Many people take damaging avoiding action rather than confront the problem. Let’s not have a party. It’s too humiliating when half the intended guests don’t answer the invitation and the other half say they’ll come but either don’t show up at all or arrive at least two hours after the whole miserable occasion is supposed to have started. Let’s not invite people round mid-week. They’ll all come at least an hour late and then never leave. We’ll have to crawl through the rest of the week on our hands and knees with exhaustion.
It’s time to act before we descend into anarchy and inner paralysis, and social life dwindles to nothing. What we need are modern manners. You can have modern manners without turning into Colonel Blimp strutting up and down and finding fault. Modern manners aren’t old manners. Modern manners are rational and liberating. They say, ‘Do what makes sense,’ and forget the rest. Don’t worry about things that don’t matter very much. It’s extraordinary how many people are still anxious about which cutlery to use (according to Cecil Beaton even the Queen Mother glanced anxiously to see what others were doing), how to pronounce certain words, what to wear. The British, especially, live in unnecessary dread of giving offence and not being good enough. If I take a bottle, will the hosts be offended? We couldn’t possibly ask them back, they’re such marvellous cooks and we can only manage M & S. And then there’s guilt – I’d better drag on and on with this phone call because I don’t quite like to say I’ve got something else I need to do urgently.
Let’s be free of all this. It’s so much easier to ‘move on’ at a party, or to end one of those exchanges of text messages that could go on for ever, if you can get rid of the guilt. Why feel guilty? It’s quite natural to want to talk some of the other people at the party, and conversations have got to come to an end at some point.
And while we’re about it, there’s another prison we could break out of. Why not say, ‘Actually, it’s not absolutely perfect and ideal and wonderful that you’re an hour late/never replied to the invitation/said you’d come but didn’t.’ Modern manners mean you can find nice cheerful ways of casting off the shallow mask of manner. Say what you really think. Be bold. And when your friends all turn up on time for your party because you’ve rather suggested that they might and the whole thing gets going with a swing and everybody’s happy, they’ll thank you for it.
Where to begin? ‘Good morning,’ ‘Thank you,’ pushing and shoving – among other things
Dreadful, dreadful – let’s rave on like Colonel Blimp, such fun! It’s frightful out on the streets. Surely a new Ice Age of bad manners is nigh? There are the litter bugs, the pushers and shovers, the bellowers, the swearers – and that’s just a start.
What about this dreadful episode? The other day Matt Lawson, forty-three, assistant financial director of a company that publishes trade magazines (Dumper Truck Today is a big seller) held the door open for a nice, middle-aged, vaguely spinsterish woman as she was coming out of a department store in Peterborough and, would you believe it, she stalked straight through the door as if there was nobody there?
Matt says this happens all the time, not just in Peterborough but also in London where he works. ‘It would be nice if they said thank you,’ he says, ‘but what can you do? That’s how people are.’
In the genteel cathedral city of Worcester a similar thing happened. Some ladies failed to thank someone who had waited for them to come up a narrow stairs. In Manchester and London, queuing for the bus has been abandoned in favour of a dog-eat-dog approach.
Mrs Gibbs, eighty-five, lives in Winchester, her husband, a solicitor, long dead. ‘I don’t want to seem old-fashioned,’ she begins. ‘But I’m sorry to say, people are in such a hurry. All these mothers with one child in a pushchair, several more rampaging about. They’ve got no time to take any notice of anybody. People hold doors open for me, that kind of thing. They can see I’m an old woman. But the other day I thanked someone and he grunted in this peculiar way as if to say, “That’s enough of that. I’ve done you a favour, now clear off!” Not terribly charming.’
And what about this? One of those van-type vehicles in which celebrities are conveyed was once seen parked outside a tailor’s in Spitalfields. A rumour, unconfirmed to this day, went round that David Beckham was being fitted for a suit. The van was assumed to be unoccupied except by the driver but imagine the excitement when the back door slid open and a jewelled hand, clutching a coke can and associated sandwich wrappings, emerged into view, sank graciously towards the gutter and there deposited the can. Could this have been the hand of Posh, glamorously littering the streets?
What shall we do with them? Horsewhipping? Boot camp? National Service?
Well, it may not be the end of the world, but, let’s admit it, we’ve all got something, some discourtesy that occurs in public, which we find absolutely infuriating.
It’s no good resigning yourself, like Matt, or apologising, like Mrs Gibbs. You’ve got to do something, especially if you’re one of the millions who complain about antisocial behaviour (now an election issue, as we have seen). You can’t expect the police to attend every time someone drops some litter or raises their voice.
The good old British ‘keep your head down and don’t make a fuss’ approach has had its day. Not that it ever really was that. Nothing may have been said, but the accompanying withering looks were full strength and top-notch in quality. Actors would have given anything to achieve such silent power. But nobody today is going to take any notice of a look, however withering.
If you hold a door open for someone or wait to let them pass and they don’t thank you, say loudly, ‘Thank you so much.’ In exteme cases you can pursue them and say, ‘I’m so sorry. Did you forget to thank?’ Don’t be put off by an abusive response. If enough people start doing this, the message will get through.
If you’re the person not thanking, you probably don’t mean any harm. You’re just not awake.
Always say, ‘Good morning,’ ‘Hello,’ or ‘Hi,’ to shop assistants, receptionists etc. The French do this without thinking about it. In some places, you’ll be met with astonishment or bewilderment. Don’t be discouraged. It’s the right thing to do.
If there’s no queue for the bus, just a scrum, it would be nice to think that enough people would band together to do something about it. But they probably won’t. Nevertheless there are other ways of making a fuss. Write to the local paper, complain to the council, your MP, the bus company. Don’t listen to people who sneer at the British and their eternal queues. Queues are fair and just. They’re worth fighting for.
In a crowd, few follow the example of the late Bubbles Rothermere who would beat the back of anyone in the way with her tiny fists. But many have a policy of massively increasing speed and biffing everybody else out of the way. This isn’t very nice but is less easy to resist. They’ve usually disappeared by the time you realise what has happened. Protest charmingly – ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise I was in the way’ – if you get the chance. Or just don’t get out of the way. Stand your ground and see what happens.
If you see someone dropping litter, pick it up and hand it back to them. ‘I think you dropped this.’ It sometimes works. If they turn nasty, say, ‘It’s quite all right. I’ll throw it away for you.’ Then make a run for it.
Children
In public places there are two sorts: ones who are unaccompanied, ones who aren’t.