An email sent by a woman in Devon to her stepson's fiancée after she spent
the weekend with them has made our national news. When the girl received it
she was a bit gobsmacked (couldn't believe it) and sent it on to a few of
her friends. They in turn have forwarded it on to others and it's now "gone
viral".
Here it is:
"It is high time someone explained to you about good manners. Yours are
obvious by their absence and I feel sorry for you.
I am being kept awake - or woken early - by Edward [Freddie's father] who is
so profoundly upset by your behaviour on your recent visit that he is
depressed and anxious.
Unfortunately for Freddie, he has fallen in love with you and Freddie being
Freddie, I gather it is not easy to reason with him or yet encourage him to
consider how he might be able to help you. It may just be possible to get
through to you though. I do hope so. Your behaviour on your visit to Devon
during April was staggering in its uncouthness and lack of grace.
Unfortunately, this was not the first example of bad manners I have
experienced from you. If you want to be accepted by the wider Bourne family
I suggest you take some guidance from experts with utmost haste. There are
plenty of finishing schools around. You would be an ideal candidate for the
Ladette to Lady television series. Please, for your own good, for Freddie's
sake and for your future involvement with the Bourne family, do something as
soon as possible.
Here are a few examples of your lack of manners:
When you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will
and will not eat - unless you are positively allergic to something.
You do not remark that you do not have enough food.
You do not start before everyone else.
You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.
When a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in
households that rise early - you fall in line with house norms.
You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time
and most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke
but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.
I have no idea whether you wrote to thank [your future sister-in-law] for
the weekend but you should have hand-written a card to her.
You should have hand-written a card to me. You have never written to thank
me when you have stayed at Houndspool.
[Your future sister-in-law] has quite the most exquisite manners of anyone I
have ever come across. You would do well to follow her example.
You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself
why.
It is tragic that you have diabetes. However, you aren't the only young
person in the world who is a diabetic. I know quite a few young people who
have this condition, one of whom is getting married in June. I have never
heard her discuss her condition. She quietly gets on with it. She doesn't
like being diabetic. Who would? You do not need to regale everyone with the
details of your condition or use it as an excuse to draw attention to
yourself. It is vulgar.
As a diabetic of long standing you must be acutely aware of the need to
prepare yourself for extraordinary eventualities, the walk to Mothecombe
beach being an example. You are experienced enough to have prepared yourself
appropriately.
No-one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity
style behaviour.
I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the
cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that
convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the
years for their daughters' marriages.) If this is the case, it would be most
ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as
befits both your incomes.
One could be accused of thinking that Carolyn must be patting herself on the
back for having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie."
She and her husband are now lying low, despite media attempts to interview
them. It's been pointed out that if she uses a public medium such as email,
she shouldn't have expected it to stay private. It also showed bad manners
on her part, not to have brought these things to the girl's attention in
person if they bothered her so much.
Jean in Poole, Dorset, UK
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