St George's Day: petition launched to make it a national holiday

A petition that has been launched to turn St George's Day into a national holiday has been signed by tens of thousands of people so far.

John Kelly, 70, has celebrated the feast day of England's patron saint since he was a child and wants people to sign a petition calling on the government to make it a bank holiday.

He has been spurred on after the way the country came together to mark the Queen's Coronation and funeral. The petition was launched on 9 March and already has 69,873 signatures.

John, a retired banker, from London, said: "On St George's Day I tend to meet up with my friends and family and we go to some East End pubs. We sing old wartime songs and old English songs and we dance. I feel it is really important to celebrate this day as a lot of Europeans do it and I feel as though we are missing out."

St. George's Day is celebrated on 23 April and John feels it is an important day for English heritage and culture.

John explained: "I think we have friends from Wales, Scotland and Ireland that have a massive celebration on their day but it feels as though we do nothing on our one. I want to make a difference. It would be nice to celebrate our country in a way that everyone else does."

He believes it is time for England to join its fellow home nations in celebrating its patron saint with a dedicated public holiday on St. George’s Day.

John added: "When you go out on a night you see the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh all dancing and singing their songs but you don't see us doing it and if we do they label us as racists. I was speaking to one of my friends and they said ‘why don’t you do something about it?’ and I thought to myself 'why not?'. I think people do nothing about these things, people love to share their views but don’t do anything about it. It can get quite passionate when you hear everyone else celebrating and we are doing nothing for ours."

You can sign John's petition on change.org here.