Hot fashion tips for oldies

In the Cotswolds, nearly four decades ago, my then husband would stand in the bedroom half-dressed on a Saturday evening wailing, ‘Do you think it’s a blazer do or a cardie do?’

We were arrivistes but not entirely stupid. We knew that in the Coln Valley – or Sin Valley, as it was then widely known – it mattered not too much whose spouse you borrowed for the afternoon, or had on permanent loan. Yet it mattered very much that you knew your Gucci loafers from your tasselled Trickers.

Kitchen supper for the girls meant pie-crust collars, burgundy fine tights, miniskirts, lashes of slap and loads of gold chains.

We once sailed into a Gloucestershire drawing room for dinner, for the same ex-husband to find he was the only male not in a smoking jacket, plaid trews and a pair of velvet slippers.

The pie-crust women are now in their sixties and the miniskirts have been replaced by maxis. The blazers have gone to the church fête. Today, the men mostly favour cable-knit cashmere sweaters, raspberry cords and kilim slippers.

‘Why raspberry cords?’ a Martian might ask.

‘Easy,’ I say. ‘Their mustard ones are in the wash.’

Meanwhile, Tina Brown’s newly published Palace Papers, is a riot of needle-sharp observations about the Royal Family and their chosen styles – as Vogue might put it.

She notes that, at the memorial service for Patrick Lichfield, the Duchess of Cornwall’s hat makes her look like cabin crew and you could root for truffles in the forest of bad teeth.

Sitting near the rear of the church at a spring funeral in Lincolnshire earlier this month, I spotted another aristo ‘look’, as Vogue might also note.

Hard to know from the back if she is girl or granny. Her skirt is long. Her coat,

Anne’s memorial-service onesie which has obviously done much gardening, is considerably shorter.

But it’s the hair that mesmerises; mostly uncombed and below her shoulders except for one random bit which is held on the top of her head by a wobbly comb.

If only one’s middle-class mother had said one could go to church looking like that.

I’ve been explaining to my daughter how she will know she has eased into comfortable late middle age.

Three pointers: • Your mother no longer embarrasses you. • It is possible to enjoy drinking tea only if it is served in a bone-china cup. • And, most important, within ten seconds of arriving home, you need to race to the bedroom to rid yourself of tight clothes.

Dear reader, I have the answer. It is the Bamford onesie.

A cashmere knit with a bib, worn over a loose T-shirt.

They are half-price online and at Daylesford.

Your children will call you Super Mario. Your girlfriends will say, ‘Hello, Andy Pandy.’

Ignore.

I have bought one in all four colours.

Indeed, next time I am on the invitation list for a royal memorial service, I will be wearing the black one.

The hairy-arsed cyclists in our country lanes yelling at me to put my perfectly behaved spaniel on a lead are multiplying.

The other early Sunday morning, I made a brief trip in my car that turned out to be more scary than driving in a European Grand Prix.

First, the Lycra louts cycling three abreast, who never acknowledge and thank a driver who’s slowed down.

Next, the female 4-by-4-owner who thinks she is either on a one-way street or in the Dordogne. She doesn’t know how to mount the grass verge to let me pass, despite her completely suitable tyres, and she glares.

Finally, and possibly safest of those out and about, the farmer in his dilapidated pick-up who is using the rear mirror to shave.

There is a fashion point to this: I intend shortly to go online to look for a female weekend bomb-disposal outfit to keep me safe in my car.

PS I’ve never written a fashion column before. But I have spent some years doing my best to look reasonably dressed on television.

Even though I realise one’s best often is not good enough.

Here’s a handful of things strangers casually observe:

‘My wife said I was to ask you the name of your hairdresser. Not that she wants to look like you.’

‘I suppose they make you dress like that.’

Er, no.

‘’Course you’ve had dozens of face lifts.’

Just the one, 20 years ago.

‘My husband is having an affair with a redhead. What’s the name of the colour you use on your hair?’

Mightn’t it be more effective to take a pair of scissors to the crotch of his best trousers?

And my favourite, usually at a drinks party: a woman approaches with gusto. ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘I never watch any television…’