Neil Clark

Bring back Whitsun!

Children celebrate Whitsun in the Nort of England (Getty Images)

Bank Holidays are like buses- you wait ages for one before they all come along at once. Tomorrow will be our fourth state-mandated day off since the 18th April. It might be another golden opportunity to head to B & Q and buy bags of compost. But isn’t it all a bit much?

Don’t get me wrong. I love Bank Holidays, and I think we should have more of them. But why do so many of them come in an April and May cluster? After tomorrow we have nothing till late August – and then no more until Christmas.

Reinstating Whit Monday would be a welcome affirmation that we are not ashamed of our Christian heritage

Why is this? In the late 1960s and early 1970s, we substituted the old Whit Monday Bank Holiday, which often fell in June, with a new, secular ‘Late Spring Bank Holiday’. Getting rid of Whitsun probably seemed terribly modern in the Sixties.

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