Mothering Sunday (and Dwindling Village Churches)

Yesterday was Mothering Sunday here in the UK. We didn't realize it until Saturday night, so we didn't do much to prepare, but it turns out we had a lovely day anyway. We went to our church in Cheltenham in the morning, and the youth gave every woman a box of chocolates. Then we went on a family walk later in the day and I got posies. More on how that happened later, but first, the story of how we learned about Mothering Sunday...

On Saturday the kids and I went to the neighboring village of Bourton-on-the-Water to go for a walk with some new friends we met at the library. As we toured the village, we passed the village church. Every little village here has an old stone church, most of them at least five or six hundred years old, some of them even older. As we passed by, a woman saw us pause in front and beckoned us inside.

We went inside and looked around at the beautiful paintings and altar, and then I saw a sign posted that said something about Mothering Sunday. We have seen signs everywhere advertising brunches, and dinners, and flowers, etc. for this day, so we knew it was coming up, but didn't know exactly when. I asked my friend (who is Russian, but has lived here for much longer than us) when it was, and she told me it was tomorrow (which in current time as I write this was yesterday).

I asked if it was similar to American Mothers' Day, and my friend agreed that it was.

The woman working at the church overheard us, and said, "No, it's Mothering Sunday, NOT Mothers' Day. It was originally a religious holiday for the Church of England, although now it's mostly celebrated as Mothers' Day."

My friend asked for more information and she continued, "In the old days, kids would come to church with a posy they had picked for their mothers and give it to them after services. Now we have to make the posies ourselves, and barely any children come at all."  She sighed, "People have better things to do now, I guess. Or they travel and can't make it to their village churches."

We have already seen this more broadly in all the village churches. The one in our village only has services once a month, and shares a rector (I think that's what they're called in the C of E?) with three or four neighboring churches, too. Many of the churches have shut down completely, some being turned into housing, or dance halls, or other things. In our village there used to also be a Baptist church, and that congregation dated back to the sixteenth century, but it shut down several years ago and is now a house. The cemetery in back was dug up for a garden.

Even though we are not Anglican, and recognize that people have reasons for not going to church anymore, it feels sort of sad. Our own church meets in Cheltenham, and is warm and welcoming, but both Eric and I have sort of thought we wish we could revitalize one of these local village churches...

Anyway, we came back home that Saturday and decided we wouldn't do anything for Mothering Sunday ourselves since we hadn't prepared. But on Sunday when we went to church I did get a box of chocolate. (I joked with another mother there that none of us with young kids would actually get to eat the chocolate ourselves, and that was indeed the case, but of course, I wouldn't have it any other way!)

After church we came home and Eric drove the car to the neighboring village of Guiting Power, which is about two miles away over the hill. Then he walked back and we all set out to walk to the car. The walk is just beautiful, over rolling public footpaths.

We passed farm fields, a waterfall from an old dam, and lots of sheep. As we neared the next village, the first thing you could see was the tower of the village church there (one of the group in the same shared parish, or whatever it is called, as our village church.) We passed by the church heading to our car, and saw an elderly woman walking toward the church with a basket. I always stop and talk to people whenever I can, so we stopped and said hello.

Her name was Doris, she had lived in Guiting Power for sixty years (a year for every day we've lived here!) and she was headed to the church to deliver a basket of posies for the village children to give their mothers at church services that evening at 6 pm. She asked the kids if they wanted to choose a posy to give me, and they eagerly did. So I ended up with two beautiful posies after all. When I asked if she was sure I should take them in case she didn't have enough, she said, "Oh, my yes. Take them please. I still have fourteen left and we won't have anywhere near that many in church tonight. Children don't come these days."

Off we went with muddy boots and posies, home to a yummy dinner I had cooking in the slow cooker. Doris was going to go to dinner with her son, who in her words, "is twice the age of the two of you", otherwise we would have invited her to dinner, too!

Here is our walk in pictures:

 Getting jackets on

Setting out from our village

Looking over the valley of our village

Climbing over the stiles

As you can see, I usually took up the rear

"Look how far I've come!"

Getting closer to Guiting Power

Stream, waterfall, fields, pretty old tree

We're there!

Picking posies

Muddy boots...you should see our car!