The lost holiday where everyone in the same town took the week off work

Entire towns would be left virtually deserted as workers and their families packed their bags for a week away at the same time

From the late 19th century to the late-20th century, Wakes Week was an annual holiday popular in Lancashire and Cheshire cotton towns. What began as a traditional religious holiday, working-class families eagerly looked forward to one week of the year to let their hair down.

The mills and factories would close, and the workers and their families would go on holiday. Different mill towns took their Wakes Weeks at different times, relieving pressure on the seaside resorts.

One week, Blackpool would be inundated with workers from Ashton, and the next week with workers from Oldham.

It was the time of year when mill workers could take a holiday without fear of losing their jobs. However, until the 1938 Holidays with Pay Act made it compulsory for factories to pay workers, most were not paid for their week’s holiday.

Instead, workers saved up throughout the year in savings schemes, known as ‘Wakes Saving’ or ‘Going Off’ clubs, to have a few days away with their families.

With mills employing a large proportion of local people from the surrounding towns, Wakes Week would turn the mill towns into virtual ghost towns.

All the workers and their families would make their annual summer exodus, travelling by train to popular resorts like Southport, Morecambe, and Blackpool, leaving their hometown streets virtually deserted. For most families, this would be their first time seeing the sea.

But it wasn’t just the seaside resorts of the Northwest that would benefit from the armies of families spending money in their towns. As the years passed, places on the South Coast, Scotland, and the Isle of Mann became increasingly popular destinations.

As all the mills would close simultaneously, The Wakes also provided a chance to clean machinery and equipment.

Another by-product of the mills shutting down was the lifting of the smog caused by the factory chimneys, changing the landscape as the skies temporarily cleared.

Wakes Week was a big deal, and reports on the mass ‘exodus’ of nearly entire towns and the dates their designated week would commence made the local newspapers.

In August 1937, the Manchester Evening News reported on Wakes Week for the region’s workers.

Under the headline ‘Ready for the Wakes’, the journalist wrote: “By this evening railway officials at Preston , Stockport, Bury, Denton and a number of other towns within a short distance of Manchester will have begun to perform their annual marvel – taking thousands of Wakes Week holidaymakers away in hundreds of special trains.

“To the people of Preston, Stockport, Bury and other towns tonight will bring the annual release from the cares of work.

“At Preston, for example, the railway officials will deal with more than 1,000 trains between midnight tonight and midnight tomorrow.

“The old quality of Wakes Week has been restored to the Lancashire and Cheshire holidays and at every town where the holidays will begin tonight there are reports that more people are planning to go away that for many years.”

While Wakes Week was hugely popular for many working families, for others, having their lives disrupted and their streets left ghostly quiet wasn’t always appreciated.

In a letter to the Manchester Evening News in August 1968, S McClelland from Blackley didn’t care for the annual holiday and viewed the tradition as “archaic”.

They wrote: “In these ‘enlightened days’ what indeed is a cotton town, and how much longer have the public to be subjected to the Wales Week/fortnight?

“Is any real purpose being served by continuing this archaic idea, presumably originating from the time when all the members of the local town worked at the same cotton mill, and all went away at the same time, firstly a week and now, of course, a fortnight.

“I speak from experience as I work in a town where, during the Wakes, it is hard to get even a paper in the evening, but the excuse continues that, ‘Ah well, you see, it’s the Wakes.’

“Is this state of affairs to continue forever, or will enlightenment eventually follow, as, to me, the ‘workers’ now go abroad as and when they feel like it?”

This mass exodus continued into the mid-to-late 20th century. Again, in June 1971, reporting on Wakes Week for some towns, an article in the Manchester Evening News read: “THREE THOUSAND VEHICLES an hour were heading north along the M6 motorway today as the annual Lancashire Wakes holidays got underway.”

The journalist wrote of the “critical levels” of traffic in some areas with “Hundreds of thousands of people in the region’s textile towns – Oldham, Rochdale, Middleton, Macclesfield, Royton, Shaw, Crompton, Chadderton and Littleborough” embarking on their annual holiday.

Undoubtedly, to the relief of the S McClelland from Blackley’s of the world, the tradition of Wakes Week began to decline in the 1960s. Workers started to take holidays at different times throughout the summer, and the traditional mill industries closed.

Another nail in the coffin for the annual Wakes was that once schools would allocate a one-week school holiday to coincide with Wakes Week, this practice discontinued following the introduction of the National Curriculum, which standardised school holidays across England.

In addition, following the introduction of the Employment Act of 1989, councils no longer have the power to set public holiday dates.

Join our WhatsApp Top Stories and, Breaking News group by clicking this link