Sunday School Treats

On May 2nd, during the service to honour our Sunday School and its teachers, older members of the church have been asked to bring to the congregation memories of their Sunday School days. Here are mine:

In the post-war years in England (that is after WWII), Sunday School was one of the three church functions I attended as a child on a Sunday. First there was the morning service, then, in the afternoon, Sunday School, and then the evening service. And Sunday School had its annual Sunday School Treat: a bus trip to the seaside. To be eligible for this, a member of the Sunday School had to attend fairly regularly in the months before the August trip. There was always contraversy as to who was eligible!

In those pre-motorway days, the 50 to 90 mile trip would take two or three hours since the two-lane roads passed through every village, town and city on the way. For most of us kids, this was the only trip we would have to the sea coast that year. England was recovering from the war effort, rationing still existed and money was in short supply. (In rationing, each child has 1/4lb of candy per week, available only by a coupon.)

The Sunday School trips from my village of Cheddleton would go either to the seacoast towns of North Wales (Rhyll, Colwyn Bay, Llandudno), or if we were lucky, to that exotic fun spot, Blackpool and its Golden Mile of amusement arcades. I can still remember the smell of fish and chips, so much different on the coast than at home, the rides on the midway before we had to return, and the one time at Rhyll when we arrived at the peak of the May Fly season and everything was covered by those pesky flies. And watching how Blackpool Rock or Rhyl Rock was made was an annual fascination.