Bonnet

Do you remember Easter Bonnet Parades? Some of my sharpest early school memories come from those bizarre occasions when all the infant students would be forced to don holiday headgear and file around the playground while the seniors snickered and mocked.

One year Mum helped me make a “Cat in the Hat” affair, a crisp red and white cylinder. I was giddy with the thought that I might actually win a prize, until some daft sadist of a teacher put me in the “tall hats” group instead of the “story book” category. I had no chance against the towering creations around me.

The next year, Mum thought it would be character-building for me to compete on my own efforts, so while other kids’ parents pulled in favours from society milliners, I got creative with an ice-cream container, some foil and a couple of Mintie wrappers.

That year I walked in my own special category.

Despite these traumatic memories, I do love the idea of wearing silly hats in public. It’s a shame the Easter Bonnet Parade isn’t more widely celebrated in the grown-up world. True, in Australia we have Melbourne Cup Day, which is always good for a giggle at fascinators, but it lacks somehow the innocent abandon of the E.B.P. (Hard to feel innocent when you’re guzzling Champagne and betting on horses.)

That is why I was so pleased to read the below article in today’s Wandsworth Guardian. It’s good to see the spirit of competition so vibrantly alive this Easter. Even at 86, “funky” Mae Main be-ribboned her way to victory in the Battersea Pensioners Contact Club Easter Bonnet Parade.

Congratulations, Mae – I take my home-made hat off to you.