My daughter and I watched some dancers in a hall while waiting for laundry one day. The ladies were elegantly dressed in stockings, heels and even gloves. The men wore ties and genial smiles. The men led, the women followed but both held a strength and a contentment in their roles of the dance. I know that we have a come a long way in terms of women's liberation and the freedom to express ourselves as we need too but there is something graceful about that era. The women are ladies and the men are gentlemen in the truest sense of the world. In the passing of a divine women of 95 that I know, I realised that generation is on the brink of extinction. The days of tea in china cups and saucers, of lace handkerchiefs, of perfect manners and gentle speech, skirts, blouses and cardigans will all disappear one day. I think that the world will be a little less refined without them.
