Memories of a Malmesbury Girl

Chapter Six

Sundays

As I was brought up in the Church of England faith, on Sundays I would sometime attend church in Malmesbury Abbey, this was the parish church, also attending Sunday school in the afternoons. I also used to love to wander round the graves situated in front of the Abbey. These graves went back many years prior to the large cemetery on the edge of the town being built. A lot of the graves here were very large and ornate, although there was a very plain one commemorating a child who was killed by a lion from a circus that had come to visit Malmesbury. When I was around 11 or 12 I took lessons at the abbey so as I could be confirmed. You all had to learn the Catechism and the Lord's Prayer by heart. On my confirmation day I was dressed all in white, with a veil and white shoes, and I was given my own prayer book that I still have. I can remember there were quite a few of us, both girls and boys taking confirmation on this day; the Bishop of Bristol under whose Diocese we came was conducting the service. See photograph below taken by my father of me in my confirmation dress, veil, gloves and with ivory covered Bible borrowed from my mother. Sundays was also a day of rest, apart from cooking the large roast dinner, we tried to all sit down to eat, around 1 p.m., we didn't do much else unless we went for a walk if the weather was nice or my younger brother Chris and I would go out in the afternoon to play with our friends so as to give our parents some peace and quiet. I can remember during the summer months riding a very old ladies bicycle, this had a curved frame so as a lady was able to climb on to the bike without having to put her leg over the top crossbar. It must have been over twenty years old but it gave me hours of pleasure. We went as a group cycling to a small hamlet called Foxley where there was a small shop that sold bottles of pop and crisps. We always stopped at this shop to get a bottle of pop and a packet of crisp before cycling home again. If the weather was raining this didn't always stop us from going out to play as we used to go other peoples houses or a friend would come to ours. On Sunday evenings my mother's sister, Aunty Mary would call around to see us after she had been to Chapel. She belonged to the Baptist Church and they were very strict as to what could be done on a Sunday. My parents were not always too pleased to see her, especially after we had the television moved to the kitchen, and were sat watching Sunday Night at the London Palladium which used to be on at that time of a Sunday Evening. Aunty Mary would take herself into our best living room and sit there all by herself until one of us went in to speak to her. <<<   6   >>>