Spring Equinox and wartime holidays (UK)

Saturday 20 March 2021, marked the start of Spring according to astronomical calculations*, when night and day are equal in length. This is the Spring, or ‘vernal’ equinox. [* the meteorological definition of four seasons based on the Gregorian calendar marks Spring as starting on 1 March]. It is not my intention to explain this in any more detail, others are far more adept at doing so than I, but it is pertinent to my book and the experiences of Ron and Betty during wartime. If readers wish to know more about the Equinoxes and Solstices, I commend this article in i news https://inews.co.uk/news/science/spring-equinox-2021-when-date-vernal-meaning-first-day-explained-917634

So what was the relevance to Ron and Betty? In his letter to Betty written on Easter Sunday 9 April, in 1944, Ron asked if she’d had a good Easter – his use of the past tense presumably projecting forward to the time that she would read it. On 18 May 1944 he asked about her friend Pat’s visit at Whitsun. These two events are closely linked in the Christian and secular calendars.

The date for Easter Sunday is set in relation to the Spring Equinox, and falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon after 21 March, which was 9 April in 1944, 4 April this year, 2021. Whit Sunday being another important Christian holy day, taking place on the 7th Sunday after Easter Sunday – 28 May in 1944, 23 May in 2021.

In April 1944, Ron was stationed with his REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) Unit at Portslade in Sussex on the South Coast of England, . He thought it unlikely that Betty would ‘take a rest, not if I know you.’ a commentary as much about her voluntary work as a Civil Nursing Reserve and as a Services Canteen assistant (both were in addition to her full time work as a shorthand typist with GWR, Great Western Railway) as it was about her social life.

To him, the holiday was a nuisance because it delays the mail, the only contact we have – hoping for a letter in the morning darling. The GPO (General Post Office) were delivering mail to the armed forces still on home soil at that point. Postal arrangements for Good Friday, Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday seem to have varied across the UK, with Good Friday being an official Bank Holiday in Scotland, but it is unclear if that was so in the rest of the country. It seems that in some (but not all) areas banks were closed, and many newspapers were not printed on Good Friday or Easter Monday. As far as postal services were concerned, telegrams would be delivered on Good Friday as on a weekday, normal Sunday services (ie one delivery a day rather than two) for post & telegrams would apply to Easter Sunday and Monday. The disruption to the postal services was perhaps not as drastic as Ron feared.

The issue of public or Bank holidays and holidays in general had been debated in Parliament several times since the outbreak of war. In 1942 and 1943, debates in the House of Commons recognised and stressed the importance of ‘moderate and well-planned holiday breaks’ that were ‘subject always to the emergencies of the war situation and to the urgency of particular requirements for output’ including munitions. In March 1943, as well as an annual holidays for workers being limited to no longer than one week, there was to be a one-day break on Easter Monday, Whit Monday, and the August Bank Holiday, with two days at Christmas or the New Year. The Government regretted that ‘they ask that, as last year, there should be no cessation of work on Good Friday’. In 1944 the Ministry of Labour and National Service called upon all managements and workers engaged in war work to continue production during the Easter holidays with not more than one day’s break.. The Good Friday holiday was cancelled and the Football Association requested clubs to comply with the Ministry’s request not to play football on Good Friday. One newspaper, the West Sussex County Times, reported that although Saturday, 8 April would not be a general holiday, the Government had recommended that this day should be an approved holiday for industry subject to the exigencies of the war situation’.

Betty had had two days holiday, but in light of the above it is unclear to me which two days she had taken as holiday. As she normally worked Saturday mornings as well every weekday, perhaps that counted as one of the days, or maybe she was able to take the day following Easter Monday, making it a long weekend.

Ron wrote to her again two days later, thanking her for the Easter card she had sent him – it was very sweet of you – never occurred to me to send you one Betty-Lou – in fact I hardly had a chance to realise it was Easter. He also warned her that future letters would be subject to censorship. This was the period leading up to Operation Overlord, the Allies’ planned invasion on the coastal areas of occupied France, later to be referred to as D-Day. Betty said she’d had a ‘lazy time’, going to bed at 3 in the afternoon one day because she had been kept awake by her sister’s baby (me). She had also worked for 6 hours at the canteen on Easter Sunday – not my idea of a quiet time he said. Although it was very hard work in the canteen, it did provide Betty with a sense of ‘doing her bit’ for the war effort, and where many soldiers, sailors and airmen had benefited from her efforts, so also had she benefited from the social life it afforded, which was in sharp contrast to her somewhat confined clerical work in an office. Flirtatious exchanges surely matched the welcome delivery of meals and snacks to these men!.

As has so often been the case when I have used the British Newspaper Archives for my research, I came across this snippet of information that not only adds to the canon of social history of the time, but also resonates with the year that saw shortage of goods (including toilet rolls) when the arrival of Coronovirus led to panic buying at a similar time in 2020. In Evesham, Worcestershire, it was reported that a baker had only been able to bake a proportion of his usual Easter time Hot Cross buns because of a shortage of staff and materials – many of his staff had either been called up to serve in the Armed Forces or to undertake war work in factories or in the fields. Where normally he would have produced between 20- and 30-thousand buns, in 1944 he had only baked 2- or 3-thousand. He had sold out within an hour of opening and had closed early at mid-day, leaving many would-be customers disappointed. [Evesham Standard & West Midlands Observer Saturday 15 April 1944. Courtesy of the British Newspaper Archives]

The next date in secular calendars was the Whitsun bank holiday – with Whit Sunday being another important Christian holy day. Whit Monday was, at that time, a Bank Holiday, and fell on 29 May in 1944. Inextricably linked to the Easter date as Whit Sunday was, the Bank Holiday was also a movable feast, causing confusion, and long after the war, in 1971 the Banking & Financial Dealings Act moved the Bank Holiday to a fixed date, being the last Monday in May – although Whitsun was still commemorated in the Christian Church, Whit Monday then ceased to be a Bank Holiday.

Betty’s work within a major railway company made her mindful of the need to keep this crucial means of moving men, machinery and stocks rolling, although she would have been oblivious to the specific reasons at this time. As a citizen, she would also have been aware of the continuation of the ‘Holidays at Home’ initiatives set up in 1940, and would also have been aware that since 1 April 1944, the area along the South Coast where she and her friends traditionally took their holidays (and where she met Ron) was now strictly out of bounds to visitors. Restrictions on movement applied to an area up to 10 miles inland, stretching from The Wash in Norfolk to Cornwall. According to one newspaper however this had not deterred some people intent on visiting Chichester during the Easter week. I quote directly from a newspaper at the time:

‘QUIET HOLIDAY TIME It would be difficult to imagine a quieter Bank Holiday than that which Chichester , experienced on Monday, particularly during those hours of the morning when the .bus routes are usually in full use on a holiday. To what extent the travel ban affected things it would be difficult to say. because there were other conditions which militated against the likelihood of any great rush make excursions within the allotted area of movement. During the Easter period, including the eve of Good Friday, there seem to have been a good many train travellers who tried to ran the gauntlet. According to the week-end papers, the idea appears have got abroad that not much vigilance was be feared if travellers could manage land at a station just inside a banned area, after which the bus services would do the rest. The idea, did not work to any extent at Chichester, where pretty good observation was kept at the railway station, and a goodly number of holiday travellers did not get beyond the station precincts. A remark overheard in a bus, “We haven’t been stopped so far,” and the reply. “We’re not there yet,” suggested that there were at least a few who succeeded in entering the area. . . .”  [Chichester Observer Saturday 15 April 1944. Courtesy of the British Newspaper Archives]

Now 77 years later, we have been restricted in our movements throughout the Coronovirus pandemic and the periods of Lockdown. And as was the case in that report about people flouting the rules to achieve their own ends when the country was in crisis, here in the UK while we are still in Lockdown, there are some who are bent on flouting the rules, ignoring the stay-at-home and social distancing imperatives. Plus ça change!

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^[1] Hansard Vol.378 Tuesday 3 March 1942