Remember your manners?

RAYMOND BRIGGS

GOOD MANNERS, bad manners, table manners, mind your manners ... the list goes on endlessly, but at times even mentioning the word can sound oldfashioned and even snobbish.

Each generation has a different concept and changes come ever more rapidly. Even simple things we oldies were brought up to do, such as: ‘Give up your seat to a lady’ and ‘Open a door for a lady’. These have long been knocked flat by feminism – patronising! Regarding a woman as a weaker, inferior creature in need of help, like a child. But I remember in the Fifties walking down the road from the art school with a female student I’d scarcely met as we had only just started the course. I was fifteen years old, and we were still in our first week. I was on the inside and I knew the man was supposed to walk on the outside of the lady. I was anxiously thinking about this as we walked along. It seemed an absurd botheration to change over, particularly as we were both carrying portfolios and bags. I’d just decided not to do it, when the little madam said: ‘Would you mind walking on the outside?’ Obediently, I trotted round and took up my correct position, to protect this delicate flower from the passing traffic. Even then, I was quite shocked by her saying it and still remember it 66 years later. Just shows how in advance of my time I was. Mind you, she was taller than me and posher. Expect she’s dead by now. Hope so. Imagine a sixteen-yearold girl saying it to a fifteen-year-old boy today ... he would think she was joking, of course, but if he realised she was serious, he would think she was mental.

All this was brought to mind by a dinner party last week: three or four oldies like me, a middle-aged couple and a teenage boy. We know that teenagers, particularly boys, are enveloped in their own bubbles, so you don’t expect them to join in the sparkling conversation of sophisticated adults like us. But then, of course, out came his little electric toy and he sat gazing at it and fiddling with it, ignoring everyone else. I nearly said: ‘If you’re so bored, why don’t you go home? And take that silly little toy with you?’ However, good manners prevailed and I sat quietly with steam hissing from my ears.

But if he had a gathering of his friends in the evening to eat together, what would be the arrangement? They would probably be in a Mum’s kitchen and she would have gone out to avoid it. Obviously, they would not lay a table, they may not use a table at all except as somewhere to dump their burgers, pizzas, chips and Coke cans. They would all have their electric toys in their hands and would be using them constantly. No one would mind. To them it would be as natural as breathing.

In the unlikely event of my being present at this pizza party, would they have been offended if I had taken out a hardback book and started reading it? Would they think it was bad manners? If so, would it have been more acceptable to them if it was an ebook with a nice, bright screen?

‘That old Briggs bloke is pretty cool, yeh? Didja see that bloody great tablet he had?’

PS: It’s not just me, the childless, embittered old grump, but the great Kate Winslet, no less, mother of three, quoted in the Sunday Times: ‘... grown-ups are at one end of the table and children on the other, on devices, not looking up ... devices are a huge interruption. Long car journeys? What happened to good oldfashioned I-spy?’

Three cheers for good old-fashioned Kate Winslet. ‘DO you have a loyalty card? Would you like a loyalty card?’ Is there any modern transaction, however trivial, which doesn’t conclude with these two questions? And am I the only person who can’t stand the wretched things?

My wallet is full of loyalty cards. I nearly always forget to use them. When I do remember, I always feel I’ve been had. Of course the shops wouldn’t bother with them if they didn’t make money out of them. These pesky cards lure you back, time after time, in search of paltry bargains. They encourage you to make needless purchases. They stop you shopping around.

Naturally, the actual savings are pathetic. Buy nine coffees and get the next one free? That’s a mere ten per cent off, after ten visits. Supermarkets are even worse – discounts of a few per cent, plus all the stuff they find out about your spending habits. Then they send you loads of vouchers which you have to use before they expire. Air miles are the worst rip-off. Most of these ‘reward points’ run out long before you can use them. You can only use them on flights no one wants to buy, and you still have to pay the tax and duty.

When I was a child, people really were loyal to certain shops. We got to know the shopkeepers and they rewarded us for our loyalty – an extra sausage from the butcher, a few extra tomatoes from the greengrocer. They didn’t need to swipe your clubcard or add up squiggles on a scrap of cardboard.

Now the sales staff are strangers and the owners are anonymous. They inspire no loyalty whatsoever, so they have to invent new scams to suck us in. The day I binned my Tesco Clubcard was the day I regained a little dignity. Now I shop where I want, when I want to. And it feels great.

WILLIAM COOK