Читать книгу It Is Just You, Everything’s Not Shit - Steve Stack - Страница 8

Any day when you don’t have to go into work is good. But here’s the remarkable thing about Bank Holidays—there is no legal right to time off, but we get to stay home anyway.

Originally, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Bank Holidays were just that: days when the banks were closed. There were thirty to forty of them spread across the year coinciding with religious festivals and feast days but only bank employees really benefited from them.

It wasn’t until 1871, when Sir John Lubbock introduced the Bank Holidays Act, that the rest of us got a lie-in as well. Lubbock was a wonderful old duffer who felt that bank employees should be allowed to watch lots of cricket, so his list of holidays included the dates when village matches tended to be played.

There has been plenty of fiddling with the numbers, frequency and timing of Bank Holidays since the original Act of Parliament and many people are lobbying for a few more days to be chucked into the mix as well. Most popular are the arguments for St George’s, St Andrew’s and St David’s days for England, Scotland and Wales respectively, in line with the national day of drinking and falling over in Ireland for St Patrick’s Day.

FASCINATING FACT

Christmas Day and Good Friday are not technically Bank Holidays, although they are observed as common law holidays.