Sunday Night, Bath Night!

Do you remember when you were little and you’d have a bath on Sunday night, (possibly more than that but I’m talking about Sundays here) ?  I'm almost sure we only had the one weekly bath, unless we were ill, then Mum would practically dettol us every time we coughed!

We’d have to share a bath, me and my bro and I can remember watching my Mum run the bath for us and she’d be a bit mean with the bubble bath but on the odd occasion that my Dad would run it, he’d tip half a bottle of Matey Bubble Bath in it and we’d watch excitedly as the bubbles grew and grew, like the magic porridge pot… (cook little pot, cook!).

 

So we’d have our bath and I’d put bubbles on my face to look like Father Christmas, or pretend I was a man in a shaving advert and use the pumice stone to ‘shave’ the bubbles off…ergh!

Once I was about 4 and I farted a bubbly bath fart but I didn’t realise it was more than a fart and my poor brother picked it up thinking it was a piece of chocolate, floating by!  I think the shared bathing stopped promptly after that.

After the bath, we’d get dry and dressed in our PJ’s… weirdly, I can remember my brother’s burgundy, striped, nylon numbers but I can’t remember mine.  I'd sit on a chair in the kitchen whilst my mum blow dried my hair with a slim-line orange hairdryer which was so weak that it’d take an hour to dry my 'page boy' but it was better than the odd 1960’s style blow up cap thing that they used before. You'd stick the bag on your head and it'd inflate with hot air! I think my auntie had worked in a hairdressers and it was one they were chucking out... hilarious!





Ah yes, much more modern...

The thing about 'Sunday Night, Bath Night' was that it was a real cosy, family ritual. We would have eaten our roast beef dinner on the dining room table and Dad would always finish first and he'd go back to his chair and put Grandstand on. Then we'd play, probably with our Action Men & Sindy's and clean out the hamsters cages, ( well, Mum would clean them while I would put the Hamster in the Sindy beach buggy), and we'd read, or make cakes with Mum, then it would be Sunday bath time.

So, after the bath and drying and pyjamas, we'd go into the front room and my Dad would be sitting in his chair, and we'd sit on the settee with mum. 

We'd all watch telly together and what an odd thing telly was then. Maybe 'That's Life' would be on, with a dog that could say "sausages", or a Robotics contest. Or Dick Emery, Benny Hill, Morcambe & Wise, or The Two Ronnies.  My Dad had a really loud raucous laugh in the 70's.  His laugh has matured with him. Or maybe telly isn't as funny as it was in the 70's.

There were some really eery dramas on BBC1 on Sunday evenings, about 6pm. I remember The Ghost of Motley Hall, with Sheila Steeple. And I remember a scary one off drama, with a girl who appeared in a frozen lake, a mirror and then again when the main character was carol singing....singing 'Silent Night' but I can never remember enough to try to find it on You Tube or anything and no one else has ever heard of it.

Oh and there was Sapphire & Steel, that could be scary too! And Tales of the Unexpected.  I remember the public safety adverts warning us not to play with fireworks, they were terrifying too!

Then, after watching this macabre mix of entertainment, we'd be packed off to bed. My Mum always read me a bedtime story thank God. Something like The Magic Faraway Tree, or My Naughty Little Sister. Something calming and innocent. I think I would have definitely had nightmares after all that dodgy telly if she hadn't read me one.

And that was it. That was Sunday Night, bath night.

 It was awful but we liked it!