Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum
General Topics => The Debating Chamber => Topic started by: Colwyn on November 11, 2013, 16:17:48 PM
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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.
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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 ??
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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) :) ;)
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Sing Something Simple - that was it !!!!!!!
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My favourite prog. on the "wireless" was Archie Andrews, seem to remember The Billy Cotton Band Show heralded by Wakey-wakey was at 1pm.
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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.
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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
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Sing Something Simple - that was it !!!!!!!
;D
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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. ;)
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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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If I remember right you had to be a Sixer and get 12 or 15 badges to become a Leaping Wolf. You then had to gain another couple of badges to be made a Senior Sixer.
I got kicked out invited to leave before I could make it to Senior Sixer. ;)
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"Leaping Wolf: a Wolf Cub who leaps upon, and attempts to ravish, a Girl Guide."
Source: I may have made that up.
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I think you are getting it confused with Jimmy Savile
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Lol - really made me laugh :D
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I think you are getting it confused with Jimmy Savile
Nah, mate. I wasn't interested in the youngsters. ;)
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Here's a link to Hancock's 1958 take on Sunday. I had forgotten how many of his great one-liners were in this one - including "I thought my mother was a bad good cook but at least her gravy used to move about" and, dismissing a counter-argument, "That's besides the point and nothing to do with it" - a phrase that I may have used myself in answer to an attempt to halt my progress in mid rant.
http://www.myoldradio.com/old-radio-shows/hancocks-half-hour
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Sunday evenıngs lıstenıng to Radıo Luxembourg and forever tunıng ıt back ın cos ıt kept fading..
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;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Gee3THtb8
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One of the upsides of my Sunday recollections was meeting up with my cousins for Sunday tea. We had a long tortuous walk to get there as they lived about 5 miles away. We had no car, busses didn't run on Sundays, and even if they did, with one large pram complete with baby and two more of us, it would not have been feasible. We would all sit round the pasting table, (brought out from under the stairs for the event), and there would always be winkles and shrimps and jellied eels (purchased from Walthamstow market, the day before). We would all share a safety pin to deal with the winkles, and even the baby could pull the head off the shrimp and eat it. The highlight of the day would be toasting crumpets by the fire on a large toasting fork. We all toasted our own (no elf and safety back then) and our faces would be bright red from getting too close to the spitting coal fire. Then it would be coats on and a walk back in the dark, with the baby fast asleep. Sometimes mum would let my brother sit on the end of the pram, but me being the oldest always walked along with one hand on the pram ( a slap on the legs if I let go!!).. I certainly never had any trouble sleeping back then : :) : :)
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No wonder you are so trim and healthy :)
We did something similar going to grans on pushbikes - with baby chairs on the back - I usually fell asleep before we got there as it was about 10 miles away and I was only 2 or 3 years old.
It does conjure up wonderful, simple times - with lots of conversation - no tv, computer games or other distractions - just family, friends and sharing :)
Ps we didn't have all that fishy stuff up norf - we had northern delicacies - soup made from cow heel - followed by a meat (not very much) and potato hash and always ended with gran's home made malt loaf
pps as I grew older I also remember my gran occasionally had her favourite delicacy - sheeps brains - ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww - she was from Wales though !!!
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Loving these memories….Sing Something Simple really stirred up some treasured ones for me. My Dad used to disappear to the lounge to listen to the radiogram and put one bar of the electric fire on - with coal effect of course, (a spinning wheel over a red light bulb!) Mum used to sing along in the kitchen whilst making tea for us kids - left-over sunday roast sandwiches (which was usually lamb and mint sauce) with jelly and blancmange for afters.
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Sounds just like our house when we didn't go to gran's.
Jelly and carnation cream for us - a very small tin though - don't know how 4 of us managed to get some each :-)
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Memories of Church Parade on a Sunday as a Cub and then as a Scout either on the drums or bugle. We lived in South West London and as a Scout Group we have a storage/hut in a gap between 2 terraced houses and I can clearly remember after we had packed all of the instruments away late Sunday morning lighting a fire out front and some of us boys cooking sausages in a pan, well they tasted cooked!
I am not sure if it is an age thing but they always seems to taste so wonderful back then :D
In those days my father used to work 6 sometimes 7 days a week but on occasions he would take me down to the south coast to go sea fishing on the beach, in all weathers. He had a radio in the car which as I recall he could take out and use away from the car but on the way home we would listen to Top of the Pops and I can so clearly remember Mary Hopkins singing Those Were The Days. Strange but I cannot recall any other songs!
Back home to my mother and sister and a roast dinner, I always remember sleeping soundly after those days out.
If we didn't go fishing the prospect of the Golden Shot was always present and like many other young boys awaiting their teenage years, the prospect of Anne Aston was a highlight and I suspect that I was the only one who had a crush on her.............
Those Were The Days............................. :)
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Sounds wonderful - and not an ipad / tablet / xbox or 134 channels on tv required :)
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Here's a link to Hancock's 1958 take on Sunday. I had forgotten how many of his great one-liners were in this one - including "I thought my mother was a bad good cook but at least her gravy used to move about" and, dismissing a counter-argument, "That's besides the point and nothing to do with it" - a phrase that I may have used myself in answer to an attempt to halt my progress in mid rant.
Great lines indeed, written for Hancock by Galton and Simpson. Hancock was never the same after he dropped them as writers, but then if the arrogant sod hadn't done it, we would possibly never have enjoyed Steptoe and Son that G&S went on to write.
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I agree with many of the sentiments expressed here about how boring a Sunday could be under the control of the god botherers. However, they were not completely wrong as these days there is no special day of the week for families to get together - frightening as that may seem to some. The day appears to have been given over to more retail therapy, indeed the big shops are looking to drive back the minimal Sunday trading protection so that people can do even more shopping...crazy!! There's a balance to be struck but we should make (common) time for families.
BTW it was the Light Programme on a Sunday for us, around lunch (no it wasn't it was dinner time!!!!!), when there was two way family favourites, and two good comedy shows like Clitheroe Kid, Navy Lark and Round the Horne .... how did the BBC get away with that programme at that time of day I'll never know, radio perfection though. :D
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My memory may be playing up but my recollection is that the midday meal was "dinner" for six days a week but it was always "Sunday lunch".
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My memory may be playing up but my recollection is that the midday meal was "dinner" for six days a week but it was always "Sunday lunch".
My recollection is clear too, for on the seventh day - like every other day - there was 'Sunday Dinner'
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In our house tt was never Sunday lunch, always dinner, and evening meal in the week was always tea. The Clitheroe Kid was another favourite of mine, and I'd forgotten about it until it was mentioned on here. What a load of memories being brought to life. I do remember when I was slightly older that I became friends with a girl whose parents were very religious, they were also better off than us, and owned their own house. As a bribe to get their daughter to go to Sunday school, I was invited to go along with her. This meant I missed the Sunday dinner at home, and went back to her house to have a really good roast dinner, and best of all a proper pudding, such as syrup tart and custard, or spotted dick. I went to Sunday school for as long as I could!!
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We had "dinner" as well and dad always had the best - there was an order - I was the youngest so I got last choice of - the leg / the cracklin / the gravy / the first pour of the carnation etc etc
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Always dinner in our house. Every day! During the week mum would cook a dinner at 'dinnertime'. Me and my sister would walk home from school and dad would walk home from work then after dinner, time to walk back again. Would have been unthinkable to eat a main meal at night as is the norm now. And it was never 'lunch'!
Definitely a pecking order in our house Ian - I was the youngest too! : :)
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I agree with many of the sentiments expressed here about how boring a Sunday could be under the control of the god botherers. However, they were not completely wrong as these days there is no special day of the week for families to get together - frightening as that may seem to some. The day appears to have been given over to more retail therapy, indeed the big shops are looking to drive back the minimal Sunday trading protection so that people can do even more shopping...crazy!! There's a balance to be struck but we should make (common) time for families.
UBT I have to disagree to a level with this as I see a surprising amount of families, single, multiple and extended out and about enjoying a walk and time together then on for lunch somewhere or for a late afternoon/evening bite to eat.
Visit any of the big parks or open spaces in and around London and they are awash with families enjoying to fresh air and I suspect that this is a reflection of lots of the mums and dads being stuck in offices and welcoming some time outside with the children etc.
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Definitely a pecking order in our house Ian - I was the youngest too! : :)
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I never got to dip my bread in the dripping - but my elder brother loves it to this day :-)
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Probably a good job I never liked dripping! ;)