All manner of trouble

Carolyn Bourne’s email berating her intended daughter-in-law for her lack of decorum has divided opinion. Esther N McCarthy challenges the strictures of etiquette while Mary Leland insists upon good manners.

GOOD manners means putting up with other people’s bad manners, said H Jackson Brown Jr and if the author of Life’s Little Instruction Book thinks so, it must be true.

When Heidi Withers stayed with her fiancee Freddie’s family for a weekend in Devon, she got a harsh lesson in decorum from her future mother-in-law.