Dear LPG,

There is no doubt about it, things have changed so much during my lifetime and I am sure that we all see some changes as good and others as bad.

I recently received a hospital appointment for a Sunday, I could not believe it.  My first reaction was the hope that nurses are not having to work seven days a week now. 

I remember how things were back in the day, Sunday was still regarded as a very special day when many older people made time for family and church while the younger ones would be found at home having a lay-in after a Saturday night of serious partying.  I have to say that when I was young I lived for the weekends.  Sunday was the day we all looked forward to with thoughts of not having to go to work and a day when we took time out to live life at a slower pace.  I suspect many of today’s pensioners can remember Sundays like that.

When I was younger I know I bent the rules a bit after a Saturday night out but, for nearly two thousand years we Brits largely lived by the Christian rules set out in the bible verse of Exodus 20:9 as we recognised each Sunday as being a holy day set aside for rest and worship and, while different religions have chosen different days, nearly every faith recognises a regular day that is set aside as a day of rest and prayer.  

In recent years we have all got used to seeing shops and the like that never seem to close.  I put a lot of that down to different religions that have bent their rules to accommodate commerce over the years, and often forget the part that the government’s Sunday trading act of 1994 had to do with it. 

Like most big cities, Britain has become the home of a cosmopolitan nation.  It is such a different place to the 1960 version that I first set foot on, but we have all learnt to take the good with the bad as life goes on.

After a year where so many of us have been stuck at home, as we start to venture out, the one thing that is so noticeable are the many shops that will never open again and there is no doubt that Covid-19 has put a dampener on all our usual social habits.  With lock down just about allowing the odd social gathering again, it is ironical that the last year has seen times when every day on our streets looked even quieter than before Sunday became a regular shopping day.  As I write this I wonder if Saturdays and Sundays will again show signs of becoming extra special.

I wonder if post-lockdown Britain will have less Saturday night ravers and more Sunday morning church goers when it finally arrives?

Rudy Morgan