Welsh Newspapers: Mothering Sunday, Part 1 (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Sunday, March 30, 2014, 15:05 (3673 days ago) @ Jefff

During my Forest childhood in the 60s & 70s Mothering Sunday was an important event, making gifts and cards at Primary and Sunday School, and giving our flowers and especially "best behaviour" on the day itself.

I was therefore a little surprised to only find a few articles about it reported by the many and various Welsh Newspapers across the decades, albeit all beautifully written, and showing interesting changes of reporting styles and emphasis over the passing years;

Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, Glamorgan, Monmouth, and Brecon Gazette, 29th March 1862;
MIDLENT, OR "MOTHERING SUNDAY."
This day received its appellative of Midlent Sunday, because it is the fourth, or middle Sunday between Quadragesima, or the first Sunday in Lent, and Easter Sunday, by which latter, the Lenten season is governed. Several of our ecclesiastical writers denominate it Dominica Refectionis, or the Sunday of Refreshment, a term considered to have been applied to it from the Gospel of the day, treating of our Saviour's miraculous feeding of the five thousand, and from the first lesson in the morning, containing the relation of Joseph entertaining his brethren. But the common or vulgar appellation which this day still retains, is Mothering Sunday, a term expressive of the ancient usage of visiting the Mother (Cathedral) Churches of the several dioceses, when voluntary offerings— then denominated Denarii Quadrageminales, now the Lent or Easter offerings—were made, which by degrees were settled into an annual composition, or pecuniary payments charged on the parochial priests, who were presumed to have received these oblations from their respective congregations. We yet also retain the ancient epistle for Midlent Sunday, which expressly alludes to Jerusallem, the mother of all Christian Churches (Cowel, &c., &c). The public processions formerly usual on this Sunday, have been discontinued since the middle of the 13th century, and the contributions made upon that occasion, settled into the present trifle paid by the people under the title of Easter offerings but the name of Mothering Sunday is still not inaptly applied to this day, and a custom which was substituted by the commonalty, is yet practised in many places, particularly in Cheshire, of visiting their natural mother, instead of the Mother Church, and presenting to her small tokens of their filial affection, either in money or trinkets, or more generally in some species of regale, such as frunety, fermety, or frumenty, so called from frumentum (wheat being its principal ingredient), which being boiled in the whole grain, and mixed with sugar, milk, spice, and sometimes with the addition of raisins or currants, form altogether an agreeable repast. This mark of filial respect has long since been abolished in the South, though another custom to which it gave way, of the landlords of public-houses presenting messes of this nature to the families who regularly dealt with them, is much within the memory of many persons yet living.— Brady's Clavis Calendaria
http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk/en/page/view/3093058/ART26/mothering%20sunday

Cardiff Weekly Mail, 24th March 1894;
"PALM SUNDAY AT CARDIFF.
[BY OUR LADY CORRESPONDENT]
It seems to be a very old custom, that of decorating the graves with flowers on Palm Sunday — Flowering Sunday, as it is called — in Welsh parishes. Doubtless the people, who have ever been an intensely religious tendency, had the strewing of palms and leaves before Christ in their mind, and the connection between strewing flowers on the graves of those whom they love to think of is not far to seek. In country districts, for days before Palm Sunday, the woods and hedges are rifled of the few blossoms that have blown by little busy fingers, who weave them lovingly into wreaths, and in every cottage there are plants tenderly watched and watered and nurtured for the day. It is to me far more pathetic to see a broken tumbler, with a humble little root of violets or snowdrops carried so carefully and placed on the grave so lovingly, than to see a tomb covered with costly wreaths woven by hired hands, or pots of gorgeous azaleas or lilies bought on Saturday at the florist's, and often placed on the family tomb by servants. I remember, years ago, in the little town of Crickhowell, the school children had two, if not three, days' holiday this week to be free to collect flowers, and they used to bring them to the school-house to arrange, and there was always a table covered with flowers and wreaths "for the forgotten dead"— those whose graves bore no tombstone, whose very names were forgotten, and where no mourners ever came to look. I thought it was such a touching thought. In England it is also a fairly general custom, though subject to variations of ceremonial. In Somerset and Devon, and possibly other districts, the day is called "Mothering Sunday," and girls in service or any kind of situation go home to see their mothers and take them presents. Palm Sunday observance is decidedly on the increase as far as this district is concerned. The florists tell me they have never sold so many flowers, or had so many orders for costly wreaths. One shop is crammed in profusion with the costliest cut flowers — orchids, delicate, white, and yellow roses, and pink ones. Lilies of every species are booked and being made up into lovely wreaths and crosses as fast as fingers can work. A lovely silvery moss was shown me as a background for crosses, and nineteen hundredweight of cut flowers were delivered on Thursday there. In other shops the flowers extend beyond the available space in rich abundance, and the supply is not greater than the demand. Up in Roath and in Canton the homely potato and green cabbage are shoved out of sight to make room for flowers of every kind, and plants, lilies, tulips, speirea, arums, seem the favourite white blossoms. Violets and daffodils are being sold in handfuls, ard about the small streets carts of flowers are going round and being quickly purchased evenby the very poorest."
http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk/en/page/view/3369137/ART55/mothering%20sunday