Farewell to a slut

[shewhomust]

I was sorry to hear of the death of Katharine Whitehorn, and if anything even sorrier to learn that her death was preceded by a diagnosis of advanced Alzheimer's. I can't remember a time when I didn't know her writing (she joined The Observer in 1960) but there's surprisingly little of it on the internet. Oddly, most of the references I am finding relate to her time at Roedean school, from which she ran away: fortunately, she remarked later, because otherwise ahe would never have lived it down on Fleet Street (times have changed...).

With one exception: inevitably, her notorious piece about Sluts (think of it as How not to be a domestic goddess). Certainly I recognise myself in the comment "But sluts are good at using memory as a substitute for tidiness - though I absolutely deny that I ever said (as friends allege): 'If you're looking for the tax forms, they're under your slippers in the salad-bowl.'"

Her Cooking in a Bedsitter, which I treasure for its style more than for its usefulness, lists under essential kitchen equipment:

NEWSPAPER You cannot do without it. It is your work-surface, your floor-covering, your splash-mat round the gas ring itselg; it is the only way you can stop the coffee grounds fallong through the slats of a wicker waste basket, and the neatest way to bundle up the debris for getting it out of the room. The nicer your room, the more newspaper you must spread around.

It includes a recipe for 'Toucan Mush' (a can of tomatoes, a can of broad beans).

Available in the UK only, Katharine Whitehorn's Private Passions (choice of music and biographical chat).

Found while looking for more KW, the John Bright Collection: collection of historic costume belonging to "award-winning costume designer John Bright" (who?). I want this Liberty cloak.

Comments

[boybear]

..was it Katharine Whitehorn who triggered a contest in the letters page of She magazine as to who was most clearly a slut? - this would have been round about '63 - my recollection is that it was declared closed when someone wrote in to confess that in a fit of panic, with visitors ringing the doorbell, she had picked up the cat and dusted the table with it.

[nineweaving]

I read the delectable Cooking in a Bedsitter some ages ago, and had forgotten both title and author, though not the gloriously louche contents. Thank you for restoring to my wits the author's name, and for the links to her work.

I hope that Liberty cloak has a twin, because I want it.

Nine

[shewhomust]

The original article was published in December '63, in the Observer, and as the version I've linked to explains, was followed by a variety of people writing in with confessions. It doesn't mention the dusting-the-table-with-the-cat episode, so that may have been elsewhere - though the picture in my mind when you say that is of Skip sweeping a cat (Freddie? or the Dibbler?) off the table with one arm while unfurling a sheet of pastry onto the table with the other...

[shewhomust]

The website has other cloaks, though none so perfect in colour - try a search, it's worth it. There's a gold wedding dress from 1937 which made me think of Harriet Vane...

[cmcmck]

I'm no domestic goddess but 'slut' has all sorts of unfortunate connotations!

[anef]

I don't think I'm a slut, as I am personally neat and tidy, but I would own up to being a slattern, on the grounds of living in a mess.

[shewhomust]

It does indeed: the article is a - not entirely serious! - attempt at reclamation, but each of us will decide for herself whether it succeeds.

[shewhomust]

That's a nice distinction!

[anef]

Well, I only ever tidy up when people come round, and that hasn't happened for nearly a year, now!