Seventy years ago... an Easter without the sun, but full of fun

Seventy years ago the moveable feast of Easter came in early April 1955 and although the world has changed so much in the intervening years many of the traditions of Easter remain to this day and will be repeated this year, writes Keith Johnson.

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Sylvia Lovat Corbridge, a Lancashire Evening Post columnist of the time, was looking forward to another Easter of religious festival and holiday fun. She could recall the sombre thought provoking Good Friday services, and the bright hopefulness of Easter Sunday glory, when daffodils were as candle bright upon the altar. The days of her teenage years when Easter essentially meant new clothes and a new hat to promenade in the park or at the seaside.

Those Easter bonnets and cotton frocks, often purchased from Horrockses in Preston, had turned many a head.

Holy week had begun with reports of the fish rush at Fleetwood with the trawlers reported to have returned with record hauls, with cod and haddock in abundance. It meant that those observing a meat free Good Friday would have plenty of fresh fish to fry.

Good Friday had by the middle of the 1950s become a day for walking and hiking in the countryside. No doubt inspired by the popular book '40 Rambles', a collection of local walks published by the LEP, and written by Bruce Clucas an elderly local rambler who after a lifetime of working at Horrockses had taken to the leafy lanes of Lancashire. Longridge, Chipping, Garstang, Brock and Nickey Nook all being destinations chosen on that Good Friday in 1955. A dull, dreary day did not deter those who had packed their rucksack with sandwiches made with freshly baked bread and a spicy hot cross bun from the local bakery.