MS Mrs Clare Roels/68
My dear Christabel
I do not know what advice to give but that I wish they would take GFS, though I know I would not the authorities are so troublesome. How stupid about the Jubilee address sacrificing the reality of the Signature to the tidiness of the sheets. I think as someone said that the GFS is like the Church in flourishing in spite of the drawbacks of its supporters!
As to your questions, the poor always said the parson but it was not thought respectful, and the polite ones said Mr or ‘the gentleman’. The School mistress was always Governess. Our children when a new one came whom they didn’t like vowed ‘they would never call her Governess’ which had come to be a tender term. The favorite gave up because she could not stand Government time tables, but we were late in adopting them I think that was 16 years ago. If you happen to have a 1st edition of Langley Sch Leonard the Lion heart, it would shew when hats had fairly set in. I know I had my first hat in 1852, and I think /school\ children were getting in to them.1 Before that they had poke bonnets and beauty went into ribbons and bows, the correct model child wore a [sketch] coal scuttle with the strings all one piece crossed over the top and if very prosperous a bow behind- a cape, either white or like her dress – print in summer, stuff in winter- (white stockings were a vanity)- and in winter a horrid duffle cloak that blew back. The small farmer wore on Sunday a drab cloth coat, and gorgeous red waistcoat, fine corduroy breeches, and long gaiters, buttoned up with a strap to his waist. If young and smartish, a beautiful black velveteen coat like a gamekeeper if humble (in these parts) a white smock exquisitely embroidered, but in Devon only carters wore smocks or surplices as they called them here. Hat not chimney pot – a flatter felt ?couevr
your affte
C M Yonge
Please send this on to Fanny Pat.2 My man much the same