But what should such a holiday celebrate/commemorate?
William Shakespeare?
Battle of Trafalger?
The Fallen who gave their lives for our country and the ongoing survival of our Nation?
Well, if you’re in favour of the last worthy option, get along to the 10 Downing Street site and join the 95,000 others on this petition.
My own favoured choice would kind of follow the same lines; I’d like to set up a day which commemorates an event which encapsulated the British spirit and defiance in the face of adversity perfectly,
I’d like our new bank holiday to be declared "Dunkirk Day".
A bank holiday commemorating one of our worse ever military humiliations, how very British, but really, I don’t mean to be at all ironic here.
"A miracle" - is the best description of what happened at Dunkirk in May and June 1940.
Hundreds of thousands of troops were rescued from the German advance in the nick of time.
The troops were desperately needed back on the home shores to help defend against a Nazi invasion.
They were rescued from the harbour and beaches near to Dunkirk by the British navy but also by many, many other small ships and boats and commercial vessels, over 300,000 instead of the expected 30,000 were brought back to our shores to fight another day.
From a desperate defeat, a psychological victory was pulled from the depths of British resilience and it gave an enormous fillup at a time when the nazi invasion of our nation was expected at any time.
"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender," he declared.
Then, as the House of Commons thundered in an uproar at his stirring rhetoric, Churchill muttered in a whispered aside to a colleague, "And we’ll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that’s bloody well all we’ve got!"
And we did.
Dunkirk Day.
3 comments:
Good question, simple answer
St George's Day in England
St Andrew's Day in Scotland
St David's Day in Wales
St Patrick's Day in NI
Problem solved.
I'm all for more holidays, even given two more we'd still behind most European country's in this regard.
No suggestions for a joint one?
Ah, but you only offered me one! As a second choice it has to be something in the winter month, preferably November.
Does it have to "represent" anything though, let's be honest, apart from Easter and Christmas the vast majority of people don;t have a clue what the bank holiday's represent, they're just an excuse to get drunk on a Sunday.
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