Walking

I have just seen a friend of mine walk past outside and was struck again how curious her style of walking is. She nods gently as she goes - not in time to the rhythm of her feet, but slowly and deeply, as if she is agreeing with the Invisible Man. 

Children walk like dogs off the lead. I suppose all that hopping, skipping and leaping over cracks in the pavement is an in-built exercise regime to build up young muscle. I have watched the walking style of my contemporaries go from a boastful display of hidden energy reserves to the execution of a carefully thought-out plan to get from A to B without falling - either over or asleep. Their whole frame has dried out to the extent that each footfall on the hard pavement produces a shudder that goes right to the top of their head, like shaking an old wicker fence.

Everyone has seen a very young girl pretending to be an old lady. They bend their spines forward and hold out an imaginary cane in one hand, and as they shuffle along stiffly in hesitant and shallow steps, they assume a creaky, cracked voice to describe the pain that never goes away. They are always watching - they don't miss a trick.

My mother - who used to be a fashion model - was trained to walk whilst balancing a book on her head. Many young women attended 'deportment' classes in those days, even if they were not cut out to be models.

At the time when magazines and television turned 'mannequins' into potential super-models like Twiggy, my mother made some wry observations on the way that the industry had changed since her day.

"We were trained to be elegant and graceful at all times," she said. "These days they look as though they are told to stand as if they were sitting astride a barrel."