Sorry! The English and Their Manners by Henry Hitchings - review by Christopher Howse

Christopher Howse

Men Behaving Courteously

Sorry! The English and Their Manners

By

John Murray 392pp £19.99 order from our bookshop
 

Have hat manners evaporated entirely, just at the moment when men’s hats have become fashionable again (trilbies and pork-pie hats in addition to the common baseball cap)? A generation or two without hats have left men with no idea how to use them, no idea even that there should be rules.

I often see tourists walk into my local church in central London quite unaware that they are wearing a baseball cap and that it should be taken off. Perhaps they might be more aware that they should have one on if they wandered into a synagogue. Even less familiar is

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

OUP Niven

Follow Literary Review on Twitter