The fine art of manners

After 40 years of marriage, my father still stands up when my mother walks in the room.

He still opens the car door for her and he still pulls her chair out before sitting down for dinner. More than that, he often does it for my sister and I too. It’s just second nature to him and he carries it off so casually that you almost don’t even notice. He’s not stuffy, he’s not affected and he’s not trying to show off. He’s quite simply what we used to call ‘a gentleman’.
Growing up around my father and others like him it stands to reason that I would assume that’s the way all men behave. I don’t. A good example is when I first started work here at GW and our illustrious leader Dean Williams held the door open for me. I stared at him aghast and the poor sod thought I was about to go off on him in true feminist style about the insult to women that a man should think us incapable of opening our own door. I may well be anti-chauvinism, but I am in no way shape or form a feminist. If a man is polite enough and thoughtful enough to open a door for me — a mere woman in want of TLC — who am I to invent insult out of it? The truth of the matter was that I was in total shock that a man of my generation should have the manners to open the door for me and when I mentioned this to him he said: “It’s the way I was brought up, my mother would have my guts for garters if she ever saw me leave chivalry at the door.” I say well done mama Williams! And credit where credit’s due, Dean may have a very dark sense of humour — which by the way I share and applaud — and he may appear to all intents and purposes to be a true ‘lad’, but at any time and in any state of inebriation, he will always hold open a door, offer his seat, speak with civility and generally look out for the women in his domain.
When I was a little girl I hated liver (I still do except in pate), fish, vegetables, cooked tomatoes and various other edible delights but my mother would still occasionally cook them and make me sit at the table until I’d eaten them. It wasn’t a punishment or a form of torture; it was quite simply a way of teaching me mind over matter and making sure that if I was out to dinner somewhere my host or hostess would not be made to feel awkward or put out by my inability to eat what was put in front of me. My sister and I were also made to mingle with my parents’ friends before dinner when they had a dinner party. The purpose of that little exercise was so that we would grow up not having a problem holding a conversation with even the most boring of old farts (excluding you ma and pa).
Those are just a couple of examples of how my parents tried to prepare us for the social niceties that lay ahead. These days we live in time where manners are more relaxed than when they were growing up and I’ll be the first to admit I don’t follow all the rules. In this day and age very few do, and if you do there are bound to be behind-the-back comments about the surgical removal of sticks from rear ends. But irrespective of whether or not I follow the rules in my day-to-day life, thanks to stubborn persistence on my parents’ part I can and do when the need arises — as is the case with the majority of my generation.
But therein lies the problem: Because we are now more relaxed about when and where we choose to follow the rules of etiquette and manners, we set much less importance on passing those rules on to our children. Even the most basic of manners go out the window. “I remember meal times being much more like a training camp when I was a little girl,” says Helen Baldwin, “my mother was constantly telling me my knife and fork were not going to run away and that I should put them down between mouthfuls; that I wasn’t a builder so there was no reason for me to be mashing my food up like cement on my plate; or that I wasn’t in a race so there was no need to wolf my food down like it was going out of fashion. It used to drive me mad and I couldn’t understand what the big deal was, but now I look at the younger generation when they eat and they look more like a pack of rabid animals ripping apart a carcass.”
The pace of life moves much faster now than it used to. We generally eat our meals on the run or in front of the television. We are much more wrapped up in ourselves and quite simply don’t have the time or inclination to spend on teaching the young right and wrong. Even the most simplistic of manners (saying “please” and “thank you”) seem to be left by the wayside. More than that, basic consideration for our fellow man often doesn’t even cross our minds.
Talking to my friend Libby Atkins a few days ago, she gave me the perfect example: “I was walking into my building the other day with both hands full of shopping and there were three teenagers standing laughing and chatting by the door. They could see I was struggling to pull the door open for a good minute or so and one of them even said hello to me but not one of them helped me with the door.”  I’d be very surprised if they intentionally meant to watch her struggling, it seems more likely that the thought of holding the door open for her quite simply didn’t cross their minds. It’s a sad state of affairs in which we live and I say bring back corporal punishment and mandatory national service. Send the young off to be tortured by drill sergeants — the world would be a much more considerate place!
Of course I’m not really serious... well not totally anyway.

What they said about manners
Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
—Clarence Thomas
Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.
— Eric Hoffer
We don’t bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don’t dress well and we’ve no manners.
— George Bernard Shaw
One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.
— Josh Billings
To have respect for ourselves guides our morals; and to have a deference for others governs our manners.
— Lawrence Sterne
Don’t reserve your best behaviour for special occasions. You can’t have two sets of manners, two social codes — one for those you admire and want to impress, another for those whom you consider unimportant. You must be the same to all people.
— Lillian Eichler Watson