Hats off to that lost age of good manners

Aunique cache of letters will be coming up for sale this week. They were handwritten by the Queen over the space of 25 years to her milliner, Philip Somerville. One remark made by Her Majesty stands out: “I must be the only person who wears hats constantly.” With the death of the Queen Mother that much is true of the female sex. It is not, alas, true of the male of the species, many of whom (usually under the age of 30) seem permanently welded to that least attractive item of headgear, the baseball cap. All right, so I’m old and crusty, but having spent my childhood in an age when men’s hats of seemingly infinite variety were worn with frequency, I do bemoan the demise of hat etiquette: tilting – or “doffing” – it when encountering a lady, and removing it indoors. Does it matter? Well, in the general scheme of things, perhaps not, but it is, I reckon, the last vestige of that bow delivered by Mr Darcy to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, which seemed worthy of the curtsy in return. What brought these To cap it all: baseball caps worn indoors raise temperatures among many feelings to the surface was an overnight stay in a hotel with a film crew. We sat down to supper at a long table in a room filled with other diners. One of our number (late 20s, I suspect) was wearing a baseball cap. He was a perfectly pleasant and otherwise good-mannered soul. He didn’t slurp his soup or talk with his mouth full. But the cap remained in place until we all retired to bed (I assume he didn’t sleep in it but can’t be certain). I’m sure it wasn’t an intentionally impolite gesture, but it did sadden me that the wearer was oblivious to the fact that anyone would find it…well, offensive is too strong a word, but men’s hats worn indoors still, after all these years, make me feel uncomfortable. We read much about the historical advisers to period television dramas and their perfectionist quest for accuracy. And yet even they seem better at depicting manners from the Georgian and Victorian eras than they do from the first half of the 20th century. Perhaps they assume that manners did not matter then, but they did, most especially to the working classes. How often have you seen men in dramas set between 1900 and 1960 walking into a house with their hat on? It simply wasn’t done. It came off as one crossed the threshold, not six feet inside the house. They also dressed to suit the occasion. When I was in conversation recently with someone who lived in an English village, they expressed their surprise when the titled folk from “the big house” brought their child to morning service to be christened. The event was a cause for celebration but some of the guests were clad in jeans and T-shirts (cue sharp intakes of breath from the over-60s and howls of derision from anyone born after 1970). But I don’t want to go on about it. Instead, let me extol the virtues of men’s hats other than those designed for baseball. Tweed caps are much more fun and far warmer. Felt wide-brimmed hats give a chap a touch of the buccaneer, and there is no shortage of styles and colours. Hat shops abound in London, and there will be a fine selection at any country outfitters. Now there’s a term. I shouldn’t think “outfitters” sell baseball caps. So come on, chaps. Summer will be here soon and there are plenty of straw hats – Panamas, boaters and all shapes and sizes in between – that are far more fun than a boring baseball cap with NY on the front. But whatever you wear on your head, when you go indoors, TAKE IT OFF!