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Monday, May 29, 2006


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Hooray,

It's a bank holiday today. Many of you from around the world may well ask, "what's a bank holiday?".

Today it is the bank holiday for Whitsun, or more commonly known as Pentecost, although this is not politically correct anymore so it is also called spring bank holiday. A bank holiday is a day of the year which by Royal Proclamation is a holiday, they are not set in stone and have to recieve a Royal Proclamation each year; this is mainly so that they don't fall on weekends or special holidays such as VE day anniversaries.

Before 1834 there were 33 saints' days that were treated as holidays by banks, oh to be living back then. But in 1834 they were reduced to just 4 holidays; this sounds very evil but actually meant that people were able to choose their holiday days instead of having to take them on set days.

In 1871 Sir John Lubbock introduced an act of parliament to allow bank holidays when traditional cricket matches were being played in his home county. He believed that bank employees should be able to participate in these matches. Whitsun monday was one of these such holidays.

In 1971 four more bank holidays were added bringing the total to 8 which we now enjoy. Unfortunately it rains on every single one of them.

I hope you have learned a little about why you are off work today and if you are not British you can now appreciate just fickle our law makers are.

Have a good bank holiday.

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