Sundays in the "olden days"

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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...

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.

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.

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 ?

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.

Sorry I meant 1958. Goodness I’m so old!

I hated Sundays then and still find them depressing. I didn't like school like many others on here and that didn't help. It was a boring day with awful radio programmes and a long walk in the afternoon. I love walking now but didn't then! There is just something in the air that still makes it a boring day.

Mum cooked the joint, beef or lamb, sometimes pork, on Saturday, so we had it cold or reheated in gravy on Sunday. There were practical reasons for this, but also religious ones, so Mum could get to church with the family, and to save work on Sunday.

I was at boarding school in the 1960s and Sundays were dire. Half an hour lie in ( up at 8.00 am instead of 7.30)
Church (compulsory) in the morning, walking in a crocodile, in uniform , the 15-20 minutes it took to get there.
Allowed out for a walk (in groups, with a senior prefect in charge) in the afternoon 3-4 pm. Unless it was snowing a blizzard. QOtherwise it was compulsory.
Meals were generally dreadful. I don't recall any special Sunday lunches, certainly no roasts. We could have 'tuck' i.e. our own chocolates and sweets, (normally kept in a locked cupboard) after lunch.
'Prep' about 5 pm, then you might be able to watch an hour of TV in the late afternoon. No evening TV.
Lights out around 9.30 AFAICR.
I mostly remember the boredom, bad food, enforced walks and church-going, and claustrophobic atmosphere.

I loved school, but loved the weekends too.

Homework had to be done on Fridays after school, which meant we could play as much as we liked on Saturday afternoons and Sunday.

Saturday mornings we had to help with housework, what it was depended on how old we were.

On Sunday mornings we were not allowed to play in the garden until after lunch, so as not to disturb neighbours who had a long lie, and to conceal the fact that my parents were not church-goers, but felt ashamed that they didn't go.

How I envied all the children I saw on Sundays - in their Sunday best - we dressed the same on Sundays unless visitors were coming. I would have loved being allowed to wear my best dress once a week.

But we were allowed to go to "the Sunday shop" and buy sweeties with our pocket money. It was the only shop open on Sundays, as the owner was Jewish and closed his shop on Saturdays. The law in Scotland allowed observant Jews to do so, and open on Sundays instead.

Lots of fathers washed and polished their cars on Sundays. This was seemingly all right on a Sunday afternoon in the Glassgow area, although no-one would have dreamt of mowing the lawn, cutting a hedge, or horror of horrors hanging out washing on a Sunday.

Sunday was church,church and more church! Morning service,Sunday school then evensong.My brother and I were in the choir so it was obligatory.After Sunday school me and my friend Joan went into the graveyard and distributed the flowers
that were on some graves among all the rest…it only seemed fair to our young minds! We weeded the graves that weren’t looked after.hee hee…it makes me laugh wondering what people thought when they saw their flowers for a departed loved one being put on neighbouring graves…

MissAdventure

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!

Same here. My parents used to sing along to Songs of Praise. And you could hear the church bells in the background. I wanted to hang myself. I still loathe Sundays.

Sundays in the 60's in South Africa were, on the whole, full of activity. First Sunday School. Then, in winter, a roast and afterwards off to visit family on some or other wine/fruit farm. Us kids loved that, lots of animals to see, exciting games to play with all sorts of objects or machinery, or with the children of the labourers who lived on the farms. Lovely fruit to pick off the trees, and best of all, the lovely cakes and eats for afternoon tea. We "helped" milk the cows (although I think we were more a nuisance), took a plate of milk to the farm cats, and were allowed to churn the milk.
Often we went hiking up a surrounding mountain for the weekend to play in the snow, if there was some, or just enjoyed company of like-minded friends. In Summer we enjoyed swimming in the rock pools.
Summer Sundays were the best. In the mornings, Sunday school as usual, then pack a basket for lunch, usually a "braai", otherwise known as a barbecue, at the local yacht club. Lazy lunch on the lawns in the sunshine or on the verandah of the clubhouse in the shade, swimming in the lake or crewing on someone's sailing boat, either a sprog or a dabchick. Regatta weekends were most enjoyable, when members of other sailing clubs would compete, camping on the grounds of the yacht club. Always fun meeting our friends who we only knew from sailing.
There were always plenty of playmates of all ages at the yacht club, a favourite game was "Open Gates".
The odd weekends, when the weather was not so good, we stayed at home indoors, knitted or helped prepare supper, went to play at the neighbour's house or our granny who lived next door, performed "concerts" for the tolerant adults. Lovely memories.

Hated going to Sunday school, but along my Sister and I trudged.
Someone kept the threepenny bit that was meant for collection and spent it next day!!!!

Loved the roast dinner, followed by my Mum’s homemade apple pie and custard.
Grandma used to come in the afternoon for tea, was always Salmon sandwich, followed by tinned fruit, ideal milk and then cake.

How on Earth did we eat so much in those days.

Couldn’t play in the street, had to amuse ourselves whilst parents read the Sunday paper, then early night after having our hair washed and a bath.

Sometimes not someone ?

Sundays were so boring for me as a child in the 1950s. We had to put our Sunday best on , go to church, then to see great grandma for dinner . We couldn't play out because we had our best clothes on. We had to be on our best behaviour for Great Grandma .
The adults would fall asleep snoring , and we had to read Bible stories and not make a noise. No shops were open or cinemas .We didn't have TV .Then it was early to bed for school on Monday. It always seemed to be raining on Sundays.

Usernametaken that reminded me that we used to have tinned salmon sometimes instead of luncheon meat. It had to be red 'sockeye' salmon, not pink.
Mum used to make sliced cucumber and onion in vinegar too.