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Weekender
Mothering Sunday

Callum: 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? Mother's Day or Mothering Sunday. And in this programme
we'll find out about the origins of this special day for mothers.

Callum: 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 form and why is it
held on this particular day? I asked some of my colleagues if they knew.

COLLEAGUES
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 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 can't remember what the story is.

Callum: It seems as if most people are not too sure on 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

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 find out for sure I spoke to Father Alistair 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

Father Coles
The tradition goes back a long time and there's one tradition that during mediaeval times
people and clergy travel to the mother church of the diocese to the cathedral on this day, this
coming Sunday, and there's probably 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 God children 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 south west 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.

Callum: 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.

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 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.

Father Coles
By the 1930s this pattern of mothering day and release from work for home visits, that was all
nearly forgotten. It's revival was brought about by the determined efforts of a Miss Ana 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 in to 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 post-war times was back in
the popular awareness of the British but on Mothering Sunday, this fourth Sunday of Lent.

Callum: So Mother's Day in the United States began in the 20th Century after the efforts
of one woman, Ana 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, rather than in May which is when
it is celebrated in the United States and 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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