Mary Killen

Dear Mary... Q. Your child of not super-rich parents (8 October) needs to be aware that, if his parents hand ownership of their house to him, for the transfer to be valid for tax purposes they would then have to pay a full rent to him, and they might not want or be able to do this. T.W.A., Surrey A. Yes my correspondent might well have found that this was the case and it might well not suit the parents to shell out the full rent. However, the point was to prompt the parents into confronting the issue of legal tax avoidance in the first place so that they can take action sooner rather than later. Q. Re: pyjama trouser options.

Dear Mary... Q. I am the only child of parents in their seventies who are not super-rich but who do own a house in Dorset worth more than the £265,000 one is allowed to inherit before the 40 per cent inheritance tax comes into play. Ideally they would hand ownership of the house over to me now in the hope that they will live for another seven years (at least!), so I can avoid paying this tax, but I feel I cannot make this suggestion to them myself. Nevertheless it is impractical not to take what steps one legally can to prevent wasting money. What do you suggest, Mary? Name and address withheld A. Casually mention to your parents that you have made an appointment with your own solicitor because you need to draw up your will, or amend your existing one.

Dear Mary... Q. Pyjama gape or not, aprons should not be worn by a gentleman. The pyjama gape correspondence originated in Aldeburgh and the solution lies no further away than nearby Leiston, where the renowned Volga Linen Company (www.volgalinen.co.uk, 01728 635020) has among its sublime products linen pyjamas whose tops reach the knees, which I imagine should be sufficient for most wearers.P.J., by email A. Thank you for alerting readers to this possibility. Clicking on to the website, one can see these smart/cosy 100 per cent linen pyjamas. They are Indian in style, the colours on offer are white, natural, woad and indigo and they cost £112.

Dear Mary... Q. Staying with English friends in the south of France (about whom I have written to you before) my hosts took me to a rather raucous fancy dress party. Being sartorially challenged, I opted for a very short belly-dancing skirt and a minimalist top. My fortysomething hostess went as a Seventies go-go dancer so I did not feel underdressed. The party was made up of an eclectic mix of doctors, designers, artists, rock stars and other exotica, and after supper the music began in earnest. You cannot possibly imagine my frisson of excitement when I was smoothly and subtly led on to the dance floor by a very glamorous lesbian.

Q. I sympathise with B.M.F. (20 August). At a recent Proms concert, a superb performance of ‘Gerontius’ was ruined by a middle-aged woman continually fanning herself with her programme. It was not a hot night, and she was the only person in the hall doing so. She was very rude when someone tried to approach her about it in the interval. What do you suggest, Mary?J.McC., London W8 A. In these situations it is always easier to use a third person as a human buffer than to deal directly with a miscreant who may be defensive. You could have whispered to one of the people sitting next to the fanner ,‘Excuse me, could you possibly ask your friend to stop fanning? Everyone in the rows behind is finding it very distracting.

Q. We live in a tiny village in the Drakensberg range of South Africa. The social life is frenetic, but mores are rigidly observed, especially one which dictates that invitations to a meal require reciprocity in a relatively short time. Our problem is that some close friends seem to have forgotten (we are, after all, mostly in retirement mode) that it is now their turn to entertain, and they haven’t invited us to dine with them for several months, long past the norm. Clearly we cannot discuss this with them, and we are unwilling to ‘double up’, so to speak, since this will not solve the impasse. This situation is not unique to us, and therefore your reply will be helpful to many members of our social circle.J.D., Wakkerstroom, South Africa A.

Dear Mary... Q. We were recently married and a number of people who had informed us that they were coming failed to appear on the day. Besides the disappointment, our catering was not cheap and these no-shows cost us a considerable sum. We had to be tough with numbers, and we had a few people who were slightly hurt not to have been invited. We could have used the places for them. Our question is this: should we chastise the people who failed to appear? If so, how? M. & K.M., Cairns, Queensland, Australia A. Twenty years ago, had RSVP’d wedding guests failed to materialise, one would have expected the worst — a car crash, serious illness, a family death....

Dear Mary... Q. My husband and I were guests at a five-day house party in Scotland. Most of the other guests were heavy drinkers and on the first night one of them actually entered our bedroom in the middle of the night and got into our double bed with us. Neither of us slept well after this because there was no lock on the door and we were on tenterhooks every night in case there should be a repeat incident. Everyone parted on the best of terms and we did enjoy the holiday, but we returned from it shattered. We are soon to go for a weekend with a similar cast of characters and do not wish to become phobic, but feel it would be uncool were we to move furniture in our room so as to form a blockade at the door. How can we discourage nocturnal incursions?W.W. and D.W., London SW3 A.

Dear Mary... Q. My wife and I have had a number of people to stay at our seaside house this summer. We are writers and since most of our friends are what would be called ‘arty types’ we are usually a very relaxed party. Nevertheless I still feel ill at ease when hosting breakfast in pyjamas, which is usually the case, because of the insecure aperture of the traditional pyjama trouser. Should one inadvertently give offence, what is the correct apology? How do other men manage to keep the aperture from gaping when in mixed company? C.B., Aldeburgh, Suffolk A.

Dear Mary... Q. I am shortly to attend a wedding. My problem is that I feel uneasy about kissing the bride as she stands in the receiving line because I am very aware of the dozens, if not hundreds, of lips that will have distributed various germs on to the same area of cheek I will be kissing myself. Would it be in order to make a little joke of my neurosis, bring out a facial cleaning wipe and dab her cheek with it before planting my kiss? Might she, indeed, be grateful to me for stripping off some of these accumulated DNA samples?P.E., Pewsey, Wilts A. The bride will not appreciate your removal of her carefully applied make-up or fake tan.

Dear Mary... Q. I was entertaining a friend to drinks one evening after the pub. When he left (at approximately 1 a.m.) he called up to me from the pavement to say that as he was leaving he had heard one of my neighbours (there are six flats in the building) complaining about the noise coming from my flat. I had been playing music and I concede that — although not greatly loud — it could have been heard by others at this quiet time of day. Naturally, I turned it off. In the morning I woke up to find that I had no electricity in the flat. On further investigation, I discovered that one of my neighbours had turned off my electricity supply at the meter box in the common part of the house.

Dear Mary... Q. I have a six-bedroom house in Thorpeness to which I normally retire during the month of August. My problem is that there is no washing line and no way to dry sheets other than in a tumble-drier which is very noisy and, of course, unecological. With innumerable families proposing themselves to come for one or two nights during the month, would it be acceptable for me to ask people if they would mind sleeping in sheets that have already been slept in once or twice by other people, especially when most of those other people will have been children? I don’t like to ask people to bring their own sleeping bags, not only because they are a nuisance to carry but also because I find they are sweaty and uncomfortable to sleep in and I would not want my guests to be unhappy.A.

Dear Mary... Q. With reference to the problem of middle-aged women clad in low-slung jeans with thongs akimbo (25 June), perhaps a poem to cure ‘sartorial lapses’ might be more effective?Sure, deck your lower limbs in pants:Yours are the limbs, my sweeting.You look divine as you advance —Have you seen yourself retreating?Published by Ogden Nash in 1931 when he was looking at something very different. A translation into German is needed in this area where most of the women behind their shopping trolleys are hugely pear-shaped — and the first sighting of a G-string last week attracted a long queue at the check-out.M.L., Neustadt/Haardt, Germany A. Thank you. The Ogden Nash reminder is welcomed.

Dear Mary... Dear Mary... Q. I have a six-week-old baby and have been invited to a lunch party by a neighbour. It was going to be my chance to meet all the other mothers in the street and chat about schools and so on. Now another mother has rung to say that she is bringing her 18-month-old son, with chickenpox, to the party, adding, ‘Everyone else’s children will be at school but I thought I should just warn you in case you might prefer not to come if you are worried about your baby possibly catching it.’ Am I right in thinking that this mother should be the one to stay at home, rather than ordering another mother to do so? I was so surprised by her call that I thanked her and said I would probably stay at home, but what should I have said, Mary?

Dear Mary... Q. Our son and his fiancée are getting married in Pretoria, South Africa, later this year, although they both live in London, where they have their established home. They would prefer guests not to give them presents they would be unable to cope with in their small flat in Pretoria, and shipping gifts back from RSA would prove especially problematic and costly. How can they say politely and nicely, without offence, that they would prefer financial gifts to help with the proposed refurbishment of their kitchen rather than ‘another toaster’? I know you will know what to do, Mary.M.E., Cyprus A. Practical though the suggestion may be, many wedding guests will bridle if asked to hand over cash rather than a present. It’s the unsubtlety they resent.

Dear Mary... Q. My student stepson from my recent re-marriage and I are very different people. His mother worries that our relationship will suffer if I am too unkind to the boy, but he drives her crackers too! We have an excellent Italian restaurant locally which does a varied, fixed price, early-evening menu. Every time he joins us there, he asks to have the one dish which attracts a supplement, whatever the choices. I am never sure whether this is an immature belief that most expensive is best, or a challenge of some kind. I am unwilling to fall out with my wife or even the boy irretrievably over £2 or £3, but if there were a way to affect this behaviour without lasting damage, I would appreciate your creative input. C.W., Glasgow A.

Dear Mary... Q. The new fashion of women wearing pants (sic) that do not fit properly and reveal their underwear is in full flight here. There is no hope for the young, who will slavishly follow whatever is in fashion, regardless of how stupid it looks. However, we have a friend in her late thirties or early forties. She is still quite an attractive women for her age, but not so attractive that she should be wearing these sorts of things. What can we say to her, without appearing to be perverts or fuddy-duddies, to stop her wearing her pants so that her g-string underpants and the top part of her buttocks are showing to all and sundry?M. and K.M., Queensland, Australia A. One school of thought holds that people’s sartorial lapses should be welcomed, not suppressed.

Dear Mary... Q. Let me offer a variant on your wet towel advice (21 May). My partner and I were married for more than 60 years between us, but not to each other, so we came to this new and lovely relationship with many years’ experience of how not to do things. It became apparent early on that I was now living with a habitual towel-dropper, which in the past would have caused friction. One lesson we have both learnt is to look for jolly opportunities to communicate feelings of love and care. Towel-dropping provided one. Our arrangement is that I insist on picking it up for her every day as a silent statement of love.

Dear Mary... Q. In the 28 May edition of The Spectator you state that ‘a rector enjoys superior rank to a vicar’. While this may be true in popular mythology, it is quite wrong as far as the Church of England is concerned. The different titles merely reflect the source of an incumbent’s income in the Middle Ages. A rector held glebe land sufficient to provide an independent income. A vicar was paid a stipend by someone else — most commonly a monastic foundation. A wealthy religious house might pay a vicar more than a rector could scrape together from personal farming or rents. Since the Reformation, there has been no difference between rectors and vicars except the history of their benefices.

Q. I own a holiday cottage in Padstow in Cornwall. Sometimes I let the cottage, at other times I allow friends to stay there. I employ a local cleaning agency to come in on Monday mornings to clean up after each occupancy and get it ready for the incoming parties. My problem is that recently a great friend of mine, who is very fastidious, stayed in the cottage and informed me that she had left the place spotless on her departure — yet I still had the usual bill from the cleaning agency. It now occurs to me that other occupants may be equally fastidious, but since I live in London I have no means of checking. How can I avoid being had for a mug, Mary?B.T., London W12 A. The cleaning ladies are only human.