Otherwise, my mother's inklings of gentility surfaced only occasionally. I remember her taking me to one side once during one of our many vacations in Eastbourne (56 miles, but a trifle posher than Great Yarmouth) and inexplicably telling me not to use the slang word "tanner" for the pre-decimalization sixpence piece.
And I was once astonished when she was quite vehemently negative about a band I liked, after watching their performance on a television pop-music show. I had to probe to find out what was offending her. It wasn't the song. Eventually, it turned out to be that one of the performers was wearing a trilby hat as part of his stage outfit.
"Well, what's wrong with that?" I asked.
"I think it's rude for a man to keep his hat on indoors," she replied.
Oh for the sixties when life was simpler. My mother's mantra was,"Don't lower yourself to others standards." and on the subject of hats being worn indoors well my Mum would have agreed wholeheartedly with yours.
ReplyDeleteWell, in a living room, of course. But this was a TV studio. She couldn't even see that there was a ceiling.
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