Spring Bank Holiday – the last Monday in May

Whitsun (Whit Sunday) - the seventh Sunday after Easter - celebrates the coming down from heaven of the Holy Ghost.

Whit Monday was the holiday the day after Whitsun. Because this is seven weeks after Easter, the date varied. And eventually the fixed holiday, called Spring Bank Holiday, has replaced it. Today it is a public holiday celebrated on the last Monday in May.

Cheese-rolling on Cooper’s Hill, in the Gloucestershire parish of Brockworth, an old Whit Monday custom, has been transferred to the newly established Spring Bank Holiday.
In the evening of that day, the youth of the neighbourhood run races down the *precipitous hillside for the price of a cheese.
The course to be run is down that part of the very steep hill which is free from trees. Before each race begins, the Master of ceremonies, wearing a white coat and a top hat, hands a cheese to the person who has been chosen to act as a Starter and slowly counts four. At the word “three”, the Starter sends the competitors rush after it. The winner keeps the cheese and there are money prices for the competitors who finish second and third. When the first rate is over, other cheeses are released for the following races, of which there are sometimes as many as five or six, including one for girls.
There has never been a break in the annual ceremony. Even during the war, when food-rationing made the provision of several whole cheeses impossible. Continuity was preserved by using a wooden **dummy together with a very small piece of real cheese. Cheese – rolling is said to run back to a very remote period. Tradition says that the cheeses for these sports were given by individual ***parishioners. But nowadays a collection is usually made before-hand to pay for them, and to provide money for other prizes and the general expenses of the festivity.

Vocabulary
*Preciptious = dangerously high or steep
**Dummy = an object made to look like and take the place of a real thing
***Parishioners = a person living in a particular parish (an area in the care of a single priest and served by one main church.

T. Khumina, N. Kohon, I. Walsh “Customs, traditions and festivals of Great Britain”
James O’ Driscoll “Britain. The country and its people: an introduction for learners of English” /Oxford

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