Practically Classics Forum

I am happy for the royal couple!!
But their happy day is not happy for me!!
To be honest I am not in the least interested,and would rather be working.
Its going to cost ME!!! either a day off without pay or the use of one of my holiday days!
If my company choose to close on that day,surely they should pay me,despite what wording they wangle into an employment contract to wriggle out of paying up.
So when is a bank holiday not a bank holiday?
When a royal gets married or the queen has a birthday !
Many of her subjects will get shafted financially!!
So who's gonna benefit from it?
Is all the money saved gonna for it???
Most certainly not me and probably many millions more!

FROM A VERY ANNOYED SUBJECT

lets have a royal execution & we can all have the day off, i wont mind if i have to to pay

I didn't know this, I thought it was a regular Bank Holiday.

Moved to Off Topic.

Cheers,
Brett.

Check with your employer,some will pay you others will screw you!
Govt say its the feel good factor?? YEAH RIGHT!!!

I booked my hols then! Am away from Good Friday till the Tuesday after May Bank Holiday and use three days holiday to be off for eleven days.

If the Banks are closed for the day, then it's a Bank Holiday, plain and simple.

Martin Evans wrote:If the Banks are closed for the day, then it's a Bank Holiday, plain and simple.

Actually, Bank holidays have nothing to do with Banks specifcally, and never have.

So where does the name come from then?

chrissyboy wrote:So where does the name come from then?

I'm glad you asked that! Here goes: They were introduced in 1871 by Sir John Lubbock, who was a Banker and incidentally also a keen amateur inventor and scientist, with a particular interest in insects, he was also a good friend of Charles Darwin. I quote from Bill Bryson's excellent book "At Home":

"....in 1871 he pushed through - virtually single handedly - the Bank Holidays Act, which introduced the breathtakingly radical idea of a paid secular holiday for workers (note the definition that it is PAID!) Note: The name "Bank Holiday" was an odd one, and Lubbock never really explained why he elected to call it that instead of "national holiday" or "workers' holiday" or something similarly descriptive. It is sometimes suggested that he meant the holiday only for bank workers, but that is not so. It was always intended for all.

It is almost impossible now to imagine what excitement this caused. Before Lubbock's new law, most employees were excused from work on Good Friday, Christmas Day or Boxing Day (but not generally both) and Sundays, and that was it. The idea of having a bonus day off - and in summer at that - was almost too thrilling to bear. Lubbock was widely agreed to be the most popular man in England and bank holidays for a long time were affectionately known as "St. Lubbock days". No one in his age would ever have supposed that his name would one day be forgotten.

End of quote.


OK? so if you find that the above is wrong, you can blame Bill Bryson!