Free Day Off Work - Every Year for life !!

bprentice2007

Hi all,

If you are as patriotic as me, and you think that St. Georges Day should be a National holiday, then simply vote on the following link.

The Government will not take the the petition serious unless there are at least 500,000 votes.

Its quick, its simple , its harmless...

And most of all, its a freebie that if sanctioned, we will all benefit from, even our Children, and our Childrens children.

Sorry, if i have posted in the wrong place,

Please thank me if you like the idea of an Extra days holiday !!

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SupportStGeorge

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MANDIE_3

I think this may have been posted before but its a good reminder anyway. I've signed up purely because I think that we should celebrate our 'Englishness' just as other nations celebrate their individual nationality.

navyguy1965

Could I have a day off for St Andrews day then even though I live in England instead please ?

Keen_Saver

I am not at all patriotic but am hypocrital enough to sign it if it means an extra Bank Holiday!

pinginal

navyguy1965 wrote:

Could I have a day off for St Andrews day then even though I live in England instead please ?

No. But you can have St. George's day off.

dobbiesloan

navyguy1965 wrote:

Could I have a day off for St Andrews day then even though I live in England instead please ?

And a day off for Burns night or maybe the day after to recover would be a better day to have off

Lamba

I'm gonna sign up just because I want another day off.

charliegirl_3

St Andrews day for me as well please! Will we start our own petition for that?

bprentice2007

Some information about Saint George:

ST GEORGE - PATRON SAINT OF ENGLAND
ST GEORGES DAY - APRIL 23RD
Every nation has its own ‘Patron Saint’ who in times of great peril is called upon to help save the country from its enemies. St David is the patron saint of Wales, St Andrew of Scotland and St Patrick of Ireland - St George being the patron saint of England.

But who was St. George, and what did he do to become England’s Patron Saint?

Very little is known about St. George’s life, but it is thought he was a high ranking officer in the Roman army who was killed in around AD 303.

It seems that the Emperor Diocletian had St. George tortured to make him deny his faith in Christ. However despite some of the most terrible torture even for that time, St George showed incredible courage and faith and was finally beheaded near Lydda in Palestine. His head was later taken to Rome where it was interred in the church dedicated to him.

Stories of his strength and courage soon spread throughout Europe. The best-known story about St. George is his fight with a dragon, but it is highly unlikely that he ever fought a dragon, and even more unlikely that he ever visited England, however his name was known there as early as the eighth-century.

In the Middle Ages the dragon was commonly used to represent the Devil. Unfortunately the many legends connected with St. George’s name are fictitious, and the slaying of the ‘Dragon’ was first credited to him in the twelfth-century.

St. George, so the story goes, killed a dragon on the flat topped Dragon Hill in Uffington, Berkshire, and it is said that no grass grows where the dragon’s blood trickled down!

It was probably the 12th century Crusaders however who first invoked his name as an aid in battle.



King Edward III made him the Patron Saint of England when he formed the Order of the Garter in St. George's name in 1350, and the cult of the Saint was further advanced by King Henry V, at the battle of Agincourt in northern France.

Shakespeare made sure that nobody would forget St. George, and has King Henry V finishing his pre-battle speech with the famous phrase, ‘Cry God for Harry, England and St. George!’

King Henry himself, who was both warlike and devout, was thought by his followers to possess many of the saint’s characteristics.

St. George’s Day is still celebrated, and his flag flown, on his feast day, April 23rd all over England.

An interesting piece of trivia - Shakespeare was born on St. George’s Day. 1564, and if the story is to be believed, died on St. George’s Day, 1616.

An appropriate end perhaps for the man who helped to immortalise the Saint in English tradition.
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Some information about Saint Andrew:

Saint Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland, and St. Andrew's Day is celebrated by Scots around the world on the 30th November. The flag of Scotland is the Cross of St. Andrew, and this is widely displayed as a symbol of national identity.
The "Order of Saint Andrew" or the "Most Ancient Order of the Thistle" is an order of Knighthood which is restricted to the King or Queen and sixteen others. It was established by James VII of Scotland in 1687.

Very little is really known about St. Andrew himself. He was thought to have been a fisherman in Galilee (now part of Israel), along with his elder brother Simon Peter (Saint Peter). Both became followers (apostles) of Jesus Christ, founder of the Christian religion.

St. Andrew is said to have been responsible for spreading the tenets of the Christian religion though Asia Minor and Greece. Tradition suggests that St. Andrew was put to death by the Romans in Patras, Southern Greece by being pinned to a cross (crucified). The diagonal shape of this cross is said to be the basis for the Cross of St. Andrew which appears on the Scottish Flag.

St. Andrews bones were entombed, and around 300 years later were moved by Emperor Constantine (the Great) to his new capital Constantinople (now Istambul in Turkey). Legend suggests that a Greek Monk (although others describe him as an Irish assistant of St. Columba) called St. Rule (or St. Regulus) was warned in a dream that St. Andrews remains were to be moved and was directed by an angel to take those of the remains which he could to the "ends of the earth" for safe-keeping. St. Rule dutifully followed these directions, removing a tooth, an arm bone, a kneecap and some fingers from St. Andrew's tomb and transporting these as far away as he could. Scotland was close to the extremities of the know world at that time and it was here that St. Rule was shipwrecked with his precious cargo.

St. Rule is said to have come ashore at a Pictish settlement on the East Coast of Scotland and this later became St. Andrews. Thus the association of St. Andrew with Scotland was said to have begun.

Perhaps more likely than the tale of St. Rule's journey is that Acca, the Bishop of Hexham, who was a reknown collector of relics, brought the relics of St. Andrew to St. Andrews in 733. There certainly seems to have been a religious centre at St. Andrews at that time, either founded by St. Rule in the 6th century or by a Pictish King, Ungus, who reigned from 731 - 761.

Whichever tale is true, the relics were placed in a specially constructed chapel. This chapel was replaced by the Cathedral of St. Andrews in 1160, and St. Andrews became the religious capital of Scotland and a great centre for Medieval pilgrims who came to view the relics.

There are other legends of how St. Andrew and his remains became associated with Scotland, but there is little evidence for any of these, including the legend of St. Rule. The names still exist in Scotland today, including St. Rules Tower, which remains today amongst the ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral.

It is not known what happened to the relics of St. Andrew which were stored in St. Andrews Cathedral, although it is most likely that these were destroyed during the Scottish Reformation. The Protestant cause, propounded by Knox, Wishart and others, won out over Roman Catholism during the Reformation and the "idolatry of catholism", that is the Saints, relics, decoration of churches, were expunged during the process of converting the Roman Catholic churches of Scotland to the harsh simplicity of Knox's brand of Calvanism.

The place where these relics were kept within the Cathedral at St. Andrews is now marked by a plaque, amongst the ruins, for visitors to see.

The larger part of St. Andrew's remains were stolen from Constantinople in 1210 and are now to be found in Amalfi in Southern Italy. In 1879 the Archbishop of Amalfi sent a small piece of the Saint's shoulder blade to the re-established Roman Catholic community in Scotland.

In 1969, Gordon Gray, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland was in Rome to be appointed the first Scottish Cardinal since the Reformation. Pope Paul VI gave him further relics of St. Andrew with the words "Saint Peter gives you his brother". These are now displayed in a reliquary in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Edinburgh.
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