Handkerchiefs might not be sexy, but it’s time for a revival

If it’s good enough for the King, will it become the norm again to carry around a ‘resuable tissue’? S’not likely

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There is plenty about modern life to cause celebration and aggravation in equal measure. Thankfully, old hand Christopher Howse and young gun Guy Kelly are here to dissect the way we live now…
Gilbert Harding, renowned for his bad temper on What’s My Line? in the 1950s, found a very helpful function for his handkerchief. Prescribed a large variety of pills to be consumed each day, he preferred to take the lot all at once, washed down with brandy.
But in order to counteract a morning tremor as he raised the glass to his lips, he would grab one end of his handkerchief with the hand holding the glass and, with the handkerchief like a rope behind his neck, pull at its opposite corner with his left hand, smoothly pulling up the glass hand like a ski party in a cable car.
I’ve tried it, and it works admirably as far as the steadying effect goes. It does require a handkerchief, though, and many people nowadays do not carry one.
So I was delighted to see the King visiting Australia and Samoa and, when not drinking kava, flying the flag for the handkerchief. The King does not wear his top-pocket handkerchief ironed into the shape of a napkin at a Lyons Corner House. His hankies tend to be silk-based with a contour like a deflated barrage balloon.
Of course, the great rule when it comes to handkerchiefs, we all know, is not to have one for show and one for blow.
The only rival I have known to the King as handler of handkerchiefs was the amiable Sir Harold Hood 2nd Bt (1916-2005). I was always impressed by the way he wore his handkerchief in his sleeve, which must have been a constant challenge to carpal dexterity. But in earlier years it had not prevented this rather Wodehousian character from bravely saving a boy from drowning in a canal.
For myself, I never stop giving thanks that I sent off for some spotted handkerchiefs a few years ago. They turned out to be rather too big for carrying in any pocket or cuff, but suddenly in 2020 they came into their own under the “Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place (England) Regulations”.
Folded diagonally, they stopped me from being an outlaw while making me look like one. You couldn’t do that with a Kleenex.
“Well, that is absolutely vile news,” came the response of a friend, when I informed her I was considering becoming a ‘handkerchief guy’ earlier this year. We all need an occasional rebrand and this was mine: to always carry around a small square of cotton in my pocket, just in case.
“In case of what?!” the hater would insist, as if this were not the most versatile clothing accessory ever invented, and the undisputed King of all Kerchiefs. In case of anything! In case I need a hat at the seaside. In case I wish to appear coquettish during the quadrille. In case I want to fiddle under the bonnet of a car, then tut, wipe my hands and say, “Gee, fan belt’s gone…”
In case I decide to surrender in a siege. In case I must remember something important, so tie a big knot in it. In case I feel like doing a street magic show, so tie 43 of them together and ask a child to pull on one end.
In case I get back with my old Morris troupe. In case I have tuberculosis in a period drama and diagnose myself by coughing into it, seeing blood, and looking gravely to the floor to let the audience know I’ll be dead before the next commercial break. To do all these things and, yes, in case I need to wipe my nose with it.
“Ew, yeah, the nose thing. Gross.” And there’s the rub: people just cannot get past the ‘reusable tissue’ aspect. They see you and they know you very possibly have a small rag of mucus about your person. They picture you taking it out and cracking it, like the top of a crème brûlée, before offering it around. Little is sexy about this. And as PR problems go, it’s a big one.
A few years ago we were just on the verge of a handkerchief revival. “In the war on waste, could the hanky be making a comeback?” asked The Sydney Morning Herald in 2019.
It was a good point. Reusable nappies, sanitary towels, so why not tissues? At that time, I’d have seemed not only chic and ever-ready, but eco-friendly. Alas, Covid.
Suddenly it was all “stop the spread” this and “catch it, bin it, kill it” that.
Kleenex lived to fight another decade, and my rebrand, which is still under consideration, became that bit more divisive. I’ll try again next year.
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