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"Hot cross buns!
Hot cross buns!
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot cross buns.
If you have no daughters,
Give them to your sons.
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot cross buns!"

• Skipping also used to be a tradition on Good Friday, using
clothes-lines.

• The chocolate Easter eggs we now give people used to be hard boiled real eggs, which were painted. Eggs were used because they represent new life, which arrives at that time of the year after a long winter - plants growing, animals born, the weather getting warmer.

• Egg rolling was a popular game. Eggs were rolled down a bank or slope into a goal at the bottom.

• Other countries have different traditions at this time of year.

In Japan people dress up and throw roast beans around to drive away evil spirits.

In Sweden and Germany bonfires are lit to drive away evil spirits.

In France bells are rung to tell children to start searching for eggs hidden in the garden or house.

• The first railways ran on wooden tracks pulled by horses to carry goods a few hundred metres.

• The first proper railway was built in 1825 to carry coal from the coal mines to factories. It used a steam locomotive and had an iron track.

In 1830 the first railway to carry people was opened between Liverpool and Manchester. It travelled at 15 mph. People sat or stood in open trucks.

A member of the Government was killed at the opening of the railway. He stepped off the train and was hit by another engine. This was the first railway death.

Many people were frightened to travel on the railways because they thought their lungs would burst if they went too fast.