Typical Saturdays from your childhoods

Saturday morning pictures. Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Roger’s. Cost 6d I believe.
Afternoon spent playing out. Whip and top, hopscotch, playing in the woods. No television. Then after tea, a walk with Mam and Dad if it was fine, or radio, jigsaws and reading .

It was bed stripping day in our house.

All the crisp ironed sheets to go on the bed, with hospital corners, done properly, or pulled off so we -I- could redo them.

N routine as such, but if a nice sunny day then out somewhere in my Dad’s car, he always had convertibles, I was always in the back being blown away. Maybe a swim in the nearby beach or a walk in the woods or a picnic.

Back home for a nice home cooked meal and an hour of tv then time spent either reading or colouring.

Parents were publicans so a busy day.

If at home I would go over the road to the cinema for Saturday morning pictures, come back for lunch and play (often had a friend over)

Usually I would spend the weekends with one or the other set of grandparents, which I absolutely loved to do.

I cannot remember what happened on a Saturday morning but the pictures with my friends in the afternoon. We saw every cowboy film made. No car or TV so it was probably reading a book during the evening. I was rarely allowed to stay up late so I would have been in bed around 8 pm.

Saturdays we ate more of a "tea" than a dinner, and I loved that.

Especially if mum and dad had a friend over, we would have sandwiches, and pickled onions, and tomato quarters in the living room!
Yes, the living room!
Eating, and not sitting up at the table!

Bliss!

Ooh, and the wrestling on tv on Saturdays, too.
"One...ah two ah... three...ah..."

No car or days out for us. If my mother could afford it, I got 6d to go to Saturday morning pictures. We watched a western then afterwards went into a nearby sweet shop to buy a plastic cup of weak squash for 1 penny and maybe a bag of broken crisps or some gob stoppers.

Oh Saturday morning cinema. 6d.

No television, so I guess I played in or out. We did get a television when I was 8 but children’s television was only from 5-6 pm.

We used to go to the pictures occasionally.

The first film I ever saw was Bambi, and I'm traumatised to this day.
I got into trouble for screaming and crying when his mum got shot.

We did not have a TV until I was 13 ish. We listened to the radio, plays and music, and The Archers of course, and Mrs Dale's diary! My dad loved listening to the cricket, football, and any other sport that was on - we listened along with him, and he explained the game of cricket to us.
We loved listening to the Eurovision song contest, and we were allowed to stay up late until it finished.
We all had our chores to do on Saturday, and helped with other things as needed.
In the summer, the weather was always glorious!! There were always cousins who visited aunts and uncles, and they stayed for 2 or 3 weeks. We would be out of the house all day with them, perhaps with a couple of sandwiches (bread and jam), and a bottle of water. We lived in the countryside, never saw a cinema and did not know what one was either! Our father somehow managed to make sure we could ride a cycle (one gear only) and we all loved racing around on them, and used for travelling to and from school - about 3 miles or so.
Saturdays were also for making sure the home was neat and tidy, and that we were all spick and span for church on Sunday morning.
We had a happy childhood.

We used to go blackberry picking, and my mum would make a pie.

Ballet lesson Saturday morning, maybe a walk with a friend in the afternoon.

We didn’t have television till I was in my late-ish teens.

I don’t know what sort of age we are talking. My Dad worked every Saturday, so when I was 7/8/9 my mum‘s cousin would bring her children (on the bus)for the afternoon and stay for tea. We’d go back to them alternately and call and see another Aunt and Uncle who had no children - they were fun.
At 10, I was allowed to get the bus into Durham with a local friend - armed with our lists we’d come back with a pound of apples or half a pound of cooked ham. After I passed the 11+, I don’t think she spoke to me again! A few years later as grammar school, I’d meet up with friends in Durham and we’d sit for hours over coffee in a local café. My mum then secured a Saturday job when I was a bit older, so I actually enjoyed cleaning the house for her while she was out – She had RA and I’d do anything to make her life easier.

Saturday morning pictures, visits to the park, playing out with friends, visiting family. We listened to the radio (no television then) and played board games. No coke and crisps in the car because we did not have a car when I was a child.

Saturday mornings the 'tanner rush' at the cinema or 'pictures' as we kids called it. After the films, and there was always two, we would walk through the huge town market on our way to the bus stop to catch the bus home. Sometimes, if mum was busy, it would be pie and chips from the local chippy for lunch and a salad tea. Saturday evenings was spent watching TV.......which was always much better than it is now.

We helped mum clean house, ready for Sunday and following week.

I hoover dog hair every day, have cleaners, however Saturdays I seem to make sure the house is tidy for Sunday. Dad worked Saturdays as does my husband, not everyone does, maybe that is a difference.

Ballet lessons for me too on Saturday mornings. Walthamstow market in the afternoon for shopping.

I forgot to add that at Grammar School, I was a decent tennis player, so lots of Saturday mornings playing on various surfaces. As a ‘reward’ my tennis partner and I were allowed to make the hockey match refreshments on winter Saturday mornings!

We didn’t have a car until I was 9, and that was only because my father’s new job provided one - or a TV until I was 11.
We always had a big garden, so my folks were mostly working in it at weekends - except when we used to go as a family (with 4 children) to do a big weekly shop - on the bus, before we had a car.
I rarely recall being taken anywhere at the weekend, and the sort of days out my Gdcs seem to have every weekend, just weren’t on. It was largely a question of ££ I dare say - until we were all a lot older my folks were pretty much always skint.

We often just played in the garden, weather permitting - often with friends who lived nearby. Or read those quaint old fashioned things - books.

Yes, it's rare that we went out.
My dad really disliked driving, and I suppose he had his own list of chores to do, so we were mostly in.
We went once a year to see the lights in Southend, but thats all we did I think.

Looked and came home again.

Everyone stood up for the queen at the end of the film. She appeared on her horse on the screen.

We didn’t have a car until I was 16. We had a television when I was 7. Until then it was the radio, I remember The Archers in particular. Mum and I would watch the wrestling on Saturday afternoons at some point after we got the television - I can’t imagine it now!

When I was a small child Dad worked on Saturday mornings and he was usually gardening for the rest of the weekend. He grew practically all our fruit and vegetables. My maternal grandparents lived locally and Mum and I would walk to their house on a Saturday afternoon, collecting a block of ice cream en route. Then Mum and Gran would listen to the football results and check their pools coupons - sadly there was never the win Mum dreamed of! Grandad was a sub-postmaster and he would be balancing his books - he was not in a good mood if they didn’t balance immediately!

When I was a bit older and Dad was no longer working on Saturdays, sometimes Mum, Dad and I caught the bus into town for some food shopping. This often included some delicious Lincolnshire sausages which we would have for tea, as we called it then, and in season some celery from the market with the black Fenland soil still in evidence. Occasionally we would meet up with my Dad’s mother in the Milk Bar and I would have a milk shake. I didn’t care for her at all. She didn’t like children.

Living in a village, there was no such thing as a cinema, so I never went to the Saturday morning shows which my husband talks about.

As I got a bit older and was allowed out alone on my bike I would often see a school friend who lived in the village or she would come to visit me and we would cycle around the village together and maybe buy some sweets.

Simple pleasures.

I don't remember that.
Perhaps it had stopped by the time my sister was made to take me with her.