British bank holidays are public holidays and have been recognised since 1871.
May Day on May 1 is an ancient Northern Hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures. Dances, singing, and cake are usually part of the celebrations that the day includes.
In the late 19th Century, May Day was chosen as the date for International Worker’s Day by the Socialists and Communists of the Second International to commemorate the Haymarket affair in Chicago In those countries that celebrate international Worker’s Day, the day may also be referred to as “May Day” but it is a different celebration from the traditional May Day.
May Day has been a traditional day of festivities throughout the centuries. May Day is most associated with towns and villages celebrating springtime fertility (of the soil, livestock, and people and revelry with village fetes and community gatherings. Since the reform of the Catholic calendar May 1 is the Feast of St Joseph the worker, the patron saint of workers. Seeding has been completed by this date and it was convenient to give farm labourers a day off. Perhaps the most significant of the traditions is the maypole, around which traditional dancers circle with ribbons.
The May Day bank holiday, on the first Monday in May, was traditionally the only one to affect the state school calendar, although new arrangements in some areas to even out the length of school terms mean that Good Friday (a common law holiday) and Easter Monday (a bank holiday), which vary from year to year, may also fall during term time. The Spring Bank Holiday on the first Monday in May was created in 1978; May Day itself – May 1 – is not a public holiday in England (unless it falls on a Monday). In February 2011, the UK parliament was reported to be considering scrapping the bank holiday associated with May Day, replacing it with a bank holiday in October, possibly coinciding with Trafalgar Day (celebrated on October 21), to create a “United Kingdom Day.
Knowing that you’re going to be having a long weekend off isn’t that a cause for a celebration: why not get back to basics and host your very own ‘May Day’ celebration, from live music to themed entertainment. With another bank holiday soon approaching at the end of May isn’t it time you booked some great party entertainment from Red Masque?
