The Evening Telegraph 28 Nov 1936 Threatened to Wear a Paper Hat Mr Frank OATEN of Gravesend Council

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The Evening Telegraph and Post Dundee Saturday 28 Nov 1936

Page 8 Column 6


Threatened to Wear a Paper Hat

Councillor Who Objects to Colleagues' “Toppers”

Mr Frank OATEN, a member of Gravesend Council, has more than a word to say about the fashionable (?) hats worn by his colleagues at civic gatherings.

Nearly 12 months ago he threatened the councillors that if they did not discard silk “toppers” on ceremonial occasions he would appear on those occasions in a paper hat.

Recently it was reported that at the last mayoral church parade at Gravesend Mr OATEN wore not a paper hat but a bowler hat.

Councillor OATEN returns to the attack.

The threat was made without any intention of carrying it out,” he explained to a reporter. “If I were dared by any member of the Corporation my courage would not fail me. I should appear in a paper hat, even though some furious member (as I expect he would) tore it from my head.

But I would never dream of attempting the feat (and it would be a feat) at divine service.

Laughed At.

If I did, however, I should not cut a worse figure than any of my Council colleagues, whose toppers are the subject of ribald laughter from those who gather in the streets to watch the motley procession go by.

And why? Because there is not a single top-hat among them which is fashionable. You never saw such a heterogenous collection of hats in all your life.

Some date from the Victorian and early Edwardian eras, some are later, but none can be of a later fashion than ten years ago.

All Shapes.

The shapes of the crowns are as varied as life; brims curl in all degrees of curliness, and some are straight; other hats have deep bands and some narrow, and the degree of glossiness is governed by the date of the last ironing.

As most of them keep their top-hats in cases or boxes at the Town Hall, frequency of ironing is not very great.
“The bowler hat I wore was fashionable in shape, and it was bought only recently at a fashionable hatter's.

I have never suggested cocked hats. My plea has been for “approprate <sic> headgear,' to get rid of the present incongruity.

Mortar Boards.

The nearest to any concrete suggestion I have made has been mortar-boards with tassels, so that the sight-seers might exclaim, instead of laughing, as they do at present, 'Dear me, how learned they look.'”

 

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