St George's Day was celebrated with traditional parades and celebrations like fetes, church services and traditional English activities like Morris Dancing. With some lockdown restrictions easing, some smaller, socially distanced events managed to go ahead for how this year’s celebrations.
Celebrate St George's Day was celebrated in many areas with delicious recipes that showcase the best of English produce, like baking a Victoria sponge or delving into a retro classic like Lancashire hotpot or sherry trifle as feasts and banquets were how Saints' days was honoured.
Families gathered together to give thanks and to savour a selection of scrumptious foods, with, for even more fun, plan a menu full of classic English fare like roasted lamb, bangers and mash and bread pudding.
Famed for how he slayed a dragon, the well-known story mainly comes down to the Golden Legend - a popular collection of saints’ lives written in the 13th century. In Birmingham, a giant St George flag was hoisted onto the side of the city’s Town Hall building to mark the national holiday and welcome Team England athletes ahead of the Commonwealth Games in the city.
Community groups, athletes and representatives of Birmingham City Council got together to celebrate St George’s Day by erecting the large patriotic flag measuring 52.25m wide by 8.2m high across the city centre landmark. Organised by the city council in recognition of England’s national day, the publicity stunt was staged to coincide with preparations underway for the Birmingham 2022 international sporting tournament, which begins in less than 100 days.
In attendance for the flag unveiling were groups that have received funding from the council’s Celebrating Communities scheme – a £2million project which is supporting organisations in all 69 of the city’s wards to help people embrace the Games and Birmingham’s role as “Proud Host City”.
Along with passing members of the public, the participants had an opportunity to chat about the growing excitement for the Games with Team England athletes including world champion gymnast Joe Fraser, high jumper Laura Zialor, judokas Kelly Petersen-Pollard and Dan Powell, boxer Delicious Orie and wheelchair basketball player Siobhan Fitzpatrick.
Also on hand were elected members representing all three of the party groups on the city council, officers helping deliver the Games and Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Councillor Muhammad Afzal. Despite celebrating him in England, St George was said to be a soldier in the Turkish army if he ever existed.
He is also the patron saint of Ethiopia, Georgia, and Portugal, and cities such as Freiburg, Moscow and Beirut. According to one version of the tale, a town in Libya had a small lake inhabited by a dragon which was infected with the plague.
Many of the townsfolk were being killed by the dragon so they started feeding it two sheep a day to appease it.
