Sundays in the "olden days"

What fascinating memories. I hope you will write up your life story to include things like that for your children, nephews or nieces. Precious memories and stories that will be lost forever if you don't.

The grandchildren always look bug-eyed when I tell them we had nothing except a radio at home. They can't imagine it. Today they have a constant stream of entertainment whenever they want. That's why our memories are so important.

I absolutely loathed and detested Sundays as a child and to be honest not that keen on it now. Sunday had a smell to it (obviously roast meat ok) but a sort of cabbagey steamy, cloistered atmosphere of deadness and massive newspapers and being sent to the off license fora tin of marrow fat peas, -it was always peas. No kids played out. This was in the 60s and the Sunday television offerings consisted of boring suited men yakking about sport ( a lot of sport was shown then) or politics or later cowboys and Indians type films in front of which the adults would sit or slump snoring or reading the papers. It was SOOO BOOORING! ?

Granmarderby10

I absolutely loathed and detested Sundays as a child and to be honest not that keen on it now. Sunday had a smell to it (obviously roast meat ok) but a sort of cabbagey steamy, cloistered atmosphere of deadness and massive newspapers and being sent to the off license fora tin of marrow fat peas, -it was always peas. No kids played out. This was in the 60s and the Sunday television offerings consisted of boring suited men yakking about sport ( a lot of sport was shown then) or politics or later cowboys and Indians type films in front of which the adults would sit or slump snoring or reading the papers. It was SOOO BOOORING! ?

I felt the same.

I hated Sundays, because I knew Monday was next, and that meant school.
After the charts on the radio, it was time for "Sing Something Simple", then bath time, ears cleaned out, and toenails cut painfully short.
I feel depressed thinking about it!

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I loathed Sundays as well.

We were never allowed to play out on a Sunday as it was considered a quiet respectful day, occasionally a friend would be allowed to visit and play games indoors.My parents would buy a couple of weighed out bags sweets as a treat from local off licence which had very restrictive opening hours and we would watch a film on big boxed TV.If during hols we stayed at our GPs then we wore our best clothes and taken for a walk to visit relations where we were usually given a handful of coins on leaving.Sunday tea was a very simple salad,PEK ham sliced, maybe tin salmon plenty of bread and butter,malt loaf or cake and tinned fruit and evaporated milk.
Bath night with hair washing ready for school on Monday and as we got older Mum frantically trying to gather correct change for dinner monies and school saving stamps which were collected and stuck in little books then later transferred into a bank book.Once Dad got a car we did go for drives/walks into country.So unlike today when weekends for our DGCs are full of parties,sporting events,meals out,shopping and generally rather hectic.

In the 50s, liverpool anfield, all the family to church in our sunday best, bath night was saturday. I had 2 dresses. Then out to spend the afternoon in stanley park or rarely on the bus to otterspool and even rarer, across the mersey to new brighton. Poor but united, all nine of us

Dad owned a newsagents/bookshop and we lived above. I remember on a Sunday when the shop was shut going downstairs to sneak a look at the bodies in a Health & Efficiency magazine that a naturist customer used to order.
Sunday nights were bath night and then for watching a programme I enjoyed on reindeer herding tribes in Greenland followed by Billy Cotton’s Band Show.

My Sunday's as a child depended on where I lived, my father was in the army, so we moved allover the place.

When in Britain, except for going to church on a Sunday and the Sunday roast, For a child Sunday was like any other days, we played with our toys and outside much like any other day. If we were unlucky, in Summer time we would have to go to watch a cricket match. My father was a good sportsman and always played in the Unit team, wherever he was posted - and cricket matches were social occasions and they were so boring. No one ever had children the same age as my younger sister and I and my mother would never let us take a book or a toy, so that we could go in a corner of the cricket pavilion and play quietly on our own. I loathe cricket to this day.

When we lived in warmer climates, we spent Sunday at the swimming club, large outdoor pools and a social club where our parents socialised and we would see our friends. Cricket matches that meant no swimming were doubly resented.

I loathed Sunday's too especially in winter although it did start my love of old films which my parents invariably nodded off to as I do now.

We had to go to Sunday School at the Methodist Chapel at the end of our country lane. (We weren’t Methodists, but the spinster lady who ran it was a friend of Mum’s). Only about half a dozen of us attended.

One day when we were walking the half mile to reach chapel, a poor rabbit had been run over, but wasn’t dead. It lay, a bloody mess in the road. My sister and I and the boy from next door were horrified and didn’t want to walk past it. I plucked up courage and bypassed it, the others followed.

Can’t remember the outcome, if the rabbit was dead when we went home or if someone had moved it.

?

My brother and I went to church with my father in the morning, while my mother stayed at home and made the big Sunday lunch. We weren’t at all a religious family, but my parents thought we ought to know about it. I remember that my father made a rule that my brother could talk up to such-and-such a road, and then it was my turn. We were both very talkative! My mother was very happy not to go to church. Her father had been headmaster of a church school, and as a child she had to go three times on Sundays. I quite liked going to church because I enjoyed singing hymns.

Then the big lunch, then sometimes we went out in the car (we did have a car), perhaps to a local beauty spot or beach. More often I went to see school friends or they came to me. When I was older I used to catch up with my homework on Sundays. We listened to the radio, but I don’t remember what was on, and of course we read. Reading was important in our house. We didn’t have TV until I was 18.

I did get bored, though. What drove me mad was when my father went to sleep in his chair. I don’t know why it annoyed me so much. Winter Sunday afternoons seemed very long if we didn’t go out,

I’m another who hated Sundays. Soooo boring!
Church in the morning, Sunday roast with grandma visiting.
Sunday school in the afternoon.
My two brothers were much older than me so I had no playmates.

Best clothes and white sandals and white gloves.
Once in a while we went to grandmas for lunch. Her house was so dark and scary . Sing something simple on the radio.
Sometimes I had to stay the night while mum and dad went home. I hated every minute of it.

So different to these days when GC plead to stay with grandma.

I wasn't allowed to say "I'm bored!"
I was told only boring people said that, and threatened with all sorts if I said it again.

Sunday's meant a fry-up breakfast sat at the table. It was the only time mum would buy mushrooms, 'a quarter', divided between 5 worked out a mushroom each, but what a treat.

My brother and I were sent to two different Sunday schools, one late morning, the other mid afternoon (although my parent's didn't go to church themselves). No playing out. A lot of the day was spent wistfully looking out the window at the empty field opposite, feeling very bored and longing to go out.

Sunday roasts, alternatively beef, pork and lamb (chicken was too expensive). A 'proper' tea of tin fruit salad (if lucky I got half a glace cherry from it) with Libby's evap milk. Bath, hair wash and bed after 'Sing Something Simple. A boring day!

We had to make mum and dad a cup of tea on Sundays, and take it in to them, but we used to fight the whole time.

We weren't allowed to wake them until we had made the tea, so we learnt the art of the "silent scream".

MissA, my dad used to say that too and now I say it to my son!

I loved Sunday, Dad home, Sunday roast, playing games after dinner. My highlight was going on the bus after breakfast, two buses there and back, with my father to see his parents, my lovely Nan and grandad. I had two hours with them, us all together. Didn’t miss shops open and loved the quiet. Didn’t like Monday and school. One if the best days of my life was leaving it.

It seemed to infuriate my family.

Child of the 60s. My parents were not religious so thankfully no church. Occasionally there would be a family visit which could be boring but mostly we went out somewhere, usually with a picnic. The seaside was about 15 miles away so that was a popular choice, as were some hills we used to play on, damming the stream or running about.

Then home for a bath and hairwash before school the next day.

I could have written Bohemian’s post except for Sunday school. I remember Sunday mainly for the constant round of eating; a cooked breakfast, a roast for lunch, salmon salad and tinned fruit for tea, and leftovers for supper. If it was wet, we listened to the radio. If not I was always out somewhere - in the park, in the woods, riding my bike or just walking. My parents very rarely went out on Sunday afternoon. They read the papers, my mother knitted and my dad snored in a chair until teatime!

Sunday school in the morning then a huge roast lunch and listening to Two Way Family Favourites, it was still the days of boys doing National Service and I loved the messages and the sentimental songs.

MissAdventure

I wasn't allowed to say "I'm bored!"
I was told only boring people said that, and threatened with all sorts if I said it again.

Same here. My father used to say that if we were bored it was our own fault. Actually, I now think that’s true.