How to be Trad

Polish Pretend Son is here. In fact, I think he is still asleep in the spare room/office/dining-room. Packages addressed to me but really for him preceded his arrival for days, and Benedict Ambrose has just handed me a damp plastic envelope with my name smeared over it. It seems to contain a silk pocket square, so I'll hand that to him, too. Britain is full of luxury bargains if you know where to look, and PPS does. 

Some time ago PPS and I casually agreed to write a book together called How to be Trad an instant before realizing we would fight over every point. PPS could observe that I'm not very Trad myself as I am the main breadwinner at home. I could then say that it is jolly well traditional for women to become the main breadwinners when our husbands fall ill or are made redundant or have only part-time work. In fact, women in my husband's birth city worked in the mills from 1793 until 1999 and worked on steadily wherever they could during periods of male unemployment. B.A's great-great-great-grandmother slaved away weaving jute beside the future missionary Mary Slessor.  

This, as usual, brings me to ponder the role economic circumstances--not to say social class--play in what we think of as traditional roles. Traditionally, only very poor women scrub floors or tend infants for money. Traditionally, only rich women spend their time organizing charity balls. Naturally romantic North Americans like me imagine ourselves amongst the latter, not the former. However, the only people I know who organize charity balls have solid 9-to-5s.

I'd really like to get away from such considerations, however, and write about those things that, traditionally, people of all economic backgrounds in a particular community have shared, or should have shared. Some of these things are preserved in religion and folk culture. Rich or poor, revellers dance the Dashing White Sergeant the same way, any Catholic may assist at the Traditional Latin Mass can, and tweed jackets or wool skirts can be got at any secondhand shop in Edinburgh for less than £20. 

Then there is food. A good--if not foolproof--guide to tradition, I often think, is what a financially stable family eats for major holidays, like Christmas/Christmas Eve. Naturally these differ from culture to culture (carp in Poland, goose or turkey in the UK) and are subject to fashion. I very much doubt even the wealthiest of my Edinburgh ancestors were eating chipolatas wrapped in bacon back in 1880. (In fact, they might not have celebrated Christmas at all, as they were Presbyterians and their high holy day was Hogmanay.) This British Christmas staple seems to have been first mentioned in 1954. 

One thing I think could be a "trad" universal is the eschewing of packaged convenience foods (aka ultra processed foods) for ingredients and actual cooking and baking techniques. There is an effort, led from the left, I believe, to preserve or restore local cuisine, and I wholeheartedly approve of the Slow Food movement. 

Preserving and restoring traditional pastimes, crafts, and behaviours is obviously much more controversial. I wouldn't advocate for the decriminalization of dog fighting just because it predates the Roman invasion. However, it would be extremely cool if every British child were taught traditional skills like building (or repairing) a stone wall and crewel embroidery. And of course there is the very thorny--but utterly essential--topic of how the two sexes should relate to each other.

Yesterday Polish Pretend Son and I went on an excursion that ended up in the clubhouse of a golf course. I had never been in, and as we went around to the front door, it suddenly struck me that I might cause embarrassment by entering. I know there are still Scottish golf courses that are single-sex spaces, but I can never remember which ones. Conveniently, this was not one of them, so inside we went for lunch. Had it been one, however, I would not have minded at all. Lunch could have been got elsewhere, and I firmly support the right of men have spaces reserved for them, just as (for different and usually more pressing reasons) women have the right to spaces reserved to us. 

Thus, it appears that the first traditional relationship between men and women that I think about is the right to get away from each other. (That's very 1990s of me. Today the first concern is to maintain that men are not women and women are not men, and that boys always grow into men and that girl always grow into women.) After that I think about how we come together again. Naturally this often depends on our age and state in life. However, I think one universal should be modest dressing that reflects respect for oneself and everyone around. 

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A reference for myself for later: Heritage Crafts