Sloane ranging to POW

Press, 25 June 1983, Page 18

Sloane ranging to POW

The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook. By Ann Barr and Peter York. Angus and Robertson, 1982. 141 pp. Illustrations. $7.95

(Reviewed by

Joan Curry)

Some time during the English summer of 1980 the Sloane Ranger was identified in the streets of London. Its natural habitat is a small area centred on Sloane Square, although it can be found in outposts all over the world, even in Australia. Sloane Rangers can be recognised by their clothes, their voices, their mannerisms, their style. They know What Really Matters in Life: backgrounds, old houses, old clothes, old furniture, old money, land, the City, the Army, the status quo, and knowing who one can talk to on trains. Before she became the Princess of Wales (the POWess in Sloanespeak) Lady Diana Spencer was a superSloane.

The only sure way to Sloanedom is to be born to it. Heredity will ensure that one acquires the long nose, discreet mouth and stiff upper lip that characterises the Sloane looks. Nanny will instil the proper training so that one is never perplexed by problems of etiquette, protocol or table-settings; Mummie (spelt ie) and Daddy (spelt with a y) will see that one has the right friends, toddles off to the right school, and lives in the country. From the time one learns to talk one refers to oneself as “one” as a matter of course. For those without the initial advantages of birth and/or breeding there is this Handbook which is subtitled “the first guide to What Really Matters in life.” Henry and Caroline (Sloanes are never called Sandra or Wayne) are shown at home, at work and at play in a shrewd and witty dissection of the upper crust.