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?

I think we just accepted it as we didn't know any better.
I'm glad now that sport is on a Sunday and on TV. Really enjoy sometimes watching the Sunday game on Sky plus other sports

The traditional roast dinner has gone from Sunday too meaning days out and picnics in the summer as well.
If we have a roast it will be on a Monday usually.

Both simultaneously. They were definitely very boring but also more relaxing.

I was brought up in a strict Presbyterian area of North West Scotland. So it was church morning and evening plus Sunday school. Sermon would go on for hours, and we would be told we were sinners and had a one way ticket to hell! No playing outside, maybe a walk after lunch weather permitting. No tv allowed on the Sabbath, only improving books on missionaries. No washing hung out to dry. Things have relaxed a bit since the 80s and Sundays are a bit more secular, but I still wouldn't strim the grass or do any other noisy outdoor activity on a Sunday.

I’m sure you do prefer them given your change in economic circumstances and therefore environment but it’s better for you now due to the place you live in rather than the change in decade. Lots of people lived near parks and the countryside even in the 80s!

My mum used to do a whole house reset, bedding & net curtains washed, house cleaned top to bottom & we lived on a huge council estate with a massive field and park at the bottom. We went out soon as we could and come back in for our sunday roast. Watch a bit of tv or played inside after whilst she ironed all our uniforms. They were 4 of us in total and I just remember rows of pur white shirts hung up in the kitchen. Then it was supper, bath & bed because of school on Monday. School holidays we could play out a bit longer.

I remember hatng Sundays as a kid as they were so long and boring. Mum would make us go to sunday school in morning then spend hours making the roast. My dad would be left to lie in til midday and then he would mow lawn, read newspaper for hours. Looking back I do appreciate that it was a calm day , with no expectations where the family could kind of regroup ready for the week. Now Sundays feel just as hectic as every other day , my kids expect to 'do fun things' but we have so many chores to do after week at work plus older reletives who expect to be visited. I'd now love a regular boring Sunday.

Yes but also, at least if I had grown up now in the same environment as I did in the 80s I would have had access to more indoor entertainment.

Back then, if my parents were watching songs of praise that was it, noone could watch anything else. Thats not the case now - we have the internet and can stream. We just have access to a lot more options than there were back then

True enough, but I would find streaming every Sunday boring so hey-ho

The busiest day of the week 😂We were part of a rather hyperactive church - we had a morning service, an afternoon Sunday school and another service, then an evening service followed by singing practice. We were home for about an hour and a half over lunch and another hour and a half for tea and that was it! I actually used to love it, as I had friends there so it was very sociable. Must have been exhausting for my parents though...

Fair enough but trust me- its a lot more interesting for a kid than watching songs of praise 🤭

On Sundays we were normally sent to the squash club as they had kids lessons. They also had tennis lessons there. I liked that they had arcade games there that we played after. In the summer we got to go to Windsurfing lessons. I remember Sundays often included a trip to the diy shop or going out for Sunday lunch. Maybe going swimming or something. The TV on Sunday was boring but I watched it anyway! And then the dread that I hadn’t done my homework. Or Sundays could have been a day out on bikes with a gang of mates depending on who knocked on the door!

Restful, but I was a horsey kid so never short of things to do.

@EarringsandLipstick
Where in the world, glenroe, homework and bed. I saw a man with a t shirt in France saying this and it made me laugh. Such a niche cultural reference. My friend still calls that Sun eve blues as 'getting the Glenroes'.

To explain, in Ireland in the 80s for reasons unknown everyone watched a TV show together at 8.30 called Glenroe. It was awful even then

They were rest and reset days. Church, swimming, walking. However, we were a farming family and work didn't stop on Sundays. We just didn't shop. It was great.

In London, in my 20s, it was a day for meeting up and friends often had lunch or a picnic in summer.

It's still like that where I live. I love it. You can't just put off all your shopping and DIY to Sunday. It really is restful and feels like a proper weekend. A couple of shops are open if you're really desperate for something, but I hate having to go to the shop on Sunday, so I make sure I manage my week accordingly.

Boring. I remember being dragged round endless car boot sales because there was nothing else to do!

It could be either depending on the weather and what the classic movie on the tv was in the afternoon.
We’d have a bit of a lie-in before walking to church/Sunday school which was at 11, usually a roast though I’m a bit puzzled about how DM got that done in time. Sometimes a bottle of Corona brightly coloured pop with it, or a slab of icecream bought on the way home from the post office which was open in the morning, wrapped in newspaper to keep it cold (we didn’t get a fridge till I was about 10)
church in the evening when I was a teenager, with Young People’s Fellowship after which was one of the highlights of my misspent youth.😂

Boring. Church in the morning then dinner at lunchtime. I remember my mum being quite stressed on Sundays with cooking, and tea was always a salad. I remember her putting eggs on to hard-boil and then falling asleep in the armchair and the eggs exploding. We got our Sunday papers delivered so that was the diversion, lots of scandal about Diana Dors and Prince Andrew as he then was, while TV seemed to be non-stop football and then twee sanctimonious programmes, Harry Seacombe and Songs of Praise, Esther Rantzen who my dad hated and he moaned about her all the way through. We played in the street but it was a Sunday, so neighbours complained if you made too much noise. I lived in NI where religion was taken so seriously that many councils chained the swings up on Sundays!

Sundays were church, then help Mum with the prep for a big Sunday lunch (my brothers never had to help 😡), then either a Nice Walk or the Sunday afternoon film (in my memory, either a John Wayne western or some kind of musical). Then unrelenting boredom, Songs of Praise, a salad-type dinner, and bed.

I didn't much care for Sundays, tbh.

That’s exactly what I mean. So many kids do activities now, rather than playing. Playing, particularly unsupervised playing, is really important. It’s how kids learn independence, problem solving, negotiating and how to resolve disagreements and conflicts, making mistakes and repercussions, assessing risks as well as creativity and just being fun. Activities can be great too, but they shouldn’t replace play.

All kids I knew played out except for one Hindu girl with really strict parents, ( who wasn’t allowed to socialize with white kids) and went totally wild when she got the freedom of sixth form. So no, it wasn’t anti-social asb.

I loved Sundays as a kid, all day out with friends on our bikes, roller skates or skateboards. Or reading and boardgames on rainy days. And on Sunday night was a great music show that everyone watched (where I grew up). As an older teen I still loved Sundays but that was because I could sleep off the Saturday without missing out on anything much!

Mega boring.

I loved it as a kid. Sunday school in the morning, off adventuring with friends in the afternoon. My mum would have been very busy after working all week she would have Sunday for cleaning and cooking roast.

Yea TV was a bit naff but I preferred having 4 channels to choose from. If there was nothing interesting on then that was time to do hobbies and other stuff.

I intended my post to sound more sarcastic than it actually does (not usually a problem I have, the sarc usually flows pretty freely!) 😄

Definitely no songs of praise in our house, in fact I remember even my grandparents joking about avoiding it in case they turn old haha. Occasional roast. Sometimes on a Saturday..! We did parks, walks, board games, the occasional cinema or swimming trip, got involved with gardening and DIY type things, read books, met friends... All the things that happen to most people now but without the constant tech distractions.

Definitely boring! I was brought up as RC so Sundays also involved a trip to church. No disrespect to religious people but I struggled with religion from an early age and hated it.