English Rewind - Weekender: Mothering Sunday 💐💐💐

Hello, Catherine here from BBC Learning English.

Just so you know, this programme is from the BBC Learning English archive.

It was originally broadcast in March 2006 on our website.

Enjoy!

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Hello, I'm Callum Robertson and this is Weekender.

This Sunday is a special day in Britain.

It's not an official national holiday

and not everybody will be doing anything different, but it is marked in the diary.

What day is it?

It's Mother's Day or Mothering Sunday

and in this programme,

we'll find out about the origins of this special day for mothers.

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Mothering Sunday is a day when people

send cards, flowers and other presents to their mothers.

But what's its origin?

Where does it come from and why is it held on this particular day?

I asked some of my colleagues if they knew.

No, I don't actually, can you tell me?

No, I have to be honest, I really don't.

I just take it as a day of celebrating how great all mums are,

but I really didn't think about where it came from.

I think it's something to do with Lent and Easter, but I can't remember what.

I'm afraid I don't know the origins of Mother's Day.

I suspect it's probably something religious,

but I don't actually know what it is.

Well, my understanding of it was that it was the day that all the girls in service

were allowed to go home and see their mothers.

And why it's on this day I can't remember, it might have something to do with Easter,

but I don't know what the story is.

It seems as if most people are not too sure of the origins of Mothering Sunday,

but they think it has something to do with the Christian religious period of Easter

and the six-week period before that called Lent.

But is that correct?

To find out for sure, I spoke to Father Alasdair Coles

who is the parish priest of St Mary's Church in Bourne Street in London.

I asked him about the history of Mothering Sunday.

The tradition goes back a long time

and there's one tradition that, during mediaeval times,

people and clergy would travel to the mother church of the diocese,

to the cathedral on this day, this coming Sunday,

and there's probably a good sense

in that the worst of winter weather had gone by then.

But none of that really helps us with Mothering Sunday.

The earliest reference to it comes in 1644 during the Civil War in this country.

There's a Royalist officer called Richard Simons or Simmons

who noted a custom in Worcester, in the middle of Lent,

when children and godchildren would meet at the head of the family

and have a feast and it was called Mothering Day.

But all that's quite a long time ago and, by the last century,

this custom had spread throughout the West Midlands and the Welsh Borders,

the Southwest and as far north as Lancashire.

This is the beginning of the 20th century, late 19th century, I suppose,

and apprentices and young servants were often released

to go home and visit their families on this day.

So, there was a tradition of families getting together in the Lent period,

or visiting their mother church, or the big church or cathedral for their area.

However, this is a very old tradition.

By the end of the 19th century,

it was common for wealthy families to have servants living in their homes

and, on Mothering Sunday, they were given a holiday

and allowed to go home and visit their families.

These days though, this habit of having servants

living in the houses of their employers has died out.

So, how has the tradition of Mothering Sunday continued?

Well, according to Father Coles, with a little help from the United States.

By the 1930s, this pattern of Mothering Day

and of release from work for home visits, that was all nearly forgotten.

Its revival was brought about by the determined efforts

of a Miss Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia,

whose guiding passion in her life was a devotion to her mother.

Miss Jarvis was also well enough connected

to turn her private obsession into public law.

She badgered and harassed the government of the United States

until it passed a law in 1913 that the second Sunday in May

would be a national day of remembrance for mothers, Mother's Day,

and the custom gradually spread back across the Atlantic

and by postwar times was back in the popular awareness of the British,

but, on Mothering Sunday, this fourth Sunday of Lent.

So, Mother's Day in the United States began in the 20th century

after the efforts of one woman, Anna Jarvis.

The influence of the United States came over the Atlantic

and in Britain we took the celebration and gift-giving,

but on our original Mothering Sunday date, during Lent, and not in May,

which is when it's celebrated in the United States and in other countries.

Well, that's all from this edition of Weekender.

I'm off to buy a nice present for my mother!

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