In the 19th century, children left school earlier than now, but were slower to mature physically. This meant that there was a gap of several years for most people between leaving school and courting.
How to fill that gap? Something that would use up energy and where one could make a bit of a show?
Sport
In the summer, quite apart from work (and there was always plenty of that), there were other possibilities.
Members of Cavendish Cricket Club
The coast - Dunwich beach
Then there were the winter pursuits:
Football at Long Melford FC
Ice skates
Apart from sport, there were sometimes theatricals - to take part in as well as to see, if you moved in the right circles. The cast of an amateur play performed at Ixworth, about 1910.
Poster for Brewer's Pavilion Theatre, Bury St Edmunds, 1831.
Then, from the early years of the 20 th century, you could 'go to the flicks' - i.e. see a film - if you could get to town. Bury's Odeon cinema opened in 1937. Later it changed its name to the Focus, before being demolished in 1983. It was conveniently close to the bus station.
Cinema was mass entertainment in the 1930s - it was not just for courting couples. Still, when the thoughts of the young apprentice, or girl in service, did turn to love, the back row of the pictures was a time-honoured place to pass an hour or two.
You would want to look your best, before meeting your beloved.
Love and marriage? Like horse and carriage, they say - not so sure about 'Luv'. (Play title.) Best not to get any wrong ideas if you were an apprentice, though.
When Edward Vincent was apprenticed to Amos Tiffen, Miller and Maltster, in 1861, he had to promise - amongst other things - that he would not "commit fornication nor contract Matrimony within the said term" . Nor could he "play at cards or dice or . haunt taverns or playhouses" . (Quoted in Life & Tradition in Suffolk and NE Essex. ) No wonder some young men took the royal shilling and enlisted as soldiers!
On the other hand, getting married often qualified a man for a rise in wages -and you might receive a home made feather bed as wedding present. (Chickens were kept in the cottage garden. After they had been eaten, the feathers would be dried in the oven - on the next baking day - and put aside for the next pillow or mattress that was due to be made.)
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