As part of the BR S&T Restructuring “package” three additional annual leave days were granted to office-based staff to be taken between Christmas and New Year. The thinking was that many people were already doing so anyway and there was a significant saving in overhead costs by essentially closing these offices down for about ten days. That may well have percolated through to other businesses.
That may well be true but what exactly is it about our culture that is so different compared to just about everywhere else? Why do so many people expect to not have to work at all during the Christmas/New Year period while still expecting public services to carry on almost as normal? What is the difference maker?
Just as well most public services do carry on as normal otherwise we'd have no heat or electricity over Christmas. Someone I know of was called in at 0730 on Christmas Day for a fairly routine operation.
As far as public transport is concerned - history at a guess. Reduced or no services on Sundays and Bank Holidays was pretty much the situation from the beginning of the railways, sometimes due to religious reasons and mostly due to little demand from workers and little spare cash amongst the working classes to make leisure journeys of any distance. In the more populated areas some services ran (and cheap excursions), but often tailored to specific demands. The 6 day working week introduced in the 1920s (which put Sunday work as overtime) acted as a disincentive to increase services anyway. When bus services started, substantial services were operated on Sundays, but these were considerably pared back as a wartime fuel/tyre/materials/staff economy measure and never fully restored (or restored and cut back again) due to staffing shortages and t&c changes after the war. If public transport could get by with such Sunday provision then they were not really an essential service on those sort of days , and as car ownership increased (and the need to travel reduced with home TV replacing cinemas etc) what services that did run were increasingly empty and uneconomic. Of course, circumstances have changed a bit, but once granted it is difficult to claw back - what reason would management / owners wish to do this when the services will probably be uneconomic and anyway, they have their own private transport and don't see any problem.
A nice summary of history but mostly focused on the supply side of the equation and doesn't answer the fundamental question. So I'll ask again (not just aimed at @RT4038 ): what is so different about this country that so many people expect to have a near fortnight long shutdown of their own employment while expecting all parts of the service sector to operate normally throughout barring Christmas Day? While it's reasonable to expect emergency services to be available as normal and for essential utilities to have contingency staff on stand-by why should other services have similar availability just to suit a minority of the population who get bored being at home for two days in a row?
How about extending the Christmas Day/Easter Sunday trading restrictions to Boxing Day too? No more sales with little or no public transport, no more enforced Boxing Day working for those who really don't want it, etc. What is so essential about doing things on Boxing Day that could just as easily be done on December 27th? Alternatively scrap the Boxing Day public holiday and replace it with a day during a warmer time of the year!I believe that since 2010 there has not been a year without another thread starting about Boxing Day services.
Dec 2024 will see one or two, I expect, and I predict it will mention National traditions, regional differences, staff contracts, engineering access, demand, lack of demand, full football programme, sales, etc etc. There might even be something new…
You wouldn't be able to cite Christian religious objections to justify such restrictions, so I doubt it would get through Parliament. The Tories don't give a damn for workers' rights!
That used to happen. Shops would close at teatime Christmas Eve, and remain closed over Christmas Day and Boxing Day, reopening on the 27th (assuming not a Sunday).
Many people expect at least a fortnight of holiday during August, while expecting all parts of the service sector to be operating normally throughout . If their employment is doing something which attendance is not required (education for instance), or can be worked on in advance, or caught up afterwards, then why not take the leave? Employees in the service sector get just as much leave as anyone else, and can take it spread out at another time. Leave over Christmas and New Year is no phenomenon to the UK only - very common in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand too - and the service sector is expected to operate normally there too.
I think that is probably tarring people unfairly. It is most likely to be those who do have to work all or part of the 'near fortnight' that need to move around on these days , plus those with widely dispersed families etc etc.
Definitely did. My experience is from the early seventies (so WMPTE). Hourly along the radial routes from the city (so there would be one along the Bristol Road - maybe as far as Longbridge, one along the Pershore Road, one along the Stratford Road). Started about 10:00,finished about 15:00 or 16:00. Route like the inner and outer circle may have run, can't remember.
They used to print timetables. I thought I might have one as they were much the same, year upon year. Most services that ran were hourly but I remember that the Loop was more frequent.
I grew up in S.E.London in the midst of Southern Electricland on the Bexleyheath line to Dartford. My younger brother became quite ill on Christmas Day morning 1961, in the days when your G.P. was on call at all hours. Understandably, on Christmas Day other arrangements had to be made and so a G.P. in East London had the telephone call forwarded to him and proceeded to travel from Whitechapel to Eltham by Underground to London Bridge, then SR Electric to Eltham. In the estimation of my parents he saved my brother's life: if it had been the following Christmas, that journey would almost certainly have been impossible. I should add that though the winter of 1962/3 lives long in memory and folklore, 1961/2's started at Christmas in much the same way but didn't last.
Pedantically: there was still a 2-hourly suburban service in 1962 - and IIRC the serious snow (in SE London anyway) started on Boxing Day.
Yes, I remember the snow starting, but it was pretty cold on Christmas Day too. A two-hourly suburban service might not have been sufficient to get the doctor to our house on time, and my older brother had died at that age.
I remember when I was a kid (late 80s/early 90s) publicity on the buses and in the bus office would merely state that on these four days a "Holiday Service" would operate. I only remember my parents being able to obtain a printed timetable on one occasion (1989 IIRC). This timetable did not distinguish between LRT and Eastern services with the same route number, leading my parents to believe that we would be able to catch a bus home from my aunt and uncle's when this wasn't the case. In other years we were unsure what buses were running at all as no printed timetables could be found, and the Internet was either non-existant or very uncommon.
Each of which has lost their Saturday service over the 15-or-so years, because it was the least used day of the week. Indeed, the 11 was only retained at all at the last minute last year. Looking at the timetable for summer 1979 which happens to be out of the box at the moment, whilst the 125 may not have a Saturday service, and this no service at all last week, the timetable now offers more opportunities for travel than it did in the supposedly good days of bus travel*.
From what I recall, bus services have always run in Edinburgh, West & East Lothian on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and first two days of January, albeit with council support for some routes. I believe Lothian or LRT ran festive season buses from the mid-1990s without any Edinburgh Council support to prevent another company doing so and gaining a foot-hold in the market. Might have been Arriva who were challengers in those days - I could be wrong and I'm sure you'll know much better than me.
I don't recall Arriva ever running in Edinburgh or the Lothians. I vaguely remember Arriva attempting to buy Lothian and being turned down. Lothian's main competitors were Eastern Scottish/SMT/First (name changed in 1990 due to staff buyout, and again in late 1990s due to takeover)
