Jesus’s sunbeams
What fond memories Yours readers have of going to Sunday School! You loved everything from singing Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam to listening to stories from the Bible and collecting stickers in a booklet. But, judging by the number of you who secretly spent their collection pennies in the sweet shop, you weren’t all little angels!
Living on a farm in the Yorkshire Dales, Irene Capstack had to walk a mile to Pateley Bridge Sunday School: “The big occasion of the year was the Sunday School anniversary service when our families came to hear us sing and recite poems. This was followed by prize-giving when we all received books, which we enjoyed.”
Angela Walden writes: “My favourite memory is our annual picnic when everyone piled into two buses that took us to a country church. We used to sing all the way and hang paper streamers from the windows.
“We had fun running races, then devoured a tea that consisted of sticky
buns, sandwiches and cakes. After tea we had a ‘sweet scramble’ and, with our pockets stuffed full of sweets, returned to the church hall where our parents were waiting to take us home.”
Whit Monday was the highlight for Kathleen Bentley: “All the churches got together to parade through the town. The weather was always warm and sunny and crowds came to watch us go past in our new clothes and shoes. Afterwards, we had tea and cakes and played games on the football field.” Carole Trevarthen adored going to Sunday School, dressed in her best clothes, but she worried about the prayer she was taught to say each night: “After reciting ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, And if I die before wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take’, I used to add ‘But not tonight!’. I was only five and feared I might really die if I didn’t add that final plea.”
June Liddiait also looked forward to Sunday School, but maybe not for the right reason: “The man who took the lessons would read to us then we’d all sing. This was the bit I waited for because every time he opened his mouth his top set of dentures fell down!”
Anthony Cooley’s time at Sunday School was brief: “My mother insisted I should attend. I remember having to dress in my best clothes and join a throng of other kids similarly attired. We had a Bible story, sang ‘Daisies are our silver, buttercups our gold’ and came away feeling very wholesome until we got home, changed our clothes and went back to being unholy little terrors.”
“Guess who went to the same Sunday School as I did?” asks Jean Clements. “John Osbourne, now better known as Ozzy Osbourne! He had a naughty streak even then and I’ve often wondered if that is why he called his band Black Sabbath.”
‘We felt very wholesome... until we went back to being unholy little terrors!’