Remembrance Day, otherwise known as Armistice day is celebrated every year by a number of different countries. It commemorates the end of the First World War and honours those who died during the war.
Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born on August 26th, 1910- yet almost no trace remains of this young woman. She would later regard her true birthday to be the day of her baptism, and adopted the name she had chosen through a process of religious vowing: Teresa, after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of Missionaries. In fact, we barely recognise her in childhood, before her self-reinvention- we know her entirely as a maternal nurturer, whom we admire for her faultless charity and pious compassion: Mother Teresa- now a canonised saint.
On the 5th night of the 11th month of the year, generally on a dark, cold evening, drizzling with rain, we gather up our anxious pets and elderly relatives and lock them up at home, while we head out, shivering in the cold and damp, to the many municipal and private events around the country. We spend an hour watching the dizzying and deafening fireworks, eat undigestible sausages and imagine what it would have been like if the British Parliament were blown up with gunpowder, as the effigy of a Catholic is burnt on a pyre to demonstrate to the world that no one takes democracy and tolerance more seriously than we do.
The rainbow flag as we know it today is the most widely recognised symbol of the LGBT pride movement. Its colours are vibrant and varied, and so are widely interpreted as representing these same qualities in the LGBT community, but Gilbert Baker (an activist and artist born in 1951) designed the flag with a specific meaning in mind for each stripe.
Julie d’Aubigny embodied just about everything that WHS pride week is about. A fearlessly individualistic, gritty by the gallon, incredibly musical (get your tickets to the pride party on Friday, lads) bisexual sword-wielding arsonist of the 17th century… No? That’s not what WHS pride week is about? Shame. Nevertheless, Julie d’Aubigny knew how to have a pretty good time of it.
