I remember the Sundays of my youth in the 1980’s. Generally they consisted of singing in the Church choir in the morning, and then a Sunday roast at home with my Mum and Dad and Brother. Sunday dinner at home was always lovely because it was where we would laugh and talk and spend time together because Dad mostly worked 6 days a week.
Depending on the time of year depended how enjoyable a Sunday afternoon could be. Summer Sundays with great weather would find us out in the garden all afternoon. We rarely had a car in the 1980’s and when my Dad did have a car we would have some great drives out to The Railway at Mobberley where we would sit in the beer garden and watch the planes taking off or landing at Manchester, and then walk over to the signal box and chat to the signalman who my Dad knew.
But most Sundays there was very little to do. As much as I prefer the slowness of Sundays past (a bit of which I experienced again for quite a while each day after March 2020), nowadays I do prefer to see hustle and bustle in town centres on a Sunday.
There’s a certain time on a Sunday afternoon that even today still feels like Sundays of old. If I don’t have anything planned, I find the period from about 3.30pm onwards a bit of a barren time because this is when everything starts closing down, such a supermarkets, attractions, shops and so on. Thankfully the world of hospitality mostly continues on beyond this time.
I was probably responsible, along with others, for your enjoyment of watching deps / arrivals at Mobberley and both my late parents would cycle there, this after WW2, to that pub, likewise myself, albeit no pub involved as it was evident from my youthful good looks I wasn't 18 on my many trips around this bit of Cheshire starting in Timperley.
I would not, however, ever wish to see a return to what is termed a "traditional Sunday "...nice, as you say, on a Summers day, soul destroying in Winter. People of faith, any faith, can and do practice on a Sunday so there are no constraints there, other, than I suppose, peer influence as to the now many other options available.
As for working, well shifts were always an integral to my working life, so working Sunday and BH's made no difference really, although it did have the downside of not being able to participate in my hobby as often as I would have wished. I actually found it "difficult" initially when I eventually made the transition back to a standard week having become used to planning around my shifts.
