Seniors,do to you remember the Wakes weeks?

Several of my close relatives worked in the woollen mills in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Our school broke up either one week or two weeks (can't remember which) earlier than most of the others and, during that time, all the mills closed totally. Everyone went on holiday (if they were having one) at the same time. Very few people had their own transport then so the charabancs were always fully booked. We'd set off about 8 a.m. and get to our destination (either the East coast - Blackpool or Morecambe or the West coast - Bridlington, Filey, Scarborough or Whitby) by about 12 noon or even later. No motorways then so we'd stop at a 'half-way house' for toilets and a cup of tea or soft drinks and eat out sandwiches on the bus. We always started back at school at the end of August whereas other schools stated back in September.

Amazingly those two weeks, in early July, were almost always the best weeks for weather. How I wish our weather was so predictable these days.

Living in Scotland, I have to admit I have never heard of the Wakes weeks.

However, we have something similar but we call it the Glasgow Fair. It has always been the fortnight starting on the Monday around the 16th July. Years ago all the factories and offices closed for these 2 weeks.

Even now, if you ask someone when they are going on holiday, they will say - the Glasgow Fair. This could be all over Scotland, not just the Glasgow area.

Born in Stratford, West Ham in 1929, people mostly went to the seaside on day trips to Southend, Clacton or maybe the Kent and Sussex resorts of Margate, Hastings, Brighton. My own family rose to such heights of prosperity that in the summer of 1937 we had our own proper week-long holiday with a landlady in Bournemouth, and totally ignorant of the dangers of sunburn, roasted ourselves on the beech with horrible results.

I had never heard of wakes' week until the Flying Bombs resulted in my evacuation to Burslem, Stoke on Trent and my introduction into life beyond the Trent. I learnt all about the Wakes, but, as it was wartime, never experienced them. My general culture shock was almost as great as when, in 1956, I first crossed the Atlantic. What, however, to me was the greatest difference was the contrast between my old grammar school at Surbiton, built and maintained on the cheap by the parsimonious Surrey County Council in a crummilly adapted small country house and the splendid Hanley High School I now went to at Chell. in a building just finished on the eve of the war.

Heard of them,but in the South of England we kept to the ordinary Bank holidays. As one person has saidlots off people went strawberry picking but lots of Eastenders of London used to go to Kent Hop picking,and lived like Gypsies for 2 weeks.,but they got paid.

I remember the mills closing in the West Riding.

Lister's mill would close and my Aunt and Grandparents

would take us kids off to the seaside, in a Wallace Arnold

charabanc. Sometimes, Morecambe, but also, Hornsea,

Bridlington and Cleethorpes. My own favourite in those

days was Scarborough.

Later as an adult working in the Maritime Museum in

Great Yarmouth, I found some old film about the Bass

breweries in the Midlands closing for the Wakes, and

the workers descended on Yarmouth in droves.

The Ribble Valley (Burnley, Blackburn) still close their schools at different times to the rest of us, this goes back to the old Wakes weeks.

In Leeds we always had two days Holiday at some of the Bank Holidays, Whitsun and Summer and the schools deducted the days from either the Xmas or Easter holiday.

That was the Clothing and Engineering companies, I don't know if printing did or not.

no

I remember when all factories and offices shut down and we had 2 weeks off with pay and I also remember the charabanc outings, but in the South East it wasn't called Wakes weeks. If it had a name, then I can't remember it. I think it may have been called that in the North. Also Londoners would leave the city in droves to go strawberry picking as a way of earning money whilst getting a basic holiday thrown in. The kids all used to love it !!

No, I am in the US but it sounds like a great idea, perhaps less stress if we all had something like that.