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Valentines from past to modern day
Added 28 January 2012
Every year as February 14 approaches, people start getting twitchy about Valentine’s Day.
Who will send me one?
Will my partner remember?
But there’s more past to this age old tradition than you probably think!
There are a number of early Christian martyrs called Valentine, but it was Chaucer who way back in 1382 provides the first written reference linking Valentine’s Day with romantic love, with the words "For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."
In 1600/01, Shakespeare jumps on the bandwagon and mentions Valentine’s Day in Hamlet:
As children, we all learn the famous rhyme Roses are Red, but like many childhood verses, (including the plague in ‘Ring a Ring o Roses’) it too is as old as the hills, first making an appearance in 1590 in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene 'She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,
With the passage of time and onset of commercialisation, Valentine’s Day has become the national obsession that it is today, with all kinds of things now available for the loved one of your dreams.
Take a walk down any high street and at this time of year you’ll find that every shop has jumped on the bandwagon, offering you an assortment of food, cards, presents and gifts, all trimmed up with red and black, lace and hearts, all designed to get single people flirting and couples declaring their love!
Valentine’s Day is also a time when you can enjoy all kinds of special offers and treats in local restaurants and hotels.Let’s face it, on the Fylde Coast there are plenty of places to take your loved one for a treat, from the local burger van right through to a five star slap up treat!
The Venue hold special events all through the year, for a variety of different reasons, or just because! Over Valentine’s weekend you can treat the person of your dreams to some live music and enjoy a Michael Buble Tribute night on the 10th Feb or a “King of Swing” night with Johnny O’Conner on the Sat 11th Feb, both upstairs in La Mezaluna. The restaurant will be open as normal on the 14th with Regular Menus available. The three course weekend menu is £29.95.
Here’s another idea. If you aren’t local and fancy getting away from it all, why don’t you make a weekend of it and stay at The Briardene? There you can enjoy good food and good company and get away from your normal 9-5 life and collect bucket loads of brownie points from your other half!
So not only do you have a chance to impress on 14 February, it’s also a chance for the ladies to do the proposing.
There are different theories as to the origin of why ladies were allowed to propose on this day, it’s most probably because a leap year disturbs the ordinary rhythm of days/months and years – so why not have a change from normal convention. It’s easy to forget that it’s only a couple of generations since a time when it would have been unheard of for a woman to propose to a man at any other time!
Apparently Leap years are held as an excellent time to start anything new – business ventures and relationships alike – and particularly anything that is started in the 24 hours of February 29 itself.
The final word on a woman’s marriage proposal on 29 February goes to the legendary Zsa Zsa Gabor who proposed to each one of her nine husbands, and said ‘A woman has to make up a mans mind’! Why don't you sign up to keep up?Register for weekly email updates from Visit Cleveleys and keep up to date with what's happening, what's new on this site, offers and news.
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Will I get a card/won’t I? 
In 1797, a British publisher issued The Young Man's Valentine Writer, with verses for sentimental but uninspired young men to copy. By this time, printers had already begun producing cards with verses and sketches, called "mechanical valentines," and a drop in the cost of postage in the 1800’s encouraged more people to send Valentines. It also made it possible to send cards anonymously, and the prudish Victorians saw that as a cover for sending cheeky verses! These Valentines became so popular that factories started making them, initially with real lace and ribbons, and paper lace coming later. 
Not forgetting of course, that 2012 is also a leap year, with the one-in-four year additional calendar day of 29 February.
