YesBut wear your hat with pride - Part 3

Continued from yesterday

For YesBut’s Image posted on the 17th June 2007, Chewy suggested the caption

“Smile and look at the birdie!”

The photograph suggested the following story to me, (continued from yesterday):

That night William retired to his bedroom, there after writing a farewell note to Emily, he took out his officer’s pistol and shot himself.

Poor Emily, if William’s mind had been damaged by the events on the front line, her’s was deranged by her accidental castration of her one true love. She immediately withdrew from her friends and family. With the money left to her in William’s Will she purchased a small remote farm deep in the Cornish countryside. She was only seen when she made her weekly shopping visit to a small nearby village. She spent here days tending her garden and looking after her chickens.

For forty years she lived as a recluse. Then one day when returning from here weekly visit to the village she met a young woman. She looked distraught, for the first time since William’s death she felt compassion. Taking the young woman by the arm she led here back to her cottage. There over a cup of tea Ann unburdened herself.

She told Emily of the pressure she was under to sleep with her boyfriend. She said she knew that if she gave in to his demands, she would lose her boyfriends respect. She wanted to retain her virginity to her wedding night. Living in isolation Emily was out of touch with the changes that had occurred in the public’s attitude to sex and marriage. She was appalled that young men would be so un-gentlemanly as to even consider deflowering a young lady before they were married. At last, with the aid of Ann, she had found a purpose in life. She founded the League for the Protection of Young Lady’s Chastity (LPYLC).

She wrote letters to the Times newspaper and women’s magazines, campaigning for young women to protect their virtue. Soon she had a small group of middle aged frigid women rallying to her cause. One afternoon sitting in Emily’s cottage, they decided they need some emblem to symbolise their unity. It was Ann who came up with the idea of wearing a hat, something that had gone out of fashion, except for funerals, weddings and the perfunctory weekly attendance at Sunday morning church service. Emily was enthusiastic; she said as a young girl she had made a hat out of feathers.

That evening Emily and Ann collected feathers from the chicken shed. But, the dirty off-white brown hat Emily made wasn’t considered sufficiently emblematic by her followers. They thought it should be pure white. After several unsuccessful attempts to bleach the feathers, Emily conceded defeat. Ann suggested, “if not pure white, why not pink”. The first pink hat produced was an instant success.

Emily lived long enough to see LPYLC flourish and grow, with branches being formed all over the world. She was a happy woman when she died aged 93 in 1987. At her death the popular press predicted the rapid decline of the LPYLC. But in reality the movement grew stronger and stronger. The 2001 UK census showed the average age for women losing their virginity was 27. In 2007, to mark the twentieth anniversary of Emily’s death, the LPYLC issued tee-shirt to its members bearing the slogan "Em’s Hen Fever”. This reflected the close affection the members had for LPYLC’s founder and her chickens which still supplied the feathers for their iconic hats, until the flock was tragically wiped-out in 2005 from a virulent strain of hot flushes.