I found everything shut on a Sunday on a Scottish island - so I joined in on the Sabbath instead

Looking at his mother, puzzled, I overheard him say: “But it’s Sunday?”

The Isle of Lewis, where about 50 churches of varying Presbyterian denominations serve a population of about 20,000, is one of the last remaining Sabbatarianism strongholds in Britain. The island, to this day, has historically followed Sunday observance - the Christian principle of keeping the day as one of rest and worship.

No washing hanging on the line, no shops open and playground swings tied up are some of the memories locals have of the Sabbath when growing up on the island. The only reason to leave home was to go to church.

I had a taste of a Sunday in the life of a traditional Leodhasach - the Gaelic name given to someone from Lewis - when I arrived in Stornoway on a Saturday evening. I was soon warned by several people that “everything is shut on a Sunday”. So I joined a queue of other last minute-ers in the town’s Co-op hurriedly stocking up for the next day.

With few options of things to do in Stornoway the following morning, I went to church.

Running late after trying to work out whether my cap fraying at the edges or a moth-eaten silk headscarf would be the best fit to respect the tradition of women wearing hats to services, I ran down the town’s Francis Street looking for the Gaelic service, thinking it would be obvious.

Disorientated by families filing into churches in different directions and the bells ringing overhead, I asked a stranger who directed me to the Free Church in Kenneth Street.

It wasn’t a Gaelic service, but I could immediately see the traditions holding strong with the precentor leading a congregation dotted with women in hats and families in their “Sunday best”.

Much of the service was the same as the few church services I attended growing up in the east of Scotland. Singing psalms in a key that is too high or low, you end up fluctuating between both pitches and sounding a bit unhinged. There is trying to guess the moral of the story before the sermon finishes, and your mind occasionally drifting mid-prayer to what sort of cake might be at the coffee morning held after the service.

But there was something different about attending church surrounded by silent streets of residents adhering to the Sabbath.

The precarity of this tradition’s future on the island also made the experience more distinct. This week, news broke that Tesco is consulting staff in its Stornoway branch - the only one in the UK closed on a Sunday - about opening seven days a week.

Employees at the store told me it will happen, it’s just a matter of when. Sunday observance has slackened off over the years, with a few restaurants, cafes and pubs opening their doors. But Tesco would be the first main retail store in Stornoway to do so.

The news is another blow to the Christian fundamentalists on the island after they were up in arms in 2009 when ferry operator CalMac started its Sunday service between the mainland and Lewis.

Protesters at the time warned it would lead to further erosion of the observance of the Sabbath. In 2022, Rev David Blunt, minister of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) in North Uist and Grimsay, reportedly said the profusion of ferry cancellations since the move was a form of divine retribution.

The little boy looking perplexed at the open bakery showed the Christian doctrine is still held strongly by some. I was also given a wide-eyed look from a churchgoer who invited me for tea after the service when I clumsily declined with “I have to work today”.

Other residents, however, have told me the Sabbath stamp on the town fading slowly is “a sign of the times”, and that by freeing up the Sunday tradition it doesn’t mean it has to stop, but makes the island more open to those who don’t follow it.

As one staff member in Tesco put it: “The doors might start to open, but it doesn’t mean you have to come in.”