Saturday 24 August 2019

Not made in Panama


I am envious of all my bald and balding friends. They have a legitimate excuse for wearing hats in the sun, whereas I have so much hair that I don't need to. It's not fair.

I can be forgiven for wearing a hat in the Winter but, as yet, I have never found one which I like enough to be able to disregard the furtive sniggering and sarcastic comments from my bald friends. You remember my search for the Basil Rathbone hat of the 1930s-40s. Well I am still looking for it.

I love proper, well-made Panama hats. I have one now which has an extremely tasteful brown band, not the run-of-the-mill black as all Chinese £10 rip-offs do. It is sitting upstairs in a darkened room.

I once had a beautiful Panama (see above photo) which I liked so much that I gave it as a special present to my shaven-headed German friend, Thömas (see below photo). I was even crass enough to tell him how much it cost (a lot) so that he fully appreciated the gift.

"You can wear it with the brim turned down if you want to look like a German archeologist from the 1930s, or you can leave the brim up if you want to look like an English vicar from the same period." This hat came with sartorial advice as standard. I didn't mention that many 1930s Anglican vicars were also archeologists in their spare time.

He opted for Fatherland mode on the grounds that - even though he was raised in the North - his parents made him wear lederhosen as a child. It's true. I've seen the photos.

Over the coming months he would often refer to the Panama, assuring me that he used it almost every day. The next Summer he arrived in his open-top vintage MG sports car - wearing the hat.

I don't know what he had done to it, but it would not have looked out of place on the head of a donkey. It even had holes for the ears. I was speechless.

That hat is a testimony to the strength of our friendship. I would have sent anyone else back to where they came from and would never have spoken to them again.


17 comments:

  1. My favourite hat ever was a brown Harris tweed flat cap. I lent it to a Parisian girl who had a beautiful smile and a very sexy voice. I never saw it again!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's funny. I once gave a hat to a beautiful Parisian girl, but then I took it back.

      Delete
  2. Today is the first day this year when such a hat would be useful here - and it is also the Wensleydale Show - very convenient although I doubt many panamas - more knotted hankies I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hat holes? Most peculiar! How uncharacteristic of a German not to value a possession of good quality/expensive present from a friend. Maybe he was afraid that the hat might get blown off in the open top sports car. He might have tried to secure it with a chinstrap, therefore the holes. But looking too much like a damsel in distress in a Jane Austen novel, he abandoned the chinstrap and just kept the hat. Holes and all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The holes were caused by somehow scrunching the hat up until it split. He already made a chinstrap for it.

      Delete
  4. I have learned the hard way that you should never give anything to a friend that you truly value. Their idea of respect is never the same as your own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Their understanding may not be the same, but they are not always behaving like Philistines. If you give something away you must be prepared to say goodbye to it forever without rancour. It was only a hat, after all.

      Delete
  5. Despite your abundance of hair, you should be wearing a hat with a brim. Even as far north as you are, it's good to keep the sun off your face and neck.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't get enough sun on my face and neck. The sun is not my enemy.

      Delete
  6. That's a very nice sweater (jumper), too. Is it knitted by hand? It appear so.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. It is/was a genuine Arran sweater, knitted on the island, but probably using a small hand machine I expect. I still have it but it is full of holes (not made by Thömas). I cannot bear to throw it away.

      Delete
    2. I would guess, as a former expert maker of Arans, the only machines were hands and needles and cable hooks, though the later are mostly for sissies.

      Delete
    3. Apparently the knots and patterns mean something to a fisherman.

      Delete
  7. Tremendous-looking hat you gave to Thomas. Interesting variety of German Hase he has perched on his shoulder in the photo.

    ReplyDelete