General Chat

Of course we're normal Linda, well balanced sane people. I know that, you know that.
Only Sue has her doubts :-)

Interesting .................

I've just discovered something that I didn't know!

I've been googling Oldham Wakes .................. and Wakes Week used to be at the end of August until 1947/48.

That explains why the photos I have from the 1920s and 30s show my family in warm weather clothes :-)

Not climate change from warmer Junes to colder Junes ............ but 2 months difference in time :-)

Of course we're normal Linda, well balanced sane people. I know that, you know that.
Only Sue has her doubts :-)

Why does Sue think we are all mad??

I think we are perfectly normal

Sue, I think I've seen that film :-D

You're all mad :-S :-D

It is now legendary in Aussie history when a news program decided to play an April Fools' trick on viewers. They had a news item about spaghetti trees complete with a black and white film showing workers in a spaghetti orchard. It fooled a lot of people :-D

Yes Sylvia he probably was, especially when sober :-D

or your colleague was confused :-)

Good Morning Sue :-)

Thank you Sylvia. I must be confused. Which is my normal state of mind :-)

Good morning Sue

Hello, Sue!

Tec .......... no connection that I know!


We had Whit Walks 6 weeks after Easter, and then Wakes Week was in June.

Hello everyone :-). I shall read back.

the mill management would organise repair at the mills during the Wakes holidays ............. so engineers and such-like would not get the holiday.


Blackpool became a favourite place for Lancashire mill town folk to holiday at the time of the 1 or 2 day holidays because you get there and back in an "omnibus" in one day.


For some reason, my maternal grandparents started going to Scarborough some time during the 1920s ................ I have photos of them with Mum and Dad in 1928/29, and then through the 30s.

Mum and Dad didn't go through WW2, of course.

My first seaside holiday was at Bispham in 1946, and then we started going back to Scarborough.

The only time I remember my brother being with us was in 1951, the year before he got married, when he and his fiancee joined us in Scarborough.

He had left school at the age of 14, school leaving age, and found work as an apprentice draughtsman ......................... I was only 4 at the time.


So we had very few childhood memories. We did become good friends later, of corurse.

Sylvia - What is the connection between Wakes Weeks, and the walks? and was it for the reason I was told?

Yes it was Linda, but it was also when the Wakes Walks took place.

I had a pal at sea from Lancashire and remember him telling me something about it, but the memory fades.

Wakes Week or Wakes Weeks were the holidays in cotton milling towns in Lancashire ....................... and not connected with Whit.

All the mills would close and the workers would go on holidays ....... I believe they began as just 1 day, then gradually became a week, and finally 2 weeks.


Oldham was the first in the sequence .................... Wakes Week was usually the 2nd or 3rd week in June, and then extended to the next week as well. Memory fails me a little as to whether it was the 2nd or 3rd week ......... it is after all about 50 years since I paid any attention!


We went to Scarborough every year from about 1947/48 .................. and it was usually bitterly cold!! Most of the "summer attractions" would open in the second week of the holiday ....................... and I well remember sitting watching the Open Air Theatre in Peasholm Park in winter coat, wrapped in a travel rug or blanket, and the landlady of the place we stayed would sometimes provide a thermos of hot tea!

I thought Wakes were to do with the wakes weeks when the industrial towns took their annual holiday

I never had a new dress for Whit :-D

Sylvia - are they known as Wakes Walks?

wasn't it something to do with the working classes establishing their right to access the countryside? or did I dream that?