Life, the Universe and Everything

A few years ago, sitting in a bar one night with a group of friends, it was my turn to go and get a round in. As I stood up I asked all present, “Same again?” so that I could fix the drinks order in my head. One of the gang - it is not important who it was, but it was Julie - decided that she did not want the same again: instead she wanted a whisky as ‘it was Burns Night’. Even though all of us present were English, Burns Night seemed like as good an excuse as any to have a whisky: I am partial to a decent single malt myself. In fact, I decided to treat myself to a small scotch as well as my usual pint of real ale. I even went so far as to offer Julie her whisky as well as her usual: on the condition that she could identify the date of St. George’s Day. Suffice to say that she failed, and was not even in the correct month.

This has been a fault of the English (I admit that I am generalising here) that has concerned me for many years: we drink whisky on Burns Night and St. Andrew’s Day and Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day, yet St. Georges Day is largely ignored. I am pleased to say that in recent years this deficiency has been rectified.

I used to frequent a pub that had a large Welsh clientele - well, large for Essex: there were four of them - and on my way there one St. David’s Day I stopped to pluck a few daffodils from roundabout along the way (I know it was naughty, but I was young and reckless). My Welsh companions were chuffed to bits with my wanton act of vandalism. When I turned up in the same pub several weeks later wearing a red rose, it was only these Welshmen that realised I was not making a statement about my sexuality and coming out. It was following this incident that I decided that in future I would help to decorate my local - both putting up the decorations and paying for them as it turned out - so that everybody would be aware when it was St. Georges Day.

Thankfully - for my bank balance at least - I only had to finance the festivities for one year. The brewer Charles Wells decided to market their Bombardier bitter in association with St. George’s Day. Banished from the pump clip was the soldier in tricorne hat enjoying a tankard of beer: in his place was a simple St. George’s Cross. Charles Wells would send promotional material - hats, bunting and flags - to pubs that stocked their fine ale each 23rd of April.

Charles Wells has set the ball rolling to turn St. George’s Day into an event - granted to sell more beer - now we need the government to get in on the act. An extra day off would not go amiss: Northern Ireland gets theirs, what about the three nations on the mainland? (Obviously Wales and Scotland would have March 1st and November 30th off respectively instead of April 23rd.) Other English institutions could then follow suit: how about the Football Association switching the closest Saturday’s fixture to this new bank holiday? The cricket season is underway by mid April, perhaps following on from the traditional season curtain-raiser of the MCC versus the County Champions in a first class match, Lord’s could host the MCC versus England in a limited overs match on St. George’s Day (not a Twenty20 slog-fest though).