Introduction Britain’s Bank Holidays seldom fail to attract the headlines. Fine weather brings reports of traffic reduced to a crawl, with 20-mile tailbacks on West Country roads and the motorways, but there is nothing like a good old fashioned weekend washout to bring out the worst of the misery. Then people who have stayed at home can indulge in smug smiles while seaside holidaymakers and visitors to theme parks or garden centres regret decisions not to go abroad, flight delays notwithstanding. Calls are renewed for adjustments, despite the fact that previous changes in the 1960s failed to yield much satisfaction. Whit Monday and August Bank Holiday Monday – the first Monday in the month – were introduced as part of Sir John Lubbock’s Bank Holidays Act of 1871 which regulated public holidays. Whitsuntide falls seven weeks after Easter, which is a moveable feast; thus the Whit Monday holiday could occur on any date between 11 May and 14 June. The changes established Spring Bank Holiday on the last Monday in May, with August Bank Holiday moved to the final Monday of the month. The last of the old August Bank Holiday Mondays fell on 3 August 1964 and Whit Monday Bank Holiday ended on 30 May 1966. Every four or five years on average, Spring Bank Holiday coincides with the Whit weekend. For decades, the old-style Bank Holidays – and to a lesser extent their modern counterparts – formed cornerstones of the cricket season. At league and village level the Mondays were largely reserved for knockout competitions. In the first-class game, Whitsuntide and August Bank Holiday, with the counties meeting home and away, were part of a schedule which brought order and rhythm in the summer programme. The tourists began, usually in late April, at Worcester and the season ushered itself in quietly, at Lord’s where MCC met Yorkshire and at Fenner’s and The Parks, with Cambridge University and Oxford University hosting county sides. May brought the first round of Championship matches, with the Whitsuntide fixtures early or late according to the Easter cycle. The tourists faced MCC and sometimes the selectors gave themselves a further glimpse of the England hopefuls with a Test trial. The series itself took a familiar path, Trent Bridge and Lord’s in June, along with Ascot and Wimbledon, Old Trafford and Headingley in July and The Oval around the second week of August. In the meantime, Oxford and Cambridge went on tour before meeting at Lord’s early in July, the Varsity match being followed by Eton and Harrow and Gentlemen v Players. August began with the Bank Holiday fixtures, including Canterbury Week, and then came the festivals and seaside matches, such as Weston-super-Mare, Cheltenham, Eastbourne, and Bournemouth and, to conclude, Scarborough, Hastings and Kingston-upon-Thames. People arranged their summer holidays to coincide with these dates. Matches, with three days allocated, started on Saturdays and Wednesdays, with Tests beginning on 6