By Stephen Blease

Last updated 11:34, Thursday, 01 May 2008

The travelling public often complain that they have to wait hours for a bus to come – and then two will arrive at once.

It is rather like that with bank holidays.

No sooner will we have had our day off on Monday than, three weeks later, we are all off again.

And yet at other times of the year we have to wait months rather than weeks for a welcome extra day off. After the late summer bank holiday, due to fall on August 25 this year, there will be nothing for another 18 weeks until Christmas.

A campaign for the abolition of a day off work is unlikely to win many enthusiastic supporters, I realise.

But is there an argument for doing away with one of this month’s breaks – and having it at some other point instead?

Northern Ireland already has a bank holiday on March 17, for St Patrick’s Day. How about our other nations taking their saints’ days as bank holidays?

Scotland could hold one on November 30 for St Andrew’s Day, Wales could hold one on St David’s Day on March 1, and England could take St George’s Day, on April 23.

Or maybe it would make more sense to spread our days off more evenly throughout the calendar, rather having them all crammed together in the first half of the year.

There are plenty of other dates which could be chosen. There is Hallowe’en, on October 31, or Bonfire Night, on November 5.

Some time ago Gordon Brown floated the idea of a “British Day” to celebrate British values, and suggested Armistice Day, November 11, as a possible date for it.

Any date in the autumn would certainly break up the long wait between August 25 and December 25.

And – let’s be realistic – the weather in October or November is unlikely to be much colder or wetter than most spring and summer bank holidays turn out to be.