Dear Mary… Q. I am the only child of parents in their seventies who are not super-rich but who do own a house in Dorset worth more than the £265,000 one is allowed to inherit before the 40 per cent inheritance tax comes into play. Ideally they would hand ownership of the house over to
Dear Mary… Q. Pyjama gape or not, aprons should not be worn by a gentleman. The pyjama gape correspondence originated in Aldeburgh and the solution lies no further away than nearby Leiston, where the renowned Volga Linen Company (www.volgalinen.co.uk, 01728 635020) has among its sublime products linen pyjamas whose tops reach the knees, which I
Dear Mary… Q. Staying with English friends in the south of France (about whom I have written to you before) my hosts took me to a rather raucous fancy dress party. Being sartorially challenged, I opted for a very short belly-dancing skirt and a minimalist top. My fortysomething hostess went as a Seventies go-go dancer
Q. I sympathise with B.M.F. (20 August). At a recent Proms concert, a superb performance of ‘Gerontius’ was ruined by a middle-aged woman continually fanning herself with her programme. It was not a hot night, and she was the only person in the hall doing so. She was very rude when someone tried to approach
Q. We live in a tiny village in the Drakensberg range of South Africa. The social life is frenetic, but mores are rigidly observed, especially one which dictates that invitations to a meal require reciprocity in a relatively short time. Our problem is that some close friends seem to have forgotten (we are, after all,
Dear Mary… Q. We were recently married and a number of people who had informed us that they were coming failed to appear on the day. Besides the disappointment, our catering was not cheap and these no-shows cost us a considerable sum. We had to be tough with numbers, and we had a few people
Dear Mary… Q. My husband and I were guests at a five-day house party in Scotland. Most of the other guests were heavy drinkers and on the first night one of them actually entered our bedroom in the middle of the night and got into our double bed with us. Neither of us slept well
Dear Mary… Q. My wife and I have had a number of people to stay at our seaside house this summer. We are writers and since most of our friends are what would be called ‘arty types’ we are usually a very relaxed party. Nevertheless I still feel ill at ease when hosting breakfast in
Dear Mary… Q. I am shortly to attend a wedding. My problem is that I feel uneasy about kissing the bride as she stands in the receiving line because I am very aware of the dozens, if not hundreds, of lips that will have distributed various germs on to the same area of cheek I
Dear Mary… Q. I was entertaining a friend to drinks one evening after the pub. When he left (at approximately 1 a.m.) he called up to me from the pavement to say that as he was leaving he had heard one of my neighbours (there are six flats in the building) complaining about the noise
Dear Mary… Q. I have a six-bedroom house in Thorpeness to which I normally retire during the month of August. My problem is that there is no washing line and no way to dry sheets other than in a tumble-drier which is very noisy and, of course, unecological. With innumerable families proposing themselves to come
Dear Mary… Q. With reference to the problem of middle-aged women clad in low-slung jeans with thongs akimbo (25 June), perhaps a poem to cure ‘sartorial lapses’ might be more effective? Sure, deck your lower limbs in pants:Yours are the limbs, my sweeting.You look divine as you advance —Have you seen yourself retreating? Published by
Dear Mary… Dear Mary… Q. I have a six-week-old baby and have been invited to a lunch party by a neighbour. It was going to be my chance to meet all the other mothers in the street and chat about schools and so on. Now another mother has rung to say that she is bringing
Dear Mary… Q. Our son and his fiancée are getting married in Pretoria, South Africa, later this year, although they both live in London, where they have their established home. They would prefer guests not to give them presents they would be unable to cope with in their small flat in Pretoria, and shipping gifts
Dear Mary… Q. My student stepson from my recent re-marriage and I are very different people. His mother worries that our relationship will suffer if I am too unkind to the boy, but he drives her crackers too! We have an excellent Italian restaurant locally which does a varied, fixed price, early-evening menu. Every time
Dear Mary… Q. The new fashion of women wearing pants (sic) that do not fit properly and reveal their underwear is in full flight here. There is no hope for the young, who will slavishly follow whatever is in fashion, regardless of how stupid it looks. However, we have a friend in her late thirties
Dear Mary… Q. Let me offer a variant on your wet towel advice (21 May). My partner and I were married for more than 60 years between us, but not to each other, so we came to this new and lovely relationship with many years’ experience of how not to do things. It became apparent
Dear Mary… Q. In the 28 May edition of The Spectator you state that ‘a rector enjoys superior rank to a vicar’. While this may be true in popular mythology, it is quite wrong as far as the Church of England is concerned. The different titles merely reflect the source of an incumbent’s income in
Q. I own a holiday cottage in Padstow in Cornwall. Sometimes I let the cottage, at other times I allow friends to stay there. I employ a local cleaning agency to come in on Monday mornings to clean up after each occupancy and get it ready for the incoming parties. My problem is that recently
Dear Mary… Q. I own a holiday cottage in Padstow in Cornwall. Sometimes I let the cottage, at other times I allow friends to stay there. I employ a local cleaning agency to come in on Monday mornings to clean up after each occupancy and get it ready for the incoming parties. My problem is