May Day on Friday?
08 May 2020
Dear LPG,
I know that I am slow on the uptake but I have just worked out that last Monday was not defined as a bank holiday because May day was slightly postponed this year. I hope that LPG will be able to post this message on time even though I have left it a bit late to write about this.
Apparently, this is happening for the second time in the history of this bank holiday which is the youngest of our present eight. The second world war is the reason. The celebration has arrived but four days late so that it can be amalgamated with the 75th anniversary of VE day.
As time goes by, the 8th May 1945 is becoming a day that more and more pensioners remember because of the stories that their parents told them, but whatever our age, it is always worth acknowledging that the country that we now live in, in spite of all the niggly negatives (and the latest episode in our world- history), is a better place because of events such as this.
I have heard it said, many a time, that we, in the UK, get a raw deal when it comes to bank holidays and I found a list that shows just how few we do get in comparison to other countries. Apparently we once had a lot more, but bank holidays cost money (just think of all the money that is not made commercially when people are not working), and the significance in this modern money-driven world of ours. But we are not too badly off. We are a country where its workers do get one of the more favourable number of paid annual leave days per year.
You may say that while the older pensioners among us have the most vivid memories of VE day this issue doesn’t really affect us because we don’t work anyway. But our bank holidays are usually the days when we get to see a little more of our families and, even though which ever day it is will make little difference to us this year, being able to plan ahead is not a bad thing…
TK, Downham
TK found some VE day stories
And also some statistics on how we in the UK measure up when it comes to bank holidays and annual leave entitlements geographically…
