In my online italian class we have spent some time talking about significant events and personalities during the last half century and more, since the end of the second world war really, that have changed the way we live, first in Italy and then in the UK. It was a bit of nostalgia fest really, some of it positive and some negative. And there was a certain amount of feeling that genies had been let out that could not be put back into their bottles: social media, mobile phones, even the internet.
This morning Zoe Williams was doing some of the same kind of thing in her column in the Guardian. She began like this:
“When I was young, and Halloween was just becoming a thing, and other people’s mums were doing fun stuff like blindfolding children and sticking their hands in a bowl of peeled grapes, calling them witches’ eyeballs, my mum was saying: “This is a disgusting Americanisation of what was previously a very low-key event.””
That’s a familiar sentiment, I thought, having expressed the same thing umpteen times myself.
She went on to discover that she has turned into her mother (we all do at some point in our lives) and was railing against proms:
“But then 40 years flashed by, and prom became a thing, and now it’s me asking the dumb questions, which all boil down to the same question: why are we doing this? Is it just because we learned it off the telly?”
Coincidentally, I spoke to my sister the other day and she told me how beautiful her youngest granddaughter had looked all dressed up in her finery for her prom. Goodness! There I was, thinking of that child, my great-niece I suppose, as a little girl and there she is, GCSEs over and done with and a prom to go to!
I thought back to quite a lot more than a quarter of a century ago when one of the younger teachers at the college where I worked had the bright idea of organising a social event for our soon to be departing upper sixth students. We didn’t call it a “prom”, even though that was certainly the American idea that inspired him, but a “leavers’ ball”, with a nod to the sort of formal occasions they might come across at university. We liked to think we were innovators organising this event. It was to be more formal than, for example, the occasional dances (hops) we had organised previously. The girls would wear long dresses - ball gowns - and the boys would wear tuxedos. The students grasped the idea with both hands. They loved it: a formal dinner, some dancing, and awards. A new tradition was born: every year students, and teachers too, were nominated for awards, some serious, some less so: the most consistent late hander-in of assignments; the most likely to ask a daft question: the worst at parking their car. Aah! Nostalgia!
Years went by and suddenly all the high schools were also having leavers’ proms. Now even primary schools have proms, although not quite so formal as high school and sixth form college events. And even nursery schools have graduation ceremonies. It’s really all got a little out of hand! But fun for those taking part!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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