To wonder if Sundays in the 80s were restful or boring

[IlovedLadybirdbooks]

Large stores were closed on Sundays. Eating out was a rare treat. No Deliveroo. 3 TV channels to choose from. People got their exercise from a walk or cycling rather than the gym. Children played out rather than being taken to organised activities.

Just pondering ... were Sundays more relaxing or a bit of a drag?

Exactly. The difference is huge. These days you can do almost anything on a Sunday, but back in the '80s there was nothing open and nothing to do.

I still don’t plan much regular stuff for Sunday.

Great thread bringing back so many memories but if posters did not actually reference the "80s" you would think most of these posts were talking about Sundays in the "70s".

Things wre opening up in the eighties - 4 channels! Sunday opening (well some shops eg DIY stores) Pubs opening all day.

Seventies Sundays - now they were boring !

I found them boring and restful as a kid. I still like lolling around watching crap on TV, waiting for someone else to cook Sunday lunch.

I loved Sundays. I had a pony and so Sundays were pony club or shows or just riding. Then home for a late lunch usually cooked by my dad then tv and whatever film Disney showed in the evening.

I’m surprised and sad to hear about kids being bored in 80s ( and 70s for me). I loved it. So much freedom and exploring. Feel sad my kids never had the same ( other parents dn’t let young kids out to play) but now they are 10 and older they have that a bit more. And they love being able to just take themselves off with their friends too.
I think it’s really important in all sorts of ways for kids to organise their own social lives and to live those lives without adults hanging around.

Bit older than most so my Sundays were 1970s. Very different day to the rest of the week,thought it was crap back then but looking back we have really lost something.

Few cars on the street, kids roaming in gangs , parents seemed to sleep a heck of a lot. Dad got his one hour a week in the pub Sunday evening.

That's life on TV Sunday evening, don't worry, your life may be shite but here is a dog that can say " Sausages"!

The dread of school Monday and not doing your homework despite having loads of time to have done it.

Sundays in the 80s as a teenager.

1. One Visit to some cider place. Tasted different ciders. Lovely.
2. Once Visited a new build house.
3. Visits to my gran's for lunch. Just us kids / combination of kids.
4. Visits to other gran for bread and butter and trifle. Sneaking out to the park.
5. Visits to auntie and cousins. Always fun..What's in their bath (usually fish)
6. Just for a drive out.

I don't remember being particularly bored but I was quite a homebody as a child and liked being at home with my Famous Five books!

We went to church/ Sunday school in the morning so I suppose that got us out of the house. Then had a roast, sometimes with guests, sometimes just us. In the afternoon or dad went to his sports club for the rest of the day, which is quite funny because my parents would bang on about Sunday being a family day but after lunch we didn't spend any time together! My sister and I would read or play with our barbies. If weather was nice we'd go to the beach which was just down the road. Walk the dogs. Sunday night my mum went to choir practice so we would get our own snack tea and have the telly to ourselves. Liked that!

I was really bored. But then I didn’t have any children living near me and my parents just used to do chores.

I loved Sundays in the 80’s, I was in primary school, we went to church, had lunch, went a walk had a roast dinner and visited my gran . So relaxing, no rushing about and the perfect day before back to school on the Monday,

now I feel we are always rushing about on a Sunday to the shops, to do a food shop, to visit people do the housework. Rush rush rush!

I loved them - so much quieter, calmer and altogether nicer than now. They started with tea and biscuits in bed (brought up by my father) whilst reading the Sunday papers. Breakfast later, then perhaps some gardening, listening to records/tapes, doing the Telegraph Sunday crossword with my parents, eating nice food (not necessarily a roast), getting stuff ready for the new week, and watching TV in the evening - when the programmes were far more interesting than the slop on nowadays. In essence, just being together!

I felt the same as a child in the 80's. They only thing I liked about it was we'd often go to my grandparents for tea (usually a salad with a boiled egg) & I'm pretty sure highway to heaven was on the TV.

I dunno. When you say organise their own social life I assume you mean going out to “play” on the streets and parks etc?

my kids decide what they want to do socially but it’s really different to that and needs facilitating. One likes bouldering and climbing walls- I have to take her and her friends, pay, wait in the cafe. Tonight one wants to attend her schools music festival- her and her friends need driving and picking up. Last week they wanted to go for lunch and a bit of shopping- again needed dropping and picking up.

im not sure I’d really like them to just open the door and go wild- now, as when I was a kid in the 80s, it was only certain families who allowed their children to roam the streets and I wouldn’t want them involved in their low level asb.
We also have a homeless man who lives in the local playing fields which I think would frighten them, the village shop is owned by the local drug dealer and more generally, live next to lots of country lanes so they’re quite constrained in how far they can cycle etc so it’s not that appealing 😂😂

I used to love a Sunday. Longer lie, visited grandparents where they made us three courses for dinner and the best desert. Playing out with friends. Long bath. Often would go visit and play with our cousins in the woods behind their house. Then would watch last of the summer wine.

Good God,, Deliveroo stops boredom!! I had 3 kids,was working ft shifts nursing around ex h shifts.. Sunday morning, I went for a riding lesson with the older 2..in the evening, I used to do my ironing while watching TV. Definitely more than 3 channels.

Sundays were always about a lot of visiting family. Mostly just turning up unannounced. Going to the paper shop to pay your papers and get a treat with my Dad. I remember when the old lady who ran the paper shop got into trouble for selling a second hand black and white tv on a Sunday and my dad explaining the weirdness of Sunday trading laws to me. Long walks. And no tv for us. My dad believed that watching the telly on a Sunday day proved you’d got nothing better to do with your time. So it was radio all day while you did jobs or homework or tidied your room. My kids now wonder why I know the lyrics to so many songs and it’s because we listened to the radio constantly. It was a big old radiogram that was like a sideboard and you had to wait for the valves to warm up before it got going and then move the dial to radio 1.
I was also allowed to read the News of the World from cover to cover - often wholly inappropriate content for a young child. This was how I learned about spontaneous combustion and what Madonna might look like when she’s old (spoiler alert - they were wildly out!)
My dad died as a young man in the mid 80s though and after that, things just quietly unraveled. My mum met someone else and me and my sister spent a lot of time on our own at the weekends and taught ourselves to cook a Sunday dinner of sorts so that we had some normality. I felt like everyone else was having cosy family time and we were on our own a lot. It got even more lonely after she went off to uni.

Eating out is still a rare treat for me. I've never used Deliveroo.

Haven't watched much television for a long time and I rarely watched it in the 1980s.

And there are few things more boring than gym.

Fairly boring
Church in morning then Sunday lunch with grandparents
Afternoons might be a walk, local park, mini golf or bowling - tv or craft activities in winter or on a wet day
More food then evening church service - homework about an hour of tv then bed

Church in the morning (at least it go us out of the house and I didn't mind Sunday school), followed by roast but the afternoons were not much fun. We weren't allowed to play out, which meant me and my three brothers drove each other and our parents up the wall. Dad sometimes took us out for some sort of physical activity, which was always the highlight.

For a period we didn't live near relatives, often in then summer friends of the family came round with their children.

I think you might have your decade a bit wrong.

We ate out weekly in the mid 80s.

We had gym membership.

Channel 4 started in 1982.

Going to the video shop and choosing a cassette was far more fun than streaming.

Going out to the cinema was, and still is, far more fun than streaming.

Concert tickets cost a couple of fingers not an arm and a leg. Live music in big (2000 seats not 20,000 seats) was to promote record sales it wasn't expected to generate huge profits itself.

Every town had a folk and/or comedy club for a cheap night out.

Sundays were a welcome relaxation but it was annoying the shops were shut and it's still annoying they shut at 4pm.

I was born in the early 70s and quite enjoyed 80s Sundays. I went to a Sunday school in the morning, but it was focused on crafts and interesting discussions so not preachy and boring. After that, I’d walk down to the corner shop to get a stock of sweets for the day. Then back home to watch Ch4 - Network 7, a youth and music programme. We would usually have a roast dinner and maybe go out for the afternoon for a drive somewhere. Sunday evening was homework.

I certainly wasn't bored. The dogs would go out for a long walk. Mum cooked a roastie. Waited for the Top 40 countdown. Sundays were lovely, relaxing days. Feel sorry for those who were bored. So glad I had my childhood when I did.

I’m surprised and sad to hear about kids being bored in 80s ( and 70s for me). I loved it. So much freedom and exploring.

I think reading this thread its very obvious that much of it depends on your individual family, where you lived, and your income level at the time.

For example- some people are mentioning having a pony! I dont know of a single kid in the 80s whose family had the money to own a horse and we certainly couldn't afford that (that would have definitely relieved a lot of boredom for me!).

Also, I am an only child so I didnt have any siblings to play with so for me, that was also incredibly boring as I was only ever around my parents who were quite conservative or my elderly grandparents who had no real interest in anything to do with children. There really wasnt much for me do as a child at all.

I hated Sundays because I knew I had school the next day. Also the telly was shite. I remember watching the Smurfs which is one of the least stimulating cartoons ever created. And this stupid show called Pob where this weird puppet thing spits all over the camera lens?!

So yeah, pretty dull. My dad would then boot me out of the front room so he could watch some sports shite.

My poor mum spent most of the morning cooking the roast my dad wanted. He required the meat to be incinerated and didn't even like gravy?! So it was never a very nice meal sadly.