The Death of Christian Britain

— The Death of Christian Britain —
‘Modern novels had to be approved of in the reviews of the decent newspapers
before they were allowed in, but if they were given a good review,
[they were] allowed in the house.’ 12
The chapel defined the family’s circle, and indeed defined the extended
family: ‘And it was a very close Chapel community. A lot of people who
were not related we called Uncle Sam and Uncle Dick, who weren’t our
uncles, and so forth, but we were on that sort of relationship with them.’ 13
Sundays were a day of supposed fervent loyalty to the family’s moral code.
Ronald Walker went with the family to chapel in the morning and to
Sunday school in the afternoon. He wore a boy’s ‘Sunday best’ outfit:
I was dressed, Heaven help me, in sailor suits, dark blue in winter,
white on summer days in summer, when you haven’t to sit down
anywhere for fear you’d dirty your backside, until I got – I don’t
know, 8 or 9, and then I was out into, of all things, an Eton suit for
Sundays. And these were very much our Sunday clothes. 14
But Sunday sanctity in his family was, perhaps surprisingly, more in the
appearance than in the observance. The children were allowed to play games
in the house, so long as they were quiet games like cards: ‘This whole idea
of “having a good time but don’t let the neighbours next door know you’re
having a good time” attitude. I’m being cynical here.’ 15 In public, his parents
considered it wrong to ride on a tram on a Sunday, and wrong to work
‘except for servants, of course. It was part of the condition to which they
had been born for them to work, but other work had to be very necessary
and then it was excusable, but unnecessary work upstairs was regarded
as not the thing.’
I don’t think their mental attitude included the thought of pleasure
on a Sunday, it was more duty. I’ve recited [at] chapel morning and
night for them and they took their turn in bringing the parson home
for lunch, which was another great trial for we kids. But when we
were in Bridlington on the Parade, they would walk out on a Sunday
afternoon and listen to the band, but anything exciting, or going off
on trips, or anything of this sort was not a very good thing. 16
Ronald’s memories sustain their embittered quality as the interview
proceeds. The moral oppositions become hypocrisies which he doesn’t
merely laugh off, but at which he cavils:
I was taken by the scruff of my neck very early in life and told to
‘sign here’, where I pledged total abstinence for the rest of my life,
and I satisfied my conscience when I grew up that that was got under
duress and I’m afraid I’m not a teetotaller and I’m not ashamed of
the fact that I was made to sign something that I did not quite understand
at the time. 17
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