Plan B Forum

The government is considering scrapping the May Day Bank Holiday and creating a new public holiday in April or October. But what is the origin of our bank holidays and what do they tell us about the UK?

It seems almost too good to be true. Waking up to another four-day weekend, the second in a row for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Feels just a little bit indulgent.

But after an Easter weekend steeped in sunshine, most of us are only too happy to gobble up a double helping of bank holiday pudding, in the shape of the Royal Wedding and May Day.

But not everyone is feeling hungry for seconds. Not at Westminster anyway, where MPs have tabled a bill to scrap the May Day Bank Holiday in England and Wales and replace it with a new national day.

Under the proposals, the festivities would be moved to St George's Day in April in England and St David's Day in March in Wales, or a Trafalgar Day in October.

Ministers said the move would lengthen the tourist season, while business leaders are keen to spread out holidays to avoid a repeat of this year's 11-day bonanza, which some analysts estimate will cost the UK economy £30bn.

Spring and fertility

But the threat to May Day has riled both trade unions and rural traditionalists, for whom the first Monday is an agricultural festival whose roots stretch far beyond its modern association with Labour Day.

The curious history of our official bank holidays begins in 1871, when they were first recognised in an Act of Parliament authored by Sir John Lubbock. He was a banker who, it is said, was so keen on cricket he chose dates when village matches were played in his home county.

In truth, "St Lubbock's Days", as they were briefly known, were all associated with important religious festivals and agricultural holidays, says Prof John K Walton, a historian of British and Spanish tourism and national identities at the University of the Basque Country.

"Our bank holidays were made by the Victorians, but they are rooted in traditions which run far deeper than the holidays themselves. They underlined existing days of celebration. Mid-August, for example, was a traditional time for seaside bathing holidays, even before the advent of the railways."

December holidays are often thought of as Christian inventions, but the dates coincide with holidays which predate Jesus' birth, says Prof Bernard Capp, a historian at Warwick University.

"When the puritans abolished Christmas in 1647, they banned it twice over because it was both pagan and Popish. They looked back in history and saw that Christmas was predated by the Roman Saturnalia."

The public responded violently to the ban, particularly in Canterbury where rioting and looting broke out.

Notorious day

"The repercussions led eventually to a rebellion and a second Civil War," says Capp.

But while Christmas survived the reformation, many other traditional holidays were lost, he adds.

"Before the protestant reformation every village had its saint. But the reformers got rid of that and smashed the places of worship. Saints' days were wiped out, but somehow St George survived. He became a national figure and his identity was enough to outweigh the Pope."

May Day only became an official bank holiday in 1971, associated strongly with International Workers' Rights day, which some think has marked it out as a political target.

But its roots as a holiday stretch back to pre-Christian pagan festivals, and the Gaelic Beltane. The familiar rituals of dancing around the Maypole and the crowning of the May Queen made it a popular seasonal celebration in medieval England.

"May Day is associated with spring and fertility, the sowing of the seeds. It is a rural tradition," says Julie-Marie Strange, senior lecturer in Victorian Studies at the University of Manchester.

"It's things like May Day that remind us we were once an agricultural community. We've clung on to these traditions and I'm not sure why we'd want to get rid of them now."

When the industrial revolution came, working hours were no longer ruled by the agricultural seasons - they were ruled by the clock.

"For the factory bosses, the harvest had no relevance," says Strange. "It was all about getting as much work done in the daylight as possible. But the factories drew their workforce from the rural areas and that's where you get the clashes over time off."

Mondays were the biggest bone of contention, with working-class people deciding to take their own Monday holidays - known as Saint Mondays.

"It was a rural custom of taking Mondays off, or easy, that persisted in an industrial context", says Strange. "Although most employers tried to stamp it out."

Nostalgia

Bank holidays quickly got a bad reputation and were associated with working people drinking too much. The August bank holiday was especially notorious.

"With the hot weather and beer combo, fights would break out," says Strange. "And if you look right up to the 1960s, you see that mods and rockers tended to clash more on Bank Holiday Mondays too, down at the seaside in Margate."

But the holiday Mondays were not just about drinking, they were family days, rich in childhood memories and nostalgia.

"If you read Victorian autobiographies, bank holidays were always special," says Strange. "They were red letter days when you got a free day out of the everyday routine."

In working-class areas especially they were important for family and community cohesion. But as working culture changes, it has become harder and harder for everyone to get time off on the same day, says Walton.

"In the 1960s we had local town holidays, the days when the local factories closed. But once the factories went we lost all those, and with it that predictable holiday pattern.

"With the loss of Sunday, it's getting more and more difficult for families to arrange a holiday. The bank holiday is our last remnant of that culture where we could all go on holiday together."

Strange agrees: "The fashion today is for choice, but there are good things about our bank holidays. They remind us where we came from."

But will politicians agree with the historians? And more to the point, does the nation? It could be too close to call.

In a web-poll of over 4,000 Britons, less than half (43%) would like the May Day bank holiday left as it is. A third (36%) supported replacing it with a Trafalgar Day in October, while a fifth (18%) supported replacing it with a St George's Day public holiday in April.

Enjoy yourself this May Day. It may be one of your last.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13217242

The Hen wrote: Here's a thought, how about you have a day off to celebrate anniversaries that are REALLY IMPORTANT to you.

Sean wrote:

The Hen wrote: Here's a thought, how about you have a day off to celebrate anniversaries that are REALLY IMPORTANT to you.

Like the Queen's birthday Hen?

Nettle-eating
Black pudding-throwing
Plank-walking
Pea-shooting
Woolsack-racing
Worm-charming
Egg-throwing
Mud-racing
Lawn-mower racing
Coal-carrying
Snail-racing

Every year during bank holidays, the UK hosts an array of outlandish sporting events such as bog-snorkelling, shin-kicking and cheese-rolling. Why are these odd activities so enduring?

There are two sporting Britains. In the first, hundreds of thousands troop to stadia each week to watch football, rugby or other popular, mainstream games.

In the second, participants enjoy such activities as pea-shooting, wife-carrying and black-pudding throwing.

Eccentric they might be. Entirely serious they are not.

But eating nettles, pulling silly faces, wrestling with one's toes and collecting worms all form part of a less-discussed side of the nation's competitive culture.

What's more, these bizarre traditions are not as marginal as the layman might think, drawing diverse crowds to remote parts of the country.

The UK hosts at least 20 outlandish sporting events which draw enthusiasts and amateurs from all over the world.

Bog-snorkelling entices participants from as far afield as Australia, others give shin-kicking a go and the practice of chasing Double Gloucester cheese wheels down hills is long-established.

Some of these extraordinary sports can be traced back as far as the 13th Century.

Chipping Campden is one such host of unusual historical games. The Cotswold Olimpicks are held during spring bank each year where attendances have been over 5,000.

Eccentrics and novices flock to Dover's Hill, keen to have some fun. And occasionally get hurt.

Competitors can participate in shin-kicking, which is centuries old. It sounds painful but a bit of straw padding can offer protection.

Rules state one must hold onto the opponent and kick their shins until they fall to the floor, under the watchful eye of the stickler, or referee.

Clive Thompson, vice-chairman of the Games, believes the unique traditional 17th Century roots are the attraction.

Thankfully, nowadays the dress code no longer includes iron-tipped boots. Broken legs used to be the norm.

Getting injured in the name of fun is all too familiar for those who each year take to Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire to chase a wheel of cheese.

Every spring bank holiday, up to its cancellation in 2010 and this year, about 200 people would climb the notoriously steep hill, almost vertical in places, to take part in this two-centuries-old tradition.

After a head start for the cheese, competitors would run down the hill trying to catch it, inevitably tumbling to the bottom.

In 1997, 33 cheese-rollers were treated for everything from splinters to broken bones. In 2005, some races were delayed due to the lack of ambulances - because they were all already at A&E with other competitors.

Sarrah Macey of the Gloucester Folk Museum has been a spectator. "Half of me was really scared, shielding my eyes from the injuries, the other half was excitedly egging-on the leader to catch the cheese," she recalls.

Some keep their bones intact and, instead, get down and dirty.

This August bank holiday, many people donning goggles, a snorkel and flippers, will immerse themselves in sludgy, peaty water. Out of choice.

More than 200 competitors will travel to the World Bog Snorkelling Championships, which date back to 1985, to swim the 60-yard peat bog in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales.

Conventional swimming strokes are not allowed.

Serial bog-snorkellers Kez Mercel and Tigger Webb fly from Australia every year to join in the fun. "The water comprises of ancient rotted vegetation swilling in black acidic water," say the pair, enticingly.

But the bog must have something endearing about it.

"We have the world's best beaches on the Gold Coast; however, we go half-way around the world to swim in a bog. That's how good it is," they add.

Despite dreadful weather, last year's event drew over 1,000 attendees.

Those steering clear of mud could head to the home of extraordinary sports, the Egremont Crab Fair in Cumbria.

Events include gurning, speed pipe smoking and greasy pole climbing.

Gurning, the act of grotesquely contorting one's face, attracts up to 100 competitors a year and features in the Guinness World Records thanks to Tommy Mattinson who has won the championship title 11 times.

Another long-standing event even reportedly helped to inspire the world's most famous sporting competition.

Much Wenlock in Shropshire has Olympic history running through its veins. Ask the majority of people when and where the modern Olympics began, and they would say Athens, 1896. But to some sport historians, it really began there in 1850.

The Much Wenlock Olympics now run every summer and this year should attract not quite the 10,000 competitors joining the London 2012 line-up, but more like 1,200. It includes typical Olympic-style events.

In the early Wenlock Olympian Games, one event had old women race in order to win a pound of tea. That's mild compared with the other bizarre sports of today.

These are a mere handful from a plethora of similar events staged in Britain each year, and they are somehow surviving.

Macey believes it's down to tradition, and that these sports are a key part of the British identity.

"Many visitors to Gloucestershire solely come to experience the cheese-rolling, shin-kicking or the bog-snorkelling because that's what they think of as quintessentially British."

Benedict le Vay, author of Eccentric Britain, agrees.

"It's part of British eccentricity. We get wonderful humour, off-the-wall explorers, wacky inventors and bonkers aristocrats out of the same tin, and we have a heck of a lot of fun," he says.

He believes in Britain, often if you try something twice and enjoy it, it becomes a tradition. "People are wedded to tradition and will always find a way. World War II didn't even stop Gloucester townsfolk from cheese-rolling, who [with] rationing, used a wooden model cheese instead.

"It doesn't matter what we're doing or why, people get carried away in the enjoyment, and return again and again, daft or not," he adds.

Despite being banned, in 2010 100 people were still cheese-rolling down Cooper's Hill in an unauthorised event.

Macey believes there is a future for these quirky games thanks to loyal cult followers and promotion through travel guides.

Le Vay agrees. New sports are invented all the time. Many are the result of a conversation in the pub, as was the case with the World Stinging Nettle Eating Championships.

"The best thing about these sports is there's a bit of risk, and they don't require skill," Macey says. "It's often about luck and every competitor feels the thrill of the possibility of holding that prize cheese at the bottom of the hill. It's a chance for people to show courage and be a winner".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13143122