THE GOOD, THE VEIL AND THE UGLY

It is only a few decades ago that women’s hats were “de rigueur”. No woman, from whatever station, would have been seen in the street without a hat. For the well-heeled the half veil hiding the eyes was extremely fashionable. Depending on the price it might have been sprinkled with sequins, beads, semi-precious stones or something even better. The hat was not removed even for lunch in a restaurant and if the wearer had the little veil she lifted it coyly to get to the champagne in the flute. Down the road, at Barnie’s caf, the charwoman drank her mug of sweet stewed tea with her old felt hat firmly down to her ears.

Those two women, at the opposite ends of the social scales, had at least one thing in common: the need to hide something. For the upper end the “voilette” (the veil) hid probably some wrinkles that gave one’s age too easily but it also camouflaged the expression of the eyes. It even created an atmosphere of mystery and many a courting men must have wished to be allowed to lift it. At the bottom of the scale the charwoman probably had a bad hair day, her home perm and the packet of colouring having left a trail of devastation in her kitchen sink and on her scalp.

When the train and the car appeared on the scene women wore veils to protect them from the dust. In those days widows wore “widow’s weeds”, long black veil covering head, and shoulders down to the hips. What did they hide? The grief or the relief?

For whatever reasons those veils were worn nobody objected to them. I can’t imagine anybody asking a widow to remove that veil because he/she wanted to “see her face”.

Which is the reason that most men I have asked have given me when I bored everyone to extinction with my discussions about the famous veil on Islamic women. Ah! You want to see the face? What next? Bottomless? Topless?

I agree that if an Islamic woman holds a public office she should not wear the full veil as most human communications are made with body language and facial expressions. Without those a complete understanding cannot be achieved.

But in private and life and everyday living? For goodness sake live and let live! These women are part of our Western world, whether we like it or not. Most of them have got something to offer like skills, help, exchange of ideas, cooking traditions etc. Leave them to wear what I think is a very flattering and elegant garment. If not, whatever next? Are they going to ban the wonderful saris the Indian women wear? Or the very becoming Pakistani salwar/kameese that is 100% cotton, is cool in summer and covers layers of thermo underwear in winter? I order those by mail and practically live in them. I can see the day when some cop in the high street will order me to strip. That would stop the traffic. My body shape has not improved with the years.

And what about the Nigerians with their gorgeous “boubous” so vibrant with colours?

And are they going to forbid the male Jewish population to wear their skull cap, the yarmulke?

Then I heard of British Airways little fracas about the air hostess who was wearing a gold crucifix and told not to otherwise…Well, I thought to myself, something has got to be done to stop this hysteria.

Somebody did.

An Anglican priest got fed up with the incident and decided to act. He organised a fashion show in his English village church. He turned the pews round as to face the nave and ran a cat walk from the altar to the main door. The models were professionals, of all colours and denominations, all wearing designers’ clothes and their own ethnic jellewry, religious symbols or not. The show was a roaring success. The priest had called it “FAITH and FASHION”.

Now, how is that for initiative?

If you have a faith why not let it be known? Faith is very hard work. This is why I gave it up after a half-heartened trial because I could not feed the daily needs of this passion. It is not that I am lazy, far from it, but the work involved into keeping myself in line with the faith was equal to the cleaning of the famous Stables. But if somebody sports the emblem of a faith, any faith, I humbly crawl with admiration. It is like having been awarded the Victoria Cross. Don’t put it at the bottom of the underwear drawer! Wear it! You have won it. For you and for many others.

The other idiotic propaganda from Western governments towards some female ethnic garb is that they have room to hide some bomb or killing device. True. So can I. A friend gave me a folding tote bag the other day. I can keep it permanently in my handbag. I could also fill it up with 5kgs of dynamite and ball bearings and leave it in the covered market. To travel light and being suicidal then just a kilo of explosives around my waist, underneath my western fleece jacket, would do nicely. No veil.

We are fortunate to live in democratic societies. It is not by luck but thanks to our ancestors who fought and died for it. By definition of their achievement we welcome anybody from anywhere and offer them the liberty to live, dress, eat, drink and worship the way they want. That is the freedom they acquire once landed on our shores.

Of course it takes two to tango. You don’t thank a nation for giving you freedom, education, medical attention and so on by throwing a bomb in the middle of Sainsbury on a Saturday morning.

Talking about shopping and cooking may I point out that the food of the Middle east is one of the healthiest in the world. Now that the root vegetables are in season you might want to try a superb salad from :

Carrot salad. You will need half kilo of peeled and grated carrots, one orange peeled and cut in small cubes, the juice of 3 oranges and one lemon, 3 tablespoons of caster sugar, a pinch of salt, a good pinch of ground white pepper and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Mix all the ingredients except the cinnamon in an attractive serving bowl. Cover with cling film and refrigerate. Sprinkle the cinnamon just before serving. A beautiful winter salad.

We go down “on the coast” every month. Not to meet Sean Connery but to buy second-hand books. There is an excellent small bookshop in Calle San Miguel in Torremolinos. It is tiny and very stuffy so after our purchases we sit down at the terrace of a café in the main promenade for a cool drink. The world goes by. The pretty, the not so pretty, the gross, the obese, the deformed, the varicose veins, the appalling sight of young women with bellies reaching down their knees, the very old trying to look very young.

Then a couple of young women wearing djellabahs and veils walk past. They are immaculate, slim and elegant. I always wish I had a pile of empty potato sacks to throw over the heads of most of those ugly western women. Or a supply of full length veils.

JOCELYNE

The next episode of Mister Bear is on the site www.spanglefish.com/MisterBear