From the biggest national festivals to the smallest village fairs, nothing demonstrates the many faces of Britain like its many different events.

People in Britain love to get together for a celebration, or just to have a bit of fun, a lot of the time it might be to raise some money for a local school or charity by having a fair or jumble sale. Local people volunteer to get involved and sell food and second hand items that they’ve had lying around their house; people come to search through old record collections or for vintage clothes, hoping to pick up a bargain.

British Festivals

This is a part of British culture that is more ingrained in the national consciousness than most people think. Even Glastonbury Music Festival, one of the biggest and loudest celebrations of in the world, is essentially a great big village fair that depends on lots of volunteers and tries to raise a bit of money for charity whilst having fun, it’s just on a much larger scale.

There are music festivals for all different tastes and there are other festivals across Britain celebrating everything from country-life to comedy. There are the Proms every summer in central London, a hugely patriotic flag waving celebration of music and culture attended by the Royal Family; there is the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, a celebration of live comedy and entertainment among the best anywhere in the world.

But it’s not just great big events that bond the UK together, smaller rural festivals and summer fairs are where the real communities of Britain come together each year for their own personal celebrations, whether fisherman from the Cornish coast or farmers from the Scottish Highlands.

Country and Urban Festivals

Country fairs celebrate rural life and offer you the chance to see the all that the countryside has to offer, from local beer to archery, although combining the 2 is not recommended.

In more urban areas of the UK you can find cultural festivals and carnivals which owe their existence to the many different cultures that have become part of the Britain over its recent history.

During summertime you can find city parks buzzing to the sounds of Latin American or Caribbean music as people from all walks of life party in the sun (or rain!), and make the most of the long summer evenings. The biggest of these , the Notting Hill Carnival, is now officially the biggest street party in the world with more than 2 million visitors a year.

Overall the beauty of the many great British events is their complete diversity, celebrations in every corner of this tiny island that shows not just the uniqueness, and warmth of character, but the complete eccentricities that many Brits used to be famous for.

See for example the bizarre village practices, such as chasing huge cheeses down hills so fast that people regularly end up in hospital, or competing to see who can build their own home made flying machine then launching themselves into the air for a few seconds before crashing into the ground, all the while hundreds of spectators cheer them on.

There really is no end to the number of events across Britain and the many different experiences you can have by visiting them, but if you want to really get to know the British while you are here, and not just the respectable disguise people hide behind during a normal working week, then you have to see them when they are celebrating, because it truly is a sight to behold.  

By John Hillman

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USEFUL WORDS

national festival
carnival = music and dancing in the streets, with people wearing brightly coloured clothes
village fair / fete = outdoor entertainment where people may play games to win prizes and buy food & drink, usually arranged to make money for a specific purpose
jumble sale = a sale of old and used clothes etc. to make money for a church, school or other organisation
get involved = be part of an event
raising money / fundraising for charity = collecting money for a charity or organisation
volunteer = a person who does a job without being paid for it
spectator = a person who watches an event
rural = connected with the countryside
urban = connected with a town or city

ENGLISH GRAMMAR

The of-structure expressing quantity

Examples of the of-structure:
a packet of flour
a box of matches
two pieces of wood
a kilo of tomatoes

Use this structure to say how much flour or wood or how many matches or tomatoes.  Do not leave out of (NOT a packet flour)

Use the of-structure with uncountable nouns (flour, wood) because you cannot say a flour or two woods.  Use it with plural nouns (matches, tomatoes) because it is more convenient to express the quantity in boxes or kilos.

Before of + uncountable/plural noun, use these types of noun:
Containers:
a cup of coffee, a carton of milk, a bottle of wine, a jar of honey, a packet of biscuits, a bag of potatoes
Measurements:
three metres of material, thousands of litres of water, a pint of beer, two kilos of apples

Before of + uncountable noun use piece and nouns of similar meaning:
a piece of land
a sheet/piece/bit of paper
a lump/piece of earth/coal
a drop of water/milk/oil
no trace of blood

There are a number of nouns we can use with of + plural noun but not with of + uncountable noun:
a crowd of people
a bunch of flowers
a group of tourists
a series of concerts