It was Friday, March 13th, it was the last day of our trip to England so we were very sad… and it was raining!

We arrived in Salisbury and we immediatly felt that something odd was taking place.

It was incredible! Some people in the streets were dressed up, wearing red wig and a red noses, just like clowns. Some others were wearing red clothes, pyjamas, and they were all laughing. We wondered what was going on, because we had never seen that before! Were people in Salisbury particularly strange? Was all this happening because it was Friday the 13th? We went to the shopping mall to have lunch and there we saw a big poster that answered all our questions: it was in fact Red Nose Day.
Then we were told that on this special day, people are asked to raise money for Comic Relief, a charity which wants to fight against poverty in the world. The slogan of this day is “do something funny for money”, but it can be “wear something funny for money…”, or “buy something funny for money…”.
So we understood why these pepople in the streets behaved so strangely! People in Salisbury like anywhere else in England were doing many things to raise money. We were pleased to learn that we also took part: when we paid our admission charges to visit the cathedral of Salisbury, they told us that 20% of our donations would be given to Comic Relief. Our English teacher tried to buy some red noses for us, as a symbol of that very special day, but she couldn’t find any, they were all sold out!
Anyway, seeing all this cheared us up and we forgot our bad mood, our sadness to leave England : we also did something funny, even not for money. We danced on the ferry on that night, sailing back to France!

“Red Nose Day” is a very special day organised in the spring every other year by Comic Relief, a charity organisation which raises money to finance charitable projects in the United Kingdom and in Africa. Comic Relief mainly wants to fight against poverty and social injustice.
On that day, there are many money-raising events throughout the country. People are asked to do whatever they can to raise money. Some do odd-jobs ( eg. dog walking, baby-sitting, gardening etc) and give the money they earned to Comic Relief. Some others organize “red nose parties”…Some simply give cash donations or buy “red nose products” (the official red nose, T-shirts, red wigs, but also, books etc).
There is also a live telethon event on BBC1 and BBC2, starting in the afternoon and ending early in the morning. It is an extraordinary night of TV entertainment with many different programmes.
Last year, for Red Nose Day, Comic Relief raised £ 82.3 millions!

Article paru dans les Reportages d’Europe N°5, 2010

Rédigé par Abel,Jules,Yann et Timothé du collège Louise Michel de Paimboeuf.