Memories of a childhood Good Friday and Holy Saturday. A fond memory of a friend, church and home and a celebration of Hot Cross Buns! Early lessons which have stayed with me.
The sun was shining on a cold Good Friday in the 1960s. I stood by the post box on Serlby Rise chatting to my friend Coleen.
We were both on our way home from different churches. Coleen had been to St Edward’s (Roman Catholic) and I’d been to St Bartholomew’s (Anglican). I’d walked past our house, to spend more time with Coleen.
At church, I’d joined in a little group of children, walking the stations of the cross, kneeling in front of each picture and giggling when we heard that Jesus was stripped. We had done this every week during Lent, but on Good Friday it was different. The church itself had been stripped of anything beautiful and what couldn’t be moved was covered in black cloth.
I was left in no doubt that Jesus was dead, and this was a sad day. I was glad to get out into the sunshine.
Probably, Coleen had had the same experience and we talked about it. We asked the question why that day is called good when what happened to Jesus was so awful.
Eventually, we said goodbye and went our separate ways. I went home to the longest hours of my life. At home, the house was in turmoil. Mam was cleaning everything to within an inch of its life, all the windows were open, and it was cold and tense.
I recognise this tension in the house when I’m cleaning, and I apologise to anyone affected!
The fish that we ate was lethal with bones.
How come we can buy and eat fish that isn’t full of bones nowadays?
Jesus was dead and buried. The afternoon and next day stretched before me in empty desolation.
There were compensations though, mainly in the form of Hot Cross Buns, which were and still are, one of my favourite foods. Mam was a forgiving mother, but she was very strict when it came to hot cross buns. To eat one before Good Friday was unforgiveable! Thankfully she always provided plenty so we could eat leftovers right up to Easter Monday!
I still have that sense of emptiness through Good Friday and Holy Saturday. For me, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is Holy Saturday, not Easter Eve, because it’s a day in its own right. Having said that, I’ve appreciated being part of churches which celebrate Jesus’ resurrection on Saturday evening!
This year, in 2026, I will wait until 6am to walk up a local hill for our sunrise Easter service.
I’ll publish something to describe the difference a day makes!
In the meantime, have a blessed Holy Saturday.
Wander Well towards Easter (almost there!)
Mandy.
What memories of Good Friday and Holy Saturday do you have?
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February is such an evocative month for me. It begins with remembering a birth and ends with remembering death. It is all part of life and love.Here is part of the story of my parents’ deaths. I’ve written it in love and hope.The photos were all taken in the last week of February, in Sherwood Forest, which is a place they both taught me to love.
What did you say?
Wednesday 28th February 1990 lives on as a grey blustery day in my memory. I was walking up Haydn Road in Nottingham, alongside my friend. We’d both left two children in school and were wheeling our toddlers along in pushchairs. We chatted about the day ahead. I was looking forward to having my hair cut and helping at the Toy Library before the end of school. I was thinking about my dad who was going to hospital that day and my husband who was calling in to help him get up and ready for the ambulance.
Life can change in an instant.
A car pulled up alongside us and my husband jumped out. I was confused, the car was my brother in law’s, and he stayed behind the driving wheel.
There was no easy way to say it.
“Mandy, your dad’s died”.
I am sorry to say I was cross.
“What did you say?”
To my left, my friend gasped “Oh Mandy”,and her hand was over her face.
This was not unexpected, but it was the shock of my life. Lung cancer had done its work as predicted and taken a year from diagnosis to the end.
As I’ve said before, I am blessed with good family and friends. We all bundled into the car, pushchairs, friend, toddlers and all and my brother-in-law drove us home.
My friend took in my two-year-old daughter and promised to look after her and fetch her brothers from school.
Cancelling.
At home, I made phone calls to cancel the hairdresser’s appointment and apologise to the Toy Library coordinator. I found my address book in case I needed to make more calls from mam’s phone, then we left my day and all my carefully made plans and I was driven into a strange, sad and scary new world.
There were no mobile phones.
See this link for more about the part my hairdresser played.
Twenty-three years later, on Wednesday 27th February 2013, I spent a freezing cold day in Coventry Cathedral. We sat with our overcoats on, listening to distinguished speakers talking about conflict and how it could be a positive, creative thing if we’re not afraid of it and how it can be destructive when it’s ignored. It’s not a lesson I’ve learnt very well.
I enjoyed the day, I met some old friends from theological college and in the evening, we ate a delicious meal before we listened to the after-dinner speakers.
This was a two-day conference, and I stayed overnight in a travel lodge. I had been obedient to the rules and kept my phone switched off all day and evening. When I walked away from the cathedral into the strange city, I switched my phone on and got another shock which sent me reeling.
It lit up with messages to call my husband, but my brother had left a voicemail with the news:
“Mandy, I’m so sorry, mam’s died.”
Guilt.
I was full of shock and guilt that I hadn’t been there and was the last to know. I spent the night awake, alone in a strange place and fought the urge to just walk out into the dark, I was so desperate to get home.
She had fooled us all. There had been many times when we were told she didn’t have long to live. There were mornings when I’d woken up convinced I’d slept through a phone call from the hospital calling me in to her bedside. Indeed, eighteen months previously she’d been admitted to a nursing home with only three months to live!
A couple of evenings before I went away, I’d sat with her and together we filled in a questionnaire about what sort of music she liked, what work she’d done and where she’d been on holiday. I think the nursing home staff thought she was there to stay!
In the end, I believe she did what she wanted, and passed away quietly in her sleep, with none of us there.
Full of apologies.
In Coventry, after a sleepless night, I dutifully went back to the cathedral and began apologising. I said sorry that I’d got to leave. I’d promised to show another woman the way to the train station, and I said sorry to her. Mam’s vicar was there, who was a good friend to her, and when I told him, I said sorry.
Happily, I was surrounded there by friends, for which I am grateful.
I walked to the train station, bought a new ticket and arrived home to a strange, sad and scary world.
Once more into the wilderness.
There is nothing like grief to banish you into a state of wilderness. With the loss of each parent, I felt exiled into a strange land, where I didn’t know my way around and didn’t know who I was. I was surprised at how physical it all was, with actual pain and infections, as if my body was grieving, one bit at a time. This is all part of loving someone and so I am grateful for it.
Thankfulness.
Thankfully, there were lots of glimmers of goodness along the way. I keep saying it, and I will say it again, I am blessed by my family and friends, and I thank them all for their kindness.
February.
February is such an evocative month for me, full of different aspects of love. It begins with memories of a birth and ends with memories of death, and maybe this is fitting for a month where darkness and light, winter and spring mingle.
See these links to read the happy stories of birth:
Whatever you are wandering through right now, wander well.
Mandy.
Things I love:
My parents, family and friends.
This quote from Saint Paul, which I believe: I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Taken from Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8.
A child goes with her father to fetch a pram for the new baby at home. an adult remembers shopping in Nottingham
This memory lives in a bright blue winter sky.
It was a bright, blue skied, breezy February Saturday afternoon. Well, actually, the weather could have been doing anything. It might have been drenching, miserable sleety drizzle for all I know, but in my mind, it was beautiful, sunny and dry.
What sort of weather do your happy memories live in?
It’s a memory which stirs my soul, tingles my belly and rises up to a smile on my lips. That was a happy day for me because I walked with my dad from the 54-bus stop on Long Row in Nottingham, over Victoria Street and down Goose Gate and Hockley.
Hockley and Goose Gate were, and still are, exciting streets which run into each other. They were our walking route into the city centre and held a myriad of small shops; butchers, clothes shops, shoe shops, haberdasher’s, photographers, newsagents and wonder of wonders, Woolworth’s, with its low lighting and overpowering, sickly, rubbery smell of plimsolls and plastic sandals and its white tubs of delicious, pick n mix biscuits.
Would you pick pink wafers, bourbons or custard creams?
However, that Saturday afternoon, and again, it could have been any day of the week apart from Sunday, but I assume it was Saturday afternoon because that’s when my dad was off work, we didn’t go to Woolworth’s, the butchers or the shoe shop.
Shops were always closed on Sundays, apart from back street newsagents as I remember.
That day, we made a once in my lifetime visit to the Nottingham Pram Company. A large shop with plate glass windows which displayed shiny prams and pushchairs. Inside, everything smelt clean and new and promised happiness. Plenty of models were on display. The chrome wheels were polished, the handles gleamed and the covers were brushed.
I couldn’t believe we were there and would leave with something so beautiful, but that’s what we did, and I walked home, beaming with pride, holding onto the navy pram which my dad pushed. I was six years old and we took it home to my baby brother whom I guess was already born, because he had arrived sooner than expected.
I know the birth of a baby brings more than unadulterated happiness. Indeed, my mam was taken into hospital for a few weeks, leaving my eighteen-year-old sister to give up her job and look after us. I was well looked after and I am really grateful to my sister, dad, brother, aunties and a number of kind neighbours, but the skies aren’t quite so bright in those memories.
Still, I don’t think anything will dim the day that we fetched the pram!
February’s a very evocative month for me. Next time, I’ll write a little story for Valentine’s Day!
A story from memory in which a fire is lit, a baby is born and a child is noticed.
There was nothing normal about that cold, damp February day. For a start, it was Saturday morning and my mam was in bed. I was in my parents’ bedroom with my sister. None of that was normal, but there was something I’d never seen or felt before. The bedroom was warm and magically, in the small grate, a fire was lit. The burning paper, wood and coal gave an orange glow to the dimly lit room and filled me with excitement. Surely this was a special day, the like of which I’d never known before.
The room was sparsely furnished with dark brown furniture, a double bed, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. A rug protected bare feet briefly before stepping onto the wooden floorboards. That day, something extra stood there, out of place, not far from the fire. How had the wooden clothes horse which lived in the kitchen got there? It was festooned with tiny vests, nightgowns and the cardigan, hat and bootees which I’d watched mam knitting.
My dad was at work and so was my thirteen-year-old brother.
I heard the back door open, which meant that some family had arrived. I smiled when I heard my aunty Phyllis call out “Here I am” as she walked quickly up the stairs and into the bedroom. Could this day get any more strange or special? I’d never seen an aunty upstairs before, but aunty Phyllis was a treat wherever she was.
It felt busy in the warm bedroom with its fiery glow, and I was happy to be there in the midst of all that specialness. My sister, who was eighteen, had told me that the baby would be born soon and I couldn’t wait. I was six years old and I’d watched the bump grow and laid my head on it, feeling the little wriggles, kicks and punches. I was looking forward to seeing those tiny arms and legs.
Then, there were more voices downstairs. A woman was talking to my dad, but what was he doing at home? Footsteps sounded coming upstairs and in walked dad and the midwife.
Just in case anyone younger than about sixty-five is reading this, if you think that “Call the Midwife” is a quaint fantasy, it’s not. Our house was on Serlby Rise and Nurse Finnis lived on Bracton Drive, the next-door road, in the Midwives’ House. She’d been there for years and knew every family in the area. She would keep her eye on us while we grew up.
That Saturday, someone would have knocked on her door and told her she needed to come quickly.
Anyway, suddenly the warm, cosy room was full of grown-up efficiency, and I didn’t know what was happening. Dad went to see mam, but didn’t stay long and when he passed me, he took hold of my hand “C’mon duck.”
Tears of anger and disappointment pricked my eyes as I was led out of the warm room where everything was about to happen and down the cold stairs. I was furious. How could it happen without me?
I waited at the bottom of the stairs with my dad. We didn’t pace the worn lino, but stood still, gazing up at the thin stair carpet, held in place by shiny brass rods.
Finally, the bedroom door opened, and Nurse Finnis called out “You’ve got another son, Ted!”
No one could stop me then. I raced up the stairs and was the first into the room. Again, it was different. The warmth and orange glow was still there, but now there were new smells. Sickly, bloody, gutsy, sweaty smells and there the midwife stood, holding a tiny baby.
“Sit down on the bed”, she said to me and I did. Wonder of wonders, she put the baby into my arms. Aunty Phyllis stayed close and cradled his head. There he was, my baby brother, born with the first spring lambs and named after a Biblical shepherd who became a king.
Then I knew how special that day would get, but the surprises weren’t over.
When the baby was taken from me, Nurse Finnis gave me a gift. The gift was a paper face mask and a plastic syringe. They were nearly as precious as the baby and they came in very useful when I was nursing my dolls and Teddy bears, who often had accidents or were ill!
It was mid afternoon before my older brother came in from work and found that now there were four of us!
There began a new phase of my life, in a house which in those early days was always warmer than usual and which smelt of milk, washing powder and baby poo! A house with even more visitors than ever which filled up with knitted gifts and yet more aunties!
I am so grateful to my mam, sister and aunt who let me into that special place of birth and to Nurse Finnis, who had delivered me into the world and who noticed me when another baby was born and gave me some vital nurse’s equipment!
Wandering Through The Land Of Nod. 