A Northern holiday

'THE FORCE of habit of millions of people is a terrible force' Nowhere is this aphorism of Lenin better illustrated than in the mill towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire at Wakes Week. These longedfor interludes of peace that descend each summer on the dour cotton and wool communities; when factories close and the air clears revealing the surrounding fells and moors as real countryside, instead of some irrelevant and incongruous backdrop to the serious, dirty business of making profit in the valley below.

Gloomy predictions of the death of the celebration are almost as old as the Wakes themselves. In 1888 the 'Stockport Advertiser' remarked:

•.. the Wakes, the speedy death of which was prognosticated a year or two ago, will be upon us in a few hours with full possession of health and vigour.' Holiday customs have, of course, changed. Now the excursion aeroplane disgorges its load of mill-hands and factory workers in Spain or Majorca.

Bre on in outpostage:

Morecambe, borough and the coaches go' on ploughing up the now ward way taking towardids northwards to the houses.

Blackpool alone receives ,500,000 visits a season and 2 imes as much cash from th workers of the northern counties.

Habits change slowly because life and work in the grim milltowns that smear the map within 20 miles of Manchester has changed only superficially since the great industrial revolution.

Pay remains low and work hard and the Wakes survive because they are still the only collective respite from the grind. ing toil in the sturdy Victorian mills that have outlived generations of their owners.

During Wakes week time, a precious commodity is in surplus and the people cram their fres.. I would like information about Research and interviews With pictures by Martin Mayer Right: The early Wakes ere uproarious country celebrations. Here we have a bill of fare for the famous Eccles wakes. The Industrial revolution smashed the rural communities and their traditions but the workers revived the traditions of the Wakes In the manufacturing towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire. dom desperately into two weeks off work.

I'm on holiday, out of the mill, and I won't get another while Christmas. I work for the money I save with my hands and I'm proud to spend it-let the bugger go-that's my approach,' says Mr Samuel Webb a Hyde textile worker.

And he's lived through 56 Wakes and been to Blackpool for 30 of them.

The whole development of this unique holiday is a warning to those who think mechanically about the working class.

People's habits do not change neatly to fit new economic circumstances.

Customs of old are transformed and re-appear in the modern rituals of today.

The mass parade along BlackEccles Wakes Calve encedencia, for shich time pace in dall the Marum recteding At One o'Clack, share will bo FOR A NEW HAT, By Lade who never won one belore. Not lese uban tardo to sert A BULL BAIT FOR A DOG COLLAR, Setiper to ail the i to beng AT FOUR O'CLOCK.

A DONKEY RACE FOR A PAIR OF PANNIERS.

The Organ of eat Seetail into ta to a lie chest.

A. Race for an excellent Stuff Hat, Opes to ran eers of errry dracription TRE DARE SPORT TO CONCLUDE WITH BAITIO THE BULL FURY!!!

FOR A SUPERIOR DOG CHAIN.

On TUESDAY the foregorny Sports will be reprieied.

A SMOCK RACE BY LADIES.

'areier vill hero de chosee of a rogerer Holler 1 THE BLIC 1629): Gone, see NGS, A63)

pool's noisy 'neon-front' is an echo of the uproarious carnivals of Lancashire and Yorkshire that fathered the modern Wakes Then you come across a picture-Uppermill Wakes (Lancs)— poking out above the Edwardian working-class crowd, gathered in the square flanked by the inevitable black mills, is the rush-cart.

This is a reminder that the earliest recorded Wakes were connected with the re-flooring of the parish church with rushes carried by the villagers in a ceremonial rush-cart.

Though it has long lost its function, the cart still appears in 20th century celebrations.

Wakes in Yorkshire are, in fact, called Rush Week.

The nature of the Wakes was radically changed, but not destroyed, by the most profound Mot Mrs a rampoo during the 1920. The sand were and course very popular since they were free... the older people were content to sit in the shelter on the front.. some had never seen the sea before and it was always La source of great wonder to them.' tered by the industrial revolution. At first, workers driven off the land into the towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, would travel back to their villages at Wakes time to try and piece together their destroyed communities.

But capital was now king and the rapacious mill-owners of the last century had no holy festivals or rural sports in mind when they began to close their mills for one week out of the 52.

Machines could not go on for ever; they needed cleaning and overhaul.

In this respect they were like the operatives, whereas women and children were easily and cheaply replaced, machinery was expensive and hard to get.

So the custom grew that the should shut down in the week Wakes Day fell and the employees get an unpaid holiday.

This development together with the railway revolution and the advent of cheap excursion fares, began the exodus to the coast, turning a sleepy fishing village like Blackpool into the Las Vegas of Lancashire.

Pre-War Blackpool

The petty tradesmen and show managers at the resorts set about gathering in the mammon from the industrial towns with crude gusto and a love-hate relationship was firmly establ: hed between them and the trippers.

One tale tells of the famous carpet put down in the Winter Gardens Pavilion, Blackpool, by one of the pioneer entertainment managers, William Holland:

'The trippers,' people groaned, 'they will spit on it.' Unabashed Bill posted the town with his slogan - 'Come and spit on Bill Holland's 100guinea carpet.' And there was, and is, huge amounts of money at stake in the resorts. Take these two newspaper items concerning Oldham in 1904 and nearly 50 years later:

"Oldham Wakes commenced today, and the saving clubs have been distributing the amount put by during the year in anticipation. It is difficult to compute accurately the amount that has been disbursed, but a round figure, that must not be accepted as anything better than a rough estimate, at £100,000 may be stated. Savings clubs abound and figures are available from 128.' ("Manchester Guardian', August 21, 1904), and as the article goes on to point out, this was in a year of depression in the cotton "The local trustee savings banks reported over £500,000 withdrawn for the holiday, and dozens of Wakes clubs in pubs and workshops collected another £400,000.' (Article in the 'Manchester Evening News', June 23, 1963, headed 'Thousands off on Elm spree'.)

The Wakes is not the holiday beloved of the middle class, who creep away to their 'spot' searching for tranquility usually to find 1,000 more have crept along with them and their boats and cars crammed off the roads and highseas, destroying their dream of splendid isolation.

I was brought up in Lancashire and spent many a Wakes in Blackpool.

I remember feeling puzzled when I talked later to middle-class people. Holidays were -'getting away from it all', 'peace and quiet, 'being on your own'.

But where was the fun in all this?

The luxury of spending money on yourself and meeting others?

Their holidays sounded rather morbid affairs to me.

Blackpool is not this kind of holiday. It's a mass purge, not a rest.

You get rid of your money, forget the factory and push work out of your mind, with the noise. mixing, singing, drinking and laughing that make-up the week in Blackpool.

In this respect the workers' holiday is a desperate opposite of his disciplined life on the shop floor.

Yet there is much of value in the Wakes holiday - the collective enjoyment, meeting new friends and feeling with them and spending ' money on, and with, people of your own kina.

Holidays, holiday pay, lower working hours and more leisure time have all been fought for by working people throughout Britain.

An extension of these gains and desires to give the majority the time to relax and enjoy life around them, must always be one of the great aims of socialism. MRS HAMMOND:

MY FIRST memories of holidays were those we spent at Blackpool. I remember the four of us, three children and my mother who, was a wal widow, hopping about a double bed at the digs. You would buy your own produce which the landlady would cook and she would provide the potatoes and salty rice pudding at 3d a day.

You had to be in at 10 p.m. sharp—or else.

We save up 2s 6d in the co-op and most families would leave 2s under the clock for when they came back. This was for milk, eggs and bread, after this it was all on tick until pay-day.

Entertainment — the big thing was if someone could play the piano, we thought this was great. The big night would probably be Friday when we would all gather in the room and sing with the piano.

I remember the beginning of the fun fair. It started with about two roundabouts and big wheel. A high spot was the children's playground they opened. Then it was 6d entrance fee and it was a Godsend to the parents who could leave their kids there and go off on their own for a drink.

The sands, of course, were very popular since they were free-you saw no deck chairs then, though sometimes the children would build sandseats for their parents.

Many of the older people were content sitting in the shelter on the front watching the tide come in and out. Some had never seen the sea before and it was always a source of wonder to them.

The bill was paid on the Saturday morning you left, and if there was any money over there was a big treat for the kids. The shows weren't frequented much by the working class, they cost too much. But they had places called songhalls, rented by the big music publishers.

Singers would come round and mingle with the crowds singing the latest ballads trying to get people. to buy the song sheets.

The Wakes was also a big boy-girl affair.

The girls used to wear silk pyjama things — the height of fashion - and meet up with the boys and walk about the prom. This was a great source of interest to 'the older ones.

Now not as many go to Blackpool. It's just too dear for a young family. The prices are very high, it's a big racket really.

Of course in those days not everyone went to the coast.

TV Some stayed in the towns.

When • the factories closed it was almost pleasant. The air was clean and young men and women used to make up rambling parties and go off into the hills. The moors around Manchester and Yorkshire are some of the finest countryside in the country.

MR HAMMOND :

I WAS less fortunate, 1 didn't go away to the sea until I was 18, then we went to a holiday camp on the Isle of Man, a kind of forerunner of Butlins.

We have to be in for 10 p.m. and if we got drunk we were sent back on the next boat straight away.

I did go away before this, to a camp at Deversdale near Southport. One day I was suddenly told I was 'going away.

Off we went in a red jersey with a stripe round it they Save us. We stayed under canvas, it was frugal and cheap, but a privilege to boys like us.

The one day they marched us off to a cricket match in Southport the first and last I've seen.

There in that red jersey, 1 knew I was poor like the boys around me and I felt it. It was wrong I knew, but I suppose the people who took us only did it out of kindness.