Recall, if you will, those tranquil Sundays of yesteryear. Days filled with Sunday roasts and metrical psalms, when the most exciting thing to do was the washing-up.

A day of rest, they called it, which it undoubtedly was for my father, the combination of a pint of Banks’s at the local and a hefty dinner sending him into a coma for the whole afternoon.

Day of rest it certainly wasn’t for my mother, who did more cooking on Sunday than all the other days combined, and had child management issues (me) to deal with on top.

You can re-live those halcyon days by taking an excursion to the Outer Hebrides, where the Kirk still holds sway and the washing-lines stand empty.

Or you could try visiting Hereford. Hereford closes on Sundays, as effectively as if it still had its city walls.

We called in there last Sunday, forgetting that we had done the same a couple of years before and filled up a wet hour looking for a cafe (any cafe) that was open. In the end it had to be M&S.

The doors to the cathedral remain open, but the cathedral shop is locked and the “excitingly new and innovative” Mappa Mundi exhibition will have to remain exciting and innovative only by reputation. It too locks its doors on Sundays.