I’ve never really got the hang of Bank Holidays.
I’m fine with Christmas and Easter, of course, although when I was at school these seemed like a bit of a waste as they always occurred during the longer school holidays when I would already be off anyway. The same is true of the August one.
These days, I am as grateful for a free day off as anyone else. As I work as a freelance writer, I could, of course, potentially be swamped by a flood of work at any time, rendering any Bank Holiday obsolete. In practice, this never happens, however, partly because I tend to everything ages in advance. I am writing this on April 28, for example. I have not even had my first May Bank Holiday yet!
As most of my family still live in Cambridgeshire, until last year, I often found my Bank Holidays swallowed up by long train journeys either to or from Peterborough. One day I will manage to enjoy Bank Holidays for what they are. Currently, I find them the wrong length – too long to ignore entirely but nevertheless still too short to do anything very special with.
Why are there two bank holidays in May?
Until 1831, the Bank of England apparently observed around 33 saints’ days and traditional festivals as holidays, but in that year the number fell to just four. It should not be assumed everyone had a holiday at the same time the banks did, however. The big change came with the Bank Holiday Act of 1871. This basically ensured everyone in England was entitled to a holiday on four specific days. The act was championed by a former banker turned politician called Sir John Lubbock, later known as Lord Avebury. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lubbock suddenly became a very popular figure as a result. Some newspapers even proposed the August bank holiday be dubbed ‘St Lubbock’s Day’ in his honour. This never happened.
The first May Bank Holiday, however, did not arrive until much later in 1978. There has been some confusion over this. Perhaps because it was introduced by the Labour Government of James Callaghan, many have wrongly assumed it to be connected to International Workers’ Day, a socialist celebration also celebrated in May throughout the world. Tory Prime Ministers such as John Major and Boris Johnson have even talked of abolishing and replacing it with a Trafalgar Day on or around October 21 instead, no doubt partly for this reason. In fact, the May Day Bank Holiday has nothing to do with International Workers’ Day whatsoever. It has its origins in traditional May Day rituals like Maypole dancing, Morris dancing and the crowning of a May Queen.
The approaching Bank Holiday was established formally as Whit Monday in 1871. It became known as the Spring Bank Holiday after 1971.
Within most of our lifetimes, the significance of banks actually being closed on Bank Holidays has diminished considerably. In the days before ATM bank machines existed, the closure of a bank may actually have been genuinely inconvenient. Today, with debit and credit cards and internet banking widely used, it is generally much less likely to be a serious issue.
Ten years ago, in 2011, the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton led to an additional Bank Holiday being declared the day before on Friday, April 29. As the following Monday, May 2, was already the usual designated May Day Bank Holiday, this led to a four-day weekend. Unusually, as the previous week had been Easter weekend, this meant that Britons experienced two four-day weekends in a row.
Next year will be an unusual year too. On Thursday, June 2 there will be a Spring Bank Holiday followed by a Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday on the following day. This is intended to ensure Britons get the maximum opportunity to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Queen coming to the throne, an event which actually occurred in February, not June.