I’m getting fed up with Bank Holidays now

It is at about this time of the year, especially when Easter has fallen late, that I tend to get a bit bored with Bank Holidays.
Crowds at the May Day festival at Towneley Hall.Crowds at the May Day festival at Towneley Hall.
Crowds at the May Day festival at Towneley Hall.

Most of that has to do with the fact our work doesn’t stop, we just have fewer days to bring you your favourite local newspaper, if we have been lucky enough to have the Bank Holiday away from the office.

And I am sure that, for most people, the actually dates being “celebrated” by having a Bank Holiday are actually lost.

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Take Monday for instance. May Day Bank Holiday, apparently, but how many of you actually took part in traditional May Day activities?

A traditional holiday across the Northern Hemisphere, it later became something of a Labour Day and I can remember when many companies in Yorkshire celebrated this but made everyone turn up for work on Good Friday.

Three weeks after May Day, we will then have Spring Bank Holiday. Why?

Then in August there will be another. Again, why?

At the end of the year Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day all make sense and so do the two Bank Holidays at Easter.

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I know that number represents a lot less Bank Holidays than there used to be. Until around 180 years ago, the Bank of England celebrated 33 religious festivals and major saints’ days by having a day off.

But that did not mean everyone else had a day off, it just meant, in basic terms, you couldn’t really pay for anything.

These days, most traders can, largely, trade on Bank Holidays.

Not many shops are shut and you can still do all your banking on-line or through ATM machines.

It all seems to render the whole system redundant.

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I know I am not the only person who thinks this, and this is my solution.

Allow me to swerve the office on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day and I will gladly come into the office on all the other Bank Holidays ... as long as I can have an extra week’s holiday in their place.

That way I can plan to visit local attractions and enjoy our beautiful countryside on days that suit me, not days when they will be packed with others on “enforced” time away from work.