honouring the birthday of Queen Victoria, but no matter by what name the date is known -- currently, Bermuda Day -- traditionally it has remained synonymous with taking the first swim of the season.

Extended family picnics with fun and games at the beach or along the shoreline were always a "must.'' The morning road race also generated excitement.

Today, those traditions are still popular, but in addition holidaymakers have the Bermuda Day parade and fitted dinghy racing to add to their pleasure.

In keeping with the Heritage Month theme, The People of Bermuda, Taste reminisced with Warwick resident Mrs. Myrtle Edness this week about the May holidays of yesteryear, and life in gentler times.

Excitement was always high on May 24. It was, after all, a time of fun and relaxation for all the family. Living on the South Shore Road in Warwick meant that once picnic preparations were complete, the beach wouldn't be far away.

Unlike tod ay's picnic gear, which could fill a van -- portable chairs and tables, large umbrellas, coolers, beach toys, bags of ice, disposable plates, cups and cutlery, portable barbecues and enough food to feed an army -- when Mrs. Edness was a child things weren't so complicated.

"We made gingerbread, cookie cake with raisins and fresh lemonade to take on the picnic,'' she recalled. "I don't remember sandwiches, but I do remember eating bread and jam or bread and peanut butter.'' Most of all, she remembers the vanilla ice cream which, in the absence of ice or coolers, was made right at the beach.

"We would mix up the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla at home, as you would for a custard, put it in the ice cream bucket, surround it with chipped ice and salt, and take the whole thing to the beach. There, after a brief stir, everybody took a turn cranking the handle until the mixture turned into ice cream. Then we'd sit down and eat it. It was better than the stuff they sell today!'' In the absence of refrigeration, Mrs. Edness said her family would purchase 1/6d worth of ice from a Mr. Ottley, who travelled through neighbourhoods the day before the holiday in his horse and cart carrying big blocks of ice for sale.

"After we bought it, we would wrap the ice in paper and a bag. The next day we would chip some off with an ice pick and put it down the sides of the ice cream maker,'' she explained.

Without thermoses, the family also added ice to the bucket of lemonade -- made from freshly squeezed lemons -- and carried that to the beach as well.

One at the beach, the children scampered about playing games, swimming, diving, or riding mules, while the adults exchanged news and gossip.

"We children used to race each other. At Simmons Beach, Mr. John Davis put up a springboard and we used to have great fun with that. We also liked to swim out to the boiler and back. I used to do that about 22 times,'' Mrs. Edness remembered.

Riding mules along the beach was another treat.

"Mr. John Davis used to have mules, and the children would bring them down via Landy's beach -- where Surfside is now -- to Simmons beach for us to ride.

We didn't have any saddles for them, you know, we'd just put an old bag on their backs!'' A special attraction was the diving prowess of Mr. Zacky Lovell, who lived on property now owned by Mr. Erling Naess.

"He would put a cork on the water and dive right down on it. You could see it disappear and come up again.'' In accordance with a popularly held belief of the day, people did not go into the sea for two hours after eating -- a lifetime to active children.

"It's so different today,'' Mrs. Edness remarked. "I read somewhere that now they want you to eat before going into the water because if anything happens, you'll have better strength.'' As for beach fashions, Mrs. Edness remembers one-piece wool bathing suits -- the same basic design for both men and women.

"But the older folks didn't wear bathing suits. The women went into the sea with long dresses down around their ankles, and the men wore outfits not unlike boiler suits,'' she explained.

Mrs. Edness said that while May 24 was a time for families, friends and neighbours to get together at the seaside, mothers never took their eyes off the children.

"It's not like today where mothers let the children go by themselves,'' she noted. "Even now when I go to the beach I worry. I'm always counting heads.'' Indeed, it was that old-style vigilance which helped Mrs. Edness to save a young child's life some years ago. She spotted the youngster in difficulty in the water, alerted a male beachgoer, and when the child was brought ashore she laid him across her knees and successfully revived him.

Another May 24 tradition which Mrs. Edness has always enjoyed is watching runners in the morning road race going past a vantage point.

"In those days the race wasn't big like it is today. There were only about 12 runners. Also, the start used to alternate -- one year from Somerset, one year from St. George's.'' This year, as always, she plans to watch the race, and then go down to the beach, perhaps with her grandchildren.

"I don't go to the parade,'' she said. "That's not Bermudian.'' Looking back over a life which included typesetting and writing at the Bermuda Recorder for 13 years, marriage to Arnold (A.J.), moving into her own Warwick home built by her husband with the help of friends, raising two children (Alan and Maureen), running a grocery store for 29 years, and now enjoying a retirement filled with activities, Mrs. Edness says times have certainly changed.

The Sundays of her childhood, for example, were taken up with Sunday school and church services -- as many as three in a day. Children were not allowed any form of boisterous activity, nor could they sit around in their Sunday best. Adults rested that day from all labours.

"Sundays you renewed yourself, it was good,'' she said.

Children were disciplined, with emphasis on good manners and obedience.

"Today they're so fresh. You have to tell them something two or three times before they'll even listen to you.'' They could also spell and do mental arithmetic.

People were genuinely friendly and helpful. Citing the couple's first home as an example, Mrs. Edness said when her contractor husband started digging the tank she helped him. By the time the roof was put on 20 people were on hand -- all volunteers without pay which, in any case, the couple could not afford.

"We moved into our home on Christmas Eve. It was so nice it made you cry,'' she said. "Four friends who helped us got together and gave us pairs of blinds.'' The country store, A.J. Edness Grocery, which she ran for the family for 29 years, was also a social centre -- sometimes to her chagrin.

"People would go home from work, wash their faces, eat their supper, and then, refreshed, come down to the store and start some big conversation. By that time I was ready to go home!'' In addition to the memories of barrels of chicken feed, sugar, big boxes of butter, and wheels of cheese with which the store was stocked, Mrs. Edness still retains some of the greaseproof paper used for wrapping and also the cedar till.

Before trips to the bank with the day's take were the norm, Mrs. Edness devised her own "safe'' to foil would-be robbers: she put the money in a bag and shoved it down in the barrel of chicken feed! Then, as now, Mrs. Edness was an early riser and still retains a special fondness for the sunrise. It reminds her of a story.

"When I was young and naive I thought you had to go down to the East End to see the sun rise, so some friend and I went by train and bicycle to St.

David's to see it rise. It cost me thirty shillings, including room and board at Aunt Carrie Fox's, for the weekend. When I got home my father said, `Girl, don't you know you can see it from the South Shore?'' LOOKING BACK -- Mrs. Myrtle Edness remembers the past in the living room of the Warwick home built by her late husband, Arnold, whose portrait is behind her.