The business of ageing can be tedious or amusing – depending on a person's outlook. Turning fifty used to be a dreaded milestone in a woman’s life. But no longer – especially if she is a member of the International Red Hat Society.
Founded in California
This extraordinary movement which started in America in 1998, has swept the world and it’s estimated that more than 50,000 chapters exist in the US with thousands starting up in the UK. American Founder of the RHS, Californian Sue Ellen Cooper is delighted that her inspirational idea is so successful, bringing fun, frivolity and enduring friendship for women around the world.
It was Sue Ellen who, when endeavouring to cheer up a friend who was approaching her 50th birthday, presented her with a red hat decorated with a jaunty bunch of shiny cherries. This was accompanied with a copy of the famous poem by the world-famous English poet, Jenny Joseph, entitled “Warning: When I Am Old I shall wear Purple.”
Meeting Jenny Joseph in London's Somerset House
I met Jenny Joseph in London last year at the Royal Society of Literature gathering in Somerset House in London. Although she acknowledged my interest in her famous poem, she did mention that she had produced many collections of poems since the 1960s.
An Essex-based Chapter
Energetic Brentwood-based Carol Crosbie (known as Queen Cass of Warley) leads the ‘Top Totties’, the Brentwood Chapter in Essex, England, said: “We started the RHS about three years ago but and our chapter has grown rapidly with dozens of new members. Our colourful dress code of exotic purple topped by our red hats certainly make a splash wherever we gather en masse and this adds to the fun of being out and about on our theatre trips, lunches, visits to super places and generally enjoying life.”
Janet Pattison, founder of the Billericay Red Hat Society, feels similarly saying: "Our Chapter is steadily growing and the friendship and fun when meeting up with other groups in the South East, continues."
Jenny Joseph’s Poem (written in 1961)
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And made up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Source:
Joseph, Jenny, The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1974)
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