St. Georges Night Party Photos

So, last Friday, April 24th One for the Road Celebrated St. Georges Day.  For the non Brits and others who don’t exactly know who St. George is, and why there’s a celebration, seems there’s differing stories.

Enthusiastic Group

Either St. George was a heroic military officer who refused to carry out the Emperor’s orders to make the other soldiers give sacrifices to the pagan gods, and was tortured and put to death, or as a very different story told by Edward Gibbon’s “Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire,” first published in 1787.  This alleged that George was “an odious priest”, a crook from Cappadocia who was chased out of Palestine for selling dodgy bacon to the army, and fled to Egypt, adopted a new and growing brand of Christianity called Arianism, used that to as a lever to get himself appointed Archbishop of Alexandria in place of the genuinely saintly Athanasius the Great, and instigated a reign of such “cruelty and avarice” that he was lynched by the outraged citizens. However, Gibbon may have confused him with a man with the same or a similar name, who also came from Cappadocia.

No Kiddin' Mate, the Fish was this Big!!

Either way, he’s become the Patron Saint of England, and since the Scotts celbrate  St. Andrew’s day, (presumably to play a round of golf) and the Irish take off on St. Patricks day (presumably to get drunk, although why they declared a special day for a regular activity is beyond this writer) the English would like to celebrate a Patron Saint of their own.

Relaxing at the Bar!

However, the previously mentioned Gibbon killed off the tradition, because he associated St George with what we would now be called jingoism, or the lust for military conquest. George is unlike most Christian saints in that he was not a man of peace but an armed warrior famous for his ruthlessness in battle, albeit at the expense of a dragon who was threatening a damsel. A country which has banned fox-hunting has as its patron saint someone famous for killing a reptile which was only doing what came naturally – namely breathing fire and threatening damsels.

None the less, One for the Road followed most of Europe and celebrated St. Georges day, and we have the photos to prove it!!