When I was a child I was in the Girls' Brigade and part of that commitment was going to Sunday School, clutching my sixpence for the collection. There was a church at the end of the little footpath that connected our road to the shops. In those days it hadn't long been built and was considered very modern.
I remember a huge stained glass window with doves, flowers and animals on it. All the pews were made of a very light coloured wood and the whole place seemed filled with sunshine. My only experience of churches up to that point were dark, dusty places where you had to speak in hushed tones.
(My family were invited to a Christening some years ago. We duly arrived, found our places right at the front of the church but were a bit concerned that none of the rest of the family were there. On enquiring of the church warden, we found we were sitting in the Baptist church. Two minutes before their service started we all had to troop out, in front of the whole congregation and run down to the C of E church a few doors down).
But I digress ..... (again!). I don't attend church nowadays as I prefer to find my spiritual healing outdoors in the fields and countryside. Mother Nature is my Creator.
Back to Sunday.... we always had a roast dinner at lunchtime listening to Two-Way Family Favourites followed by the Navy Lark or somesuch comedy programme.
In the afternoon, we sometimes piled into the car
and went for a 'Sunday Drive' often ending up with an ice-cream from the van on the waterfront in Harwich ....
...... a cup of tea at the tea-room in Dedham
....... or watching the swans at Mistley.
Mum invariably fell asleep in the front - it's only now, as a mum myself, that I appreciate how hard she worked!
Tea was ham sandwiches and crisps or boiled eggs and soldiers listening to 'Sing Something Simple'.
Sunday was also bath and hairwash night. No hairdryer - I had to lie in front of the coal-effect electric two-bar fire until my waist-length hair was frizzled. When 'Sunday night at the London Palladium' finished, it was bed-time.
There was no shopping on a Sunday and garden centres were in their infancy.
I still try to 'Keep Sunday Special'.
My children know better than to ask 'can we go shopping' on a Sunday. At a push, I might pootle around the garden centre. We always have a roast. I always listen to the Archers omnibus, Desert Island Discs and the Food Programme. Sunday evening is now 'Downton Abbey', 'Larkrise to Candleford' or the current Jane Austen/Charles Dickens dramatisation.
Shoes are always cleaned ready for the week, school bags are packed, uniforms are ironed and we are ready to face another week.
Yep, I love Sunday!
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