Schools shut - chaos starts

Emerging like Mr Mole out of his burrow, daylight is always greeted with blinking eyes that struggle to grow accustomed to the world outside.

The old brainbox, too - that needs the caffeine from a steaming cuppa to acclimatise.

Anyway, there was I, negotiating the Worcester bridge, deep in thought, mind buzzing with heavens-knows-what when all of a sudden... BANG!

Whatever this was, it was really loud. And I mean really loud. It had much more volume than a 12-bore shotgun - much, much more.

But this explosive device was undoubtedly a firework, detonated somewhere in the vicinity of the Pump House, Hylton Road.

It didn't exactly stop the traffic. Nevertheless, this blast was of sufficient volume to cause people to stop dead in their tracks to stare in the direction of the report.

Meanwhile, clouds of black-headed gulls wheeled over the river in their fright and confusion.

Well, Bonfire Night is over for another year and some of us breathe a sigh of relief. Mind you, this isn't because the celebrations to mark the demise of the Papist terrorist Fawkes are not great fun.

They are - there's nothing better than whirling Catherine Wheels, Roman Candles, bangers and Jumping Jacks to scare the girls.

And don't forget the spuds that taste of charcoal, sausages burned to a crisp, and clothing permeated with so much smoke that you smell like a Grimsby kipper.

Oh yes indeed. I'm a big kid, too. Gunpowder, treason and clot.

Unfortunately though, the run-up to November 5 now starts in the second week of October. Like the harassment of Hallowee'n trick-and-treaters, adults have to put up with all kinds of mayhem for weeks in advance of the actual celebration.

There again, Christmas starts in August these days. Except of course, one is not obliged to participate. And it's harmless. But the illegal use of fireworks - by children - against humans and animals is a worrying trend that should concern us all.

Anyway, the bonfires have been doused for nearly two weeks. And there will be no more annoying things that go bump it the night. For a while, at least.

But the underlying problem behind the misuse of fireworks - like vandalism and other forms of anti-social behaviour - is the ridiculous length of school holidays and the boredom that ensues.

Let us now remind ourselves how they came into being. The two or three weeks at Christmas and Easter, with the mammoth month-and-a-half during the summer, became established for two reasons.

It was a combination of gentlemanly attitudes to work and the demands of the annual harvest that dictated the duration of the breaks.

When only the rich were educated - who were in turn taught by people of similar means - a chap wanted a decent amount of time off from studies.

And in days when travel was slow and draughty dorms harboured diseases, the best thing was to shut the whole lot down over the two great Christian holidays.

Plague also visited the town and cities of England during summer. So, it made sense to be in the country once the barometer started to rise.

The farmers also needed a vast pool of juvenile labour - and what better than hordes of idle schoolchildren to toil in the hay and wheat fields?

Once you realise how this all came about, it becomes ever-apparent how utterly absurd it is to grant one section of the population 15 weeks of leisure every year while the rest of us must settle for four or five weeks maximum.

However, it's not so much the green-eyed monster at work here. All right, just a little bit, then. No, it's more to do with the weeks of boredom - and inevitable mischief that follows - which needs to be urgently addressed.

End-of-term is a mixed blessing in Worcester. On the plus side, traffic congestion disappears overnight. The Faithful City suddenly has the same amount of traffic as it did in 1953.

One of the reasons why park-and-ride is such a costly, useless and pointlessly land-hungry exercise is not so much because no one uses it, rather that congestion is almost entirely caused by the school-run. Solve that and there is no roads crisis in Worcester.

But on the minus side, it's difficult to know where to start. During the holidays, anti-social behaviour rockets. Litter is everywhere, its source easily identified by the nature of the packaging... teeth-rotting fizzy drinks, brightly-coloured sweet packets.

Plastic and polythene all over the place.

You see it on the paths, ditches, gutters, floating down the river. Most - if not all - can be traced back to a child that is invariably the product of today's lousy non-parenting.

Summer is the worst time. Every year, as regular as clockwork, the Evening News carries stories about sudden rises in vandalism with the onset of longer days.

Remember, your deeply unfashionable maiden aunt once said that the Devil made work for idle hands. But there is no denying the truth of it - even if the Pity Industry throws up its hands in horror at such thoughts.

Some of you may recall what summer once meant. In Worcestershire, there were hops and fruit to harvest. I remember working from dawn until dusk, haymaking in Warwickshire.

And at potato-picking time, the farmer would knock on doors in the village asking for volunteers. Likely lads would be rounded up and ride out to the fields on the back of a trailer that smelled of hay, oil and cow muck.

Delicious.

Oh yes. And as well as a few bob in your pocket, we happy toilers of the soil could take home as many damaged spuds that could be carried. Fry them in lard and you had a feast fit for a king.

But these days, British youths refuse to do such work. This country would rather import thousands of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants who will readily labour for a pittance.

British children and young people now spend sunny days glued to their PlayStation, growing flabby as they are slowly poisoned by junk food.

Their white faces are testimony to computer addiction. Reared in trainers, by the time they reach their late teens, their feet are so soft that even the Army doesn't give them a second glance.

It's quite obvious to me that the present school holidays system doesn't work. It is an anachronism, a throwback to a Britain that is long gone. It would make a lot of sense if they were cut back to say, seven weeks a year.

I think that's generous enough - it's still two or three more than the average office or factory worker. And they could be staggered, too. The present total shutdown triggers all kinds of problems, not least of which is the scramble for annual leave that causes headaches in workplaces up and down the land.

People with children quite understandably jostle for leave during the set holiday times.

Of course, they run the risk of being disappointed - or causing problems for others as key weeks are gobbled up months in advance. It can be a real stress.

So. I think the jury's stayed out long enough. And there can be only one verdict that is acceptable to the bench. The days of long holidays - as we used to know them - must surely be numbered.

The writing's most certainly on the school wall.