BANK HOLIDAY AT HOME

Evening Star, Issue 20864, 6 August 1931, Page 9

BANK HOLIDAY AT HOME

HEAVY HOAD TRAFFIC THUNDERSTORM AT WEEK-END (British Official Wireless.) Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. RUGBY, August 4. Fine weather prevailed yesterday over a great part of England, and very large August Bank Holiday crowds thronged the beaches. Seaside places and riverside resorts proved popular, and Hampstead Heath, the downs, and public parks around London were in the possession of picnic parties. Road traffic was exceptionally heavy, but there was a remarkable absence of serious accidents, due, it is believed, to the desire shown by drivers of motor oars and coaches to observe the social and moral obligations suggested in the Ministry of Transport’s highway code. Railway traffic was also heavy, a large number of special trains being run to Sussex and Kent resorts from London, while Southend-on-Sea, .where, it is stated, 6,000 people slept on the beach on Sunday night, experienced the usual invasion. No fewer than 110 trains with holiday makers arrived in Blackpool during the day. Several bathing fatalities have been reported, included in these being three members of ono family who were drowned at [Wittering, near the Isle of Wight. Yesterday was the sixtieth anniversary of the institution of August Bank Holiday, which was first observed in 1871, after the passing of the Act in that year. The end of the Bank Holiday weekend coincided with a severe thunderstorm which broke over London and .the south-eastern counties last night, and crowds who were returning late were drenched by heavy rain. High seas in the Channel and the Thames Estuary buffeted pleasure steamers, delaying some for four or five hours, and the crossing from Franco was declared to bo the worst this summer. The storm was followed to-day by a thick fog over the sea, in which an oil tanker of 6,000 tons went ashore near Dungeness, hut was refloated this afternoon, and all shipping was slowed down.