Sundays in the "olden days"

My Dad was cleaning something outside our house. This was 1968 or so. He put his hand brush on the low wall between our house and next door. The lady who lived there came out and told him off as she said it wasn’t respectful to put the brush there on a Sunday.

Radio was good at lunchtime, Round the Horn & the Navy Lark

Forces Favourites and the Billy Cotton Band Show!

I remember Educating Archie - a ventriloquist programme on the radio ?

Around 1955. I was 5+. Edinburgh

We used to go to my fathers mother on Sunday afternoons sometimes. It was a very dark Victorian house with lots of levels. I only ever saw the ground floor but there was the sound of what I later realised was a ticking grandfather clock somewhere upstairs on a landing and a slight sense of forboding up in the darkness.

We ate at a very large beautiful oval wood table...I only ever got glimpses of this as the rubber protecting cover was a permanent thing. For these gatherings the huge green chenille cloth was removed and replaced with a white linen one and the food that had been sitting on a huge sideboard was served. Usually salad with the treat of tinned salmon... a luxury. And always a trifle, which I loved. I'm pretty sure there was sherry in it!

We were allowed to go outside and look at the garden... never run or play, of course. We mostly had to sit at the table and occasionally we would get to play cards. Very little dialogue from us was allowed if it got a bit rowdy, as it was the Sabbath.

The room was huge with long dark curtains and the adults sat in the subdued atmosphere far apart from the children on dull coloured moquette couches and chatted. These chairs had white antimacassars on them. It was the days of men using Brylcreem.

My memory of that house was dull and dark and boring.

I remember in a shaded part of the garden just out side the kitchen outcrop building was a high wooden box, with tall legs and a roof like a tiny Swiss chalet, that had a metal grille over one of its sides, and a lock. This was called 'the press' and meat and butter and cheese was kept in here to stay fresh. No fridges then.

My granny was a very sweet old lady with a lined powdery face and grey wavy hair all held in close with a very fine hair net, the same colour as her hair.

In the cloakroom she had Cussons Imperial leather, with the silver bit in the middle with the writing on it, that stood out on the used bar. It was posh smelling soap to me and I loved smelling my hands after I'd used it. She herself had the sweet smell of talc about her.

The highlight of the day, which we waited the whole day for, and that happened just as we were leaving, was she would say, "Here's a penny for you dear and put a half crown in your hand. Such riches, not just a penny! Sadly this was never to be spent but saved, but just the fleeting feeling of the large, heavy gleaming silver coin was exciting.

Sunday school in the mornings; we used to get a lovely colourful stamp to put in our attendance books.

Sunday was always roast dinner at lunch-time with fresh vegetables which Dad grew the garden. Sometimes I had to help Mum by making the sauce for the cauliflower, stirring the gravy or sit and pod the peas in the garden. The sitting room had to be rearranged because we didn't have a dining room, furniture pushed back and the extending table set up.
I would be sent to look out of the window to see if any of my aunties were coming on the bus (yes, there was a bus although the shops were shut).
Roast dinner followed by a pudding.

We'd help wash up and Dad would clean the oven after dinner. When I got married I was astonished when DH said he was certainly not going to clean the oven!

Then more visitors and high tea, salad with luncheon meat, I would be set to cut a plateful of bread and butter, tinned fruit and evaporated milk followed by home-made cake.

Surprisingly, I was a very skinny child.

Sundays in the 1950s followed a pattern. My grandmother and aunt ran a corner sweet shop and Sunday was their only day off so they came to us every week for dinner, tea and a bath! Their house behind the shop didn't have a bathroom (their daily wash was in the sink in the scullery and they had an outside lavatory).
While Mum cooked the dinner Dad listened to the Billy Cotton Band Show on the wireless. I can picture him in his armchair puffing away on his pipe. Sometimes in the afternoon we went for a walk to the local park. Then teatime - sandwiches with fish paste and cucumber slices (or on special occasions tinned salmon), tinned peaches with evaporated milk, and home-made cake. A special treat for me on Sunday evening was to watch television - Brian Rix in the Whitehall farce. How we laughed at all those dropped trouser moments. Those were the days. Whitehall farce has a rather different connotation these days...

Another who hated Sundays! Growing up in the 1970’s I remember nothing on TV except really old films or football or ski Sunday! My parents would sit doing the Sunday Times cross word (I wasnt allowed to speak!) and as an only child there was nobody to play with so I was bored, bored, bored!
I loved reading but am a fast reader so a book usually was ready very quickly and although we had a large garden playing outside wasnt much fun on my own!
Rarely we had a day trip, usually a town with a cathedral or museums. We always took a bachelor friend of my parents who would spoil any trip with turning it into a lesson?
We lived a couple miles from the beach so my favourite was when we went night swimming or rock pooling (rarely) usually in September when the tourists headed home and the sea had warmed up

I loved Sundays during the day, but the evening meant school the following day.
I detested school and like Allsorts my last day at school was the best day of my life.
Sunday morning was always spent with my 2 sisters and our Dad walking through our local park learning the names of the trees and plants, bugs and animals. We would walk for a couple of hours and then back home to a big fry up made by mum whilst we were out. She told me a couple of years ago that it was her favourite couple of hours of the week because she had absolute peace. For 3 girls we were quite a handful and a bit feral at that time.

Also me. Dragged to communion at 8.30, “helping” to cook lunch then visiting grandparents. Thank heavens it’s not the same now.

Sunday - church for my parents, Sunday school for myself and my sister, dad did have a car so we often went for jaunts to local beauty spots or even the local beach for ice cream! When my young sister was born, it was my duty to take her for a walk (in the pram) for my parents to go to church, then it was Sunday school in the afternoon. There was always a roast on Sundays, so really it was a day to look forward to.

Totally agree, Sundays were arduous to say the least. My mother would do a cooked breakfast and then 1pm sharp a roast dinner, then 5pm tea. So much food and yet she struggled paying bills. But Sunday we had to have 3 enormous meals.

Listening to Jimmy Clithero whilst eating Sunday Roast (we always had a bottle of Tizer with it).
I too hated Sundays!

Boomer 2 generation here. Yes there are 2! My childhood was difficult one anyway.
Sundays only better when the extended family came.

Church Sunday morning. Roast dinner by 1-30 pm time.

There was some decent TV on with children's drama's I liked later in the day in the autumn/winter.

It was a pretty boring day unless the extended family were down.

In my teens which were more difficult I did have solace of a black & white TV and radio in my bedroom. I always escaped through reading too.

Yes I did come from a professional middle class family

I didn't like Sundays at all. My parents insisted we went to a very boring church service in the morning. When I got home I had to start learning my verses for Sunday school. We were given bible verses to learn each week and had to recite them out loud to everyone. I dreaded it. When I got home I would see if any friends could come out to play, but many were at their own Sunday schools. All shops were closed, even corner shops. My mum would hide her knitting on a Sunday as it was not allowed. Sundays in Northern Ireland were dire.

The Scottish sabbath. A very depressing day. Church and Sunday school. No playing out on the street for any child, no washing put out in the back greens. Maybe a walk in the afternoon. Dairies and newsagents opened briefly in the morning for milk and newspapers. Extra delivery boys and girls were employed as it was a heavy round with almost every household in Scotland getting the Sunday Post. A very depressing newspaper full of kailyaird homilies. Though it did have a comic section with the Broons and Oor Wullie. We got a TV when I was about twelve. My Dad was always watching the boxing. When I was a teenager it was Sunday Night at the London Palladium. Just the memory of the theme music depresses me. Bruce Forsyth. The awful games with the audience. The acrobats. Cliff Richards was something I suppose.

Sunday for us in the 50s was very much focussed on chapel. We were Methodists and were expected to attend Sunday School in the morning, followed by service in chapel, then more Sunday School in the afternoon, so that mum could go to bed for an hour and have a rest. Dad used to visit his mother in the afternoon. One of us was usually lucky enough to have our Sunday dinner at an aunty's house which was just a five minute walk from chapel, otherwise it was a 20 minute walk four times to and from chapel.

Then home for tea, always bread and butter first followed by fruit and jelly, then mum's overdry chocolate sponge cake. All this to the accompaniment of Welsh hymn singing on the radio, which we hated.

Evenings would be board games (in the days before we had a tv), then Your 100 Best Tunes on the radio. In summer we would have a family evening walk.

We dreaded going to our gran's on a Sunday because she didn't allow us to do anything but read - no games, no playing outside, no knitting/sewing (which I loved).

No shops open, no cinema, no sports. Mother considered the people who didn't attend church or chapel on a Sunday to be heathens and beyond the pale. And she didn't care much for Roman Catholics - imagine her shock when I married one!

There is certainly a lot of us of the baby boom age on this website.
I can well understand that Sundays could be so boring.

For me, in some ways, I was a lucky one as not only was I away at school also my father had a hotel so in the summer it could be busy. I also lived by the sea so lived walking along the coast. However, my mother did go to church on Sundays and would bring me but like others predicted I found the service went on and on.

We often went on the steam train to visit grandparents who lived in Peabody Buildings at the Elephant and Castle. I remember the smell of cabbage cooking on the walk from the station. Probably the reason I never eat it now...

I was bored rigid on Sundays - the same old ritual of Family Favourites, Billy Cotton, roast dinner, Journey into Space, Hancock's Half Hour - and then having to do homework which invariably meant learning a long poem by heart or working out a geometry theorem.
What I would give now to see the Mother who cooked those excellent lunches, and the Father who whistled along to the radio.

I didn't mind Sundays when growing up in the 60s. Radio was good at lunchtime, Round the Horn & the Navy Lark. Later in the afternoon there'd be Pick of the Pops. I used to want to sew (any clothes that didn't come from Biba were made by me) but my mother had this idea that sewing on a Sunday was ungodly and told me I'd be put in the moon, which sounded quite exciting.
When I got to 16, Sunday evenings were The Forsyte Saga quickly followed by the bus to Twickenham to go and see blues bands on Eel Pie Island. I had to absolutely promise I'd done all my homework first, of course.

Getting up late, being with my family, lovely Sunday lunch then visiting grandparents and meeting up with cousins. Getting things ready for Monday and looking forward to going to school.Happy memories ..

Sundays were a ‘non’ sort of day when I was growing up in the sixties. We didn’t live near any relatives so it was always just Mum, Dad, my sister and myself as we lived deep in the country. My father often worked away from home and when he did, my mother sent us to Sunday school in the morning at the little church nearby, which was ok. Sometimes a roast dinner when we got back. Or a picnic in summer! We would often go for a walk in the afternoon, tea, homework, bath, bed. When Dad was home, my parents always slept in late which I hated as my sister and I were not allowed to get up until they did. I remember the topsy turvy feeling of a late start to the day, especially in lovely weather! I’ve always hated getting up late ever since and have never ‘lain in’ even when a teen! We sometimes drove to the beach or on one of our walks. Always a roast dinner when Dad was home and lots of food generally. Maybe watch an afternoon or early evening film, especially if it was a Western which my parents and sister loved (I have always disliked them and still do as I found them boring!) I read a lot. Living alone, I much prefer Sundays now when the shops and many other things are open; it is more like a normal day, apart from the fact I usually go to church in the morning. Then it’s time for shopping, outings and fun with the grandchildren! Much better!

Neither were we. If any of us dared to say it our mother would find a job for us to do, like cleaning silver (which I found much more boring than being bored!)

I remember Sing Something Simple with The Swingle Singers while my mum ironed school clothes, made me depressed too thinking of school next day

I hated Sundays too. Usually spent doing homework, I used to get five or six subject for the weekend and they had to be handed in on Monday morning. I went to a strict Catholic convent, but wasn’t catholic so no church for me fortunately.

I used to love paddys market when I grew older and was well into antiques and vintage. As a child I was not so fond.

When I began secondary school age 11 my mother took me down there and bought me 2 skirts from an army and navy surplus stall. They were almost down to my ankles and I felt ashamed. Instead of going to school I went around to my grandmother who agreed that the other children would laugh at me. She took me into the Walton Vale shopping center and bought me two school skirts, two blouses and six pairs of white ankle socks. It was not the first time my gran had stepped in to equip me with clothes.

By the time my sister was ready for school I was working and I swore at the time that every pound I tipped up for my keep went straight onto my sisters back. She had everything new and it was a subject of great resentment with me.