LETTER: Seems to be no logic in timing of our bank holidays

Why so many bank holidays clumped together?

So far this year we had Easter on Monday April 5 then May Day on May 3. Then we had spring bank holiday and nothing all through the summer until the end of August. Up until 1834 we had over thirty bank holiday days off a year, now reduced to only four, one of the lowest number of bank holidays for a country in the whole world.

People think of May Day being about dancing around poles, but actually it's been World Worker's Day since around 1889.

Whitsun should be a Sunday that is seven Sundays past Easter, but it’s now on a Monday. Some would like another Bank Holiday for St Georges Day on April 23, also.

In between all these bank holidays we have election campaigning but instead of having our first three bank holidays bunched up, then having to wait three months for the last one before winter sets in, how about scrapping May Day or spring bank and replacing it with a new Great Britain Independence day Bank Holiday on June 23 every year instead? Or change May Day or spring bank to April 23 and have a whole new bank holiday on June 23 as well? Realistically is it too much to ask now for a few more days off for the workers?

Hummm, maybe I should think about joining the Labour Party, or it may be a bit of work related stress creeping in and I may need more days off work!

Gordon Fanthom, Swindon

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