Let’s have a referendum to scrap these bank holidays

The obvious answer would be everyone, but I’d bet my Sainsbury’s Nectar points (not much but it’s the best I can muster), if we were presented with a Brexit-style bank holiday referendum, the noes would have it.

Of course, no employee would want their bank holidays to be taken away without recompense. The days should still be included in holiday allocation, but to be taken whenever needed, in the same way as other days off.

Many employers include bank holidays within their annual leave allowance, meaning that workers don’t have a choice in the matter. They have to take the days off: days when everywhere, from coastal resorts to stately homes, art galleries, museums and every other attraction in the country, is bursting at the seams with visitors.

The roads are clogged, so the very idea of leaving home for a day out on a bank holiday is off-putting; add to this the astronomic cost of short breaks over each bank holiday period. It’s not fair to lumber us with so many of them. They also come in a cluster, with four falling between late March and the end of May.

Roads are clogged with traffic on bank holidays

I am sure that, given the choice, many people would prefer to work on these days and take leave at another time. They could bank up their bank holidays and use them to take a week off when it suits them and their employer. For parents, it would work well, with the benefit of taking a chunk of time off in school holidays rather than odd days.

In many professions, workers have to do twice as much in the lead-up to the bank holiday to make up for the days lost, which rather defeats the object of an extra day or two of leisure.

Bank holidays were first introduced in the UK in 1871, by the government, which designated four holidays in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, intended for banks and financial institutions to take days off. It gradually became common practice across all professions, with more days added in the 1970s after campaigning by the Trades Union Congress (TUC). It’s ripe for reform, but please, please don’t increase them - the TUC is calling on the government to create four new public holidays to bring us into line with other countries across Europe, which all get more.

I know I am not alone in finding bank holidays depressing. To me they have the same stagnant feel as Sundays. I have felt this way about them since childhood and hate the jingle jangle of ice cream vans, a sound I associate with Sundays and bank holiday Mondays.

In the week before a bank holiday you get the usual barrage of questions from friends and colleagues: “What are you doing this weekend?” It feels wrong to reply “Nothing.” We feel we should be out somewhere, enjoying ourselves or at the very least hosting a barbecue for 40 people in the back garden.

Those who do stay at home often resort to the popular bank holiday pastime of DIY. This frenzy of self-build renders the local tip - one of my favourite destinations on days off - firmly out of bounds.

I acknowledge the break does present a good opportunity to put up shelves or sand your floors, but for me, the only sensible way to spend bank holiday is to stay at home, catch up on everyday tasks like laundry, sort through your emails, do some gardening, then at least you can return to work knowing that you have achieved something on your ‘holiday.’