We always welcome a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below. This ofrom Mark Lansbury, Newchurch. Ed
I don’t mind getting £5 off my veg (or produce as it is usually termed in the USA) but my wife was rather baffled. What’s Black Friday?
Well going back 30 years or more there was Black Wednesday, but it wasn’t here, it was in the USA. Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday and so on Wednesday it’s the busiest, most awful traffic day the country has.
Now I’d heard of Black Friday as the start of the depression and the stock market crash of the New York stock exchange. Stock brokers actually jumped from windows… but I digress as the current Black Friday has nothing to do with this at all.
Black Wednesday from the skies
Back to Black Wednesday. I learned of this when I flew traffic watch over southern California in the 1980s. Late afternoon, up into the sky over the freeways and the minute I was up there all I could see for miles was a massive car park. There was usually an ebb and flow, unless there was a accident, but there was no accident and no movement just the most enormous car park.
My producer (traffic radio) said, “Ah, Black Wednesday”. “The day before Thanksgiving is always a transport nightmare, airports and freeways jammed solid. Best avoided if at all possible.” Everyone wants a long weekend, they are so rare in the USA (where the average holiday allowance is two weeks per year).
So there’s the Wednesday travelling day (or rather static in your car day); then Thursday, that’s Thanksgiving or Turkey Day, when the stores used to be closed, followed by Friday.
A marketing ploy
My experience of this particular Friday in the year is more recent, perhaps ten years ago. The stores reopen and have big sales, not unlike New Year’s sales here. Gigantic, day-after-Thanksgiving sales with long lines and the department stores opening early.
There’s been injuries, trampling and even deaths and someone labelled it Black Friday. Walmart (Asda in the UK) and Target don’t even wait for the day after now, they open on Thanksgiving Day. It’s a marketing ploy and in the UK that’s all it is – the day after somebody else’s holiday, when they have their sales as the stores have been closed for a whole day!
So offer me discounts by all means Mr. Morrison but without the pathetic American marketing.
