by themagicwand » Sep 25th, '07, 10:03
Goodness me, good luck beardy. Hope it all works out okay.
As a Yorkshireman born and bred (strong in arm and thick in head), I feel I must respond to Rev. Lewis' remarks. Unfortunately these days there are no more "Wakes Weeks" (which I believe is Mark misunderstanding the Yorkshire dialect for "Works Weeks"). These were in ye olden days weeks when every factory, steel works and coal mine in Yorkshire would close, and every working class person went off on holiday (usually organised by the companies the workers were employed by). Blackpool was of course a favourite destination, along with Scarborough and (God help us) Cleethorpes.
Although Yorkshire works weeks may have been dreaded by the seaside folk, I do recall that Scottish works weeks were dreaded for totally different reasons. The seaside was a place to be avoided during Scottish works weeks.
Sadly now though all the steel works, textile mills, coal mines and factories are closed. The people of Yorkshire now tend to work beneath flourescent lighting in shopping malls and call centres. There's no wonder they're a bit aggrevied. If I had to spend all day on the phone trying to sell things to people who don't want them, I think I'd feel aggrieved too. Big strapping lads built for steel smelting are now spending 8 hours a day peddling printer cartridges on the phone with performance targets to be met.
I know all about works weeks because a long time ago I used to work in a factory. In fact I was the owner's son. I never went on a works week outing myself (fratinising with the lower classes was frowned upon by my father - it didn't stop me trying though, particularly with "the lasses"), but I understand that what happened was the workers got on a coach, they started drinking beer, they got drunk before they arrived a t'seaside (authentic dialect), they continued drinking vast amounts of alcohol for the full week, they got back on the coach 7 days later and returned to work.
For anyone who's bothered to read this far, I'll just explain that my father's factory burned down, I married the girl from the office, and discovered magic. It's like a Barbara Taylor novel.