I'm not sure some of our southerrn readers will know what "Wakes week" was. Our foreign correspondents certainly won't. Some of the younger, northern ones might not, either.

It was a week, in summer, when the mills shut down. Everyone, except the mill mechanics, had a holiday and lots of them went away. Quite often by the train load. The mechanics would work on the, unusally silent, machinery, doing jobs that couldn't otherwise be done, without losing production.

You know what Wakes Weeks are...................are you my Daddy?

Vehicle manufacturers would close for two weeks, during which the new model production equipment was installed (they introduced a new model every year, though with a range of maybe three different-sized vehicles this meant a three-year cycle for each model).
Only plant engineers and maintenance staff would be allowed (indeed, required) to work during the shut-down.
Because few workers would have their own transport (at least in the 1950s - less so during the 1970s) they would embark on coaches to take them to whatever seaside town was nearby. Scots from Glasgow would venture south to Blackpool. Others would head for the Eastern resorts of Scarborough, Filey, Yarmouth or Southend.

Then folks got richer and wanted to fly overseas to Spain.

Nowadays the World . . .

It's just not the same these days, is it??