Valentine's

Wimborne: How acidic Valentine's Day cards were sent to mock

2025-02-14 07:00:00 UTC

Most of the so-called Vinegar Valentines cards are unsold stock from a Dorset shop that was open in Wimborne High Street between 1837 and 1871. The cards were’...

Eat, Pray, Love: How to Keep Chemicals Out of Valentines - Earth Day

2025-02-14 07:00:00 UTC

Celebrate love without plastic! Microplastics and toxic dyes harm our health and planet. This Valentine's, choose gifts and meals that protect your loved ones.

Frome Valentine's Day lamp tradition to continue with new host

2025-02-14 07:00:00 UTC

Reg Ling, 93, has led the annual lamp lighting ceremony in a Somerset town for more than 30 years.

Valentine's_Day

Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring a martyr named Valentine, and through later folk traditions it has also become a significant cultural, religious and commercial celebration of romance and love in many regions of the world.

There are a number of martyrdom stories associated with various Saint Valentines connected to February 14, including an account of the imprisonment of Saint Valentine of Rome for ministering to Christians persecuted under the Roman Empire in the third century. According to an early tradition, Saint Valentine restored sight to the blind daughter of his jailer. Numerous later additions to the legend have better related it to the theme of love: tradition maintains that Saint Valentine performed weddings for Christian soldiers who were forbidden to marry by the Roman emperor; an 18th-century embellishment to the legend claims he wrote the jailer's daughter a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell before his execution.