Sundays in the "olden days"

I used to get dragged along to Sunday School by my granny - my own parents weren't religious, but allowing my granny to take me to Sunday School was my dad's one concession to her after starting a family feud by refusing to have me christened! I hated it and was eventually allowed to stop going after getting into trouble by asking too many questions! I'd have much rather been left to go to the local stables as I did on a Saturday and spend all my time with the horses.

I went to Sunday school/church every Sunday for years.
And had to wear white gloves and a hat. One particular hat had a long feather in it. I hated it! We always had a Sunday roast with vegetables from the garden of which we grew many. And we kept chickens, so they were often the Sunday roast. Mum used to pick one up, wring its neck and then give it to me to pluck. I became quite expert.
Daddy died when I was nine, so then we had a succession of lodgers which joined us for lunch on Sundays. I remember them all quite vividly.
We had a 'front room' which was only used on Sundays and at Christmas. One day, during the war, we were out shopping and a bomb dropped nearby. When we got home there was glass everywhere. All the windows at the front of the house were blown in. I remember being upset because my two best dolls which I was never allowed to play with, and they always sat on the sofa in that front room, were covered in broken glass. I cried for ages.
I have so many memories of childhood, I could write a book.

We always went to Sunday school. Lunch was usually a roast and either apple pie or rice pudding. Most Sundays we would visit my paternal grandparents who lived about five miles away. They had a huge garden and orchard so we loved it. On other Sundays relatives would come for tea. It was always tinned salmon, salad, trifle, one of mum’s wondrous chocolate cakes and ham off the bone. I remember Sing Something Simple! It was our cue for bedtime..

Sundays in the 50s for us was Sunday school ( Methodist) where were taught about the evils of alcohol - the warnings had little impact! Mum not really religious, just enjoyed a bit if peace and quiet on Sunday afternoon! I enjoyed SS. After lunch Dad fell asleep in the chair with the newspaper on his head - his message that said " do not disturb" ! We played and argued in the garden or Mum took
us for a walk. No shops open , and no washing on the line !! The bath and bed before school on Monday.

We always had a car as Dad needed it for work. We would often go swimming on a Sunday morning - us and the neighbour's kids in the car and off to the big swimming pool in Cambridge. Both my parents were keen swimmers but somehow I didn't get the hang of it until I was 11!

When we got back, Mum would hang the wet swimsuits out on the line and somehow simultaneously manage to magic up a Sunday roast dinner, which she had presumably put in the Rayburn before we went out.

And then there were the radio programmes. Round the Horne or the Navy Lark at lunchtime and Sing Something Simple at teatime.

In preparation for school I would line all the shoes up on the coal bunker and polish them and whiten the plimsolls.

I also remember riding lessons on a Sunday morning. We went to a riding school in Bury St Edmunds and on the way back Dad would stop at he pub in Kentford and drop in for a beer while we sipped our Britvic pineapple juice sitting in the car, outside which was a "treat". We would then carry on back home for another of those magical Sunday roast lunches.

The sun always shone and there was never any traffic on the roads.

Goodness, Sago, half a crown was riches indeed when I was a child - it would buy you five whole Mars Bars!

In the 1950s I lived in London but when I stayed with my family in North Wales we had to attend the village church on Sunday. I had to sit there for an hour listening to a very serious church service in Welsh. You learn to behave and sit still even when bored! I couldn't understand a word, but it gave me a feeling for the language and the sound of it. My family were all Welsh speakers so I love hearing the language even though I still can't speak it. I don't know why my mother never taught me Welsh, I guess she thought I'd never need it.

Sunday was Mass first thing and we were not allowed to eat until afterwards so I sat with a rumbling tummy.
My mother would pinch me hard if I dared to look around, rustle the leaflet or sing too loud or too quietly.
I was trussed up like a chicken in some god awful outfit….usually crimpolene.
My mother would then very begrudgingly make a roast, she was no cook and every meal was served with a big dollop of resentment.
She used to make a horrible cheesecake from a packet mix, I think it was called Greens.
It was such a relief when Walls invented the Vienetta and Arctic Roll.

In the days that my grandparents were alive, I would be about 6, my Grandma made a proper Lancashire meat and potato pie for tea, it was served with pickled red cabbage. It was food heaven.
We would then be given half a crown to go to Mrs Andrews shop, we would spend ages choosing our sweets, they were put in pink and white cone shaped bags, it made me so happy.
Mrs Andrews had a beehive hairstyle and lots of make up, she didn’t go to Church so I’m amazed we were allowed to enter her shop!
I wanted to be Mrs Andrews.

I've already mentioned listening to Two Way Family Favourites but once I was a teenager it was always the top ten on Radio Luxembourg, laying on my bed frantically turning the dial on my transistor radio through all the crackles and buzzing till finally hitting the station then the excitement of what was at number one

I don’t remember minding as a young child, but as a teen I found Sundays deadly. We had a big garden so parents were endlessly gardening, we never went anywhere, all the shops were closed, everywhere smelt of the roast dinner cooking - not that I minded a roast, my mother was a good cook.

We weren’t a religious family, so no church (though there was Sunday school when I was very small) but largely out of sheer boredom I signed up for confirmation classes, which at least meant meeting up with some school friends on Sunday evening. And there was usually homework hanging over me, since I’d never have done it early to get it out of the way.

Best part (if it was on Sunday) was the likes of Round the Horne on the radio.

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!

Sing something simple …oh the most depressing programme ever. Music to slit your throat to my ex used to call it if it came on the radio when we were driving.

I’ve often hated Sunday. Day before going back to boarding school or when there 2 religious services and a house meeting and (fir me) a telling off for leaving possessions around.

There's a theory that in large families/small houses in the past all children were conceived on Sundays when other siblings were at Sunday School.

No prefer my Sundays now more choice!

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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"!!

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

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.

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.