Meeting the King of England

No, I never met the King, but here's Hampton Court, once the home of kings.

Sometimes during our childhood in the '40s, my mother would (very nicely, I might add) remind my brother and me not to hold bread in one hand while buttering it with the other but to place it on our plates and then butter it.  She also told us to sit up straight when eating, hold our utensils properly, keep our elbows off the table, and glide our spoon away from us, not toward, when eating soup.  As well, we were never to talk about being "full."  Then, when "finished" (not "done"), we were to ask to be excused from the table.

Once, when she was queried about all this, she replied, "If they ever meet the King of England, they should know these things."

I never forgot my mother's comment which seemed perfectly logical to me, not that I expected to meet the King of England, then George VI.  But I appreciated knowing good manners no matter whom I met.  Like writing thank you notes for gifts.  Or listening properly while someone spoke.  I wanted to be ready for adult life ... and these niceties were just part of that education.

I speak of this now because of the popularity of Downton Abbey where the people sit up straight, leave their elbows off the table, dress impeccably, and certainly give the impression of knowing how to meet the King if that occasion were to arise.  I think part of the popularity of this series--besides watching Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Jim Carter, and all the others do what they do so well--is seeing the innate dignity and courtesy that seemed an integral part of that era.

Somehow, we've turned sloppy.  In fact, all too often movies and TV portray sloppiness in dress and manners as being desirable.  Otherwise we're being elitist or pompous.  Horrors.  Ever since Grace Kelly's day, no American can portray royalty--or someone with proper manners--as well as the Europeans.  So, in The Princess Diaries, it's British Julie Andrews who takes over the regal role, tutoring Anne Hathaway, the klutzy young American who needs weeks of schooling before she can hold a teacup, sit without slouching, or walk properly.  (Though we like to think we speak for one's internal beauty, movies emphasize the external and our princess also needs some external tweaking:  eyebrows, hair, shoes.  And then there are those glasses!)  We are told, however, that though she (read "we") may be sloppy, she's fun.  The fun supposedly makes up for the sloppy and even supersedes it so that all those tight Brits want to copy us.  Europe is shown to come around to our way of thinking--to our junk food, our casual lifestyle so that we're teaching them something ... ha!  Just as it's Shirley MacLaine in Downton Abbey who has people sitting on the floor at her impromptu indoor picnic, supposedly enjoying themselves.  Okay, I get it.  We don't want to be stuffy.  Of course, good manners needn't be stuffy.  But I do feel it's all a slippery slope.

Getting back to the '40s--in fact, to 1940 itself--I recently came across a couple of photos from my brother's 6th birthday party.  We children were in freshly-ironed clothes.  The mothers wore stockings, heels, dresses, their hair pleasantly coiffed.  The table was adorned with an ironed heirloom table cloth, flowers in a vase, candies in a cut-glass dish, and a home-made birthday cake with fancy frosting.  All in a California patio.  And we thought life then was casual!