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- Anita Burgh
- I am a writer - late developer since I wasn't published until I was 50. I have now written 23 novels, numerous short stories and articles.
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Monday, 24 November 2014
What is good
taste? As someone who married, as it is
so quaintly put, out of my class, it was something that for far too long
bothered me. Young as I then was, I was
concerned, out of all proportion that I should not choose things that were in
bad taste. My snobby in-laws automatically assumed that I would not have any
idea of culture or social values and behavior.
“How,
with her background, could she possibly know what is acceptable and what is
not,” they
muttered behind my back - with satisfaction, not sympathy. There were times when I am sure they
semaphored gleefully to each other that I had made yet another social gaffe,
taste or otherwise, for they had no intention of telling me. It became quite a hobby with them.
It
would be nice to think that this was just something that happened long ago;
that such snobbery was past. But you
have only to think of the Essex girl jokes that still pop up to know that such
attitudes continue. And now we have -
Elections, White Van, St George and Rochester – there’s no need to say more.
However, something else has
happened. To the old class differentials
have been added another - you have to be ‘cool’ to belong. You have to know what to wear, eat, say,
enjoy. It’s like a club to which new members
are not welcome, which has a set of rules that mark you as belonging. And, be assured, no one is going to enlighten
you if your face doesn’t’t fit.
As
in my time the areas remain the same.
Food is one, and how it is eaten another. Jokes about fish knives still abound. Say serviette and you are still labeled
immediately. And just think of the
constantly changing fashions in food - mascarpone, balsamic vinegar, polenta
etc. Invariably when I’m taken out in London these days I
have to ask what many things on the menu are - thus ensuring that I am regarded with pity, by my ‘with it’ acquaintances. The very act of asking sets you apart - it
just is not done to show you are ignorant.
If you admit you like scampi and chips or worse chicken in a basket, or
that you prefer your veg cooked and not al dente you are marked as a NOS - not
our sort (the codes of my day are still in use. MIF - milk in first - is
another I have recently heard still being used.) Why on earth should one be criticized
for eating what one likes, why can’t you be chary of ‘foreign’ food? Heavens! Most foreigners show a deep and
abiding suspicion of our food, so why is it so chic immediately to like
something that’s often
ordinary fare elsewhere?
Years
ago white shoes and handbags were deemed beyond the pale - no lady would wear
such offending articles – the late Princess Margaret did, bless her. I thought that one had gone, but no, only the
other day, in a scathing fashion article, I read that - white shoes and Essex girls go hand in
glove, and therefore are tasteless. But
what is nicer than a young woman, with nice legs and a glowing tan looking lovely
in her white stilettos? Am I alone?
Blue
eye shadow - wear it at your peril!
Princess Diana wore it constantly, but, come to think of it, there were
quite a few snide remarks about her when she did. So why is someone who prefers it laughed out
of court: who was it that suddenly decided it was unfashionable? Who was he or she, I’d like to know. A smart young woman told me in the nicest
possible way that my blue eye shadow was not on, ‘Why?’ I asked. She had no answer, just that it if one wanted
to be stylish it was never worn. ‘But it’s grey,” I pointed out. Oh, that’s all right then, I was astonished
to hear her reply. Could anything be
sillier?
Fabrics
show taste apparently. Man made -
ghastly; plastic - appalling. Natural -
divine! Is it? If I wear silk or linen I look a creased mess
within minutes, I for one am thrilled at the expertise of the manufacturers
these days when it’s hard to tell until you read the label. And who is the guru who declares which
trainers are ‘in’ which ‘out’, involving parents in endless
frustration and expense. Is someone with
vested interests taking us all for a ride?
If
you like a painting that is reproduced a thousand times, for example Constable’s The Hay Wain, or Shepherd’s elephants, you are sadly lacking
in artistic appreciation. Who says? A pile of dung is more artistically valid? Oh p.l.e.a.s.e!
Television
is another minefield. Have you noticed
how many claim never to watch and yet know all the latest catch phrases? I was once sneered at for being a Coronation
Street addict - but of course that is now a cult programme and has become
acceptable. I must be guilty of inverted
snobbery since I rarely watch it these days.
A
friend of mine who prides herself on her sophisticated and exquisite taste in
all things was telling me about a black and white film she had seen, it was in
Polish and about miners, her description was vague to say the least.
“It sounds boring to me,” I commented.
“Ah, but it had sub-titles.”
‘So?
Does that make it less boring?”
“It makes it genre,” she purred.
Admit
to liking ‘The
Sound of Music,’ and wait for the sniggers.
When
I lived in France I often asked visitors, travelling from England, to pick up a
copy of Hello! Magazine for me. As often
as not they said, “You don’t read that thing, do you?”
So how come every copy that arrived had obviously been read from cover
to cover? Closet Hello readers to a man.
And
the home? Dadoes were out, then in, now
out again as they appear in ordinary people’s homes. Austrian blinds the same. As for three piece suites - want to be
regarded as with it, abounding in good taste - best ditch it. And we won’t go into ducks on walls, loo paper
holders, bathmats shaped like feet - one could go on and on.
We
haven’t even
touched on language with its ‘pardons’ out and ‘what’s?’ in.
Its looking glasses instead of mirrors, its sofas and not settees. Once when my husband’s terrifying grandmother
visited I had laid the table with infinite care. The knives and forks were lined up, in order,
like soldiers. I placed the dessert spoon and fork across the top of the
setting. Perfection I thought.
“I was unaware you were running an
hotel,’ she said, removing the spoon and fork; she made room for them with the
others. I was flummoxed since I did not
know what she was talking about. Later my
husband explained to me that my way was how a restaurant would lay a table. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “I didn’t think it was important,” he
sensibly replied. She stayed the week
and each meal we had the same ritual, I put them where I wanted them to be, and
she altered them to what she wanted. It
was a form of a truce.
Who
decides these things? Where do such
rules and regulations come from? Who
originally had the audacity to tell people what they should and shouldn’t like, use, say or do? I wish I could meet them on a dark night for
all the anguish they caused me when young and scared of putting a foot
wrong. What does upset me is that it is
still bothering folks, those who, like me, felt out of their depth and insecure. The number of times people ask me what is
right and what is wrong. It is depressing.
I
feel like starting a club - the Ants - the Anti Taste Society. Whose members join me in eating what they
want, dressing how they choose, admire what they like, say what they please .
On my wall
is a set of, no not flying ducks but flying elephants and in my garden - horror
of horrors to my taste obsessed friends - garden gnomes lurk! Come join me.
This article first appeared in the CGA.
Sunday, 10 August 2014
What
is Looitis? It’s a reasonable question for, though many
suffer from it, often they are unaware that
they do. Basically it is a fear if being
loced in the lavatory. All my life I
have been afflicted with looitis. It can strike anywhere, abroad or at
home. As I grow older it is getting
worse which is a constant source of amusement to friends and family.
I have lost count of the Gents I have
mistakenly entered sometimes with quite an aggressive response, no doubt they
think I am interested in their dangly bits – as if?
Old ladies, in extremis hurl themselves at
me. The police were nearly called to a
German Beer Cellar after I had blundered into the Gents for the fifth
time! It’s not simply the locks I can
prove to be death to the interiors too.
Taps have a tendency to come off when I touch them and the resultant
flooding leads to unpopularity. I broke
a loo pan once by standing on it in a vain attempt to see if anyone could rescue
me – those cubicles are quite small and claustrophobia can easily set in. Hand dryers die on me. And I have to abandon any loo which has
revolving doors – you don’t want to know!
Recently I was at the BRI hospital in
Bristol – a wonderful and caring institute.
The call of nature became evident.
A nurse insisted on guiding me though I said I could manage. There in all its porcelain splendor stood the
Disabled Loo, the sight of which gladdens the heart of anyone who is the least
bit handicapped.
“If you get into difficulties press the
orange button,” she said as she left. I
locked the door.
I do wish that the disabled were consulted
as to where and what they needed. This
was a prime example – the grab bars were virtually useless since they were too
short, the loo paper was impossible to access given it was too far back. The floor covering was slippery and with the
short grab handles getting up was difficult – so I removed a shoe which always
helps. Slowly but surely I became
upright. Putting out a hand for my crutch I knocked it flying across the
room. At this point zap the lights went
off.
I couldn’t find my shoe, despite being sure
I knew where it was but this search inadvertently made me move away from the
security of the toilet. Fortunately I felt the tap and hung onto it for dear
life accidently pushing it so that a jet of water shot out to soak me and make the
floor wet and more slippery.
This
incident made me jump back – well not jump exactly but made me shuffle further
into the room which, incidentally, was huge! Losing contact with the bog and
the basin made me feel even more vulnerable. Where was my crutch – please
behave, I have heard every crutch joke there is. Panic began to grow, I could be here for a long
time, had no one not noticed . . . and then the light went back on.
The cool cat – well, I like to think I am
- who had gone in was no more, instead a wild eyed, wet, OAP with one shoe on
effusively thanked the nurse who appeared in a flurry.
“Why didn’t you pull the orange alarm?” she
asked.
“I would have had I been able to see it!”
“You should have moved about more, the
light wouldn’t go off then.”
“I was virtually doing a bloody tango . .
.’
Supported by the nurse I re-entered the
waiting room to a chorus of “Three old ladies got locked in the lavatory . . .” I pretended to be amused . . One friend upon
being told of my adventure wittily pointed out – with a schoolboy snigger -
that having a Motion Sensor Light really IS a joke.
Rereading
this I realise it doesn’t beat the time I sat on a special loo seat tor the
disabled. Settling down it suddenly took
off and with me hanging on for dear life shot across the bathroom floor as if
we were on the Cresta Run!
Sunday, 27 July 2014
Many of the
events of history are nearer than we think.
Take the first World War, it has always been in the background of my
life – stories of relatives who survived and those who didn’t. I’d read the poems and wept over them and Goodbye
to All That – by Roert Graves, a
great book.
I toured the cemeteries of France, my
fascination with the history made more real.
July 1st, 1972 we found ourselves, by accident, having a
picnic on the front line of the Somme offensive but also on the very
anniversary of its start. We all shivered as history clustered around us – the
dawn start, by nightfall 20,000 of our soldiers dead. ‘That’s only 56 years ago.” My eldest son had worked out.
“And Ma, only 21
years before you were born” I told him
no to be ridiculous, he wasn’t it was
true. History is old, history is ages
away, but you know, it’s not!
Between the wars,
in 1922 my father, got talking to an old man outside a pub in Bourton on the
Water. Asked what he did, he replied he
was in the navy. “Then this will
interest you. You see, my father fought
at the Battle of Trafalgar.”
At first my father was cynical but then
working out the dates it became clear that it could be true. Dad was born in 1900 so 95 years separated him
from the battle. The old man was, it
transpired, in his mid-nineties. He
would have been born in approx. 1827 so
his tale was likely to be true. So I
knew a man, who met a man, who was sired by a veteran of Trafalgar.
Now for the story
of the ring. In the late 50s I admired a
ring worn by my husband’s grandmother who was a very imperious woman. The ring was made of two large pearls, one
pink and one black. “Would you like to try it on?” Would I?
“It was Marie Antoinette’s.” she announced as if possessing such an
object was routine. I too was cynical.
“How do you know it was?” In retrospect this was rather rude of me.
“Because when I was a very young gal, I
knew a very old woman whose mother had been lady in waiting to the Queen – it
was a present from her.” This was
accompanied by a withering look of such ferocity that I vowed never to question
anything she said, ever!
I should have asked for her name but
even without I think it is true.
Phyll Burgh was born in 1877 so she was
separated from the Queen’s death by 84 years.
She said she was very young and the gift was from a very old lady -why
didn’t I ask how old they both had been?
If the Queen’s attendant was young did she marry and become a mother
after the execution of Marie Antionette?
If so, it is feasible.
And the ring? Was I left it? Sadly no.
As she grew older she became very vague and no one knows what happened
to it. I just hope that whoever has it
knows its story.
If any of you
have had these brushes with history, please tell us.
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