Hoje, há uma verdade conhecida e aceite: «o Turismo começa com a excursão que Thomas Cook organiza, em 1841». A realidade é diferente. Na Grande Bretanha do século XIX, há uma evolução, com reflexos na actualidade: The Excursion Train, the Raiway Sunday e o Week End. Em pano de fundo, uma prática laica a sobrepor-se à tradição da religião.
Þ O Contexto Histórico
O capitalismo industrial produz: “two novel forms of pleasure travel: tourism and summer holidays for the bougeoisie and mechanised day trips for the masses in some countries such as Britain. Both were the direct results of the application of steam to transport, since for the first time in history this made possible regular and safe journeys for large number of people and luggage over any kind of terrain and water.”.
Depois, Hobsbawm acrescenta: “The day trip of the masses, if we except steamer excursions, was the child of the 1950s – to be more precise of the Great Exhibition of 1951,”.
Salvo o devido respeito, a história começa antes, acaba depois e merece ser contada.
Þ “The Excursion Train”
Jack Simmons situa em 1831 as primeiras manifestações do que acaba por ser designado por “excursion trains”: “special trains provided by a railway company - either on its own initiative or by arrangement with other people – to carry passengers on a return journey, normally made within one day, at a fare below the standard rate.”. Em suma, uma excursão de um dia de comboio.
O “excursion train” é um sucesso. Em 1840, há notícia de um comboio de quarenta carruagens e 1.250 passageiros e de um outro com quatro locomotivas e 67 carruagens.
Þ The Railway Sunday
Os primeiros “excursion trains” são organizados ao Domingo, mas esta não é uma prática pacífica. Segundo Simmons, “Sunday observance affected the provision of railway services from the start.”. Em 1851, aos Domingos, “half the population of Great Britain attended at least a service at church or chapel. For many heads of families it would have been unthinkable to break into this routine of life, to carry themselves and their wifes and children off on a pleasure trip.”.
O hábito religioso tem outras implicações: “When in 1856 an effort was made to get the chief London museums and galleries opened on Sunday afternoons, it was turned down in Parliament by an eight-to-one majority.”.
Em 1855, é fundada a National SundayLeague, para apoiar a abertura dominical de museus e parques. Na prática, é reconhecida a conveniência da excursão ao Domingo, apesar da pressão religiosa.
A operação de comboios ao Domingo tem procura, mas cria dificuldades à manutenção das linhas e custos extra de pessoal. Jack Simmons conclui:
· “So in the end the railways, though they offered a new liberation, widely welcomed, also imposed a strict of their own. Their policy was made up of very diverse ingredients: anxiety to avoid offending Sabbatarian susceptibilities; the requirement to carry the mails; popular response to the cheap facilities they offered; the demands of railwaymen for additional pay on account of Sunday labour; considerations arising from the working of the system. All these elements went to form a new code of social costume, which came to be accepted by the Victorians and, with all its inconvenience, is endured in Great Britain still 1990: The Railway Sunday.”.
Þ St Monday
É neste quadro que a excursão de Thomas Cook tem lugar na Segunda-Feira 5 de Julho de 1841: “this was a Monday, perhaps a variety of “St Monday”, the unofficial holiday day, or holiday wich workers often awarded temselves”, segundo uma biografia de Thomas Cook.
Þ The Week End
O The Raiway Sunday tem a dinâmica de outro tempo da viagem: “The provision of excursion trains was not the only practice in the use of leisure fostered by the British raiways to a degree not to be found anywhere in continental Europe. They also encouraged, most deliberately, the habit of taking short holidays over the week end.”.
Esta é uma história para contar mais tarde, e dedicada a todos os que pensam que o short break é uma criação recente.
A Bem da Nação
Albufeira, Domingo de Páscoa, 8 de Abril de 2012
Sérgio Palma Brito
Referências
E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875
Jack Simmons, The Victorian Railway
Piers Brendon, Thomas Cook – 150 Years of Popular Tourism
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