St Valentines Day   14th February  

Surrounded by myths and mystery some people link the start of St. Valentine’s Day to a pagan fertility festival known as Lupercalia. Celebrated in Roman times between 13 – 15 February, the festival is said to have involved naked people running through the streets spanking the bottoms of young women with leather whips, to improve their fertility. Like many old pagan festivals, the early Christian Church appears to have adopted it and called the 14th February St. Valentine’s Day.

The earliest known Surviving Valentine note is from 1415 when Charles (Duke of Orleans) sent one to his sweetheart from his prison cell in the Tower of London after his capture in the Battle of Agincourt.

In the 1790s the passing of love notes seems to have become standard practice, but it wasn’t until the introduction of the Penny Post in 1840 that the postal service became affordable to most ordinary folk, thus making the sending of the anonymous St. Valentine’s Day cards possible.

Today celebrated around most of the world it’s a day to let the one we love know exactly how we feel either in person or anonymous.

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