Unlocking a new code of conduct
cooking, entertaining and living, and their new book, subtitled A Modern Field Guide, is as thoughtful as it is joyous.
‘Manners aren’t about knowing which fork to use or which glass to use or anything like that,’ says Debora. ‘They’re about caring for each other.’
It’s why wearing a mask, keeping your distance or not going out if you’ve got Covid symptoms is, in essence, just good manners.
‘They’re a social lubricant,’ adds Kay. ‘They allow us to rub along.’
And, say the pair, if you keep this sort of thing in mind when re-emerging into the outside world, you won’t go far wrong.
‘I miss kissing and hugging my friends so much – I’m slightly terrified I’ll turn into a maniac, grabbing everyone,’ laughs Debora.
‘I won’t, but the manners part is not letting yourself do that because it’s really rude to give someone a potentially fatal illness. That’s really bad manners.’
Kay acknowledges that even just seeing someone for the first time in a long while will present a problem.
‘Do you hug?’ she asks. ‘Do you fist bump? Do you elbow bump? Do you get too close to people? Are they going to be nervous of you?’
The pair believe the answer is to address it head on.
‘It’s fine to say, “I am so happy to see you but I don’t quite know how to handle it,”’ says Debora. ‘Just don’t do that very British thing of pretending nothing is happening.’
And, she says, it’s important to realise not everyone is going to be gung-ho about getting down the pub.
‘I think what’s really unforgivable is to ridicule anybody for their hesitancy or insecurity,’ she adds. ‘That will be my only rule, really, for coming out of this – to respect other people’s feelings about how ready they are to do things.’
And those things will differ for everyone. While Debora says she ‘can’t wait for a Friday night when
I can open my front door and have a flood of people coming into my house that I can feed’, she admits that having not been on public transport for a year, that’s going to feel odd and ‘being in crowded places, that will take a while’. .
Once you’re out and about, don’t forget that we’ve all had different experiences of the pandemic, so exercise junkies will be coming face to face with people who have been comfort eating. And those who have fallen in love with their home again – or its inhabitants – will be spending time with those who very much haven’t. ‘Lockdown has been incredibly positive for some relationships but may have been incredibly troubling for others, so I think you have to be mindful of that too,’ says Kay.
What about small talk? After all this time, will we have anything to say?
‘To start with there’ll be a lot of people just saying, “Oh gosh, isn’t this weird?” And once you’ve got over that, it’ll be fine,’ says Debora.
Kay, who moved to Thailand during the middle of the pandemic, admits she ‘gabbled and drank for the first four nights but then you sort of calm down and catch up with people properly’.
And as for whether debates on such subjects as vaccination and government policy should be off limits…
‘No,’ says Debora, ‘otherwise all you end up talking about is banalities and trivialities. But it’s also OK to get to a point and say, “Well, we’re going to differ about this so perhaps we shouldn’t talk about it any more.”’
Ultimately, yes – it’s all about manners. As Kay says in the book: ‘Somewhere along the way, an idea crept into society that manners and politeness were bourgeois and at odds with “keeping it real”. This is bulls***. They’re social interactions that improve our daily lives.’
And while many of us can’t wait to get back to these social interactions, Debora has one final word of warning.
‘I think many people are going to be exhausted, like a toddler who has had 95 sweets and then crashed because they’re so excited,’ she says. ‘So I think we’re going to have to get into the habit of giving people a bit of leeway for being overtired.’
Give a little leeway – it’s only polite.