There's another Bank Holiday in the offing, with all its traditional pleasures - sitting in traffic, standing in queues and spending too much.

After that we get into the holiday season proper, which involves pretty much the same thing with the added delights of the airport departure lounge. Lounge is an odd sort of name for the scene of so much panic, isn't it?

What with all the bother about paying for it all and organising everybody and everything, it's almost tempting to look back on the war years with a sort of rosy glow of reminiscence as a time when there were no holidays to worry about.

There were weeks off work, of course, but with petrol just about unobtainable for the private motorist, and fuel on buses and trains being reserved for essential war traffic, the order of the day was Stay at Home.

What's more the Government made it clear to local authorities that, if people were forced to stay at home during their time off, they (the authorities) would jolly well have to make sure they had a good time, even if they didn't get more than a mile from their own doorstep.

By 1942, Bradford Corporation had set up an Entertainment Sub-Committee and on July 1 the T&A was able to record: 'There seems something fantastically ironical in sitting placidly round a table arranging ankle competitions, spelling bees, funfairs and so forth, while the biggest war in history hourly becomes more grim.

'But the task has been imposed on the Corporation by the Government. And, after all, there is nothing to be gained by staying put and pulling a long face, and nothing to be lost by keeping people cheerful.'

The writing had been on the wall, literally, for would-be holidaymakers in 1941, when a notice appeared at Chester Street Bus Station, headquarters of the West Yorkshire Road Car Co. It said: 'No additional buses can be provided during the holiday period. Please do not travel for pleasure and leave available accommodation for WORKERS and others making essential journeys. Passengers are warned that late buses cannot be duplicated.'

By 1942, when people had started advertising in the T&A for taxi drivers willing to take them to the coast, the law was changed. It was no longer permitted to use any vehicle, public or private, for pleasure purposes.

And this is why the Government was pushing the idea of Holidays at Home. Bradford's first scheme ran for three weeks from August 1, organised by the Corporation and sponsored in part by the T&A and by its sister paper, the Yorkshire Observer. Bands - both local and military - gave daily concerts. There was dancing in the parks, and variety acts, and impromptu sports meetings.

Peel Park, Lister Park, Bowling Park, Bradford Moor Park, Horton Park and Wibsey Park all hosted concert parties and variety shows and even acts from ENSA, the Entertainment National Services Association (known to cynical squaddies as Every Night Something Atrocious), which also played its part.

Each park was given a sandpit for the very young and donkey rides and Punch and Judy Shows were organised.

Carnivals, fancy dress parades, talent contests, gymkhanas, beauty contests and sheepdog trials all played their part in keeping up morale and, just as a reminder of why everyone was holidaying at home, Pudsey councillors arranged the burning in effigy of Adolf Hitler - founder of the feast, so to speak - along with his coffin.

Ice creams or a tram ride

Holidays at home didn't just happen in the war years, of course. The pre- and post-war world was pretty strapped for cash as well.

If the family purse didn't stretch to two weeks away (and most purses didn't), then at least there were local beauty spots to explore, with a flask of tea and a packet of sandwiches.

So it's sad to hear that the Glen Tramway at Shipley is once again facing an uncertain future.

It's an unlikely survivor, anyway, in a world of cheap air travel. But there can be few people of a certain age who don't recall the anticipation which the bell-like clanging of the steel pulleys between the tramway tracks engendered. It was a sign that the tram was on its way, to take a little of the strain out of the journey up to the edge of the Glen.

For youngsters, there was often an agonising financial choice to make - an easy journey up the hill, or an ice-cream at the top. Ice cream usually won, and you were left with a trudge, trying to look cheerful as the more affluent waved and whizzed past you on their toast-rack seats.

Those seats provided the other real excitement on the tramway - trying to be first in the queue, so that you could have the sheer, noisy joy of clattering the seat backs into their new positions.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.