Bring back the stiffy!

The other day, clearing out boxes, I stumbled on a sheaf of invitations from childhood. Decorated with trains and fairies, they are very similar to those my children still (just about) receive today, except there’s usually a Thelwell pony instead of Elsa from Frozen. The handwritten addresses, the names of the houses and streets (Bluebell Cottage, Leeward Road) plunged me back to 1980s Sussex, sunlit gardens and pass the parcel (where only the winner got a prize, unlike now, when a Haribo lurks in every layer).

It was a ritual. There was the pleasure of choosing the invitations (‘Darling, we had spaceships last year’), the thrill of doling them out and the tension of waiting for the RSVPs. It was also, though I knew it not at the time, social preparation. In my final year at prep school, the headmaster issued us with a formal invitation to drinks. We had to respond properly, or we could not attend. Cue little boys scribbling variations on ‘I delightedly accept your wondrous invitation’. We were demurred. The answer, of course, was to use the third person. ‘Philip Womack thanks…’ We were allowed to go to the party anyway. We also learned our lesson. A creamy, thick, engraved and gilded card: who would go to the trouble now? On my mantelpiece sit a brace: to dinner at a livery company, and to a wedding. They are lonely. I wonder if I will have to leave them there, after the dates have passed. A faux pas, I know, but what can you do? An invitation to a garden party at Buckingham Palace stood in situ for several years, until eventually even I had to agree it was time to put it away. Perhaps we can extend the rule to a month afterwards, given their scarcity.