Ite and abite
Alastair Best
The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook Ann Barr and Peter York (Ebury Press £4.95) Readers of Harpers and Queen will be familiar with the Sloane Ranger. Ever since she was first identified in 1975' Caroline and her life-style have been the subject of minute scrutiny. A Hermes scarf, knotted at throat or handbag is still her most diagnostic feature. But there is also the unmistakable Husky jacket (`Please never change the poppers', a woman once wrote to the makers of this curious gar- ment, 'because I know just whom I can tall, to on trains') and the rather carrying voice designed to be heard across ballroom' ' sfloaoeress,openmarquees and other wide open Lung-power is a characteristic which the female of the species shares with the Male (subsp. Hooray Henry). While Caroline cooks director's lunches or beavers away.t the General Trading Company, Henry.ts in the City (`for my sins'). In leisure moments he affects to be a serious drinker- His jovial ribaldries echo round the Antelope or the Admiral Cod, and on earlY
morning his io
tube trains hangover'. be seenn Rangers cofiurlsdt baenadtiosmmiissseedd, asthea inSklocan, comfortable anachronism. Yet they have provedastonishingly durable. The Sloane, style, with its rustic roots and mistrust or things intellectual is a very English style. Despite their hyperbolic speech pattern (`he's completely mad' means 'he's mildly unconventional') the Sloanes are firm believers in restraint. Their clothes thak.e few concessions to fashion or sex. in tile! off-duty, rus in urbe uniform of green Pi' boots, guernseys and quilted waistcoats Henry and Caroline are almost in- distinguishable. For formal male attire the possibilities of self-expression are likewise limited. To a Jermyn Street shirt-maker 3a half-inch change in collar widths in decade amounts to a revolution. Although a certain amount of sanctioned vulgarity in; filtrates Henry's wardrobe — vermilion su!t linings and foppish snuff handerkerch!el,s are deemed OK — the Seduction Principle does not play a very big part in Sloan, fashions. Clothes should be ageless and sex less. Not only should they be in the sone style as those worn by one's grandfather' ideally they should have belonged to hurl° well. A Sloane wears this timeless tailoring until it falls apart. Synthetic fabrics and frothy fashions are not for him. As Ann ., Barr and Peter York point out: 'Sloane men go in for fraud and adultery in later hie, with far fewer qualms than into a frilleel, nylon shirt.' The book is the result of Ma°
Years' intensive fieldwork. The authors have a highly developed nose for the marginal differences and invisible taboos which surround their subject; and they write with the affectionate mock-scholarly tone of a Stephen Potter, unveiling a new Ploy. Sloane Rangers are clearly here to stay. 'Who Sloanes Wins' is their watch- word, and I am inclined to think they may be right.
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