Not for the first time Enid and my mother sound very similar! My mother actually did shop at a John Lewis store (Heelas in Reading) and Camp Hopson (in Newbury) which wasn't a John Lewis, but still one of those Good Old Fashioned Department Stores that had the air of wealth.Belly wrote:My view of Enid changed after reading A Childhood At Greenhedges.
As she became wealthier and joined the upper middle classes she had an expensive ( even flash car by the standards of times)? and shopped at Harrods. I think Imogen suggested that this was largely through the influence of Kenneth Darrell Waters. I get the feeling that her 'arrogant spirit' meant she secretly enjoyed material things & the trappings of upper middle class life at the time (going on a cruise, employing efficient uniformed staff etc).
That said I think back then Harrods was a bit of a 'John Lewis' for the upper middle classes (in that things were seen as being good quality).
She never lost her work ethic and agree she would frown on those who lived beyond their means. She wasn't Jenny Wren though (although I think she would like to have been) and I sense she had a bit of a inner Gwendoline or Angela, impressed with wealth and napkins embossed with initials etc she used to have to give stern talkings to sometimes.
My mother did have a work ethic, but if she could have been whisked off from all of that to live a life of a lady of leisure and expensive items she could. I don't actually blame her - I often wish for the same too! But you don't get rich millionaires in Okehampton
There was also a lot of sibling rivalry from my mother towards my aunt that I don't think my aunt was ever aware of. My mother was insanely jealous when my aunt's wage exceeded hers and was furious that my aunt had a cleaner and she didn't. From a very young age, perhaps 6/7 I can remember my mother ranting about how she once had a cleaner when she lived in Sagecroft Road and that she found it sickening she didn't any more. Sagecroft Road would always be given incredible importance and that She Lived In A House, not a mobile home as she does now.
Similarly, taxi rides in London ranked high on her list of Things To Be Seen Doing.
Anyway... I'm onto another digression! I agree that Enid would say live within your means and when required you mend and make do and cut back when you need to, but by all means enjoy the luxuries when you have earned them. Her stories often feature making your own luck and fortune after all.
I think Enid probably would have liked a flash credit card from the Right Bank with words like "Premium", "Platinum" etc emblazoned across it but I don't think she would have excessively spent on it at the same time. The card would be more a status symbol than an actual means of funds to my mind.
. I imagine Enid today would have banked privately with Coutts or Hoare or something. Digressing again I had a boyfriend once who told me 'you have to earn a cleaner'. This meant that it was 'wrong' somehow to employ one unless you 'deserved' it by having cleaned thoroughly, until your knees were bleeding etc, yourself. I've never understood that 
