Scanning of Kirk Session Records

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 8:12 pm

Hi Tracy

Thanks for telling us about that site. It made interesting reading. I was a little surprised at the rebukes at people for doing something on the Sabbath.

Does anyone know what people were allowed to do on the Sabbath?

Regards

sheila

Post by **emanday** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 8:26 pm

Not a lot, apart from go to church.

According to my Gran, even the porridge was made on Saturday and eaten cold on the Sunday

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 8:27 pm

sheilajim wrote:Hi Tracy

....snipped.......

Does anyone know what people were allowed to do on the Sabbath?

Regards

sheila

Not much, apart from attending church service in the morning and evening, and maybe the afternoon as well; otherwise reading the Holy Bible at home, no other reading being permissible.

Men would have shaved before 12 midnight on Saturday, and the same deadline would have applied in terms of cooking food, i.e. all that would have been eaten on the Sabbath would have been "cold" in the sense of previously prepared.

Essential activities such as milking cows, OK, but otherwise nae chance

(Witness the archetypical episode in "Whisky Galore" when the men are about to launch their boats and go out to the SS Politician and "recover" the whisky, when the clock strikes for 12 midnight on the Saturday, and the assembled men realise that they will have to wait until 00:01 am on Monday morning ............)

Sometime around 1988 we stayed in a bed & breakfast in Skye run by an English couple, and the wifie had been "cold shouldered" by her neighbours on the basis that she had put washing out to dry on the Sabbath Day

David

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 11:17 pm

Hi All

Life must have been pretty dreary in those days. They worked very hard all week and don't seem to have had much enjoyment. I am so glad that I wasn't around in those times.
I suppose that those Sabbath Day restrictions loosened up by the last part of the 19th century, at least officially.

Cold shouldered for putting out wash on Sundays in 1988

Sheila

Post by **AnneM** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:50 am

Sheila

Later part of C19, I don't think so. As a child in Dunoon, not particularly Highland, I was not allowed to go to the swing park or paddling pool on a Sunday and in fact going out to play much was frowned upon and my parents were not that religious.

Anne

Thrall · Post by **Thrall** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 11:05 pm

Not so very long ago when in my late teens, and working as a volunteer in the nature reserve by Loch Maree in an "after Highers project", some of us decided to go to the local church at Kinlochewe.
On entering, we sat down on the right hand side, most fortunately, as the the left was for the womenfolk. The meeninster was in no hurry, the singing not so cheerful in our ears with the precentor stuck in first gear, and most of the service was in the Gaelic. There was an exception though, in the middle of a very long and imploring prayer, a special word of intercession in English was made for the "foreigners in our midst today who have not yet seen the light".
Shortly after, on leaving the kirk, we remarked to the elder at the door on the sunshine and good weather, to be greeted with stony stares. One does not smile it seems, on leaving, nor pass unnecessary idle comments on the Sabbath.

The film "Breaking the Waves" (Lars von Trier, 1996) which shows a Highland community in the 70s is perhaps not so farfetched after all.

Thrall