Silly etiquette …. random historical thoughts on a tram day

History is full of those old-fashioned ways of behaving in public.

High jacking some one else's picture, 2024

I still walk on the outside of the pavement beside the road when accompanying my wife, or any female friend and on dark nights always cross over if a woman is in front of me.

Sexist maybe, silly maybe and a throwback to another age I agree.

And I still lay the table in a special way and always give up my seat to the elderly and infirm although at 75 with an occasional gammy leg I wonder who will do that for me.

But it springs from that ancient pool of “the right way to do things” which I suppose falls under the broad category of etiquette, which as we all know changes with time and is different in different societies.

So, today while sitting on the tram bound for Manchester, I wondered about the etiquette of looking at the screens of other people’s mobiles.

And there is always a heap to engage my curiosity.

I suspect it is rude, but it does offer up an insight into my fellow passengers which helps pass the time and is a refinement on just trying to guess their occupation, birthplace and favourite colour.

I also wonder about hijacking someone else’s pictures, as they pose for their partner to snap away.

Then and now communication, 2024

Leaving me just reflect on the man using his mobile by the decommissioned telephone box in St Peter’s Square, remembering how this was one of the kiosks I used when flat hunting back in the early 1970s.

The midday edition of the Evening News would hit the streets on “property night” and within minutes all the lines were engaged to the owner of a bed sit in Withington, a flat share in Didsbury or the house in Fallowfield.

Time I suppose to go back to my collection of etiquette handbooks from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Location; St Peter’s Square

Pictures; People looking, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson