August 2003 - Campaign for real holidays

Most of the time I like to think of myself as a reasonably affable type. But in the past two weeks the pressure has been telling. I'm stressed, I'm on edge, I'm anxious and angry; and all because it's coming up to the annual holiday.

Apparently I am not alone. Work has come to dominate our concerns so much that the holiday is seen as some kind of insurmountable obstacle to getting things done.

It is doubly tough for the freelance like me. If I do not write I do not earn - and the family starves (or I may have to get a proper job).

I try to plan ahead but it does not work, so all my deadlines are coming at once. Life is something of a mess.

I must apologise, therefore, to my wife, my children and the dog, and to the public relations woman who rang me last week and asked if I could spare a few minutes of my time.

I could not work in public relations. It is not worth the flak you have to take from surly hacks.

I envy those who can put their work into compartments along with their leisure time. I am writing this on a Saturday and the normal weekend jobs have been farmed out around the family.

So one son is mowing the lawn, another is walking the dog and my wife is washing the car. Tonight and tomorrow we have social commitments, which I resent. Instead of looking forward to a nice time with friends, I am thinking of time lost in the lead-up to the holiday.

Still, I would rather put up with these inconveniences than take work away with me on holiday. Come to think of it, the holiday is important, not so much to get away from work but from all the technology-induced "noise" created around work.

Specifically, I am talking about the internet and the mobile phone. These are great technologies but they have invaded our personal lives in a way we could never have predicted.

Among the spam that presumes I suffer from all kinds of male inadequacies - you get it too? Oh, thank goodness for that - I get other e-mails, a sort of work-related spam.

Trawling through the heaps of dozy advice from self-styled consultants, I found something on teleworking in which an American consultant was revelling in her ability to stay in touch with clients while on holiday.

"As I write this article, I am poolside with my kids, cell phone handy, bathing suit on . . ." she says.

You get the picture. Here is a woman who has taken her laptop and mobile phone on holiday with her - and she is not alone. According to research by Thomson Holidays, text messages from mobile phones are taking over from the postcard.

Americans, particularly, can be defensive, even aggressive, about their right to work when on holiday. But then Americans, more than any others, are saddled with their Puritan heritage and one of its most recognisable symptoms: anhedonia, the inability to find pleasure in leisure .

At least this woman had found the time to get away. According to research released last week by reed.co.uk, website of the human resources and recruitment group, some people find they are too busy to go away and many more people work extra hours to make their holiday possible.

The research into what it called "pre-holiday tension" found that directors were working more than 17 extra hours on average before getting away.

But it has to be better to work extra beforehand than to defer your holiday entirely. I come from a family where the annual fortnight at the seaside was sacrosanct. This became so ingrained that I still have a problem with any time away at least once in the year that does not add up to two weeks.

The holiday fortnight is set apart from the rest. This is the big one. It means buckets and spades, swim stuff, a good book and sun tan cream and it differs markedly from "a few days off" or a "break".

In fact, I would like to start a campaign for "real holidays". It would start with a strong definition of what constitutes a holiday. Time away from home and anything that could be described as routine is important. Spending your time doing the decorating does not count. Some encounter with water, be it the sea or a pool, is desirable. Doing things that you do not normally do is essential. So I might cook, iron, do the washing. On second thoughts, perhaps that part needs a little more debate.

Working on holiday should not be dismissed. It depends how we define work. If the work is doing something strenuous such as swimming, walking or climbing, or a hobby such as bird-watching or painting, that should be acceptable. The most important point is that you have to be enjoying yourself. So how can I square the idea of sitting on a beach with sand flies, transistor radios, ice-cream-covered, bickering children and misbehaving teenagers, with my image of holiday bliss?

Once you start to think about modern definitions of work and leisure , you begin to find that not only do they have a common ancestor but they also mean different things to different people.

My idea of heaven may be your idea of hell. Indeed it may be my idea of hell too, because the holiday image rarely reflects reality.

Given the traditional nature of what I like to define as a holiday, it could be that holidays themselves are going out of fashion. Maybe not all 40-something fathers want to make sandcastles. Maybe some do not wish to get wet or to wriggle their toes in the sand, although I cannot think why.

I accept that the fortnight's holiday is a comparatively recent invention. It did not exist before the industrial revolution. We needed packaged work, or jobs, before we could think of packaged holidays. Now that we are busy unpackaging work, I suppose I should surrender to the concept of being connected.

Arguably it may help my self-esteem to stay in touch. But I am happy to be ignored for a while.

So my laptop and my mobile phone will not be coming with me on holiday. I shall take a writing pad and some paints and reading books - but not to do anything that feels like work. I shall not be fretting about the workplace and things I need to do. I am doing that now instead.

If you feel at all tempted to sympathise, please don't. By the time you read this, I shall be long gone, having exorcised my pre-vacation anxieties for another year.

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