Bishop backs calls to have it off for St George

Apr 19 2009 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

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CRITICS thought we didn’t have a prayer when we launched our campaign to make St George’s Day a national holiday seven years ago. But that was before The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, added his voice to the growing army of supporters.

“Has the time come to make the Feast of St George, the Patron Saint of England, a public holiday?” he asked.

So it’s official . . . it appears we all want to have it off!

The Ugandan-born Archbishop made his call two weeks ago, more than three years after he first called on the English to properly mark April 23 as a time for celebration, saying: “I speak as a foreigner, really. The English are somehow embarrassed about some of the good things they have done.”

Since he made those remarks in December 2004, thousands of Northerners and many more across the UK have found their voice and are far from embarrassed to show patriotism.

And it seems the region will be transformed into a sea of red and white, festooned with flags, when we mark our national day this Thursday.

It was back in 2002 that our campaign – cheekily titled Let’s Have It Off – was launched, inspired by the England squad’s exploits in the World Cup and the Golden Jubilee celebrations.

We demanded St George’s Day, April 23, be declared a bank holiday, just as it was a few hundred years ago, when the people of England would enjoy a day’s holiday to celebrate the knight who, according to legend, freed us from the tyranny of a fire-breathing dragon.

English workers today, however, are poorly served when it comes to bank holidays as we have only eight a year, compared with our European counterparts who average 10.8.

Spain tops the list with 16 public holidays, the French have 11 and the lucky Italians have a minimum of 13 days, plus regional feast days.

In the early days of the campaign, thousands of readers signed our petition setting our demands in motion, and we enlisted scores of high profile supporters, including the JD Wetherspoon pub chain, the Bedfordshire-based brewery Charles Wells, world famous author Frederick Forsyth and TV agony aunt Denise Robertson, former boxing champ Glenn McCrory and dozens of MPs.

But the popularity of the internet has seen the number of supporters soar, with thousands joining online support groups.

The social networking site Facebook has 382 groups set up in honour of St George’s Day, and the most popular group - Let’s All Celebrate St George’s Day on April 23rd For Once’ – now boasts more than 216,000 members after being set up by Newcastle members.

Meanwhile, the definitive website devoted to all things patriotic, stgeorgesday.com, now has the backing of more than a million people calling for April 23 to be a public holiday.

Colin Tabor, founder of stgeorgesday.com, said: “It’s about celebrating our Englishness. It would give a feelgood factor to the country.

“The tide has turned. People in our country are fed up with political correctness.”

:: Click here to take our 'St George's Day: Let's Have It Off' survey ::