Sundays in the "olden days"

I was wondering why it annoyed everyone when I said it, but, I suppose they were all quietly reading, then I came in and announced my boredom.
No wonder they got cross!

Mass in the morning, roast dinner, then visiting relatives or going for 'a drive' in the car.

At one stage we used to go to swimming lessons on a Sunday afternoon and then home for sandwiches in front of the television.

There was usually a good children's drama series running on late Sunday afternoon. The theme music from Black Beauty still brings me right back.

*MissAdventure^
I hated Sundays, because I knew Monday was next, and that meant school.

Me too!

It smelled and sounded different from every other day, too.

One Sunday is still recalled with amusement in our family, though.
I was about six or seven. It was winter, it had snowed, and my dad had taken me sledging. The interminable church bells were ringing away in the distance. At some point, I loudly complained,
"I can't concentrate on my sledging for those damned bells!".

Some of the things people have mentioned, we did.
We went blackberrying, and my mum would make a pie, and we sometimes went for a drive, or to the beach.

It's just that the next day looked ever closer - school... ugh!

Childhood Sundays meant being forced to go to chapel and the pervy preachers. We couldn’t get out of going as they owned our house, and they would walk into our back garden and ask where we were.

MissAdventure

Some of the things people have mentioned, we did.
We went blackberrying, and my mum would make a pie, and we sometimes went for a drive, or to the beach.

It's just that the next day looked ever closer - school... ugh!

Yup. A horrible feeling in the pit of the stomach every time that thought entered my head.

Gosh two way family favorites!
I’m always singing-that’s started me off:-
? with a song in my heart ?

I still get that feeling now!
Sing something simple... la..la..la..la..
Spider plants and cabbages and horrible, hateful school!
Corridors of name pegs, and droopy old spider plants.

Sundays were usually a day for the family once my farm worker Dad moved to an arable farm when I was 5. Always a roast lunch. We’d often visit my paternal grandmother in the afternoon if our ancient and regularly broken car would take us there. If the car needed repairs Dad would be busy doing it and I’d help him. The kitchen sometimes resembled a workshop much to my Mums horror. An Uncle lived with my grandmother and always had some sort of treat for me. I’d happily wander her garden or sit and read while the adults chatted. Her home fascinated me, very traditional and ordered. Our visits were I think the highlight of her week, she rarely went out as she was afraid of motor vehicles. She had cared for me as a baby as my Mum was often unwell, not a demonstrative woman we were nevertheless close.

At home I could do whatever I liked, usually alone as my best friend had to stay indoors and wasn’t allowed visitors on Sundays. I don’t remember disliking the day unless we were visiting one of my Dad’s brothers, his wife was a teacher and always quizzed me about school in ways that left me feeling I was a total failure.

Gradually the pattern changed, by the time we were teenagers my friend was allowed out, we didn’t always visit my grandmother, Sunday always contained homework at some point. The roast at lunch time continued, the car needed mending less often and trips out took us further afield, often including my friend, something we chat about now as dementia is taking a hold with her memories from then surface and are precious.

We would all go to church on Sunday morning and return home to a roast lunch that my grandad had cooked. He lived with us but never graced a church.
Dad and grandad would read the big newspapers and snooze after lunch while Mum washed up and got things ready for Monday. My sisters and I would play in our room (3 of us in one small double bedroom) or the garden.
We'd listen to Family Favourites and later Pick of the Pops on the radio. Dad loved The Goons and other similar shows. The TV would go on in the evening for Songs of Praise.
Tea would be doorstep bread and butter with cockles and winkles that we'd bought from a seafood stall that set up near the church on a Sunday morning.
My sister tried to buy winkles from a new fishmonger that recently opened near her and she had to explain to him what they were!

After our roast, we all mucked in.
One washed, and one dried up.
Dad cleaned the cooker, and mum did the putting away, then washed the kitchen floor.

I cant go back as far as the 50's but i can go as far back as the 70's.

The 1 thing that always stands out in my memory was no way hosay did we enter a shop, after church it was home, end of. Saying that, the supermarkets were not trading on a Sunday, I think only corner shops but even the corner shops were not frequented by us.

I cant say looking back it was a horrible day of the week, it was just a case of it was, what it was.

In my early teens, my Gran, who I adored, decided I should accompany her to Church - either Communion, morning service or Evensong- thank goodness one, not all! I was never a believer, but I was happy to keep her company and spend time with her, although Evensong was beyond boring. A roast for lunch, then whilst my Dad washed up, Gran and her Sister (great Aunt) would come for coffee and a catch up. (We lived in the same street). Sometimes a school friend who lived nearby and I would meet up for a walk and buy an ice-cream but that’s about it.
Later, it was making sure homework was all done and uniform was out and ready for school the next day.
A far cry from weekends now.

These are all bringing back so many memories of my Sundays. Fantastic to read.

We would usually have a roast and in the evening sandwiches and tinned fruit and carnation. I can’t bear that now.
My mum would plait our hair after a bath my sisters and I had hair to our bottoms or she’d drag a nit comb through ouch. In the afternoon though we’d all get kicked out of the house to play while stepfather recorded the charts on the radio.
Sundays we enjoyed playing out and exploring.

One memory of Sundays indelibly imprinted on my memory is Brains Trust (yawn). Dad watched it and I had to keep quiet, no interruptions. Sundays were days of nothingness. Shops were shut, nit much happened, maybe relatives came for interminably long roast lunches. Adults slept & snored in the afternoon while I played quietly on my own. If it was a fine day, a drive and a walk perhaps and in the summer a picnic. Looking back now in my dotage, Sundays were pretty idyllic. Life these days is generally frenetic and Sunday could be any other day of the week. Oh, to turn back the clock with the benefit of hindsight.

Until i was 7 we lived with my nan(mums mum), then after we moved i stayed every weekend and school holidays. Sundays were usually a bacon sandwich, then i remember my nan making coffee at 11(usually camp coffee made with milk). Then a full sunday lunch at 1pm. Sometimes in the summer months mum and dad would come early and we would walk along the prom to new brighton and then go to the fairground, get the bus back in time for a salad tea at my nans, then walk to get the bus home, then it was bath and bed ready for school. Other times sunday after noon my friends dad would take the two of us out in his car - a hillman imp, we would be give 1/2 a crown each to get sweets, then he would park by the docks so he could watch the ships on the river while we played in the back of the car with our dolls and ate our sweets(no wonder i had so many fillings!) Now today i have my grandchildren here, grandson on i-pad, granddaughter playing with her dolls and will be pasta for lunch

Well, you all seemed to have lovely Sundays compared to mine!

Morning was Sunday school, on the way home a visit to grandparents (best part of the day). Once home Mum would start cooking lunch while it was my job to clean and "black lead" the grate. After lunch I had to wash the dishes, clean the oven and kitchen. When I complained that my brother did nothing I was told it was because he was a boy and this was "womans' work"!!

My mum sometimes put rags in our hair, or even "soft" foam curlers, which didn't feel at all soft to sleep in!

Just my hair.
My sisters was naturally curly. (Of course!)

Chapel in the morning, every child stood in turn to recite a verse from the bible given to them the previous Sunday. Sat on cross bar of my fathers bike to visit my Grandfather, back home for Roast Sunday lunch. Sunday school in the afternoon.

Not allowed to play outside, no games which needed a dice or
playing cards. A chapel deacon who was a g aunt came for tea, relatives visited in the evening, i liked Sundays.

A small breakfast of bacon egg or some weeks salt fish for early rises or it was cereal. We went to Sunday school we were sent there to give our parents a break. After church we would go on adventures in the surrounding countryside and parks. It wasn’t a very built up area and full of wide open spaces in the 60s.

Sunday roast dinner was about 2pm then we would play out again until teatime. We had a big sailors rope stretched across the road for skipping there wasn’t much traffic then. There was no such thing as in and out the house we had to stay out until a certain time unless the weather was bad. Our Sunday tea was always the same sandwiches jelly and evaporated milk and sponge cake.
The tv was on and it was films I liked the films songs of praise or other shows not much choice really. We didn’t have many books but I loved to read and draw I don’t recall ever saying I was bored.

I was brought up in a strict Methodist family. This meant Chapel in the morning, Sunday school in the afternoon and Chapel again in the evening. No games or TV allowed but we could go for a sedate walk dressed in our Sunday best. Definitely no shopping on a Sunday but we did have a traditional roast dinner with all the trimmings. Dinner in the middle of the day in Yorkshire of course.
I can still remember the words to most of the hymns we sang in Chapel.

My Sundays were similar to Monica’s, my dad was the forces so it depended where were living g. At my grans, then it was a walk to get the newspaper with pop followed by a long walk in the nearby woods. The Sunday lunch, followed by Sunday school, followed by tea and bed. When we were in our own home life was no different on a Sunday, except for listening to Forces Favourites on the radio while mum cooked lunch. In warmer climates we simply spent all day at the swimming pool, it was a lovely life

Some interesting memories here. I was a child in the sixties and I don't remember much from when I was very small. My abiding memories of Sunday are walking to church in the morning. Then Sunday School before we raced home to watch Randall and Hopkirk Deceased. We didn't play outside on a Sunday but I was happy with a book as I was always reading. Dad would take us to the library on a Saturday. Despite having seen gran at church, her and grandpa would walk round for a visit in the afternoon. I don't remember what we usually had for dinner. I remember listening in the kitchen to the charts and trying to record it on my tape recorder. Bath and hairwash. Mum would brush my hair dry when I was little. I have fond memories of sitting between her legs,by the fire, and watching TV while my hair was brushed.

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 Mum used to say how can you be bored - you've got a book!

I didn't like Sundays either, mainly because it had that horrible 'it's Monday tomorrow' feeling. I wasn't allowed to call for anyone to play with on a Sunday either