Manners maketh

Maxine Frith11 April 2012
The Weekender

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ALOOK of victorious pride flooded seven-and-a-halfyear-old Edward James's face as he raised his fork in triumph. "I've got one," he announced, prompting polite applause from the assembled onlookers. The speared object of his prey was a humble green pea but Edward had the look of a big game hunter who had just killed a lion with his bare hands.

"Peas," he explains gravely, "are trouble."

For a prep school boy with a penchant for food fights and McDonald's, the prospect of getting through a meal without using his hands or employing the bread rolls as missiles was somewhat daunting.

But, under the gentle but firm tutelage of Lanesborough Hotel head butler Sean Davoren, Edward was learning the etiquette of fine dining, pea-eating and polite conversation - and, surprisingly, seemed to be enjoying it.

The Lanesborough began offering etiquette courses for children in June after a distraught woman guest appealed to Mr Davoren for help in controlling her unruly son at the dinner table.

Mr Davoren says: "She said she was desperate, that her son would just run round the restaurant, had no manners and was uncontrollable, and was there anything I could do.

"Other people had also spoken to me about the fact they couldn't get their children to sit through a meal or behave in a restaurant, and so I got six of them together one day and took them through a few skills."

News of the course has spread by word of mouth and parents from as far as Oxford and Hertfordshire, as well as American guests at the hotel, have sent their offspring to the manners masterclass, which takes place on the first Saturday of every month. The September and October slots for the £45-a-head course are already fully-booked, as parents queue up to ensure their children are fit for public presentation in an age where most London youngsters boast a social diary to rival that of the latest tabloid It-girl.

While being too discreet to actually utter the phrase nouveau riche, Mr Davoren says: "A lot of the clients are people who have recently made money in business and are beginning to enjoy the good life, but are a bit shaky on etiquette and want to make sure their children know what they are doing.

"Children are no longer hidden away. They go out to restaurants, they go out to parties and they have a packed social life. In the old days, they would have been left at home but at least they would have been taught manners within the home."

MR DAVOREN adds: "Nowa-days, children do go out, which is how it should be, but they have been brought up by parents who in turn grew up in the Sixties and Seventies, and the tradition of sitting down and eating a proper meal around the table has been eroded.

"Mothers as well as fathers work and, at the end of the day, you're tired, you go home and shove something in the microwave and shove it in front of the children. Places like McDonald's also mean they get used to eating with their hands and they don't know how to handle a knife and fork properly."

He goes: "Children learn by example. They will only know what to do at the table if they see their parents doing it. In France, children are practically born at the dinner table - in England, we have lost the art of sitting down to Sunday lunch as a family and eating, talking - really dining with each other.

"Children haven't been taught how to eat at a restaurant or behave in a hotel, so they feel uncomfortable and unconfident, and that is why they get restless, don't sit at a table or misbehave.

"This course is about giving them confidence - showing them the basics so they don't feel out of place or nervous and teaching them how to make conversation and chat with people. That way, not only will they behave but they will actually enjoy themselves as well."

Mr Davoren is a modern-day Jeeves, exuding calm, elegance and efficiency while remaining friendly and unpatronising with the discretion one would expect of the head butler at a hotel favoured by the likes of Madonna.

He has held the position at the Lanesborough for three years, and has previously worked for other London hotels, as well as for families in private homes - although the "unspoken code of the butlers" prevents him from disclosing any details.

Instead, he concentrates on the task of teaching Edward and his 11-year-old sister Polly, from Sutton in Surrey, the essentials of etiquette in a one-hour crash course. Mr Davoren's own children - 12-year-old Alana and 10-year-old Victoria - are also in attendance.

Edward's father William, a restaurant owner, says: "Edward is a bit unco-ordinated with his knife and fork and sometimes ends up eating with his hands. We do teach them rules, such as keeping their elbows off the table, but I'm not sure how he will get on with this."

In his own defence, Edward explains: "Sometimes the food is really hard to put on the fork, and the knife turns round and it all falls off. Then I use my hands because it's easier." Polly, meanwhile, is about to start at secondary school, leaving her co-ed prep school for the (allegedly) more civilised environment of single-sex education.

She says: "At school lunches the boys throw food at us and we throw it back. People aren't very well-behaved."

Mr Davoren barely raises a well-groomed eyebrow at these revelations and starts the class with a lesson on how to cope with afternoon tea.

POLLY and Edward look slightly terrified as a succession of Lanesborough waiters bring out cups, saucers, plates, cake forks and a silver teapot, although their eyes light up at the goodie-laden cake tray placed between them.

"Don't take something if you don't want it," he tells them. "Only take what you want to eat, and if there's nothing there you like, you can ask politely if there is something else."

This advice is wasted on Edward, whose attention has already been distracted by a chocolate gateau. The next big obstacle is consumption. Mr Davoren shows his pupils how to take the cake fork, turn it and cut into their chosen sweet.

This proves more difficult than it looks. Polly's meringue almost careers off her plate, while Victoria is attacking her scone with some vicious hatchet movements that fail to make much impression.

Edward has the most success, executing a textbook fork-to-mouth movement that draws admiration from his teacher, although the effect is slightly marred by an enthusiastic wiping of the plate followed by a licking of his fingers at the end. He enthuses: "That was really nice. It was easy because the cake was sticky and stuck to the fork."

So that's the trick - choose a sticky cake.

Next up is tea. Mr Davoren says: "Children should be allowed to say if they would rather have water or Coke. Most people don't start liking tea until they are in their teens. But if they do, an adult should make sure it has plenty of milk, isn't too hot and isn't too full."

Whatever the choice of beverage, there is one cardinal rule: "Always sip, never gulp, always put the glass or cup down between sips and always drink with the right hand."

The courses are also designed to help children learn how to make conversation at the lunch, dinner or tea table. And this is where the girls come into their element.

Mr Davoren says: "We get an equal mix of girls and boys on these courses but the girls are generally better. They are much more likely to start talking to each other and chatting - boys sometimes need a bit of a guiding hand to start talking to other boys they don't know."

In illustration of this fact, Victoria and Po l ly h ave taken advantage of the break to huddle together in enthusiastic chatter about new schools and summer holidays, while Edward is anxiously waiting to discover whether the chocolate cake is to be surpassed with more culinary delights.

Unfortunately for him, the next course in this somewhat eclectic meal is a plate of peas. Our foursome look at the vegetables with suspicion. "I like carrots," says Polly, putting into practice the advice about politely stating one's preferences.

"Well, we are going to eat peas," Mr Davoren says with a quiet authority that quells all opposition, although Edward does mutter: "I prefer broccoli."

The peas are a revelation. In an elegant manoeuvre, Mr Davoren turns his fork over - so it cradles in his right hand - and gently pushes a few on to the fork with his knife, raising it to his mouth.

So easy for an expert. The Lanesborough's Belgravia Room is soon littered with renegade peas and filled with giggles as the children chase the vegetables round the plate.

The girls manage the first movement but the plate-to-mouth bit proves frustratingly elusive. Edward, displaying the intelligence of his hunter-gatherer ancestors, resorts to squashing the peas onto the spears of the fork.

By the end of the hour, the children seem entirely at home surrounded by assorted glasses, cups, plates and cutlery, and profess to have enjoyed the lesson.

Mr Davoren claims no child is "unteachable" in his etiquette classes but concedes some are more "diffi-cult" than others. "The worst ones are the spoilt ones, who think they can get away with anything and don't think the normal rules need apply."

He says "the sad thing" is that these are the children who will grow up feeling out of place and will therefore not enjoy themselves.

In anticipation of this sad state of affairs, Mr Davoren is now considering offering classes for teenagers and adults who want to learn their fish knife from their butter knife, the art of polite conversation - and, of course, the correct way to eat peas.

To book a place on the course, call 020 7259 5599.

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