I guess that most retailers in England & Wales were actually quite pleased that they were not allowed to open this Easter Sunday. Here in the East of England the snow and icy wind left most people content to stay at home in the warm, or build a snowman in the garden.

Easter Day is one of only two days in the year when the law prevents large shops from opening, the other being Christmas Day when it falls on a Sunday. This is one of a small number of concessions that were won by Keep Sunday Special (KSS) campaigners when the Sunday Trading Act was passed in 1993.

Seven years earlier Keep Sunday Special, which was founded by Michael Schluter and grew out of the Jubilee Centre's work in the late 1980's, had inflicted Margaret Thatcher's only ever defeat at the second readingof a Bill in Parliament when her government first tried to introduce a Sunday Trading Act in 1986. Given Thatcher's huge majority it was extraordinary that the second reading was defeated by 14 votes. However, retailers who wanted Sunday trading did not give up. Many flouted the law by opening on Sundays and eventually in 1993 the Conservative government, now under John Major, introduced a fresh bill which was passed. This bill was a devastating blow to those involved in with KSS. It was only a minor consolation that the Sunday Trading Act restricted the opening hours for large shops to six hours, thus retaining some sense of Sunday as a special day.

In 2006 there was a further move by retailers to deregulate Sunday trading completely. The Department of Trade and Industry, as it was then, ran a cost-benefit analysis of the effects of removing the regulation. Once again the KSS campaign had to swing into action. Working with coalition partners such as USDAW--the shop workers union--the Association of Convenience Stores, and other parenting and family groups, the campaign did enough to make the government shelve it's plans.

The campaign raises a number of interesting issues for Christians. The Sabbath principle, where one day in the week is set aside for rest and worship, goes back to the very beginning of Judaeo-Christian history and is the primary reason why KSS was launched. However, in an increasingly secular society it is difficult to argue that we should keep one day of the week special purely on the grounds of faith. KSS realised early on that if it was to have a significant impact then as well as mobilising Christians it would need to win the hearts and minds of non-believers. For this reason the campaign has paid for research to highlight the importance to children’s well-being of families having a weekly shared day off together, and of the impact on family life if parents are forced to work long and unsocial hours. In addition it has had to work with people and interest groups who do not share the original faith-based motivation of Michael Schluter and others who worked in the campaign in the early years.

For these reasons Keep Sunday Special has attracted criticism from some quarters of the church. Yet, fifteen years since the passing of the Act, KSS is still the first port of call for the national media when it is looking for comment on Sunday issues, and remains one of the most well known lobby groups in Britain.

In the 2006 campaign KSS argued that Sunday should be kept special to protect relationships, preserve community, save local business, respect faith, and ensure space for personal rest and recreation. In contrast to the campaigns of the 80’s and 90’s these messages were warmly received by the media and by the general population in an increasingly anti-corporate climate. In July 2007 an opinion poll with NOP bore this out, with 81% of people agreeing that protecting Sunday as a family day was a good idea. It seems at last that, along with the environmental benefits of having a day of rest, the tide is beginning to turn in favour of Sundays being used as a day of family and friends to focus on time together rather than on their working lives.

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