A Royal Celebration - Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust

8
Southport at Callender’s:
There is a box in
the Archives at Leigh.
This box holds numerous
documents detailing the
enormous feat of
co-operation, organisation,
goodwill and expended
time that culminated in
Wigan and Leigh’s
Wartime ‘Holidays at
Home’ programmes.
Until 1942/3 the War in Europe
had not been going that well. At
home the government was facing
a war-weary population, severe
shortages and a fuel crisis. A
strategy was devised to help ease
the situation.
The Ministries of Health and of
Labour and National Service
announced their ‘desire’ that
industrial workers take their one
week annual holiday in their home
towns as ‘all unessential
travel….must be avoided’. They
reasoned that these holidays could
only be justified if ‘those who take
them return fitter than before for
their war jobs’. Public authorities
and volunteer organisations were
urged to collaborate in providing
‘recreational and other attractions’
to transform their Wakes Week
into ‘Holidays at Home’.
Local committees were established
under the auspices of the Ministry
of Labour and National Service, to
draw local authority and volunteer
organisations together. Wigan’s
Arthur R Hawkes and Leigh’s
William Hakersley headed their
committee’s efforts. Calls were
made, public meetings held,
organisations came forward and
programmes were devised.
Although ostensibly each
organisation was responsible for
the preparation and execution of
World War II’s
Holidays at Home
their own events, they could not
operate freely. Everyday
commodities were subject to wartime
restrictions, requests for
these were subject to the approval
of governmental departments. The
various Ministries (including the
Ministries of Information, Food,
Health, Labour and National
Service, and War Transport, Fuel
and Power), Timber Controllers,
Paper Controllers and the Board of
Trade, to name a few, all had the
power to allow or refuse use of
valuable resources.
Acquiring extra commodities
entailed long and convoluted
processes. For example, the archive
box houses a series of letters
between Dean Wood Golf Club,
the Board of Trade and the Dunlop
Rubber Company, concerning the
release of rubber to make extra
golf balls for the Club’s ‘Grand
Professional Golf Match’.
Both Wigan and Leigh featured
canal barge trips. Wigan’s were
By Yvonne Eckersley
from Springs Bridge to Botany
Bay, Chorley and Leigh’s from
Leigh Bridge, to Worsley.
Organisation of these trips was
very involved. Besides gathering
people to run them, barges had to
be located and hired and they had
to be converted using timber
begged from the Timber Control
Board. An agreement had to be
made with the Leeds Liverpool
Canal Company to set tolls, there
was insurance to organise, and
tickets to print and sell. The
venues chosen for refreshments
en route had to apply to the Food
Controller for food coupons.
Inevitably mistakes were made.
In 1943 Mr I Williams, from New
Springs, felt compelled to write.
Damage had been caused to his
land in 1942 by the public
walking across it to board barges,
he had been happy to let that go
but when the same route was
chosen and no-one had sought
his permission he felt aggrieved.
BICC Works, Leigh, Holiday at Home, 1942.