Jack Averty column: The meaning of bank holidays? They should be a celebration

And what a bank holiday it was, with the scorching sunshine packing out beer gardens and back yards all across the country.

Unfortunately, while the majority were out downing Strongbow Dark Fruits like it was Ribena, an increasing number of us were stuck in an office toiling away.

Perhaps it’s just me and the industry I unfortunately chose to work in, but it seems to be that bank holidays (excluding the Christmas and Easter eating contests) are becoming less significant.

More and more people seem to be dragged unwillingly into work – from railway staff and shop assistants to NHS heroes and a rising number of us office workers – and as a consequence bank holidays are just becoming like any other normal day.

But is there more to the decline of these once sacred days than just your boss’s sinister need to have you working?

The general idea of these days is that you have the day off work to celebrate an important event.

Christmas, for example, is designed so you can celebrate the birth of Jesus by doing his three favourite things – eating, drinking and gifting – while Easter is there to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus by indulging in what was famously his favourite food – chocolate eggs.

But past that could you honestly say you know the significance of the rest off the top of your head?

Perhaps if we replaced them with celebrations of important events or people then their importance may be reignited.

Around 80,000 people turned out to celebrate Wolves’ promotion on Monday, which, although exceptional circumstances, is enough in itself to prove that bank holidays can be popular, so long as they hinge on something meaningful and something that people are interested in.

Perhaps it’s overly complicated, but could regionalised bank holidays be introduced?

Admittedly for some areas it could be quite difficult to find something to celebrate, but I am told Stoke is lovely at this time of year.

A recent poll ran by the Express & Star showed 61 per cent of readers want May Day replaced with a bank holiday on St. George’s Day, which suggests this Jonah Hill lookalike is not alone in his discontent for the current system.

A bank holiday on St. George’s Day would be great, but why not replace one of the worthless spring or summer bank holiday days with it, and let May Day be replaced by a day off on VE day, which this year fell just one day after May Day.

I was fortunate enough this week to head back to paradise Island, perhaps more commonly known as Jersey, where I was one of thousands who joined in the celebrations for Liberation Day.

For those of you unfamiliar, Liberation Day is a bank holiday every year in Jersey where Islanders pack into the town centre to celebrate Jersey’s freedom and mark the day it was liberated from Nazi rule.

The day features a re-enactment of when the first British troops landed on the island to liberate it, as well as a selection of readings, hymns and songs, and of course, most importantly, various parades including everything from young children in army uniform marching to classic cars and army vehicles.

It is a great annual event, which most importantly serves to remind us why we have the day off work and all the shops are shut.

The celebration has, as I’m sure you had already worked out, been going on for decades. So the fact it has been going on that long and thousands still turn out to see it shows the power of having something to celebrate.

OK, England never fell under the rule of the Nazis during the Second World War and as a consequence doesn’t have its own Liberation Day to celebrate, but given that victory in Europe marked the end of the most significant war in history, it’s a pretty momentous day.

Yet we don’t celebrate that, we don’t get the RAF that were instrumental in ensuring Britain never got occupied to do some flyovers, nor do we get the Chelsea pensioners to relive their war time experiences to remind us how lucky we all are today – but what we do do is all charge down to our local pub on some random Monday in May for no apparent reason.

There are other historic events that could do with their own bank holiday too.

I’m sure we could all get behind the idea of a national holiday to celebrate women winning the vote or, if it somehow isn’t a massive balls-up, have a bank holiday to mark the day Britain left the European Union.

Bank holidays were supposed to be something to look forward to, but that enthusiasm seems to have wained faster than Arsenal’s annual title challenge.

It’s time to scrap the traditional bank holidays and replace them with something far more meaningful.

VE day wouldn’t be a bad place to start.