PASSION KILLERS

web image of Humphrey Bogart

web image: tangerine boutique

The lights near the centre of the platform were glaringly bright. Too bright.

But towards the end there was enough “lovers shadow.”

“I wish you didn’t have to leave.”

“I know. I hate being apart, too. But I must go!”

(train whistle; choo-choo sound; steam from engine…)

“Goodbye, darling!” (passionate embrace.)

Director: Stop! Your hats are falling off. It spoils the kiss! Once more, from “Goodbye, darling!”

…how many times did we do this? Just as well the leading man and I were good friends!(No, it was not Humphrey Bogart!)

I was reminded of this just the other day, when I watched a couple of teenage kids, both wearing those ski-hat things. A quick snog and he jumped on the bus and she walked along the street. They didn’t have the problem of brim bumps!

A hat pin solved my problem, but  lover boy’s hat kept slipping. Someone suggested a skull cap under the hat, which we could pin  the hat to. But then it was a rigmarole to remove  the skull cap for when he had to doff his hat.

I think, in the end, we just let his hat fall and hoped the audience didn’t think it mattered!

Tell you what…the back-stage chaps were kept busy with the steam machine!

Perhaps this is why (most) men don’t wear hats today? And perhaps the wearing of hats curbed our manners?

Do you wear hats? I seldom do. Here I am, living in the tropics and I rarely don a titfer. Stupid, really. Especially as I was once a very hatty person. Oh, lord, yes! I remember making a frothy concoction of tulle (red, for goodness sake!) and proudly wearing it to Town one day.

“Town” was a 3 hour bus ride away, so the hat sat on my knee all the way. And about 10 minutes after I’d arrived in Town the sky opened.

When I lived in London I always wore warm, woollen hats in winter and quite often straw hats in summer. The “Sloane Rangers” were always decked out in Hermes scarves, tied-under-the-chin (emulating the Queen!), but that made me look like Laundry Lil.  If I wore a scarf it was a very big one, folded to a triangle  and tied around my head, gypsy-fashion. A bit like this Or sometimes one of those hippy-fashion  Indian silk numbers, about 2 metres long, which could be wound into a turban.

Hats weren’t the only fashion item…in the “old days” there were gloves, too. When I was a littlie, my mother always wore gloves for a trip to Town. And stockings, well, it went without saying!

Do I miss the old ways?  In this climate ? Not much! I have closet full of sarongs!

But I think what I really need is a closet full of sou’westers and macs. Ziggi…any spares, pet?