Wednesday 22 August 2012

Things Old Christians Remember (3)

Etsy.com
The hat. Now memories are very subjective and mine are very much my own about this. But when I was a lass, hats in church were more or less compulsory. There were always a few brave souls who were willing to tell you about how they had been freed from this tyranny but I was only 14 and no-one was listening to me.
Allaboutyou.com
I hated it though. I really did. Firstly because my suspicion was that for some women it was not so much covering their glory as showing what a big hat they had.
Secondly, and if I am honest, more importantly for me, they interfered in the Farrah Flick that I was cultivating - big time. It was a pain spending hours with a dryer and curling tongs and then giving yourself lung disease with hair lacquer only for it to go all flat under a hat - and it made my head itch. So I asked my Mum to knit me a hat. A head covering if you will. So she took up her knitting needles and after much deliberation produced a hat. It was a small woolly skull cap. It fitted on the back of my head, allowing the Farrah Flick to flick unencumbered and yet, I was still wearing a hat. People will say with some justification that this went against the spirit of the hat wearing rules. But it was still a hat. Definitely a hat. It was soooo small though. In fact, I was reminded about this when I saw this photo. It was about this small, I think.



So when I see my daughter going to church, sometimes voluntarily putting on a nice beret. It can cross my mind to lecture her about the change in women's place in the church. Then I think about the hat I wore and think that i should keep my mouth shut.
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11 comments

  1. I LOVE hats. I grew up wearing them for everything.I've noticed that at church older men love them , younger women hate them.
    Jane x
    PS That doggy looks like I did in my school beret.

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  2. Bless you yet again made me giggle out loud. Oh hats... Luckily I was never made to wear one fro church but I remember them always blocking the my view as the church used to be full of them.

    X x

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  3. You have nothing but sympathy from me Lesley. As someone who was required to wear a hat, day in and day out for more than 20 years, inside or out. You want to talk itching heads? You know nowt, I promise. The only relief was Church Parade, so long as you're a bloke that is. There were some advantages then? A beret was bad enough but when we had to wear those knitted things during training, thank goodness we didn't have enough hair to worry about the Farrah thingee, more Steve Austin it would seem, in you're dreams.

    See ya later

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  4. Oh, I love hats. Which is just as well because put a hat on ONCE and the resulting Hat Hair obliges you to wear one forever and ever amen

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  5. Eckythump, these type-in recognition thingies on Google blogger! To get that last comment up required a series of wild guesses at blurred and cryptic images of letter until FINALLY it relented and gave me something legible. I may be getting old blind and senile or maybe Blogger has lost its wits and teeth and simply resorts to visual mumbling.
    By the way, have you ever played "Mrs Mumble"? You pretend you have no teeth, drawing your lips in over your teeth (if you do in fact have teeth - just take out your dentures if not), and you say to the person sitting next to you (who is doing the same thing: "Good morning, Mrs Mumble - and how are you today?" Your neighbour responds in similar wise "I'm very well thank you. How are you?" The object of the exercise is to do this without laughing at all. Good luck.
    Google blogger ant-robot identification is a form of "Mrs Mumble" but less funny.

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    Replies
    1. You know you are right. I hate it too and think it is only laziness that has stopped me getting rid of it to be honest. Have got rid now (I think)

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  6. You got rid of it? Gosh, well done! I didn't even know getting rid of it was an option! In fact I'm not even sure if I've got it on my blog or not - though I guess I must have . . .

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  7. Yes - you have indeed got rid of it!!

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  8. I hate hats. Dreading the kids getting married. Wonder if I can persuade them to elope? Got a few years to plant that idea seeing as the eldest is only seven ...

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  9. Hey - on another topic completely - did you watch Parade's End last night? And if so, whatever did you make of it? Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay and boy does that show! I found it fascinating in an incomprehensible, bewildering kind of way. And Rufus Sewell made an excellent vicar. But in all their conversation about how to pronounce Udimore, none of them got it right. Perhaps they've never actually been there - it's said like You-dimore not Udd -imore. Tut.

    Anyway I'd love to read one of your inimitable critiques on this series!

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    Replies
    1. I think I loved it. I sort of had to let bits of it gallop past me as there was so much going on. Great performances though and funnier than I expected.

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