A friend of mine spent quite a lot of time looking into the origins of the myth and wrote an ebook about it. This is an abridged version www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

You can normally request to be excused if you're self employed and can't practically take the time off. I think I just had to respond to the original letter explaining my circumstances (this was a few years ago and in Wales so could be different for you and might be too late if you have a date).

Actually I think you'll find that they were travelling through space (they had a spaceship)