The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
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— Personal Testimony and Religion 1800–1950 —<br />
within a series <strong>of</strong> signs and symbols located in church and faith. Oral and<br />
autobiographical testimony comes alive when women recall late Victorian<br />
and early twentieth-century religious events. <strong>The</strong> theatricality <strong>of</strong> the<br />
revivalist preacher, and <strong>of</strong> the call to the saved to come forward, appears<br />
frequently. Molly Weir speaks <strong>of</strong> the attraction <strong>of</strong> Jock Troup’s tent<br />
preaching in Springburn in Glasgow between the wars. He was such ‘great<br />
value’ that he could ‘make the flames <strong>of</strong> hell so real, we felt them licking<br />
round our feet, and the prospect <strong>of</strong> heaven so alluring we <strong>of</strong>ten stood up<br />
to be saved several times during the week’; once home, she re-enacted the<br />
service to her Grannie. 47 Margaret Penn in Lancashire and Flora Thompson<br />
in Oxfordshire, like many children <strong>of</strong> the late nineteenth and early<br />
twentieth centuries, attended services or Sunday schools <strong>of</strong> different<br />
denominations, but favoured Methodist worship over Anglican for its evangelical<br />
excitement. 48 Aesthetic sensibility features powerfully in elderly<br />
women’s testimony <strong>of</strong> remembrance <strong>of</strong> Sunday school and church services<br />
when they were young girls. Henrietta Isleworth from Preston recalled:<br />
‘I always remember we got white silk dresses on for Good Friday, they<br />
must have been lovely, and they took us for a long walk’. 49 Isabelle Jones<br />
(born 1900) from the same town went to a Methodist Church four times<br />
every Sunday as a child; ‘We never thought – we thought it was lovely,<br />
we never thought anything about it. We would be dressed in our best, you<br />
know.’ 50 At the teetotal meetings <strong>of</strong> the Band <strong>of</strong> Hope in the 1910s, Jean<br />
Kennedy recalled:<br />
We would meet in the Band <strong>of</strong> Hope. <strong>The</strong>re was an old Church stood<br />
in the middle <strong>of</strong> the Brae and it was a lovely, beautiful Church and<br />
the velvet where the – preacher stood was just – oh, it wasnae much<br />
broader than that cabinet and it was red velvet, I can mind. And we<br />
had cantatas and things like that. ... Peggy and I used to sing – oh<br />
what was it? ‘Count your blessings’, and we’d stand as proud as be.<br />
And we had white frocks and because I thought I was the king – the<br />
queen <strong>of</strong> everything. Mine was lacy and Peggy’s was plain. Oh, we<br />
used to rival in good fun. 51<br />
Religious worship was a vital venue for young working-class girls to<br />
express their femininity. <strong>The</strong>ir testimony sparkles when discussing the<br />
‘Sunday best’ dresses. Kate Langholm born in 1914 recalled:<br />
Well, Sunday was my day because Sunday I was up and I was born,<br />
I mean brought up a Protestant, but on a Sunday morning I got<br />
dressed – you had a Sunday outfit you see, you only wore it on a<br />
Sunday, no other day except a Sunday. Well I went to my two pals,<br />
they went to the Catholic Church, so I went with them to mass on<br />
a Sunday morning so’s I’d have my Sunday clothes on. When I came<br />
home I’d go to the [Protestant] church with my mother and then<br />
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