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Should it be a public holiday?
Trafalgar Day is remembered on 21st October each year. Celebrations are usually muted or even non-existent.
For those of you that aren't too good at history, it commemorates the victory of Admiral Horatio Nelson’s fleet over the French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21st October, 1805. Nelson's second in command was Vice Admiral Lord Cuthbert Collingwood, the so-called forgotten hero of Trafalgar.
It was widely celebrated by parades, dinners, gatherings of comrades and ex-servicemen and other events throughout much of the British Empire in the early 19th and 20th centuries.
There are some that feel it should be made a public holiday, but this is unlikely to happen.
None the less it is a day that should be remembered as vitally important to this nation's history.
Ye Mariners of England
Ye Mariners of England
That guard our native seas!
Whose flag has braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe:
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long
And the stormy winds do blow.
The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every every wave
For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long
And stormy winds do blow.
Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o’er the mountain-waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak
She quells the floods below
As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;
Till danger’s troubled night depart
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.
Thomas Campbell (1777—1844)