Tuesday 7 May 2013

Vain Fashions Of The Day

Sonata: I survived a visit to the hairdressers today and now look less like a Yeti for which I am grateful ..... but not in the slightest vain , oh no !
Which is just as well . This afternoon , while hunting for some papers , I found an excerpt from Ministers and Men in The Far North by the Reverend Alexander Auld , which includes a brief history of one of my mother's forefathers , Donald Mackay . Donald , born in 1767 ,  was a crofter in Clashcreggan and an itinerant preacher , a man of resolute righteousness .
This passage caught my eye ,
"His antipathy to the varying and vain fashions of the day in dress and adornment was strong , and sometimes practically expressed . One of his daughters had begun to his grief to imitate a prevailing mode of dressing the hair . While she was sleeping one night , Donald stole softly to her bedside , and with a scissor mulcted her of a particularly offensive ringlet . The girl , on awaking and discovering her loss , was not a little indignant . Shortly afterwards , being seized with fever , her head had to be shaved . Donald standing by her after this had been done , lifted up his hands and said , "Glory to Thee ; I only took a little , but Thou hast taken the whole"
My many times great-aunt's reply is not recorded .
 

8 comments:

colleen said...

Bad,mad and sad, don't you think?

Liz Hinds said...

I'm sure it would have been worth recording though!

Rattling On said...

When quite young my Aunty B cut off my Aunty M's very long plaits in a similar fashion. It didn't go down very well at all.

love those cupcakes said...

Oh, poor girl. And I thought I was badly done to when, as a 16 year old, I allowed my cousin's then girlfriend to 'trim' my hair. Turned out she only had one style in her repertoire. The pixie cut. The extreme version.

Fran Hill said...

How can a ringlet be offensive?!

Marcheline said...

Not sure how shaving someone's head affects a fever, but...

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! (US version)

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

Given the Scottish climate , it would definitely cool you down .... and be cheaper than applying leeches .

Friko said...

I absolutely cannot abide the self-righteous kind, men or women.

They’ll always be with us, just like the poor.