Mothering Sunday is an ancient Church Festival, absolutely nothing to do with mothers. It was when church congregations or represententives went to visit their Mother Church, usually the Cathedral. It also became associated with Mary, Mother of Jesus. Later, the day was a holiday for servants who went with their mother to their former church. It might well have been their only holiday of the year.
Thus Mothering Sunday became associated with Motherhood and the Victorian publicists saw a commercial opprtunity and lo, Mothering Sunday begat Mothers Day.
Easter's Simnel Cake moved to the fourth Sunday of Lent to complete the unhappy marriage of spiritual and commercial motivation.
So it was that in the early 1900s in Good Ole U S of A (where else?) Mothers Day begat Father's Day; but with no churchy overtones whatsoever! Purely a money making scam.
No connection with Public Transport? Probably not; until an envelope, addressed to Fat Bus Bloke, arrived by snail mail.
Inside was, well, judge for yourself ...
... a delightfully affectionate (or dreadfully insulting?), beautifully presented card from funkypigeon.com. It says "Fatty", by the way, not "Faffy". 5164 is a GWR "Large Prairie" tank locomotive owned by the Severn Valley Railway.
The lower half of the card gave a clue as to the sender ...
... none other than No 2 son! But it was the heartfelt message inside the card that brought a lump to fbb's throat and a tear to his jaded eye. The message read, simply:-
Strangely, one of the nicest cards fbb has ever received, but don't tell HIM, he would be horrified at the thought!
For no obvious reason, it seems appropriate to include a couple of puzzle pictures from fbb's set of slowly sinking slides.
Where was this, now defunct, bus station? The departure bays are under the pillared building to the right.
And why was this bus service given route number 91?
Feel free to "comment" with your answers. fbb's answers will appear in a day or two. First prize is a free phone enquiry from Traveline; second prize is TWO free phone enquiries from Traveline. ["You cannot be serious!" Correct, says fbb, I'm not.]
Happy Fathers' Day
P.S. A subsequent email from No. 2 son slightly devalued the emotional effect. He wrote, "It was a free offer from funkypigeon and the girlfriend made me do it." Kids, eh?
P.S. A subsequent email from No. 2 son slightly devalued the emotional effect. He wrote, "It was a free offer from funkypigeon and the girlfriend made me do it." Kids, eh?
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A propos rail fares silliness, Mrs ffb reported the following last week.
On the shelves at Tesco,
Tesco's own brand "Value" butter - £1.10
Tesco's own brand standard price butter - £1.00
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Next blog : due Monday June 20th
Number 2 son should have gone to Personalisedcard.com as my number 1 did. His cost 1p for adding a link to his Facebook and I got a card with a picture of Cheltenham District 6037, which he had suitably cropped to make identification of the location quite hard
ReplyDeleteYou're right.
ReplyDeleteMothering Sunday was originally to do with thanksgiving for "mothering" rather than "motherhood" as the name clearly suggests!
I always felt this commercial emphasis specifically on Mothers could make this a difficult day, especially for women denied motherhood, and instead tried to celebrate the mothering love we receive from various sources -God, our own mothers, our fathers, brothers, sisters etc, etc.
"Mothering Sunday" isa very difficult phrase for the tongue-twisted and dyxlecsics who al ways are one day late. :D
ReplyDeleteAs to insults from the kids (42,40.38): that's filial love for you. ;)
So since I'm not a Dad, presumably I get to comment on the pictures:
ReplyDeleteGlasgow Anderston Cross, but you can't smell the wee in this picture.
And 91 was the headcode of the fast train from Southampton to London (also used by the SVOC connection on the island too. Come to think of it, didn't Stuart Linn choose the Ryde Pier route number based on the Portsmouth headcode?)
Both correct, "Not a Father", The "Hydrobus" minibus on the Island was also numbered 91. Later the brand was compromised when services 92 and 93 join in to become through services from Cowes to Shanklin and Ventnor. Also correct in that the 81 was used for connections from Newport to the Ryde Portsmouth Ferry, for a while.
ReplyDeleteA clever idea from Stuart Linn, but completely beyond the appreciation of most passengers.
Nowadays ALL service 1s (every 7/8 min) run to the Fast Ferry terminal at Cowes.
I'm putting together a blog on the Anderston area to be posted in due course.