MANNERS AND OTHER MATTERS

My 21st birthday dinner...Oh so formal then! I was talking with a friend the other day about friendship.  About how it impacts on our lives, from childhood and teenage friends, to becoming friends with boyfriends’s friends, husband’s friends and their wives, parents of other school children, social club friends,  friends after divorce or death of a partner, passing friendships, acquaintances…and now virtual friends. It’s complicated. And I am finding in my “middle” years that my need for friends has reduced…not that I don’t value and cherish my friends, but my actual need has lessened.  Why, I wonder?  I used always be a “People who need People” (with apologies to whoever wrote the song made famous in  Funny Girl ) sort of a person.  I was always out and about, making sure that I saw my friends, knew all that was going on with them and theirs.  Afternoon tea for the girls...with bubbles! However, as the years have moved ...

The training room prepared for private clients (photo LP) Over the past few weeks I have trained two teenagers through my program Modern Manners for Today .  They are both highly intelligent young adults but in both cases their mothers felt that their social skills could use assistance, not only to encourage greater participation in the social life around them, but to help them in gaining confidence. The first client, aged 16, has been accepted to attend Magdalen College in Oxford this year.  She is extremely bright but socially very young for her age.  She is very pleasant but with virtually no social skills and a tendancy to say whatever comes to mind at the time.  She has few friends and spends a great deal of her time in chat forums on the internet with like minded people. A formal western table setting (photo LP) Perhaps the most surprising aspect of our day together was at the dining table.  Included in my program is a three course...