Author Topic: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth  (Read 3754 times)

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Offline Colwyn

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The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« on: November 11, 2013, 16:17:48 PM »
Last night we made one of rare evening trips to the city centre. We were going to a Pokey LaFarge gig and decided to eat in town beforehand. We went to a West Indian restaurant on The Centre: a large eatery but at 5.00pm three quarters of the tables were occupied and the place was buzzing. Then we had an early drink and on to The Fleece for the gig.
 
I reflected on the contrast between this and the Bristol of my youth. According to my parents you couldn’t have gone to a restaurant on Sunday in Bristol: there weren’t any restaurants. The first we children went to was the Berni Inn (in 1955 the first of a chain of Berni Inns across Britain). The food as I remember it (confirmed by Wikipedia) was typically prawn cocktail, steak and chips and (frozen) peas, and black forest gateaux/or cheese board (a gourmet’s dream). But if there had been restaurants they would probably been shut on Sunday because nothing much was allowed to open. The laws governing Sunday was controlled by a bunch of Christian gangsters calling themselves the “Lord’s Day Observance Society”. These misanthropes were generally of the opinion that God did not like fun and would not tolerate it under circumstances on a Sunday. And if they were going to observe God’s Day then the rest of us were going to damn well have to as well.
 
Nor would we have been able to a pub for live music until 11.00 pm. I don’t know if public musical entertainment was banned on Sunday (but it probably was) but pubs were closely regulated and could only open noon till 2.00 and 7.00 till 10.00. The LDOS were strongly opposed to this as well, and said things like: “You can drink six days a week. Surely you can manage to not to drink for one day.” They said the same thing about shops: “You can shop six days a week. Surely .......”. There was a whole long list of stuff that God would be really upset about if did them on Sunday.
 
What God wasn’t upset about – indeed what he insisted upon in our household – was people worshipping him. So every Sunday morning we all went to the centre of the city to the Welsh Congregational Chapel (there have been Welsh chapels in Bristol since the 1600s) for morning service. Then home and back again for Sunday School. The morning bit didn’t teach me much since it was conducted in high formal Welsh and I had stopped learning Welsh at 4 years old so couldn’t follow any of it. The lyrical passion of the various itinerant ministers we had (a different one each week) and the powerful singing did impress me though – but not for Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after ...
 
The only good thing about Sundays that I can remember was that often my parents would have visitors. They were always entertained in the Front Room. This was a very special place and we were only allowed in there to present ourselves very politely to the guests, attempt to make intelligible answers to their pious questions about what we had done in Sunday School and how we were doing in real school, and then to withdraw. It wasn’t that going into the Front Room was so great – it wasn’t great at all – it was that no-one was in the kitchen and I could listen to the wireless. I could listen to the forbidden programme: forbidden because it would give me nightmares (which it never did). The programme was Charles Chilton’s Journey Into Space (I still remember Jet Morgan, Lemmy, Mitch and Doc) followed, in a later series, by The Red Planet (and who can forget the haunting, homicidal and, ultimately, tragic figure of Whittaker?). Unfortunately after a while one of my parents usually had into come into the kitchen for something or other; the wireless promptly switched off; myself given a lecture about deceit and trust, made to promise not to do it again and sent off to bed.
 
Those were the bleak Sundays of my youth. Tony Hancock nailed this bleakness absolutely in his episode “Sunday Afternoon at Home”. On Sunday, Britain is now a hell more fun to live in than it was back then.

Offline Ian

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Re: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« Reply #1 on: November 11, 2013, 16:35:48 PM »
Sounds very familiar indeed - after Sunday School - it was mandatory for us on our estate in Manchester to join the Cubs and then the Scouts - so we still went to church on Sundays but we now had to put up with the inevitable few nights away camping :-)

I also remember Sunday afternoons started with Around the Horn, The Clitheroe Kid of No 33 something terrace and ending with Sunday Dinner accompanied by the Black & White Minstrels and names like The Cliff Adams Singers and The Mike Sammes Singers and the volume was really turned up on the knob we couldn't touch if The Joe Loss Orchestra was on................... :D

Ps: what time slot was Wakey Wakey on ??

Offline marina

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Re: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2013, 17:31:11 PM »
Oh my, this is all sounding very familiar too!  In particular the Sunday visitors being allowed in the 'front room' when normally we lived in the living room/kitchen which was actually all one room apart from the sink and cooker in a scullery.

I remember the radio programmes too - seem to think Wakey Wakey was on just after Two Way Family Favourites which always seemed to be on at dinner time (or lunch as it would be now).

And when Sing Something Simple came on I knew it was soon time for bed (thankfully)    :)  ;)

Offline Ian

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Re: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2013, 17:46:30 PM »
Sing Something Simple - that was it !!!!!!!

Offline echogirl1

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Re: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2013, 17:54:24 PM »
My favourite prog. on the "wireless" was Archie Andrews, seem to remember The Billy Cotton Band Show heralded by Wakey-wakey was at 1pm.

Offline Colwyn

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Re: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2013, 17:55:19 PM »
Ian, I also had to join first cubs and then (sea) scouts. Actually I look back on that with considerable affection - it provided some of the best times of my youth. It also meant that once a month I didn't have to go to chapel on Sunday morning because we were required to attend (CofE) church parade (but still went to chapel for Sunday School afterwards). Of course we also went, in uniform, to the local church when at camp. I'm not sure we were the ideal scout troop. We lost adult guidance in the early-1960s (no-one would volunteer when the old scout master retired) and me and my chums, as mature 15/16 year olds, took over troop management - I became Cub Master aged 15! Already seen with some scepticism in the district since, as sea scouts, we wore navy blue uniform instead of the usual khaki, we fell into further disfavour over the issue of naming of scout huts. Other troops chose really obvious and boring names like The Wigwam and The Teepee. We submitted our choice - Rebel HQ: the District Commissioner decided to leave our hut unnamed; we didn't mind.


P.S. It has just struck me, for the first time, that there might be a connection between Red Planet and our naming the hut Rebel HQ. The apparently malevolent villain, but really a conditioned victim, Whitaker kept saying "Orders must be obeyed without question at all times". Perhaps it was illicit exposure to such a subversive caricature of obedience might have laid the seeds of my later rebelliousness.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2013, 18:16:33 PM by Colwyn »

Offline Ian

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Re: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2013, 18:07:23 PM »
All sounds so fondly familiar - I had about 12 badges on each arm in the cubs - I still smile at a photograph my 87 year old mother keeps in a montage on the wall with me in green cub uniform in the traditional footballers stance - one foot on ball - hands on hips - but arms twisted to show as many of those badges as possible :D

Your point about church parade i remember vividly and adult supervision diminishing is so right - I remember my sister-in-law (to be) took over the local guide troop because no-one else would do it when she was in her late teens.

From a personal point of view my first trip camping with the scouts by a river bank ended up with me being posted as guard for most of the night - with the tent peg mallet at the tent opening after someone supposedly had seen a big rat!!

I was scarred for life  ;)  hated camping ever since but my older brother still loves it at 65 :D

Offline marina

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Re: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« Reply #7 on: November 11, 2013, 18:26:37 PM »
Sing Something Simple - that was it !!!!!!!

 ;D


Offline KKOB

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Re: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« Reply #8 on: November 11, 2013, 18:40:40 PM »
Yep, I went through the cubs 'n scouts too. Mum and Dad were both Scout Leaders at one time and of course I had to become a Sixer and then a Leaping Wolf. I eventually got invited to leave for not paying my subs and at the same time paying far too much attention to a certain Girl Guide leader about 4 years older than me.  ;)
.

Offline Ian

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Re: The Long Dark Sunday of My Youth
« Reply #9 on: November 11, 2013, 18:56:46 PM »
A leaping wolf - not heard that one before but somehow seems appropriate    ;)

Ps: I was a senior sixer - nah nah - nah - nah nah




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