12 August
1831 · everyday
The Glorious Twelfth — the grouse season opens
The Game Act of 1831 fixed the twelfth of August as the opening of the red grouse season in Britain, and it has been the Glorious Twelfth ever since. For nearly two centuries it has marked the point where the moors of Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Scotland fill up with tweed, and where certain restaurant menus change overnight.
For most of us it meant nothing more than a line on the news and a very specific sort of photograph in the papers. But it is one of those dates that quietly organises the British calendar, like the first day of the football season or the Radio Times double issue.
“What date in the year told you the seasons had turned when you were young?”