Sunday, Sunday.
Ah Sunday folks! What a day indeed. There can be none like it. It's that final day of the weekend, the punctuation point of the week when everything, in theory, should stop or shut down since logic tells us that we've been running around frantically for most of the previous weekend getting all hot and bothered about nothing in particular. We've no time for reflection, considered thoughts on the following week, ambitious plans perhaps that rarely materialise in the way we'd like them to and nothing concrete to show for it.
But Sundays of course should be designed for rest and relaxation, the Sabbath day when a vast majority of the religious population converge on their local church or cathedral for just a couple of hours of prayer, worship, deep rumination on the issues of the day, idolatry in some cases and simple contemplation of both the temporal and spiritual before taking the family out for a long walk in your local sprawling park. This should be a day for taking it easy, cherishing free and quality time, forgetting about the news for a while. You've earned this day so let's make the most of it.
And yet 60 years ago it was all so different, quite obviously so, very noticeably and joyously. Back in the 1950s and 60s, there were no electronic gadgets and screens, whereas today is all about instant gratification. In the old days we had plenty of time to get things right if they were wrong but now we reproach ourselves if we can't achieve immediate communication with our friends and families. There was nothing rushed or hurried, urgent or serious that needed instant attention. We could kick off our shoes on a Sunday morning, eat breakfast in our garden at leisure. At no point did we think that the world would come to an end if we didn't fulfil all of those long held aspirations we might have harboured in one day.
When you were a child, the pace of life was much slower, the traffic on the road far less hectic and congested while my late and wonderful dad would sit in the garden listening to his idol Frank Sinatra crooning mellifluously to those famous standards such as I've Got You Under My Skin or My Way. Of course the male and female population still wash their cars with thorough attention to detail and the kids still play competitive football in the park or, on a much broader scale, Hackney Marshes. But Sunday was the day.
And yet today we lament the passing of that era because nowadays there are a million cars on the road, weaving in and out of each other on long roads and motorways, fretting and fuming under our breaths and despising the car in front of us because they can't drive or so it would seem. Nowadays we honk our car horns constantly because that bloke next to us has jumped the lights and he should be prosecuted or lose their licence. But my family are brilliant drivers so you have not a bad word to say about them.
When you went for a walk up to the shops and supermarkets, you were suddenly confronted with the closed sign and the shutters were up for the duration of that weekend. There was no trade, no money changed hands because that seemed almost sacrosanct. Everything was shut and it probably felt like bliss because there were no raised voices about long and winding queues in supermarkets, no self help machines which meant that you could engage in pleasant small talk with the cashier or the person at the till and then pay for your goods.
You can hardly talk about Sunday without nostalgic memories from the past. A couple of years before you were born there was a grumpy and crotchety comedian by the name of Tony Hancock. Now Hancock was one of those 1950s comedians who never really found any kind of peace of mind because he was never satisfied or happy, a demanding perfectionist. So he drove himself to the limit, smoking like a chimney in a memorable TV interview and hoping that one day he'd become accepted as a mainstream, legitimate theatrical actor who performed Shakespeare to a captive audience. But we now know that Hancock was just being delusional since comedy was always his forte.
Anyway, Hancock's Half Hour, his masterpiece, entertained BBC audiences for years and to those who only had two TV channels, this was a delicious treat, complete escapism for a public who were desperate for some light relief. This followed another hard week at the coalface, in the office, warehouse, shop floor or negotiating the nightmare that must have been the late and delayed train or bus to get to work. And then in one episode we were given another revealing insight into the frustrated mind of Tony Hancock.
Picture the scene. Tony Hancock, an established national treasure, was accompanied by the equally as famous Sid James at their lunchtime table. Hancock, all moans, groans, grievances and heartfelt anguish, sat at the table with James. Sid James had yet to encounter the saucy but hilarious days of the Carry On era but was still recognised on the street. He'd played a number of gangsters or shady characters in films but now Hancock the comedian teamed up with Sid James the funny man as well.
So cue action. Hancock's face starts crumpling with anxiety, the lines on his forehead becoming more and more pronounced and disturbing. Suddenly, Hancock goes off on an impassioned rant about boredom, Sundays lunchtime more specifically, which were like a desolate wasteland since what could you do? There was the Light Programme on the radio, Around the Horne, the Archers even but essentially it was tedious and mundane.
Meanwhile, Hancock's comedy partner Sid James was totally engrossed in the News of the World, that celebrated showbiz scandal sheet where everything was morally bankrupt and even vicar's daughters were indulging in debauched behaviour. But Sid James had his Sunday paper, the football results at the back of the paper and all was well in the world. He continued leafing through the paper casually and desultorily without a care. Our Sid was content with what he had while Hancock was agonising, questioning, complaining, rather like a bear with a sore head.
This was the essence of a Sunday, a charming microcosm of what the world was like in those black and white days when the TV was your only company and even the Sunday roast provided only brief respite for those who wanted scintillating excitement all day long. And this was a perfect social commentary of 1950s Britain. You had to make your own entertainment and just look forward to the working week. You had to iron your shirts, ensuring without fail that your children's school satchel had been promptly packed with all the appropriate reference books, pens, pencils, rulers and rubbers. It all felt very methodical and well organised.
There was an effortless simplicity about Sunday, nothing complex about it. It was all very straightforward, right and proper without any complications whatsoever. If the kids were bored, you could always enlist them with the scouts or a youth club where their minds had to be occupied. They could also run out into the neighbourhood roads and play football until dusk. They could gleefully throw their coats onto the ground because those trams or trolley buses, even cars and vans would not be coming any time soon. All vehicles were banned and forbidden.
In those days kids could play for as long as they wanted and could be energetic, lively, moving their bodies with whole hearted enthusiasm. They could play hop scotch, chucking stones against walls, playing for princely shillings and then just go crazy in the healthiest manner. They could play football with footballs that must have felt like medicine balls, objects so hard and rocklike that you'd have ended up in Accident and Emergency if you kicked the ball with too much conviction.
Sundays were a break from the toil and drudgery of cleaning, washing but not knitting or sewing because these were still activities that your mum or grandma would happily partake. Sundays were days devoted to listening to BBC Radio Two in the days of Family Favourites when Cliff Michelmore and Jean Challis would host a show involving the British armed forces in countries like Cyprus or West Germany where cousins and uncles were now based. It was time when wartime band music was very much the musical zeitgeist of the time. Your further music listening pleasure consisted of Glen Miller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Tommy Dorsey, jazz exponents of the most hugely talented order.
This would be followed by Charlie Chester, a jovial uncle who always sounded as though he was the most cheerful DJ ever to grace the radio airwaves. Chester would continue to plunder the archives with requests for Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Junior, the inimitable Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and 1950s titans such as Johnny Rae, Eddie Cochran, Pat Boone, Elvis Presley of course, Al Martino, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Robeson, Bing Crosby and a thousand stellar acts who crackled at times on your radio but you were never incensed or upset because transistor radios were impressive looking.
And finally there was the Top 40, introduced by a DJ named Tom Browne. Now at the time you knew what most disc jockeys looked like. You'd seen the late and much loved Terry Wogan and both seen and heard of Jimmy Young, now two of the most consistent radio presenters on Radio Two but Tom Browne remained a mystery and, up until recently, unidentifiable. But Browne had that smooth, controlled delivery and he was very much the man who sounded like a DJ should but never over the top.
During the 1970s some of us although certainly not yourself, would tape the Top 40 because you just loved that whole glam rock period where bands like Mud, Sweet, Queen, the Bay City Rollers, Sparks, the Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zeppelin, Tavares, the Detroit Spinners, the Stylistics, Roxy Music, Manfred Mann, David Cassidy and the Partridge Family, Wings and Black Sabbath were almost permanent residents at the top of the charts.
Meanwhile at home Sundays were reserved for seaside excursions during the summer when your lovely mum and dad would jump into the Ford Cortina with yours truly at the back, before racing up the Southend Road to either Westcliff or Southend. It all sounds idyllic and almost too hedonistic for words but families during the 1960s would think nothing of manoeuvring the car into action, dusting down the seats and packing huge quantities of egg sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, possibly smoked salmon but that may be a figment of your imagination. But what a day Sunday was.
Your wonderful grandma and grandpa, my mum's parents, would also join in with the fun. We would sit along that seemingly interminable Westcliff esplanade, a gentle, benevolent wind blowing our hair and lunch was just a food paradise. Grandma would give me every encouragement to eat as many sandwiches as you could, while my now silvery haired but distinguished looking grandpa simply sat there in his grey suit heavy with formality. He would lie back in his deckchair eyes shut and blinking in the sun while his grandson made tracks for the sandy beach and that commendable sandcastle building ambition on his mind.
Sundays would end at tea time with a fleeting visit to Rossi's, still a thriving restaurant, a flourishing empire which was established and opened during the 1930s. Now the alternatives were both amusing and delightfully old fashioned. Next to the conventional tea, coffee and snacks signs over the counter was the cocoa Horlicks which almost feels as if it belongs to some late night drink you normally consume on a winters night in January at home but not the seaside. To this day you can still order a Horlicks but you wouldn't think there's a great deal of demand for it or a glass of milk for that matter.
Then we would head home for another sandwich feast where my lovely mum used to make the most delectable egg and spring and onion sandwiches. These were eaten on the Rye seeded bread my wonderful dad had brought from the Jewish delicatessen five minutes away from home. My dad knew the owner of this deli from his Hebrew classes( cheder class) and a regularity and frequency that almost felt automatic.
My dad of course dressed very smartly and properly for our Sunday seaside trips. There was something very elegant and courtly about the way people both looked and dressed during those days. My dad, complete in naval jacket with a shiny button, clean white shirt and tie, would think this to be the most appropriate norm during my childhood. On reflection he was absolutely right and yet now we prefer outlandish T- shirts with all manner of cheesy logos plastered all over them, beach shorts and crocs, flip flops and baseball caps more suited to the Boston Sox.
And so Sundays would approach the evening and night. In the morning, you had to be up with the birds and conditioned to school, the groves of academia, that place where education and enlightenment would go hand in hand. On Sunday night your mindset was still on a Southend beach with gulls descending from a great height and ice cream 99s with a flake dribbling deliriously down your shorts. Now you bid farewell to both the weekend and Sunday and the day felt like the realisation of every dream you'd ever had. Wearing your Sunday best does have a very traditional resonance to it. For this, we owe a deep and lasting gratitude to those we will always love.
