Open Writing

In comparison with many other children who endured dull restrictions on a Sunday, we were allowed to spend it happily, although we were always aware that it was a special day, with a quite different atmosphere from any other day of the week.

Mummy would tell us how, when she was a girl visiting her Scottish cousins, all the blinds were drawn down, the house quiet and dead, people speaking in hushed voices, and once, when she forgot herself and came whistling down the stairs, her Uncle was very stern, and reproved her in his Elder-of-the-Church manner, until Mummy was abashed. She never felt that this unnatural behaviour improved anybody's soul, or encouraged one in a feeling for religion.

When Mummy stayed with her aunts in Malton she accompanied them to the Anglican Church services, which in her heart she preferred, so much so indeed that she had her four children baptised in the Huddersfield Parish Church, although with her father and husband, both Nonconformists, she attended Highfield Chapel.

This attitude was very broadminded in those days still bedevilled with prejudice and bigotry. Prejudice, false pride, and false modesty were anathema to Mummy, and quickly raised her ire. She had a touch of snobbery, however, due to the environment in which she grew up.

So it came about that we children walked with our parents regularly to Chapel, walking two by two, first the boys, then the girls, Mummy and Daddy bringing up the rear. We were a familiar sight all in our best clothes, for that was the custom on a Sunday.

When we arrived in Chapel in the early days Granddad would be already in his seat at the end of the pew, his pocket containing a tin of jujubes which he passed along to each of us at intervals, to keep us quiet. I always sat next to Mummy, and in the sermon she would draw me within the circle of her arm, and I would snuggle up to her.

Mummy often carried a muff and wore beautiful furs of sable, opossum, and persian lamb. She also possessed a skunk stole, and when she wore this I would quickly withdraw, pulling a face, which made her smile, for she realised what a hateful smell it had for my close-pressed nose!

Often a lady sat just in front of us who always wore a toque, usually smothered in flower petals, and Mummy would naughtily make the motion of shooting at it with a pop gun, to our huge delight. At that time we liked the children's sermons, and after dinner Daddy would ask one of us, each Sunday in turn, to repeat it, and with a little encouragement we did this, quite well I think.

Daddy could not sing in tune, but he had a wonderfully resonant voice, and throwing his heart and soul into the singing of the hymns, he was blissfully unconscious that his ringing tones were subduing those around him, who were finding difficulty in keeping to the correct note! Following Daddy's example we piped up nobly, and I dread to think what was the final result.

Doreen was serious and very much aware of the Bible teaching she received at home, and at Sunday School. She would kneel on her hassock, very straight, hands pressed flatly together like the saints in stained-glass windows, her eyes tightly closed. I always thought, glancing at her in Chapel, that she had a saint-like look. I think Doreen was beautiful, her colouring was clear and rich, her face heart-shaped, with a generous mouth.

Bobby and I, I am ashamed to say, would play on the floor with little odds and ends he found in his pocket, quiet as could be during prayers, but it must be remembered we were very young then. Rex sat at the far end, behaving as an older brother should!

After two or three years Granddad could no longer come to Chapel as he had suffered a stroke. He recovered from it quite well, but had a second, and a third.