, and absolutely delicious. All kinds of fried food can be bought for incredibly low prices. The centrepiece is usually the traditional English breakfast. Although it's called a breakfast, you have to be really brave to eat it first thing in the morning, because it is huge. At least two pieces of bacon, two sizzling sausages, two fried eggs, fried mushrooms, baked beans and bread soaked in hot oil and fried. The English breakfast is full of meat and fat. If you want something less filling, there's still a lot to choose from; particular specialities are bacon or fried egg sandwiches (or, of course, bacon and egg sandwiches). There is also often a range of vegetarian sausages and burgers.

Greasy spoons have some devoted followers. Typing 'greasy spoon' into an internet search engine will bring up hundreds of entries. With pictures, reviews, menus and stories, it's the next best thing to going to a greasy spoon cafe yourself. But of course, nothing can beat going to the real thing - especially on an empty stomach.

1. According to the article, greasy spoons are

1. only found in big cities.

2. b. advertised as a tourist attraction.

1. important to many British people.

2. going to be removed from city centres.

1. The characteristic feature of greasy spoons is that they

1. use a special type of cutlery,

2. offer a lot of dishes to choose from,

3. are furnished in a sophisticated way.

4. are not very clean.

1. People who come to greasy spoons

1. are often in a hurry.

2. come from various backgrounds.

3. usually meet friends there.

4. sometimes spend the night there.

1. The traditional English breakfast is

1. not very cheap.

2. not very tasty.

3. served in huge portions.

4. recommended for vegetarians.

1. The author of the article

1. is a great fan of greasy spoons.

2. believes greasy spoons represent British tastes in food,

3. learned about greasy spoons on the Internet.

4. thinks they should be moved away from the main streets.

It’s interesting to know

International organizations

Nations, the European Union (EU) and NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

The Commonwealth consists of most of the countries that were once parts of the British Empire. There are 53 members. Some are very large countries like Canada, India and Australia. Some are just small islands like Barbados and Tonga. The Head of the Commonwealth is the Queen. There is also a Secretary-General, who is chosen from any one of the 53 countries. The Commonwealth promotes educational programmes and exchanges between the different countries. Every four years they hold the Commonwealth Games.

Britain is one of the fifteen countries of the European Union. She joined in 1973 at the same time as Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. Joining the EU brought many changes. Previously, Britain had bought a lot of food from the other countries in the Commonwealth, but after joining the EU, she had to buy it from European countries instead. This caused some problems for Commonwealth countries like New Zealand.

NATO is a military organization. It consists of most of the countries of Western Europe together with Canada and the United States. Its headquarters is in Brussels.

Environmental group

There are several groups in Britain which try to protect the environment. The most famous group is Greenpeace, which campaigns in many countries around the world. They have campaigned against hunting whales, pollution in the North Sea, nuclear power, testing nuclear weapons, and many other issues. Greenpeace supporters organize demonstrations and they also take direct action. For example, they block pipes that pour pollution into the sea.

Another important environmental group is Friends of the Earth. They have led campaigns against global warming, the destruction of the rain forest, and the hole in the ozone layer. There is also a Green Party, which is a political party. It regularly fights elections and it has won seats in the European Parliament and on local councils.

There are many other groups which are concerned with protecting the environment, for example, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which campaigns to protect birds against dangers such as pesticides and hunting. Some environmental groups are very old. The oldest is the National Trust which was set up in 1895 to protect parks, buildings and monuments in Britain.

National heroes and heroines

All countries have their national heroes and heroines. We usually learn about these people through our history lessons at school.

Heroes and heroines are often leaders who fought against a more powerful enemy. The earliest leader in British history was Queen Boadicea, who led a rebellion against the Romans. There is a statue of her on Westminster Bridge in London. Boadicea was defeated, but a later hero, King Alfred the Great, won his fight against the Vikings. Alfred is the only English king called 'the Great'. In Scotland, the most famous leader is Robert the Bruce. He defeated the English in one of the many wars between England and Scotland which took place before the two countries were united. The most famous British national leader from modern times is Winston Churchill, who was prime minister during the Second World War.

Not all national heroes and heroines are leaders. Some are inventors, explorers or pioneers in a particular field. British schoolchildren learn about George Stephenson, who invented the first railway engine; Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin; Florence Nightingale, who founded the nursing profession; and David Livingstone, who explored Africa.

National heroes are not always international heroes. Very often people in other countries have never heard of them. And one country's hero can be another country's villain. For example, British schoolchildren learn that Sir Francis Drake was a great hero who fought against the Spanish king Philip II, but in Spain it is Philip II who is the hero, while Drake was nothing more than a pirate.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was the greatest writer in the English language. He was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than himself. A few years later he moved to London, where he worked as an actor and a playwright.

Shakespeare wrote thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets (a kind of poem). His most famous plays are the four great tragedies - Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear. He also wrote several historical plays. Eight of these plays were about English kings, including Richard II, Henry V and Richard III. Others dealt with Roman history and included Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra. But not all of Shakespeare's plays were serious. He also wrote comedies, such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night.

Shakespeare died in Stratford on 23 April 1616, but his plays are still very popular today. They have been translated into several different languages, and many of them have been made into films, both in English and other languages. Shakespeare's plays are about the great issues of life - love, hatred, jealousy, power, ambition, death and so on. So, his plays are just as relevant today as they were in the sixteenth century. To show this, modern directors sometimes do the plays in modern dress, and one of Shakespeare's plays has even been turned into a modern musical. His romantic tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, was the basis for the musical West Side Story.

The health service

Britain has got a National Health Service (the NHS). This service provides free treatment for all illnesses.

If you are ill, you go to your local doctor. He or she is a general doctor, or general practitioner (GP). You make an appointment to see the doctor, unless it is an emergency. If you are too ill to go out, you telephone the doctor and he or she will come to your house. Your GP will either give you some treatment or send you to a specialist. Most specialists work in hospitals.

If the doctor gives you a prescription for some medicine, you take it to the pharmacy in a chemist's shop. You have to pay for the medicine, unless it is for a child, an old person or someone who is unemployed. The cost is the same for any medicine.If you have an accident you go straight to a hospital. You go to the Casualty Department.

You don't have to use the National Health Service. If you prefer, you can have private treatment. You have to pay for this, but it usually means that you can have an operation sooner.

The ORIGINS of GOLF

The origins of golf can be a little murky as some researchers claim they have discovered references to a form of golf from Egyptian hieroglyphics, while in China, Chui Wan ("chui" = striking and "wan" = small ball) a game of driving a ball with a stick into holes in the ground, was first mentioned in records from the 11th century.

The Dutch game also seemed to have an early version played with a stick and leather ball, while the Scottish game of 'goulf' was mentioned in two ancient laws prohibiting its play.

These games in their various forms are best considered to be the ancestors of golf, while the modern game as played today originated in Scotland in the 12th century, with shepherds knocking stones into rabbit holes, right upon the land where the famous St Andrews Golf Club is situated today.

The earliest, permanent, golf course originated there, along with the 1st written rules of the game, and the 18-hole circuit.

Competitions were arranged between different Scottish cities, and over time, the game spread to England and on to the rest of the world.

In 2005, Golf Digest calculated that the countries with most golf courses per capita, were: Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Canada, Wales, United States, Sweden, and England.

Great Britain's Last EXECUTION!

German spy Josef Jakobs was the last person executed on British soil on the 15th of August 1941 by firing squad.

The chair that he was executed in currently belongs to the Leeds Museum, however before it made it's final journey, a number of the executed man's relatives arrived, asking to see the chair.

The grandchildren of the executed spy were then sat on the chair where he was shot so that happy snaps could be taken!

WHY Are SHIPS Christened With A Bottle Of CHAMPAGNE???

Upon the launching of a newly completed ship, a bottle of champagne is usually smashed over the bow to christen it. The origins of this are a little unclear and can vary slightly from culture to culture, but for the most part it is believed that blood or wine, depending on the particular culture, was originally used as a sacrifice to the gods of the sea to allow for a smooth passage.

Over time this became wine by those who originally used blood, and the wine was poured first into a silver chalice, from which a sip was taken before spilling the wine over the ship and casting the chalice into the sea.

After 1689, William the III of Britain, in an effort to cut costs, ordered the Royal Navy to break a bottle of liquor against the ship's side instead.

During the early 1800's, the Prince Regent set in place the custom of choosing a woman to perform the ceremony. The bottle was then to be held by the neck and thrown against the ship, however the rules had to change again after one particular bottle missed the ship and hit a spectator.

As for how the wine turned into champagne, champagne has always been associated with birth and celebration, while also having no religious association.