As Posh As Possible

There was absolutely no doubt that from the time I was three or four years old I was determined to sound as posh as was humanly possible. I now lie the blame for this uncommon youthful obsession entirely at the feet of the BBC and the fact that in the first part of the 1940s my mother spent a great deal of time listening to what was then called the Wireless and urging me to shush whilst she did so. Bored three year olds are not especially good at observing prolonged periods of silence, at least I wasn’t. The soothing tones of John Snagge and Alvar Liddell rapidly became as reassuring as the rather less attractive timbre of my closest relatives and if it had been possible I would have followed Snagge wherever he chose to lead me. Sadly he was totally unaware of my existence.

I did make some attempt to tone down what I fondly imagined was my totally authentic newfound Poshness when in conversation with close family and neighbours from the lower part of York Road but these attempts were not always consistent. When I started school and became dazzled by what seemed to me to be a veritable swathe of upper class teaching staff I reserved my very finest BBC accent for them and relaxed considerably with my fellow pupils. This resulted in the staff deciding that I was quite clearly an adopted child as it was obvious I had not been brought up by the woman who claimed to be my mother, and the children avoiding me as much as possible. My observant and much hated cousin George from the Waterdales Hendys told me I was a Big Head and his sister Connie said that wasn’t really true – I was just a bit Snooty. Their mother, Aunt Lou, an anxious woman on account of her many children advised that her formidable husband, Uncle Walter, had commented more than once that I was becoming High and Mighty and you had to wonder how my poor father who would soon return from fighting a war would think of that. We were all very much in awe of Uncle Walter and so this caused my mother to look at me nervously and later tell me to try to speak properly like everybody else. The last thing I intended was to sound like everybody else and so I was quite elated at my vocal success. Becoming Posh had turned out to be remarkably painless!

Once I learned to read and was able to delve into the lives of Enid Blyton’s unashamedly middle class families simply being possessed of acceptable and perhaps even correct vowel sounds was not good enough. I wanted to be the sort of person who exclaimed -Rather! on a regular basis and had Wizard Summer Hols. Of course the downside of all this role-play though theoretically harmless was that my St Botolph’s classmates maintained their distance. I didn’t mind too much as the urge to use words like Spiffing more than compensated. Molly from number 31 York Road remained my friend throughout these rather troubled times and simply told me in a very adult manner that Enid Blyton didn’t suit everybody but it was clear she was helping me to make a rod for my own back.

With the passage of time the desire to sound Posh got worse rather than better and I longed to be the kind of young person who referred to situations as either Jolly Good or Beastly. I dreamed of conversations that would include me being able to say someone was a Frightful Bore or that an event was Simply Thrilling. I desperately desired to attract a boyfriend who would describe me as Rather Ravishing or tell his friends that I was a Brick. The closest I came to reaching these lofty heights was meeting a duffle-coated young man who worked as a trainee reporter for the Kent Messenger and said things like Feeling Seedy after a night out drinking when he apparently got Pretty Tight. As our eyes met over cappuccinos in the newly opened coffee bar in Harmer Street I almost felt it might turn out to be love at first sight. His name was John and I still recall his exact tone when he said Bad Luck Old Thing and called me A Fearful Ass though why the comments were made is lost in the mists of time. It soon became apparent that apart from his oh so desirable way of expressing himself we actually had very little in common which he seemed to work out pretty quickly and when he was forced to introduce me to his mother shopping in Chiesemans one Saturday afternoon she apparently confirmed the very sensible assumption he had made. At the time I felt this was a shame because I would have been more than prepared to accept that we didn’t have to be the perfect couple as long as his conversation continued to be peppered with upmarket phrases. However it was clearly not to be.

I frequented Harmer Street less especially once John acquired a girlfriend called Felicity who had attended a boarding school. But the longing for a more elegant and genteel life did not leave me. However, mostly during those difficult teen years I confined myself to saying Gosh or Golly a lot which only caused minimal disgruntlement from others and the York Road neighbours who had known me all my life barely noticed. It took many years for the desire to join the upper classes diminished entirely and somewhat sadly I never managed to do so. However, I did receive one offer of marriage from a decidedly upper crust suiter called Edwin who told me he would be Frightfully Honoured if I would consent to being his wife. I vaguely considered him but admit to being put off by what he described as his Beastly sexual practices.

The Undeniable Glamour of Life Before the Virus .....

The Virus burst upon us without as much warning as we would have liked and immediately changed our thinking. There seems to be no argument about that.

In 2020 our lives have been on display more blatantly than any other time in history. Not simply rites of passage such as weddings and christenings and 21st birthday parties, but casual catch-ups with school friends, new shoes and holidays diligently documented, snapped and photo’d relentlessly so that all and sundry might be made aware how over-flowingly bounteous our lives were! Possibly not surprising since it would appear that the young at least are blessed with more disposable income than those of previous generations. Where their parents might have rewarded themselves with a regular Friday evening curry or pizza, their sons and daughters add breakfast out on Sunday mornings into the mix without a thought. As a result today’s four and five year olds have become totally familiar with Eggs Benedict served with a side of Prosciutto. What culinary progress has been made – and there was I back in the 1960s congratulating myself for exposing my first born to a very occasional Sunday lunch at Isows in Brewer Street. The tots breakfasting in style in Parnell Road, Auckland, New Zealand would undoubtedly look askance at such a meagre treat. Predictable since we oh so easily become accustomed to extravagance.

We know all this because it seems that every meal taken outside of the family home is almost guaranteed to end up on Facebook or similar social media sites together with a cryptic comment ensuring that friends and family can be reassured that the consumer and their offspring are still enjoying a life of ease and abundance. Even the stalwart few still given to throwing occasional lunch parties have been seen to furtively photograph the food before calling guests to the table.

When I was a child the most fortunate among us took holidays at Butlins or a rented chalet in Sheerness whilst our less prosperous neighbours were glad to spend a few days stripping raspberries or picking cherries and small black and white snaps of any of such eventualities would invariably appear at some later stage to be passed around and admired. We more sophisticated enthusiasts of the swinging sixties opted for weekends in Paris or Amsterdam and made sure Kodak in Colour recorded every detail with easily identified landmarks in the background. Meanwhile those we hoped were green with envy stayed at home and took shots of each other posing languidly against recently acquired second hand family cars. Although we now apprehensively ate out occasionally we were disinclined to ensure there was photographic evidence of the event no matter how much we would have enjoyed the final result to display to the world.

We undeniably expected to be envied for our fast lane lifestyles, keenly evidenced by the advent of Slide Evenings thrown by those who had invested in the kind of photographic equipment that now lies abandoned under the stairs of ever second newly converted terrace house from Bristol to Brighton. Newly married cousin Margaret who had recently discovered Continental travel was an early fan of the Slide Soiree and those invited were treated not only with undeniable proof of her exploration of the sights of Paris and Brussels but also cubes of cheese and pineapple on toothpicks together with glasses of sweet sherry. My mother was never known to turn down an invitation to the smart new house in Vicarage Drive but at the same time commented that these days Margaret seemed to have more money than sense and that was a fact. At the same time the Slide Shower remained her favourite niece and her dedicated aunt became the family baby sitter with enormous enthusiasm.

In New Zealand in the 1970s Fast Lives went to a different level as I witnessed the young families who thought nothing of flying off to Pacific Islands for Winter Breaks or perhaps unencumbered by small fry, jetted to Sydney to shop and take in a show. The realization that these lavish lifestyles deserved to be on display was rapidly apparent somewhat later when all and sundry acquired video cameras with which to document their children’s progress through ballet school or violin classes.
The advent of the internet together with phones equipped with cameras brought a leap forward of unprecedented proportion, allowing every morning coffee and croissant to be recorded for posterity.

Oh what untroubled lives we led before the Coming of the Virus!

The Truth Behind Plagues of Parakeets

A great deal of quite colourful language has been lost over the years and I suppose we have to accept this fact because we all know that over time language changes – if it did not reliably do so we would all still be speaking Chaucer’s English. Unlike my grandmother, few women of her ilk these days are regularly about to be Struck Pink or Knocked Down by a Feather. Her only son, my ever jovial Uncle Edgar always became Ticketty Boo when he’d had a couple of pints at the Jolly Farmers and he mystifyingly went off to See a Man About a Dog several times each week despite the fact that the canine never eventuated. His daughter Daphne confided that he had never been known to harbour any true fondness for dogs and the closest she got to any family pet was the Ring Necked Parakeet he brought home from the pub one Friday evening. She even wondered if it had been exchanged for the much discussed dog and for a while made a decision not to like it as a protest. Aunt Mag sensibly commented that at least it had come complete with cage which had saved a lot of trouble because a bird without a cage amounted to a bloody nuisance. Parakeets were still something of a novelty and buyers were warned they could be dangerous. There might have been something in that as we now know they are said to terrorise whole neighbourhoods descending in flocks to alarm small children in local parks.

My mother was eventually to blame the Great Storm of 1987 for the aerial bombardment of Wallis Park, and said Northfleet had become a Dead and Alive Place and that was a fact. She did not subscribe to the idea that a number of pop stars might be to blame for the problem. However, this was all to come and back in 1949 she was still talking about old Mr Bassant next door knowing his onions when it came to mending a door frame or changing a fuse. Somehow or other I realized that the onions under discussion were not those very same ones he grew on his allotment.

This vast array of now almost forgotten expressions was part of an accepted web of communication that all children growing up in the Thameside towns of North Kent were totally familiar and comfortable with. We all knew that Bob was our Uncle and Fanny was our Aunt. We accepted that Brass Monkeys had a lot to do with low temperatures. Cock Ups were not in any way lewd and we didn’t whine for attention when we knew the adults around us were Knackered. A Nod was always as good as a Wink and some people could be As Keen as Mustard. Little Birds often informed my mother and aunts on vital information and there was a lot of excitement locally if someone decided to Have a Do. In fact with neighbourly help general preparations could be carried out in Two Shakes of a Gnat’s Whisker.

Along with this disappearing argot a lively collection of ethnic slurs that would today horrify were apt to effortlessly trip off the tongue and we were largely unaware of the racist connotations. Those racial groups being maligned also seemed mostly oblivious to insult and cheerfully accepted being known as Jocks and Micks and Krauts. It was some time before I fully understood the latter term because it seemed to spring out of nowhere following the war years, completely sweeping away Hun, its fully comprehended predecessor.

Old Nan, always at the forefront where offensive conduct was concerned, was unembarrassed to refer to the local jeweler as a Kike and to the new Jamaican immigrants as Coons which looking back was a line her daughters seemed reluctant to cross. To my grandmother this lexicon was merely useful descriptive language and she might well have expressed considerable surprise to be reprimanded for it. Throughout my childhood when faced with an uncooperative grandchild she would dole out a hefty clip around the ear and tell us we were being Proper Tartars or Right Bleeding Brahmans! She would have been quite unaware that the former are an ethnic group still living in the Volga-Ural region and that the vast majority of them are Muslim. Nor would she have cared. As for the latter, where she acquired the term Brahman remains a mystery but she certainly would have been unaware of the fact that they are considered the highest Hindu caste and responsible for teaching and maintaining sacred knowledge. To her a Brahman was simply an uppity child in need of stern rebuke coupled with a thick ear. My brother, once he had become fully involved in the dissection of family history, decided that her frequent use of the term had something to do with the fact that her own mother had been born in India and thus would have brushed against the caste system at one time or another. How much validity this supposition had is debatable but it would be interesting to know where some of the more extravagant terms and phrases used by Old Nan Constant actually came from.

In these more progressive times when the morbidly obese object to being described as Overweight and those lacking vision can no longer safely be called Blind, one can only view with amazement what the average man/woman/person in the street once got away with. In primary school playgrounds Asian children had long been immune to being described as Chinks, Nips or Japs and would have been unlikely to be affronted. Even the youngest among us understood such terms and for most of us they simply indicated an acceptance that a particular group might differ from the majority but were still safely part of the larger community.

There was surprisingly little confusion although I can recall asking my father what the difference was between a Wop and a Wog at the age of about seven and him explaining that a Wop was simply another word for an Italian and a Wog was a more general term for someone with a dark skin. There was no sharp intake of breath coupled with a look over the shoulder, no speaking in a hushed whisper. He died in late 1951 and would have been perplexed if told that within a relatively short space of time the word Eskimo would have developed unpleasant connotations and that the Englishmen who had served alongside him in the Eighth Army most of whom had grown quite fond of being called Limeys were beginning to feel slighted when described as Poms. He would have been bewildered to be told that Cretins and Cripples no longer existed along with Imbeciles and that referring to those from Pakistan as Pakkis was a definite No-No!

There is nothing very surprising about any of this but losing language that was once fully integrated within a functioning society can surprise and startle and leave the speaker groping for alternatives. Who could have anticipated that the expression No Can Do would become clearly contemptuous of the manner in which the immigrant Chinese once used English? And could men like my father have possibly foreseen that Long Time No See holds the Native Americans’ traditional greeting up to scorn and ridicule? Could my mother have taken seriously the fact that by using one of her most favoured invectives – Bugger, she was actually referring to Bulgarian sodomites? And how would she have reacted if called upon to explain herself for describing Little Old Maudie from a few doors along as Feeble Minded? After all everyone knew Little Old Maudie was Feeble Minded and that’s precisely why her neighbours looked out for her and made sure she wasn’t exploited by Them Buggers involved in doorstep selling.

A great deal has been lost along with swathes of now unacceptable terminology but the campaigners for its demise are clearly more absorbed with the possible suffering of those who might find parts of it offensive for an increasing number of reasons. Customs and traditions linked to a disappearing way of life are of minor importance and in the overall scheme of things who can argue about that?

What in the first place might have instigated this now rampant aversion to once acceptable language is already lost to legend and when it is discussed a range of outlandish theories are offered. Perhaps there is some similarity in the origin of Britain’s Plagues of Parakeets – was it Jimi Hendrix releasing a breeding pair called Adam & Eve? Or George Michael? Or was the real culprit Humphrey Bogart? Did the birds simply escape from the set of The African Queen? New research, however, reveals that Parakeet sightings actually date back to the 1880s and one study reports that it was actually 1855!
I daresay we will never know the truth.