It’s 5.30 on the Sunday nights of our childhoods. AIBU to ask you what you are doing?

[StudentProblems]

It is 5.30 on any Sunday night of your childhood. For me it’s approximately 1997. I am having my hair nit combed in the front room, having been told off for not eating all my roast pork. Dad is messing around with the fire because it won’t draw properly. It’s all a bit tense.

What are you doing?

The Television isn't on because there is no broadcasting until 7.30pm so we've got Radio 2 on; it's the 60s. I've had my bath and hairwash and I'm sitting in front of the gas fire and my Dad is snoozing on the settee. I'll be going to bed pretty soon.
I've just realised I've never had nits !

It's 2005, I've had a warm bath and just finished eating a slice of chicken pie, some pale boiled carrots and a dollop of mash. I'll watch Heartbeat or Ballykissangel before running up to bed with a dreadful feeling about school the next day.

80s for me. I'd have likely had a bath ready for school, and sat making toast on the two bar electric heater while watching a video we'd rented from the local video rental shop.

Late 70's - would have watched Love Boat with my mum in the afternoon, then had roast dinner followed by bath and hair wash. Downstairs then to watch Hart to Hart with a milky coffee before bed ("and when they met...it was murder!!!")

Mid-1980s. I've been for a horse riding lesson in the morning. We've had a roast lunch (which I like - lamb with mint or a rare roast beef). I'm having a bath, reading a Sweet Valley High book, and dreading school in the morning. Or I might be watching TV with my dad. I have memories of Hart to Hart and Bullseye on Sunday early evenings. I'll be allowed to stay up for That's Life, with Esther and the oddly shaped vegetables, but then it will be bedtime and the end of another weekend.

Doing a jigsaw puzzle and waiting for my mum to get tea ready. Probably sliced hard-boiled eggs, brown bread and butter, and a bit of salad. Followed by swiss roll.

Drying my hair that was washed in the bath in front of the gas fire whilst eating ritz crackers spread with Philadelphia cheese and watching Colditz.

80s - was at my piano lesson. After a Sunday lunch. Then back home to watch my Mum do the remaining hours of ironing she did on a Sunday (family of 4 kids). We watch BBC1 before and after BBC2 Ski Sunday.

Any time from 1994 until 2007 I would just have been dreading school. Hated school. Wasn't picked on, had friends, did well academically, just hated it.

Watching chronicles of narnia
Had been stuck in the house all day because my dad was working and my mum didn’t have a car and back then all the shops were still shut on a Sunday so nothing to do , nowhere to go.

Getting my hair dried listening to top of the pops with my mum. Then a few game of cards!

Salmon with picked onion sandwiches for tea and my dad making homemade crisps.

We always had ‘Sunday tea’ round the table at 5pm. It was the one time we use my mum’s hideous 60s tea service. Nobody in my house drank tea, but apparently it was obligatory, even for children, on this weekly occasion. Sometimes we had sandwiches, sometime a quiche and salad bits, or even a pease pudding with bread and butter. This was always followed by homemade cake.

The rest of Sunday evening was dedicated to my bath and hair wash. When I was older, I was allowed back downstairs to watch the period drama of the time - Heartbeat etc.

I was always a bit anxious on Sunday evenings, dreading the week ahead.

In termtime in the 60s, I'll be in school having emerged from Evensong bored rigid having heard one of the vicar's stock of uninspiring sermons that he recycled every year. I'll be waiting gloomily for Sunday supper which, because they don't want to do any cooking, will be cold meat and something like disgusting beetroot in vinegar or disgusting Russian salad which looks like vomit. If I'm really unlucky, the cold meat will be disgusting spam. The one bright spot is that we'll be allowed to to watch TV afterwards for a time but will have to go to bed in a cold dormitory at times varying between 8pm and 10 pm depending on how old I am. I'll probably be very, very cold because the heating system is useless.

Looking back, I still wonder what the hell my parents were paying for.

Being driven back to boarding school and dreading it

Panicking about not having done my homework once I hear the Antiques Roadshow theme tune.

I'm out with my friends hoping that our mum won't be the first one to come calling kids for dinner...

Recording Pick of the Pops (Alan Freeman) on the reel to reel tape recorder, before having a bath and then Sunday roast dinner. Watching either The Forsyte Saga, Howard's Way, Sunday Night at the London Palladium or Dynasty (depending on the year).

I can never understand all this talk of nits, we never had them at any of the schools I went to and I never had them, nor did my friends!

Eating revolting overcooked meat and vegetables. Windows steamed up for hours from endlessly boiling vegetables. The theme tune to some horrid show like songs of praise or last of the summer wine blaring out. Grey, miserable, knots in stomach thinking about school the next day.

1970’s. My hair is drying after my weekly bath. I’m in my bri-nylon nightie, sitting on the sofa with my feet on my mum’s lap while she cuts my toenails.

We'd be just getting home from a Cross Country running competition and taking it in turns to have a bath before having tea and watching the Sunday night ITV drama, either Heartbeat, Ballykissangel or Where the Heart is.

It's the early 80s and I'm just sitting down for tea. As it's winter there'll be hot sausage rolls in addition to the tinned meat, bread and butter and salad. My mum's telling me off for putting too much ketchup on my plate.

We're allowed Radio 1 on in the background for the charts - the rest of the week it's Radio 4 and 'Just a Minute' and we have horrible casseroles and faggots and things, so Sunday Tea is the highlight of my culinary week. After tea I'll have my bath and wash my hair, and then plait it while it's wet in an attempt to make it look as though it's been crimped.

If I sit quietly reading an Enid Blyton, my parents might forget to send me to bed so I can see the beginning of 'That's Life' with all the rude vegetables.

1992/3.
We're at home, watching whatever was on TV in those days. (I remember the Saturday schedule by heart- Blind date, Noels House Party, casualty etc!) but can't seem to remember what was on of a Sunday evening... dinner at around 6.

Taking the 5 dogs for a walk around the block with my mother, before having roast beef for dinner, which was always the start of that horrible feeling that the weekend was almost over and it would be back to a week of school.

Yes fivegomadindorset me too ..allowed home three times a term...looming dread and sadness from about 4 oclock onwards..can still affect me now many years later

Sunday roast lunch at dinner time (midday 9) so salad tea with tinned salmon, potato mash with chopped spring onion, bread, butter and crisps. Afters of some sort. Usually something on tv, Black Beauty, Flambards that sort of thing. After tea, game or reading, last of summer wine or juliet bravo for grown ups.
Early 80s