On This Day, 5 August 1916

Birmingham Mail

Saturday 5 August 1916

PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION AND THE NEED FOR REST

SEASIDE EXODUS FROM BIRMINGHAM

The citizens of Birmingham are loyally acceding the request of the Government not to observe the August Bank Holiday as a general holiday. On Monday next works and factories, offices and warehouses, retail shops and markets will be opened as usual. There will be no break in industrial or business effort. Practically without exception the Bank Holiday, as such, will pass unnoticed. There will be little or no interference with the output of munitions. The Birmingham war workers will continue on the day and night shifts just as usual. They are determined “to deliver goods” ; in other words, to see that our soldiers at the front shall not be prejudiced or hindered in their work through want to fighting material.
Manufacturers and labour leaders recognise, however, that the munition operatives, as a class, are badly in need of rest and recreation. They have been working at great pressure in the factories, inordinately long days, for months on end, and it is an open secret that thousands of operatives, women in particular, are, on physical grounds, in urgent need of rest and change of scene. Many firms have adopted in their works a continuous holiday rota system, by which, in batches, their employees will be enabled to take a holiday, varying in duration from three days to a week. In many factories this holiday rota, which was arranged some months ago, was commenced to-day, and it will remain in operation throughout the month. By this means the closing down of works, which experience has invariably shown has led to administrative dislocation and a greatly decreased output, will be obviated.
There was a real holiday atmosphere at the Birmingham railway stations to-day, and from an early hour the platforms were crowded. The bulk of men wore in the lapels of their coats the familiar munition worker’s badge. The factory girl in holiday attire was greatly in evidence. The “call of the sea” was un-mistakable; and the bookings to Blackpool and the resorts on the North Wales coast were exceptionally heavy. The West and South Coasts, too, claimed many thousands of visitors from Birmingham, and, comparatively speaking, the bookings to places nearer home such as Worcester, Stourport, and Warwick were heavy, A fair number of schoolmasters and other professional men sought change, if not rest, in the fruit picking districts of Worcestershire.