The Sunday Reflection #41 - How Sundays have changed

Sunday is a very different day now to what it was when I was a kid back in the 1960's. We really live in different world now.  We went out for dinner with friends last night. Myself and my good mate Paul started reminiscing about when we were children and were both alter servers at our respective churches. I was raised in Mill Hill and would serve on a Sunday at the Sacred Heart. Paul was raised in Gravesend. We are about the same age and we were discussing how much things have changed. When we started, Mass was in Latin, we had no idea what they were on about. My elder brother Frank once told me that he went off religion when they stopped saying mass in Latin. Once he realised what they were saying, he decided it was all a load of old tosh. When you received communion, you had to kneel down and stick your tongue out. The Priest would stick a host on it. An alter server would hold a plate under your chin, because they were scared that a piece of the Jesus might fall on the floor and get eaten by mice. At some point, in the early 1970's, they changed the rules. First you didn't have to kneel down, then you could receive the host in your hand. Once that rule was brought in, the plate was dispensed with. At some point in the 1980's, the Church decided that girls could become alter servers. If you took a Roman Catholic from the 1950's and plonked them in the Sacred Heart in 2025, they would probably think they were in a Church of a different denomintation. I stopped being an alter server when I was fourteen and stopped going to mass at the same time. This coincided with my discovery of punk rock and was my way of being a rebel. My Dad was deeply upset and told me that "people like you are ruining the country". To some extent, he undermined his own arguement when he fell out with the Parish Priest and refused to go to the Sacred Heart. For a period, he'd go to the Annunciation in Burnt Oak instead. My Mum, who was recovering from cancer, often decided she was too ill to go to mass. Oddly, she usually recovered by the evening, and would knock back eight pints of Guinness.

It isn't just mass that has changed. Mill Hill Broadway was very different. None of the shops would've been open, apart from the tobacconist, who sold newspapers. You'd know it was the tobacconist, as it would have cigarrette machines outside. These were for any smokers who ran out of ciggies after the shop shut. There was none of the cafe culture we now see on  Sunday. I published a guest blog by my aunt, Audrey Shaw, which detailed the changes in the Broadway between 1958 and 2009. What are now cafe's were things like the electricity show room and the greengrocers. There was literally nothing to do. 

The highlight, for me, of Sunday was The Big Match on ITV. This was presented by Brian Moore and was the highlights from one of the matches on Saturday. The telly was black and white. When I was a wee nipper, it was the only chance I ever got to watch football.  Expert analysis was provided by Jimmy Hill. The pitches, at this time of year, were often quagmires. Much of the match consisted of brutal tackles, an art form perfected by the likes of "Chopper Harris" of Chelsea. The back pass to the goalkeeper was a productive timewasting tactic. Yellow and Red cards had not been brought in. Players were simply booked or sent off, although generally sendings off were reseved for punch ups. Players would sit in the dug out smoking cigarettes. Players were called Dave rather than David, virtually all were white anglo saxons. The chants were aggressive and the terraces were not segregated. If you wanted a punch up, you'd stand near the away fans. You could have a beer on the terraces. In the 1960's, there was no racist chanting, because  there were no black players on the field. That was more a thing of the 1980s. Kits did not have sponsors and the numbers were 1-11. If you were the centre half, you were given the number five jersey and it didn't have your name on it. Just the club badge, no sponsorship. Replica shirts were not on sale, so you wore a scarf to show your allegiance. The grounds had names like Maine Road, Highbury and Highfield Road. They weren't named after foreign airlines etc. Teams like Burnley, Derby County and Nottingham Forest won the league. Jimmy Hill would explain why. We needed Brian Moore to commentate, because the low resolution, black and white tellies meant we didn't know who was on the ball. 

As a Manchester City fan, the best thing was when City won and they were on the Big Match. This happened 3-4 times a season. When you went to a match, you'd be excited if you saw the cameras as you knew you'd see the highlights. When I was little, I wasn't allowed to stay up and watch Match of the Day as it was on too late. The Big Match was on at 3pm on Sunday. The only problem was we only had one telly. No one else in the house liked football, so there was always a bunfight. Being the youngest and smallest, it was by no means a shoe in, but as it was the only football I got to see, it was worth the fight. I found this video from 1969 featuring City Vs West Ham. This was as good as it got on a Sunday for me!

Click Image for tickets

The other feature of Sunday, was it was 'family day'. Roast dinners, tinned peaches with Carnation evaporated milk. After lunch, Mum and Dad would retire to bed for a rest and to read the papers, unless we had guests over. When my brother Frank and sister Cath moved away, we might drive up to their house for lunch. Dad especially liked visiting Cath, because he could hurtle up the M1 to Northampton in his souped up Mk 1 Ford Capri. Frank lived in Chelmsford that was a far more boring drive, just busy A roads (no M25). Mum was not a fan of Dad's drving. He was a maniac behind the wheel. There were no speed cameras, so you only got nicked if  a police car caught you speeding. This wasn't a concern to my Dad. For him, driving was fun. Would anyone drive up the M1 for fun today?

Sunday was a very different day to the rest of the week. I wrote a song and made a video about this a couple of years ago, called Sunday in th 70's (See below). And on the subject of Sundays, next Sunday will see the 46th Birthday party for my band, The False Dots at The Dublin Castle. Please come down and say Hi!

.