When I was a child Good Friday was exactly that, as I attended a Church of England school and was a member of the church choir my presence was expected for most of the services during the Easter weekend. I loved the old church on the hill, the dim light and the stone pillars, the lovely old stained glass and the odd smell of damp and polish which all old churches seem to have.
The Churches year was an important part of my childhood and I have many memories of Easter,s, Whitsun's and Christmases which I treasure. In the wild Staffordshire Moorlands spring comes late, often there would be no crocus let alone daffodils to brighten the frost seared hills and leafless valleys. In spite of this unless Easter was very early indeed we children knew were to find the gold Celandine, the ghostly pale anemone and the sweet violets which grew in a sheltered spot in a deep valley on the banks of a small stream. There would be branches of horse chestnut to collect, sticky buds we called them. These would be borne proudly in to school for the nature table and we would watch, as the days passed the sticky, glossy buds break open and the leaves unfurl long before those left on the trees. Our chestnut leaves would be used to decorate the church porch along with pussy willows and catkins. The church itself would be decorated by a daunting posse of village matrons who;s company I eschewed at all hazard, I was a Tom boy and this was frowned upon as a dreadful fault in a young lady and despised by the respectable dowagers.
Every year our head master would see to it that each child received an Easter egg, any child who could not be present would have their egg delivered by a schoolmate and woe betide that child it the egg fail to arrive at its proper destination.
Once the school holiday began most of the children ,including myself and my brother would be kept busy with tasks about the farm. There would be lambing, such excitement and the fun of baby chicks hatched in fathers brand new incubator, the first of its kind in our village. If the weather was fine there would always be time for play and we children enjoyed the freedom of the fields and woods every bit as much as the cattle who had been kept inside during the winter months.
More often than not however the weather would still be wintry and on more than on occasion snow fell throughout the Easter weekend. It was all one to us so long as there was no school and we were allowed out with our sledges.
Then there was Easter Sunday dinner, always a chicken and always eagerly anticipated. It is difficult to imagine now when chicken is so cheap and plentiful those days in the fifties and early sixties when Chicken was for special occasions only, even for us and our farm was mainly poultry.
This Easter my son will be working, there are few holidays in the media business. I made lemon shortbread today a traditional Easter treat with us and there will still be a chicken dinner on Sunday.
Only once in my life have I known an Easter as warm as this and that was many years ago. I received a severe telling of from my mother for bathing in the steam, she was convinced I would catch my death of cold....as you see I survived.
Where ever you are I wish you a happy spring festival, the joy of new beginnings is something we can all share, no matter what our faith, the year is new and we have all summer before us, speaking for myself I still feel the same up rush of spirits that the contemplation of that fact gave me as a child so many years ago.
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