Glad you could join me on my walk in the country this morning.
I decided that I needed a couple of days by myself at the Rural Bolt Hole. The Mrs Dangerfield episode has been quite exhausting and as Dr Payne said, “Mrs Wylie, you cannot underestimate the psychological impact of realising that another woman wanted to be you and had decided to kill you in the process.” I said that perhaps this came with the territory of being simply marvellous and an authority on gracious living in gloomy post war Britain. Dr Payne agreed this was probably the case. “However,” he added “in a life that has been totally devoted to giving, one has to realise there have to be some moments where one looks after one’s self, especially as one has only made a dent in the south side and there is much to do.” We did laugh, and he too admitted that like the father of a friend of mine he always took his passport and a picnic when venturing across the Clyde. In fact, he said he often wished he had Henry Morton Stanley for company!
I must admit that since then I have had time to reflect that I might well have been the body at the base of the Church steeple, my Rayne sling backs swinging from a yew tree and my handbag resting within the iron railings of a family burial plot. My only consolation is that my Mappin and Webb black snakeskin, with the extra noisy clasp, would have found repose on the grave slab of a landed proprietor.
As a special note of interest, a noisy clasp on a bag is part of a woman’s armoury. It can be used to great effect to signal so much. I give lessons in this of course. It goes well with my tutorial on “Fine Sitting” and forms a good basis for the advanced lecturette on “Effective Communication using the three-quarter length glove.” You see, when a woman, especially a woman who means business, speaks her mind she is regarded as “bossy”, so I find how one moves and gestures can achieve the same result by stealth. The important thing is asking yourself what you want. It is worth considering that a verbal approach, may not be the best way to achieve your strategy. Sometimes you will find that the rolling on of a pair of gloves from your finger tips to your elbow and beyond, or the snapping closed of an opened handbag indicates your extreme opposition to a point, as well as suggesting that you are probably leaving. You do not have to say a thing.
Equally, ostentatiously but slowly, removing your silk scarf from around your neck, or gently opening your handbag and removing a lace trimmed swiss handkerchief to dab the corner of your eye suggests you are not only listening, but enthralled and in agreement. You must of course do all this without taking your eyes off the speaker, even if they are as dull as dishwater. If they are men this is usually the case, although they are of course hanging on to every word they utter. As for the red duster coat that is the Sherman Tank of any operation. If nothing else you will leave a memory. Someone once said they may not like you, but they will never forget you and you will live to be a legend.
I am not sure why I am telling you this as such advice normally costs 15 guineas, although, it does come with coffee and scones, as well as foolscap Roneo-ed notes and a souvenir bookmark. Do telephone if you are interested, there are a few places left on the January course. One of my recent students is the new M.P. for Finchley who says I am her “key to cabinet”. Overly sweet, but it is good to dream. She will have to lower the pitch of her voice as sadly we have to realise that many self-important men find women’s voices too high. One can almost see them backing out of a room, as if a fire alarm has gone off and they have left a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover open at an interesting page on their desks. I think our voices remind them of their nannies and the discovery of bad behaviour in the nursery.
Dr Payne said it was a pleasure to examine a woman with café au lait coloured lingerie and that I was the sort of woman who could get a medic struck off. He did, however, rather spoil things by then suggesting I was not in the first flush of youth and needed to be aware of my limitations. He gave me a tonic for the “over fifties” which I have altered, with rub down letters, to read “thirties.”
His suggestion that I increase my iron levels has been supported by Mrs Travers, our daily woman what does, but not a lot, who has been joining me in a glass of stout of an afternoon. She said it was to keep me company and in a spirit of all girls together. In addition, her liver cooked in sherry with sage has proved to be a welcome dietary addition. Except that is for the afternoon when she rather overdid the spirit of all girls together and the liver would have been better off on a cobbler’s last. While Dr Payne was very pleased with my nice toes naughty toes exercise regime, he thought some walking might be useful and I quote, “Why Mrs Wylie don’t you combine a brisk walk with seeing how you might improve nature?”
Well said indeed, and as I walk round the Parish today, I can see immediately that there is much to be done. Mother Nature is very untidy, really, I am surprised it is not called father nature. Bunty Haystack’s leaves have not been raked up and Lottie Macaulay’s apple trees could do with a good prune. When I see them at next week’s Church Christmas Fayre, I will mention that the road that leads to anarchy can begin with a few small steps. Hopefully, this will help without appearing too rude.
Even Lady Pentland-Firth’s grand entrance is looking somewhat mossy. Young Auld Jock who attends to her garden should be ashamed of himself. I am surprised she puts up with it. Mind you the gossip in the Post Office this morning, when I raised the subject, suggested that he has her over a barrel. At least this is what Big Agnes said and she should know as her father has been attending to Patience’s old boiler for years. This resulted in some ribald comments from those cashing in their family allowance, such as “Patience is a virtue, but not that one.”
Sometimes I wonder if I was not so familiar with the ways and inhabitants of our little slice of heaven that I might regard it as somewhat eccentric. Having just bought an airmail letter to write to Jasper’s nephew Sebastian in New York where he is a thespian, (currently auditioning for Camelot with Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as Guinevere), I made to leave the Post Office when the door was banged shut by Mrs Ogilvie. It was pushed with such a force that the bell nearly came off. “Mrs Ogilvie,” I said, “I am quite sure you are desperate for your 5 shillings at the taxpayer’s expense, but the gentle tinkle of a shop bell, should be something that calms and welcomes any woman with a regulation willow basket. Unfortunately, you have managed to make the experience more like Napoleon entering the gates of Moscow.” I demonstrated to the assembled melee that shutting a door requires two hands. One on the handle, gently pulling and the other palm down, just above the handle, pushing gently in the opposite direction. This I hoped was helpful.
Unfortunately my attempt to bring some urban sophistication to the countryside was not welcomed. By the time I got to the grocer’s for a packet of Mint Imperials I heard that Mrs Ogilvie was “raging” and the assembled crowd, all benefitting from Mr Beveridge’s largesse were “devastated.” Rage and devastation are adjectives most keenly felt by the rustics. At least it was not “puir rag’in” or “dead devastated”, or I might have to consider relocation to Argyllshire and put up with suggestions that we are “nouveau.”
Perhaps it is the full moon, or the onset of “the daft days” that are December, for the odd behaviour of my country neighbours continued outside the Post Office and the Grocers. Having decided that perhaps I should avoid the crowds I walked out into the lanes towards the river. The awful smell which greeted me near the old mill was Mr Spurgeon, a keen gardener shovelling up the calling card of the milk horse while singing “If the Kirk wad lat me be.” I suggested to him that if he continued most people would let him be.
I then met Mrs Smith o’ the Brae who, being one to enjoy a good funeral, had had a particularly fulfilling week. Although she has noticed that the sausage rolls, traditionally served at the funeral tea, were, in her view, shrinking in size. This she put down to Harold Wilson. I had to agree that was a distinct possibility. I had not got much further when I met Mrs McGuigan, who is looking for wool to crotchet the Nativity full size figures for the Church Car Park. It seems she has completed the Holy Family but could do with “a bit of colour for the gold, frankincense and myrrh.” It was also of some concern that the Minister’s dog was last seen charging through the Pentland Firth Arms with the Angel Gabriel in her jaws. Mrs McGuigan thought she might be able to repair any damage done to the body, as she had 6 balls of two ply left over from her Willie’s cricket jumper. The wings were another matter as the silk was all that was left from that German parachute the rest having been made into double directoire knickers “when the Yanks came and we did all that jitterbugging, yous ken”. I had to admit I did not ken as I had never jitterbugged in my life.
I am forced to conclude that a walk in the countryside is not necessarily restful or relaxing, at least during a full moon. Perhaps I should go back to town. Talking of the Nativity reminds me that I need to pop in and see Gayle’s (our ward) headmistress. I had a note home last week from the drama and elocution teacher asking if I might help with a costume for Gayle as she is going to be a sheep. I hardly think so! The Wylies have never been sheep. I will have to remind the school that her father is one of our most promising Shakespearean actors, playing some of the best-known parts by the best- known Shakespearean playwright William Shakespeare. I also need to make sure that Jasper has ordered enough of his wrought iron magazine racks for our shop ‘Chez Nous’.
Let us just go along the river and then, having blown the cobwebs away, I will have a spot of lunch at The Pentland Firth Arms before heading back to town. It is beautiful you must agree. Thank you for your company on my walk, we must do it again, some day.
à bientôt
Muriel Wylie
December 1960
Copyright © 2023 Artemis Scotland - Website by Sensor Studios
