Remember when people used to go "visiting"

Sundays were really given over to church and Sunday school in the 1950’s and 60’s. My mother found herself cooking lunch for the visiting preacher and at tea time various aunts appeared, one always bought her own banana with her and celery was expected. None of these visitors had a car and I guess they all needed feeding before making their journeys home.

My favourite visitor as a young child in the 60s was my Mum’s cousin. She lived about 50 miles away and without prior notice would just turn up on our doorstep with her overnight bag. My Mum was always delighted to see her and gave her a lovely welcome. She’d stay for a couple of days.

She was profoundly deaf since a bout of bacterial meningitis as a toddler and used sign language. I was fascinated by her. My Mum would take a writing pad from the drawer and the question and answer session would go on for hours with the paper and pen being passed between them with excitement and laughter. I loved it when she included me in the written chat and asked me a few questions and waited patiently while I composed my replies.

What lovely memories. I have so enjoyed reading them, wishing I had memories like that.
My paternal grandparents had died by the time I was three, so no memories. My DM didn't get on with her father or stepmother, who were well-off but mean, and had refused to let her go to university (she did go in her 40s).
When we went to see them, my sisters and I felt quite intimidated, as if we were being inspected. Fuller's rum and walnut cake was served for tea and one of us was always sick in the car on the way home.
My parents were friends with a lovely family who had a farm. We did visit them, and they were very generous with things that were rationed, like eggs and butter.

Our London grandparents visited every month or two, other grandparents were within a mile and we saw them most days.

We visited our London grandparents less often than they came to us. I suppose my parents, with very many children, disliked the trip to London.

London gram was quite proper and complained of noise, papa was opposite to her, he was happy playing with us - away from his work.

My father often took me to see my Nana on a weekend or sometimes on a Friday night because he finished work a bit earlier. My Nana lived with his favourite sister and my auntie was a fabulous cook and me and my cousin were just under two years apart and saw each other a lot in my childhood ( other cousins and family would visit as well my aunties house was the “hub” for everyone. I would stay there for days in the school holidays and me and my cousin slept on a huge feather bed together and my auntie would come in when she went to bed and tell us off for giggling and not going to sleep!!

Auntie made everything homemade bread, cake, and her own brawn for sandwiches which was out of this world. I haven’t eaten it for years but can still taste it!

We visited every Sunday unless it was our turn for a visit. Sunday tea was always supplied, ham or salmon salad, bread and butter, homemade cakes. Visits were to our relatives. One auntie had a farm and that was my favourite. Dad would take me to see all the animals.

Yes Sundays were days for visiting or having visitors when I was a child. Otherwise it was a day for going for 'a drive'. Kids didn't play out or call for each other and everyone had a 'Sunday best' outfit.
Different times.

We didnt visit but we did have a Sunday afternoon drive in the countryside in SE Kent. We lived by the sea so it was a treat to drive to the pretty little villages in the surrounding area of Canterbury. Dad had a "box" Austin car which we squeezed into and he would crank to start it up.

Talking about picnics to DH this morning as today was the sort of day which started cloudy, but then the sun burnt off the mistiness. And we would go to the beach with a packed picnic. Bread and butter. Hard boiled egg and tomato. A Dairylea cheese triangle. A packet of crisps. A bottle of very diluted orange squash. A Penguin or Kit Kat. All very easily done and easily eaten. No beach BBQs etc like today.

Simple times, but how much I miss them. Relations would come and stay in the summer amd off to the beach with a tray of tea from the beach cafe for the grownups and ice creams for all the children.
The excitement of finding a coin in the sand be it half a crown or even a sixpence or threepenny bit.

We used to go to granny's house for tea on a Sunday which consisted of salad, cheese, ham, cucumber, tomatoes, salad cream, and for afters, tinned peaches and condensed milk or strawberries summer.

We enjoyed visiting the Aunties and Uncles,one used to give us socks and put polish on her hall floor so we could slide on it and they all slipped us a half crown when we were leaving .One Aunty lived opposite a huge hospital and from her 4th floor window we could see into the operating theatre not anything distressing just doctors and nurses in masks and. Caps and gowns scurrying about ….we were al fascinated by it.None of my Aunts had kids so we were spoiled

'Visiting' wasn't a regular thing when I was a child, probably because we didn't have a car, but when we did, it was usually just my mum and I and we'd get the bus into Edinburgh to visit a couple of 'aunties' (who weren't actually blood relatives, but just friends of hers). I was always warned to be on my best behaviour - children should be seen and not heard was very much her view, and we'd always take something with us, just as biscuits. I do remember going with one of those aunties in her car to visit some distant relatives at their farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. I loved getting to see all the animals, but when teatime came, it was tongue sandwiches and I hated tongue! My mother instantly shot me 'that look' - don't you dare show me up - so I remember trying to force them down and not be sick on the journey home.

As a child I was sent to play with the dog when my mother and one of her chums were going to talk about grown up secrets. My mother and her chum wanted to marry this chum's daughter to my big brother. It did not happen.
Another of my mother's chums was one of my favourite people and I liked visiting her house after Friday school was over. She told real things some of them sad and romantic, about what her life had been. She also made spam and chips for tea which in days of rationing was a treat.

My great aunt lived next door to us. Her son J was 15 years older than me. When J married in ‘66, he and his wife came every Saturday afternoon (just to watch tv and have tea) for years - even after their children arrived.
I married in ‘72, but they still continued to visit, although not always weekly.
I’ll always remember at my GAunt’s funeral that they both said how they regretted visiting every Saturday and how much of their own family time they’d missed out on, but being an only child, J had felt unable to speak out.

Cornwall/Devon/Sussex

Always lots of visits/visiting by family.

Most weekends there was a get together by family living close by and cards were played (whist) tea consumed - sandwiches, cake etc and later supper, usually a buffet type affair.

Longer visits (a week or so) to or from family in nice parts of the country - so Cornwall, Devon and later Brighton. Relatives from London would visit regularly for the day or weekend.

I enjoyed it all as a child as everyone was relaxed and normal routine was pushed aside. I especially liked visiting one particularly posh relative, - an aunt - as I got to play on the rocking horse and other lovely toys like a huge dolls house, although these visits always seemed tinged with sadness as her son - flying spitfires got shot down and killed.

I was born in 1946 - West Country.

Not my experience either, tho it all seems very posh and rather nice.
We didn’t have a car and just went round to friends relatives and neighbours when the mood took us.😄 Dropping in fits better than visiting, the same thing really I guess.People just expected to be taken as you found them.

We did it only very occasionally, and not formally, because we had no family anywhere near, and until I was 11, no car. So there would be the occasional tea at the paternal granny’s house- that was it really.

No - not my experience. As a sports writer my father was at his typewriter on a Sunday and we didn't have a car anyway.
I do remember the concept of going for a drive though - "Sonntag spazieren fahren"when staying with relatives in Germany - drive somewhere, Kaffee und Kuchen and drive home again !

We did visit relatives occasionally and they visited us , but it was extremely formal .
I absolutely hated having to get dressed up !
My own friends have been far more casual .
We don't make appointments in order to visit .

Oh yes, I remember having to put on my 'pretty' dress or 'good' coat to visit various Aunties. Loved it. Often involved a trip on a bus. Don't know if it was pre arranged or spontaneous as we certainly didn't have phones. I guess there must have been some sort of arrangement or the intended hosts may well have been out.

Oh yes, happy carefree days. I was born in 1950 and family tradition was to visit or have visitors on a Sunday afternoon, after going to Sunday School.

Tea would be bread and butter, salad and sometimes a tin of salmon, trifle for ‘afters’.

My paternal gp’s lived in the East End and we often had winkles bought from a travelling van. Bread and butter and cake to follow, when we visited them.

Our posh relatives lived in Sheffield, so only remember a few times visiting. Great Auntie May was a bit like the Downton Abbey dowager. I remember not speaking, only to say hello, please and Thankyou and sitting beautifully at the tea table. I always took a book or colouring books and sat quietly whilst listening to the grown ups. I loved it.

My mother always kept a tin of salmon in the pantry to be used for unexpected visitors. We didn't do "visiting" but once we got a car we used to do "drives out to the country" often with a picnic.

Yes, Sundays were often when we had visitors.

Thinking particularly of one of Dad’s nieces, married to a chap in the RAF, they lived in married quarters on the RAF station a few miles away. We enjoyed their visits, mum made tinned salmon sandwiches and opened tins of peaches and evaporated milk for tea. I expect we were a good way of passing an afternoon and getting a free tea.

We sometimes visited relatives, but always after tea as dad had a smallholding and was always busy with the animals, (his excuse). The visits were to elderly relatives, very boring for me and my sister. Sometimes we went to another uncle who had cousins our age, we always hoped the car would turn ‘left’ out of our drive as we knew that was where we would end up. If we turned ‘right’, it meant the old lot.

We didn't go visiting because we did not have a car and my father was disabled. We did, however have lots and lots of visits, especially for Sunday teas. My mother would make bridge rolls, meringues with cream, Victoria sponge cakes etc. There was always lots of conversation and laughter. (South-East England).

My parents where not the sociable type, mum an only child, dad had falken out with his 5 brothers and sister.

No visitors, no friends allowed in at any time.

My brother is not very welcoming to visitors unless immediate family.

I like to know people are coming so I can have and prepare food to welcome them.

I dont visit unless invited, and never go empty handed.

I remember “visiting” over Christmas and Easter. We went to see uncles and aunts of my father’s, that we only saw then. They were boring, stuck up; their grandchildren who were the same age as us were horrible to us. Not a happy memory.

This was in a French tropically island in the early 1950s.

There also used to be endless condolence visits…