8/6/2019 Enough to Drive One...MIldred Brocklehurst Punch December 19 1962 p.1

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T T-\\T souseen a shoP suPPIYing

-L1 .1,..,-rhar,si I'd like to buv one'

iu1. of course. to use. Just to keep as a

i;cnl€ nto of rthat's wrong. with women'It 'rlrs once t}le custom rvhen You

rn:idc a bed to leave the turned-over

l,;ri of the sheet on vielt', so that any

i',.itors rtho carue into the bedroom

couiri see horv r,'hite your sheets were,

horr spotless, horv uncreased:

Sut no rea! sheet, once' used, could.;ier be so-perfect. So houservives tookr* tucking a striP cf clean linen, tolsiok iike a sheet, over the real sheet'

'l his rlaS the sheet-sham"ioon. it. became a tliing.in-itself. It

sre\r a frill. l'hen it proliierated friiislrr ro'ws. (This, remember, rvas wheniriiis had to be starched and ironed.),{t last it no longer even pretended tolcol like a sliceof sheet. -

Ar this point something haPPened.'l'he soman rtho told me about itcorrid itot remember the date, but it musth:'e heen about forty years ago.

"l *-as ironing mY sheet-shams onedav," she said, "and all of a sudden I

tirought: \\'hat onearth am

Idoing this

!iir? So I put them arvay and I never:ourhed tl:ern again."

'l'iris must have happened suddenlyanr.i silently, in millions of homes.tr\'itlicut anv previous announcementlrornen took to pulling the bedspreadcr,-mplcteiv oi'er the bed so that therer\':iri no longer any sheet showing.

l\-hat I 'rvant to know; i3-.-whyir:iiln'! the'l' done that at first?l

\1'c' sal rve do all this housew'orktxcause we're oppressed by men.But I don't believe the sternest Vic-lr:,rian husband ever said: "Woman!I'rc'"'ide me rvith sheet-sharns!" Food,*ennth, slippers-they still shout for;li these. But f ills? And in a placerrhere thev must have come bet\\'een

'!lr* man and his comforts.Iror I t'elier.e that it u'as impossible to

sel ir:to thc ted iintil the sheet-shamhed been carr:fully taken off andpl'rced on a. . . in a. . . a goffered sheet-siiarn iralder? It must have needed careta iieep a sheet-sham shipshape.

llrrsbands can't be blamed, either,i'or the

iong lace curtain in the hall.T'his used to be a feature of all respec-l::'hlc homes. It lvas supposed to stop

a strang € r, stanciing at the iiont'door,from seeing the stairs.

But since it rtauld be a nuisance to get

entangled in lace every time you went toans\r'er the door, the curtain rtas al't'i'ays

looped back. So the stranget could

see the stairs. (And good luck to him.'\\rhat did our grandmothers do on theirstaircases, anl'waY?)

Then there's the question of PaPerdoiiies on plates, a custom not Yet

extinct. l{en mav ask for cake-theynever ask to find a squalid bit of papersticking to the undetside.

If you feel suPerior about theseold-uorld customs, ask yourself rvhy

]'ou are t laring stiietto heeis. Anci theplastic heel-protectors, rvhich yoylvouldn't need to buy if You hadn'tbought the heels. \'ou do it to please

1'our husband? Say that a little louder,rvith more assuraltce, please.

And rvhy did you take to collectingVictorian bric-b-brac? You're so muchin the fashion, you'll soon have gotback to the dal'-s u'hen every lady took

PI-INCH. December 19 tg6.l

Foromen

an hour to dust her drawing-room.And this is rvhat your husband wants!

It's rvhen I hear m1,' own sex bletheringlike this that I u'ant to point at a sheet-

sham, framed and glazed, on thervall.

Only where am I going to bu17 oneiFerhaps in one oi ihose iittie shops

where the ou'ner and her stock have

grown old together, rvhere I .hareto help her search along the dirnsheives, rvhere all the labelled lids have

got on to the $'rong boxes-the. kintlof shop that Lervis Carroll.summed upfor all time.'

Some day I shall find a sheet-shanrin a shop kept by a sheeP.

- ALISON MACLEOD

Shammin;,9

Enough to Dfive One. . . .

'lf /f ORE than thc mountains. a \\'asteIVI; -";, ancl thirty years of social

revolution divide the English grand-mother from her new world daughter-in-larv on certain:aspects of the Anglo-Canadian child's upbringing. Thereally impenetrable barrier, the thingvrdich makes both parties mutter darklyabout east being east, west being rvest,

never the trvain meeting, and thencurse the seven-hour jet flights whichmake it superficially possible, is culturaland ideological. What I have decidedafter recollecting.masses of emotion intranquillity ought to be defined as thenanny tra'Cition.

But rvhen in Romc-and last summerin England I did my best to conform tothe customs cf the natives rvhere child-rearing was concerned. According tothe nanny creecl the care of the youngis a mission full of high-nrirrded

seriousnessand eternal vigilance, the

nursery equivalent of the white man'sl:urden. And the goal is, of course, to

bring the benefits of bourgeois respecr'abiliiy to infant total barbarians. Thc

n.nny .tt may have passed its hetdrtbut the dirge certainly iingers r'n

Norvhere, as.I rvas to discover, morc rrl

than in the matter of Potting.Here I fell very far short of e-xistir':

standards, for when I arrivcd r::r

youngest rtas nine months old ;rnti l'''i

,r".,aa-b""n potted. In Consequencc'l*'

ras a ctuttiing ncgation of the nrnr'ttradition's most ch.iished ideal' Ilt't:i"oof my intransigcnce, pig-hcntlcrln' "mean-mindcd colonial nlellttltl.l " (:

it lvhat yor: rvill, he had not {;nlr i"r*denied a m"j.r civil.:srrg inllvtn+'r,*also a f trtrdarnentd lesson ln ''discipline, and self-control'

I lensed that an imPort3nr. i'rrrJ: 'i

must hal'e been violated tthcn I ' I -;;";;,hJ-u* rooung |1i5 l*:' 'rings ote, s'ith a PuzzieJ r\i-rrr:' '-

::i"" t..t",t hare'forgolltn,t"-t .,,..shc remarked with fotcttl t"" ' " ''::il.;';j;J, ir "" hurn' rsr {}ii';'

,;Gie*i'*&a&

PUNCH

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another.I loo.

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addingold. Or^.,r -L-.uu( uratbi'irrginginsteadsomethirwould hhe rvas l

learn, Ireasonab

I prorquestionw'eren't I

as absun

practiservere bora knife ar

Idcalisinformed

, the nurse.l'Iy childan irrederepresent{prornptlycssentialHe respoiplacidly c

althoughit on hisThe potlhing, butcajolery !i:he woulcltte-acknor.,

The cr,concenrinl:his regr.:tic\'eryrvhertiltroduced1'ersationsscemed toii(:tions

to t.sllunned :rs