Ladies' Guild Meeting - September 2010
The September meeting was on the first day of the month, a reminder that autumn is lurking. The mood inside the village hall was cheerful and the conversation lively. We were told that the expected speaker was unable to attend as he had back problems but from adversity often comes initiative. We had a replacement speaker who proved to be calm, collected, needed no notes and held our interest with no problem. So, to prove that home grown is best, we heard from Dorothy Iszatt about Sunday School past and present.
Dorothy first spoke about her own Sunday School. She started at three; her father was superintendent of the Sunday School for St Mary’s Church in central Luton. She sang “Jesus Bids Us Shine” as she learned it years ago; no problems with that memory! The Sunday School learned hymns and prayers by rote; they then split into age groups for the stories gathered together to sing, often ending with “Now The Day is Over”. This Sunday School ran for 52 weeks of the year, no holidays; cards to be stamped for attendance. They were made of sterner stuff then! At five she went up, with some trepidation, to the Juniors where the stories were related to lives.
The seasons and festivals were marked, as they are now, by celebrations. The harvest meant taking small gifts of produce to place on the prepared table in the church. People were not well off but baskets were made up for the sick, poor and lonely. The toy service was a real sacrifice for some of the children who brought much loved toys, unwrapped; this enabled the adults to see the level of determination in children who gave a beloved teddy or toy, knowing the gift was for a child who had less than themselves. They learned that the biggest gift is the birth of Jesus. The Sunday School teachers made sandwiches; cakes were collected from the Co-op; shiny pennies were collected from the bank to go into the goodie bags, not a new invention Dorothy reminded us all; along with an apple, orange and some sweets. The games were musical chairs, team games with balls and suchlike. There was sometimes a conjurer. They sang not for their supper but for delight, I suspect, finally departing with the prized goodie bag. How many sweets did one old penny buy in those days and what agonising choices were there to make? If Christmas Day happened upon a Sunday there was Sunday School as usual. Mothering Sunday was celebrated with posies of flowers, made by the teachers, given to the children for their mothers. Lent led to Easter when the classes were taught about the Crucifixion.
The yearly confirmation ceremony was a significant event in the church calendar. Dorothy remembers gathering at Queen’s Square School and marching to St. Mary’s Church to mark the anniversary of the Sunday School. One boy and one girl were selected to read a lesson, when she was selected she rehearsed on Friday evening and remembers the height of the lectern had to be raised with a box or hassocks for the children.
The big event of the year was the Sunday School outing; Clacton or Wicksteed Park were the only venues. A train was hired for the great occasion: people had few holidays then. They marched to the beach at Clacton, paddled and made sandcastles. The teachers had made them sandwiches and cakes; if they were lucky they were given a fruit juice ice. Leaving meant washing feet, replacing shoes and socks and marching back to the train. They were carefully counted by the teachers and many slept all the way home. Sunday School as usual the next day!
So the circle of events continued. Dorothy left at fourteen, joining the choir but as she reached sixteen she was asked to become a Sunday School teacher at St Anne’s Hart Hill. There were few facilities here, the children knelt on the floor to use their chairs as tables in order to write and draw. Few treats were to be had there; they had to cross the road to a field to play games. She vividly remembers at the end of WWII each child was given a banana; they did not like these unfamiliar fruits. Marriage and her own children kept Dorothy busy, she, of course, took them to Sunday School.
Thirty years ago a move to Streatley led to Dorothy once again taking the role of Sunday School teacher. The world is different now, as are the holidays to match school terms, modern clothing like football kits for boys and trousers for girls, more worldly awareness by the pupils and teachers who are police vetted. The stories must be relevant or they are not interested, more activity is needed to involve the classes.
The news about the lack of clean water around the world led to an investigation into water. For a Family Service about the lack of clean water the collection was taken in galvanised buckets to underline the problems. The festivals are the same. New wrapped toys are given for the Family Service, the Christmas plays involve more sophisticated plots for the older pupils but as ever the nativity scene is timeless. Mothering Sunday cards are made but the child selects the recipient as family groups are different today. Children receiving prizes at prize giving often neglect to say thank you, (a sign of the times). The teachers must be sensitive to the family. Each child is special, an individual needing to be nurtured. Harvest gifts now go to older people who often respond by saying that they are delighted that they are not forgotten. The children in the Sunday School are given an opportunity to see many aspects of the world, religious beliefs and human interaction. In Dorothy’s words changes do not matter, the theme is always “Jesus bids us shine, you in your small corner and I in mine!”
This well delivered talk brought many memories of Sunday Schools in various places flooding back. We really enjoyed it. Dorothy is a lady who sees a need, a job to be done and takes up the challenge, she sounded like a winner to me.