The Lady Guide to Modern Manners: 11 October
Dear Thomas,
This year I have been disappointed yet again by significant delays in ‘Thank yous’ from newly marrieds for their wedding gifts. While the value of the gift and the relationship to the bride and/ or groom may vary, the delay in acknowledging it seems universally tardy. I fluctuate from generosity, imagining how busy they are, through to wanting to dish out a lecture on good manners.
Alison Claypole, Buxton
Dear Alison,
Your letter is timely as we have reached the end of the wedding season. No doubt many others are awaiting an avalanche of Collinses – as I call letters of thanks, after Mr Collins in Pride And Prejudice who wrote to Mr Bennet after staying a few days, ‘with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelve month’s abode in the family might have prompted’.
Newly marrieds of course take a honeymoon. On their return, what debris might they encounter? The mother of the bride still prostrate, strewn with vol-au-vents? The father in the bankruptcy court?
Then there is newly married life to be faced. You can see that it might be some time before they get round to hiring a truck to back into the loading bay at Harrods, collect the spoils of their Wedding List, view and sort at home (who gave what? ‘Only ONE plate at £60 from Aunt Sadie!’), gloat, and finally, thank.
The other thing that newly marrieds will have been doing all summer is going to the weddings of their chums. So, in one way or another, delay is inevitable, however infuriating.
But if we can’t be forbearing as two begin a marriage, then when can we be? If it’s a second or third marriage, on the other hand…
More piquant, perhaps, is not the timeliness of the thanks but the form. Will it be a pre-printed card with the blanks filled in? This is going a bit far, but remember the young (or not so young) people will have a huge number of thank-yous to send out. Don’t expect too much. There’s a limit to how many times you can say, ‘Thank you so much for your gift of one dinner plate (cost £2,000) which we’ll treasure always.’
My gripe, not necessarily with newly marrieds but with young people in general, is no thanks at all. The larger the gift, it seems, the less the chance of a glimmer of even acknowledgement. The only sign that the gift has arrived safely is when one’s vast cheque is paid in, often not promptly. If you raise the issue, they argue and answer back or are so miserable you feel awful.
What to do? Megaphone from the roof of The Lady building? I fear that the young were ever thus.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 39-40 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
In this Indian summer we’ve been having, it occurred to me there’s also the crime of rushing into autumn clothes. At The Lady literary lunch last month (can’t recommend it enough. Do book future ones) it was boiling hot in The Caledonian Club. Nevertheless, some guests were doubtful about my cream suit so far into September. No, no – push your cream and bone and taupe right into October. The climate’s changed. If you don’t get some sustained wear out of your summer clothes they’ll never wear out and you’ll never be able to get new ones.
Avoid beach brights, though. The fashion houses have tried them again and again, and they’ve never worked.
This year I have been disappointed yet again by significant delays in ‘Thank yous’ from newly marrieds for their wedding gifts. While the value of the gift and the relationship to the bride and/ or groom may vary, the delay in acknowledging it seems universally tardy. I fluctuate from generosity, imagining how busy they are, through to wanting to dish out a lecture on good manners.
Alison Claypole, Buxton
Dear Alison,
Your letter is timely as we have reached the end of the wedding season. No doubt many others are awaiting an avalanche of Collinses – as I call letters of thanks, after Mr Collins in Pride And Prejudice who wrote to Mr Bennet after staying a few days, ‘with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelve month’s abode in the family might have prompted’.
Newly marrieds of course take a honeymoon. On their return, what debris might they encounter? The mother of the bride still prostrate, strewn with vol-au-vents? The father in the bankruptcy court?
Then there is newly married life to be faced. You can see that it might be some time before they get round to hiring a truck to back into the loading bay at Harrods, collect the spoils of their Wedding List, view and sort at home (who gave what? ‘Only ONE plate at £60 from Aunt Sadie!’), gloat, and finally, thank.
The other thing that newly marrieds will have been doing all summer is going to the weddings of their chums. So, in one way or another, delay is inevitable, however infuriating.
But if we can’t be forbearing as two begin a marriage, then when can we be? If it’s a second or third marriage, on the other hand…
More piquant, perhaps, is not the timeliness of the thanks but the form. Will it be a pre-printed card with the blanks filled in? This is going a bit far, but remember the young (or not so young) people will have a huge number of thank-yous to send out. Don’t expect too much. There’s a limit to how many times you can say, ‘Thank you so much for your gift of one dinner plate (cost £2,000) which we’ll treasure always.’
My gripe, not necessarily with newly marrieds but with young people in general, is no thanks at all. The larger the gift, it seems, the less the chance of a glimmer of even acknowledgement. The only sign that the gift has arrived safely is when one’s vast cheque is paid in, often not promptly. If you raise the issue, they argue and answer back or are so miserable you feel awful.
What to do? Megaphone from the roof of The Lady building? I fear that the young were ever thus.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 39-40 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
WHAT TO DO ABOUT… DRESSING FOR AUTUMN
I’m dead against rushing into summer clothes. Intensely irritating to see shorts and beach colours on a chilly April day. Light wools and even furs (artificial, of course) are the order until well into June. Many’s the time, before political correctness, when the Queen drove up the course at Royal Ascot (often in the third week of June) in a little mink jacket for warmth.In this Indian summer we’ve been having, it occurred to me there’s also the crime of rushing into autumn clothes. At The Lady literary lunch last month (can’t recommend it enough. Do book future ones) it was boiling hot in The Caledonian Club. Nevertheless, some guests were doubtful about my cream suit so far into September. No, no – push your cream and bone and taupe right into October. The climate’s changed. If you don’t get some sustained wear out of your summer clothes they’ll never wear out and you’ll never be able to get new ones.
Avoid beach brights, though. The fashion houses have tried them again and again, and they’ve never worked.