“Good morning Mrs Wylie, here is the post and your coffee-chino.”
“Thank you, however, I think you mean cappuccino Mrs Travers, my faithful woman what does but not a lot.”
“Exactly Mrs Wylie, I was thinking about what you were saying about how delicious the coffee is abroad, where foreigners live. Not that I would know. The nearest to abroad I have been is Millport, and I can’t say I cared for the folk there much.”
“One must be broad minded Mrs T and that is not strictly true is it, you have travelled quite extensively with Mr Wylie and myself in our top secret work for the Handsome Stranger and Professor Sir Boozy Hawkes of the Music department at the good varsity here in Glasgow.”
“I know Mrs Wylie and I don’t mean to appear ungrateful, but life threatening work in the Baltic with the comrades or in Panama rescuing Dame Margot is hardly a holiday.
And by the way I have shown the Hysterical Society Committee to Mr Wylie’s shed for their meeting about the forth coming annual (or once a year) Memorial Picnic to the Graveyard, with refreshments in the form of a basket tea and a lecture Beyond the Veil – Symbolism in Stone, to be delivered by Mr Wylie in person. I’ve also taken a flask out to Mr W so the committee can have coffee out there – but not one of your fancy coffee-chinos”
“Oh no is it that time of year already? A good reason to fill the diary Mrs Travers, I will not forget last year’s ‘The Broken Column’ in a hurry. It’s the only time I have ever had a Bovril flavoured traybake.”
“It will be that Librarian from the Stirling Library I imagine. She makes some weird things. Actually she dropped off a couple of books for Mr Wylie, before she began the self-guided walk to the shed with Roneoed information sheet and free map .”
“Nothing salacious I trust? After all she does lecture on the Well of Loneliness. Not quite sure how she gets away with it, except Glasgow Corporation’s Chief Librarian thinks it’s about the history of water supplies to the city.”
“Sometimes Mrs Wylie I don’t have a clue what you are talking about, but that’s the problem with being a character with limited horizons due to the class structure of the world’s first industrial nation. Now would you like a scone with that?”
The trouble with having been away in That London is that the work piles up and so do the letters and one begins to feel like one is up to one’s oxters in alligators. My correspondence from you grows by the week, sometimes I feel as if you are the poor as described by Malthus. (Look it up.)
Now let me see what is this here – oh something smelling of lavender on lavender writing paper with an American stamp. It’s a letter from our nephew Sebastian who is training in “the method” in New York which is quite close to America.
You may recall he is a Shakespearean actor, famous for his role as Richard III, before he had to leave the country after the brass rubbing incident. I think I will save that treat for later and share with Jasper along with the account for the new guttering on our “much sought after, but rarely found” villa in Kelvinside. This is part of Glasgow where the coal comes in “secks” and there is fruit on every sideboard even if “nae buddy’s sieck.”
Goodness these letters all seem to have a common theme. Indeed many are rather common having been written on “lined note paper” with biro.
Still the very fact that lost souls (even from Corporation housing) are seeking me out says something about aspiration and one has to support that even if the stamps are stuck on at an angle and there are tell tale signs of brown sauce marks on the pages.
The theme appears to be your concerns about Gracious Living in the summer months when you seem to feel rather exposed to the slings and arrows of outrageous social expectations. Let me give you some of my top tips for a simply marvellous summer filled to the brim with Gracious Living.
Purchase a nice crisp Horrocks’ or Elmore dress. I know they cost the equivalent of a week’s wages for those of you working in the typing pool but it’s worth it; they launder well. Some nice sandals are a good investment, but nothing with a T-bar and white ankle socks or people will think you are a “slow girl” who still lives with an overprotective mother.
If you are unable to afford a good summer bag then a nice effect is to be had with a willow basket (always the suggestion that it contains homemade preserves or baking) or something in raffia (suggests you are arty, but not necessarily a socialist). These touches say without words that one is relaxed and has a certain ‘je ne sais quois’ which can be absent with a harsh winter leather bag. A silk head square and sunglasses should always be to hand as one never knows when one might be invited to sit in an open top sports car for a tour of the Corniche in the South of France or in your case the Electric Brae in Ayrshire.
White gloves are of course essential and inexpensive. They send out the message that you are a lady and not someone with whom an invitation for “a spin in the countryside” is shorthand for hanky-pankie on a tartan rug in the sand dunes. Do not forget the gloves or come next Easter you might find yourselves in The Home for Fallen Women, with his ‘pure new wool fringed black watch’ just a distant memory. I have known many a girl to fall for the promise of a good warp and weft.
A straw hat completes the look. Glazed straw from Leghorn of course or an antique from the Luton area are the most desirable. Be careful one does not want to look like Rebecca from Sunnybrook Farm or Huckleberry Finn.
Gentlemen you should cultivate an attitude of languid torpor. Jasper finds this comes quite naturally. I would team torpor with a pair of light flannels and an ice cream jacket. This is the time of year when a little crumpled is acceptable. Again Jasper finds this easy to acquire. Have a cricket sweater to hand in case of sudden chills and of course one cannot go far wrong with a cravat.
The knotted handkerchief is not a look to aspire to unless your ambition is to appear as an imbecile in some end of the pier show. Sandals should be purchased with care. I know our continental cousins favour no socks with sandals, but frankly I find men’s feet one of the Almighty’s less well thought out ideas. One is almost tempted to a blasphemous thought regarding Blake’s hymn Jerusalem – did those feet in ancient times have the opportunity for a full pedicure?
As to beachwear there are some rather nice matching shorts and shirts which look good on the mature man. Please if you have any pre-war knitted swimsuits do dispose of them. My neighbour Mr Macaulay, the Bungalow Builder who is a millionaire on account of being able to peel an orange in his pocket, still sports a pair of these at the Western Baths and frankly he looks like a butcher’s shop window.
This is the season of Royal Ascot and Wimbledon and while I am aware that you are unlikely to be in the Royal Enclosure or at Centre Court (unlike moi) there is nothing wrong with allowing the neighbours to think you are. Mrs Macaulay gives the impression that she and Mr Macaulay go every year. I know full well that someone who is in cement is unlikely to be rubbing shoulders with the Aga Khan and the Queen Mother, but it is amazing how one can create an impression with the ostentatious arrival of a new pair of binoculars from Lizars and a pair of tails hanging on the line for a ”blow”. I know full well they are spending a fortnight at a hotel in Devon. If they can do it so can you. You don’t need to be untruthful, just a little inventive. How about “Oh you must see my hat, I had to get something visible from a coach of course.” None need to know you mean a coach hired from Green Line and not an open landau from the Royal Mews. As to tennis – talk a lot about Maria Bueno and Rod Laver and buy a tennis racket and some whites. Arrive back home looking hot and bothered, regularly. No one need know that you have never served anything but sherry in your life and just run round the block.
Listen to cricket in your garden on the Bush wireless periodically saying “well played.” This will impress the neighbours as they struggle to blow up a paddling pool from Woolworths and make a tent for little Tommy from an old winter-dyke and a fire guard and blankets. They will think you are having a most simply marvellous time, especially if you add phrases like “Doreen is there any of that Champagne left , I think I put the bottle back in the fridge.”
It is vital for Gracious Living in the summer that you picnic a great deal. By picnic I do not mean a loaf of plain bread, a tin of spam and a few bottles of pop. We are not savages are we? No one must acquire the staple of alfresco living – a good, fitted picnic basket. Something in wicker with leather straps is ideal. This should contain knives and forks and plates, cups and saucers as well as containers for food. A hand carried basket can also be taken if wine is required for a special picnic.
Flasks are all right but nothing says picnic like a portable stove. Food can be as ambitious or as simple as you like, but do not overdo it. There is a fine line between creativity and vulgarity, at least in my humble opinion. Men like things in pastry (egg and bacon pie is popular) and one cannot go wrong with that simplest of all portable foods the hard- boiled egg. Sandwiches are a must. Cake and fruit are good too.
A tartan rug sets the scene but do not forget the ground sheet and my Mackintosh Squares are invaluable for damp patches. A canvas windbreak may be useful if you are anywhere breezy like Norfolk or Montrose. It also speaks of one who is at home in matters coastal.
One does not have to be away to be simply marvellous in summer. A thoughtful washing line creates a very good ambiance. There is nothing like one’s good whites on the line and of course giving an airing to winter coats etc is the height of Gracious Living.
Some ladies keep some special items for the washing line which are never worn. These should not be put out lightly, wantonly or unadvisedly as it may attract a certain type who steal items from the line. I am mentioning no names, but I did once see Mr Savage of Savage’s Pickles disappear through a hedge with a mouthful of clothes pegs and a pair of Kayser Bondor frillies in his hands. And he’s an Elder in the Kirk.
This is almost as bad as those men who develop an interest in bird watching in the summer. This is generally a ruse for those with much to hide who are in fact not spending much time in their hides. Why I knew an expert on the lesser spotted woodpecker, who was not spending time with his binoculars in a brushwood tent, but rather under the candlewick with a woman who was an acrobatic dancer in Billy Smart’s Circus.
Limit his hobbies to those you can monitor right from the start.
Simple Entertaining
Entertaining in the garden is the very essence of Gracious Living. Added to which if done in the name of charity, then you can appear to be the hostess with the most-tess while other people pick up the bills by contributing to the food provision and general entertainment. While this may be harder in the garden of your semi-detached, it’s still worth doing as it ticks the box for summer entertaining.
I always have a garden party for the Home for Fallen Women and Lady Pentland-Firth opens the gate of her country estate in aid of The Orphans. The cottagers enjoy the competitions – collecting coloured strands of wool from the bushes, the loveliest ankles completion (Mrs Travers has yet to come in the top three or even the bottom one), the treasure in the bran tub, fortune telling with ‘Gypsy Patience’, washing a tea towel for the ladies and nail hammering for men. These raise a great deal of money for worthy causes and I feel set the limits on the welfare state. I always do Homemade Lemonade or Elderflower from the blossoms collected in my own fair hands or rather those of Mrs Travers but it’s the same thing really. Although Mrs Travers’s hands look as if they have done a fair days work in the blacksmiths, despite the tin of Atrixo I provide annually as a token of my appreciation.
There is nothing quite like afternoon tea in the garden where else are the tinkle of tea cups put to such good effect as they merge with the bird song and the trickle of the river at the bottom of the garden. It is the setting for wonderful conversations, usually about plants. Do not worry if you have no idea about the difference between a hybrid tea or a floribunda, let alone a shrub or a rambling rector. The point is neither does anyone else, one just uses the words like “euphorbia” and gazes into the middle distance saying “of course we saw it at Chelsea a few years ago”.
Anything that is not right in the garden is blamed on the gardener who comes for a few hours every week and is “not a patch on his father.” When guests leave you, present them with some of your produce as you have “so much one just does not know what to do with it.” They disappear envious of your horticultural expertise and full of ginger bread with paper bags of Ayrshire potatoes and punnets of home grown gooseberries. You, of course, have nothing for yourselves and have recourse to the green grocer but the magic is done. Everyone knows you are having a simply marvellous summer of Gracious Living filled with homemade lemonade , home grown gooseberries and their envy is palpable.
“Muriel the Librarian brought me Bowell’s London Journal, it’s a bit salacious in parts but good summer reading she thinks. Oh and by the way, the gooseberries are nearly ready.
“How do you know?”
“The rooks are talking”
“How else? Silly me!”
“I do like summer. Aren’t we lucky Muriel?”
Muriel Wylie
Midsummer, June 1959
Copyright © 2023 Artemis Scotland - Website by Sensor Studios
