Whit Monday: Dress Up, Shake Down

I know now that Whitsun is a Christian festival marking Pentecost. In the 1960s, though, it meant something far more immediate to us: the annual ritual of being dressed up in our Sunday best and paraded round the relatives like tiny overdressed beggars. We'd trot round the aunties and nans, collect a handful of coins for looking "nice", and then watch the loot vanish into Mam's handbag "for safekeeping." Spoiler: we never saw it again. Both my brother Peter and I protested this blatant theft of what we firmly considered ours, but to no avail. The fact that we still remember it so vividly, well over sixty years later, tells you exactly how bitter we were about it. I've no doubt this little redistribution of wealth was going on in working-class homes all over the UK, where Whit Monday could mean a modest but welcome windfall. Just not for the kids who'd actually earned it. The photo above shows me and Peter sitting on the back garden steps, dressed to impress and ready to begin the…