The sun has got its hat on. Hip, hip, hip, hooray! My mother Bev taught me that song. I’ve just come back from a dog walk at Hurlingham with Vicky, a fellow member. Richard Branson’s mother was leaving after a spot of croquet. She the spitting image of her son.
Last night, I had dinner with friends that we met in 1993, when I was still kangarooing around the place: Paul Cowley MBE and his wife, Amanda, and Tricia Neill. We all did something called the Alpha course together over twenty years ago at HTB, an Anglican church in Knightsbridge. Tricia is now President of Alpha, and Paul pioneered work with ex-offenders, meeting them at the prison gate and helping them to reintegrate into society. Paul himself has gone from prison to pulpit. In between, he was in the army (he did three tours of N. Ireland and one in the Falklands). When we met Tricia she worked for News International, organising exhibitions. Both of them have had a major impact on many people. Dinner was at Tricia’s flat on Kings Road, in a new complex.
I remember attending a wedding reception there in the late eighties, when it was a university campus. No doubt I was kitted out, yet again, in one of my many broad shouldered, over the top creations.
After Geoff and I married, we hit the wedding circuit big time. The pheasant-brides were still championing the Princess Di look. Large brimmed hats were obligatory. Stags wore, without exception, morning suits. If it was an officer’s wedding, there was usually a guard of honour. It was not the form, however, for the stag-officer to wear his uniform. He wore a morning suit like the other stags.
A sit down lunch or dinner, followed by dancing, was unheard of back in the 80s. Canapés (nibbles to Aussies) were served with champagne and tea, and after speeches, the happy couple departed, on their honeymoon, in a car defaced with lashings of shaving cream, balloons tied to the back bumper and rocks ricocheting in the hub caps. Things have changed over the years, but this was the way it was back then.
My father, Stan the Man, would have had a fit at the lack of tucker (food). Australian weddings were long drawn out affairs. The 80s/90s Aussie brides were crazy about the Diana meringue dress, but apart from that, an Aussie wedding was a very different kettle of fish. For starters, the bridal party consisted of a trillion bridesmaids and ushers, flanking the happy couple in rows facing the congregation. The ushers wore tuxedos. Sheila guests wore pretty frocks and no hats. Blokes wore lounge suits, if that. The dinner was a sit down saga, and the speeches went on and on like the Outback desert.
After saying goodbye to Anne, my best friend at Kingsgrove High School was Karen Nosworthy; Nos for short. She fell in love, as soon as she graduated, with Dallas Brown, a carpenter. I was the bridesmaid at their wedding in the early 80s, and my outfit was, in fact, chic. Nos always had style. Now she is an accomplished artist. The dress was made of delicate voile (with hand smocking that would have made any pheasant squeal with delight) and a pill box hat, with delicate netting over my face. The reception was at the Municipal Town Hall where I used to study in the library. Swot student by day, bridesmaid by night.
Karen Nosworthy on the far right. Me in red. A typical Aussie ‘just tuck in’ lunch.
My combined Arts and Law degree was a long drawn out affair between 1981 and 1985, and I was dreaming of a life beyond the books. Day after day, I would find my usual cubicle, amongst the reference books, at the Town Hall. But before my study kicked off, there was one book I carefully examined, page by page, before I put my nose down to learn about contracts and torts. It was a table sized book of Charles’ and Diana’s wedding. I was enchanted by their fairy tale. Then I would, reluctantly, put it back, and it would be back to reality.
Tomorrow, I’ll head off first thing back to the Old Rectory.
Diary of a Sloane Sheila 