The start of the new year is traditionally the time when our thoughts turn to holidays for the year ahead to cheer up the dark January evenings.
Every worker in the UK is entitled to a minimum of 28 days off each year, but it doesn’t matter how much annual leave you’re given, it never feels quite enough, although it is more than our parents and grandparents had.
The first paid leave was introduced in the UK in 1939 in the Holidays With Pay Act, which gave every worker a minimum of one week’s annual paid holiday. By the 1950s two weeks were common and by the 1980s most people had at least four weeks of annual holiday.
