When Harry met Meghan
Kindness, according to Walt Whitman’s buddy, the great American orator Robert G Ingersoll, is ‘‘the sunshine in which virtue grows’’.
It makes a fellow feel good whether it’s being done to him or by him (Frank A Clark).
It is loving people more than they deserve (Joseph Joubert), and also the best way to heal yourself (Lady Gaga).
Prince Harry is clearly well endowed with it, for in a 2013 interview with Esquire magazine, an up-and-coming American actress by the name of Meghan Markle said that kindness was the No 1 quality she looked for in a man.
(If I was being unkind, I’d say that fame, fortune and the letters HRH stamped on your bespoke Smythson stationery might also hold some sway.)
Yet kindness, like compassion, chivalry, and the ability to wield a crochet hook, seems to be an unfashionable virtue, a relic from a bygone era when men routinely opened doors and women brought plates.
You’ve got to try a little kindness, sang Glen Campbell, though his fans clearly didn’t show enough kindness to get his song to the top of the Billboard charts, whereas Rhinestone Cowboy and – God forbid – Wichita Lineman both went straight to No 1.
It takes time to be kind. How much time? Roughly 1034 years, as I found out at the 74th Annual General Meeting of the South Auckland Federation of Women’s Institutes in Pukekohe. Each of the 31 branch delegates in the room had racked up an average of 33 years of service ‘‘for home and country’’.
I’d been asked along to judge the floral art, and speak on the theme of ‘‘wedded bliss’’.
‘‘How kind of you to ask,’’ I told the president, Sarajane Crookes. ‘‘Just let me check my diary in case I’m busy carrying coals to Newcastle that day.’’
I’ve only been married for seven years, whereas one of the ladies in the audience, Gwen Francis, had notched up 64 years of matrimonial harmony. ‘‘What’s your secret?’’ I asked. ‘‘Make sure you’re each the boss of your own area, with your own responsibilities,’’ replied Gwen.
(If I was, again, being unkind, I’d suggest that my husband thinks he is the boss of the chair in front of the television, whereas I’m ‘‘responsible’’ for all the cooking and cleaning.)
Consulting my speech notes, it was clear that Gwen’s relationship advice was inherently more sensible than my own checklist for an enduring union: 1. Marry a practical man. 2. Take contraceptives. 3. Grow dahlias.
Two out of three ain’t bad. My man’s pretty handy, but so are his swimmers.
We were both 35 when we met and, having been warned, a la Jacinda and Clarke, that my biological clock wasn’t accurately keeping time, I celebrated our engagement by coming off the pill and promptly got up the duff. In our wedding photos I’m already six months gone, but luckily my bumpsized dahlia bouquet hides a multitude of pre-marital sins.
When the Women’s Institute was formed in 1921, such wanton immorality would have been as frowned upon as a store-bought sponge cake, but times have changed and so has the WI. When my grandmothers were members, the local ladies would meet once a month for morning tea in the district hall, whereas our freshly minted institute in Hunua meets for posh nosh and a few bevvies at the local winery.
There are 299 Women’s Institutes around the country (find your nearest branch at wi.org.nz), with more than 5000 members.
I hope I won’t be excommunicated for saying this, but they’re not just a bunch of old fuddies tuttutting about dry fruit cakes and dropped stitches. Indeed, a group of sassy young women in Marlborough run a branch called Tea and Tarts. Their motto? ‘‘Not just jam and Jerusalem.’’
The national executive’s mandate is ‘‘to encourage and support all women within their communities’’, but I prefer the WI’s official list of aspirations, which my grandmothers not only knew by heart, but took to heart too. I’ve edited them for space and secularity, but you’ll get the gist:
‘‘Keep us from pettiness.
Let us be large in thought, word and deed. Let us be done with fault-finding and self-seeking. May we never be hasty in judgement, and always generous. Let us take time for all things good. Teach us to put into action our better impulses. And let us not forget to be kind.’’