‘In Search of Charm’ by Mary Young. This book should have
been returned to Palatine Secondary School library in 1970. Oops, my mistake,
but now that I’ve dug it out from one of my many bookcases, I think I’ll read
it again and see how the world has changed fifty odd years on. At school, we
were encouraged to walk properly upright, shoulders back, no slouching.
Deportment included doing this carrying a book on our heads. This was the sort
of thing covered in the book. I remember learning the correct way to open and
close a door when entering or exiting a room. I also remember that it was
considered acceptable to smoke on a train, but not on a bus, and certainly not
outside on the street. This was all aimed at girls becoming ladies. I’ve no
idea what the boys did, if anything. They continued to charge about like apes.
I was an impressionable fifteen year old in 1970. I idolised
Twiggy, though all I had in common with her was incredibly skinny legs and an
eye for fashion. I didn’t have her gorgeous face, still don’t. I was a young
lady, behaving mostly in a lady-like manner. I loved my trips to stay with
family in London which would always include a visit to Carnaby Street where I
would look for something delicate and floaty to wear. And beads, they were my
signature accessory.
It’s obvious to me now, as a mature, hopefully lady-like woman,
that I grew up in a time when girls were being trained, if that’s the right
description, to become good wives. My aunt told me that the way to a man’s
heart was through his stomach. I get by, but I’m not the Cordon Bleu that she
once was. Luckily, I married a man who is an excellent cook and perfectly
capable of making a delicious meal. Presenting ourselves as easy on the eye by
looking nicely groomed was important, too. Um, for self-esteem, first.
A friend of my mother’s had a fascinating charm bracelet
that gave me such joy to look at. It was gold and stuffed with many charms. Something
had a folded ten-shilling note inside, something else a pound note. I’d never
remember it all, but I loved looking at it and finding things I’d previously
missed. It must have been worth a small fortune and it must have been really
heavy. Just something that has stuck in my memory.
I expect that re-reading ‘In Search of Charm’ will fill me
with horror. Women are equal. We can come out of the kitchen. I had my own
mortgage when I was single.
I chose this poem because I liked it.
Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air,
Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair,
Then thrice three times tie up this true love’s knot,
And murmur soft ‘She will, or she will not.’
Go burn these pois’nous weeds in yon blue fire,
These screech-owl’s feathers and this prickling briar,
This cypress gathered at a dead man’s grave,
That all my fears and cares an end may have.
Then come, you fairies! Dance with me a round;
Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound.
In vain are all the charms I can devise:
She hath an art to break them with her eyes.
Thomas Campion (1567 – 1620)
Thanks for reading, Pam x
