My mother loved Easter. It marked the turning of the year, the shift into summer clothes and days out to the coast and countryside. We got some new clothes too. Family rituals perpetuated the idea that we were special. We were different to the run of the mill families. Not wealthier but better in unspecified ways. This emanated from my mother, who’d been spared the worst poverty of the 1920’s. She came from a genteel world and did her best to keep it going.
Easter preparations began with Palm Sunday. There was something magical about the palm leaf cross we were given. I felt a real connection with the Holy Land, and a god who rode on a donkey. . We might dye a few eggs with onion skins, but mainly we hand decorated eggs as specific gifts for each other. The eggs were hard boiled… none of the pricking of the shell with a pin, no extraction of the yolk and white. Faces were popular, perhaps with hair and eyebrows, made of wool or paper. Planning your design was an inherent part of the process. Chicks, daffodils, tulips and other spring flowers were popular. Rings of alternating pattern were a possibility too.
Crucifixion and resurrection had little place in my mother’s world. In the Church of England hell was never harrowed. Easter Day would arrive. There’d be cards filled with bunnies and spring flowers. My mother kept them all. I preserved a few. Then, after church and Sunday lunch, the Easter egg hunt. At my grandparents they might be in the garden, but in our terraced flat in Windsor Avenue we’d search behind cushions and under chairs. There’d be small chocolate eggs in pretty silver paper, plus a larger one, probably Cadbury’s chocolate buttons. Lindt bunnies were a source of much delight.
Then there’d be games, stories, maybe a dolls’ tea party in the back yard…. or a walk in Saltwell Park with its swings, slide and simple roundabout. We’d feed the ducks and fish for tadpoles… if the lake wasn’t frozen.
Easter preparations began with Palm Sunday. There was something magical about the palm leaf cross we were given. I felt a real connection with the Holy Land, and a god who rode on a donkey. . We might dye a few eggs with onion skins, but mainly we hand decorated eggs as specific gifts for each other. The eggs were hard boiled… none of the pricking of the shell with a pin, no extraction of the yolk and white. Faces were popular, perhaps with hair and eyebrows, made of wool or paper. Planning your design was an inherent part of the process. Chicks, daffodils, tulips and other spring flowers were popular. Rings of alternating pattern were a possibility too.
Crucifixion and resurrection had little place in my mother’s world. In the Church of England hell was never harrowed. Easter Day would arrive. There’d be cards filled with bunnies and spring flowers. My mother kept them all. I preserved a few. Then, after church and Sunday lunch, the Easter egg hunt. At my grandparents they might be in the garden, but in our terraced flat in Windsor Avenue we’d search behind cushions and under chairs. There’d be small chocolate eggs in pretty silver paper, plus a larger one, probably Cadbury’s chocolate buttons. Lindt bunnies were a source of much delight.
Then there’d be games, stories, maybe a dolls’ tea party in the back yard…. or a walk in Saltwell Park with its swings, slide and simple roundabout. We’d feed the ducks and fish for tadpoles… if the lake wasn’t frozen.