Rebellion

I have just had a delicious lunch with a newish friend. She is about ten years younger than I so rather on the cusp of the mores with which I grew up. We talked about these and compared them with the way the young live, now. Not a lot of scope for originality in such a discussion but we enjoyed it and our personal examples of kicking over the traces. I remember my first break away from "the way things were done" in the parental home. I put a bar of soap at the wash basin and another at the bath. Imagine: no more leaning from the basin over the bath to reach the soap in its little dent on the far side and no more converse leaning precipitously out of the bath for the soap- dish which was, as you would expect, on the far side of the basin. Goodness knows why my Mother did'nt think it proper to have two bars of soap. It may have been to do with the war and rationing, but, logically, one wouldnt use more soap if there were two bars; just use the same amount more efficiently. My first rebellion outside the home was much more dramatic. I don't know how old you are but you have to be quite old to remember the hooded prisons that served as hairdryers until, what seems to me, comparatively recently. The hairdresser, having rolled one's hair, while wet, in to tight ringlets around a wire holder, would then place one under one of these prisons. They blew hot air, very hot air, around one's head, neck and ears and, incidentally, dried one's hair. I say incidentally, because that didn't seem to be the purpose the longer one was under the grill. I know, now, that, in fact, this method is not very good for the hair and dries it out rather than just drying it. I, being well-brought-up, for which read unaturally obedient, would wait, meekly, until the 'stylist' deemed me cooked. My neck burned, my ears hurt and I may have been living isolated from human voice inside this roaring monster for ever, but move: never. Then came the day, I must have been twenty five at least , when I thought ENOUGH, and, gingerly, heart thumping, slid from under the damned thing, craned my neck to reach its works and SWITCHED IT OFF. I sat there waiting for Nemesis, heart still thumping, and all that happened was that a junior came up, moved the machine backwards,and said "Oh, are you dry? Mr Davies won't be long" and, with a smile, left me to cool off. Dear Reader, I never suffered a burned neck again. Now one just has to put up with the roar of the hand held monster blowing dry ones hair but not ones surrounding body parts.

Which brings me to another simplification of rebellion. "Mr. Davies": to this day I don't know what Mr Davies's first name was. When I am in my home town, which, as it happens, I miss very much since I managed to sell the seaside studio, (see below), I drive passed his Salon and think about him. He and the salon have long since vanished and I regularly play with the idea of trying, still, to find out what he was called. His wife was Sheila. I know this because he would instruct her to pass him things or "see to the phone, Sheila" and she would do whatever with a professional nod and "Yes, Mr. Davies". My lunch companion had similar memories although she did know her hairdresser's name because it was over the door of the salon, "Ivan Downes, Hair Stylist". Of course, she never would have called him other than Mr Downes except, she was too timid to call him anything at all. Currently, the young man who washes my hair calls me Liz and when I wished to send a Christmas card to the man who cuts it I had to ring the salon and ask his surname. My friend's first remembered rebellion was to throw away the white gloves her school obliged her to wear whenever she was in uniform outside the school. She was worried that it wasn't really good enough as an example because she did it only on the last day she was ever at the school. Her Mother was really cross having planned that the gloves would be perfectly good enough for church for years to come.

Sadly, in my experience, leaving rebellion too long can result in disaster. For instance, it can be quite hard on a partner if you start, say, married life bland and compliant and during the course of it become sassy and opinionated. My friend and I decided the current young were truer to themselves much earlier. Whether or not that makes them better relationship material it's hard to assess. There may be potential for great pain in the diminution of the duty and obligation, the doing-what-is expected -of-you factor. What do you think?