Q. At 50, I was entitled to retirement which left me free to start an easier career and I got a job as a driver/valet to a young Saudi Arabian who owns a racing stud. I enjoy the work and we get on well. As is correct, I call him ‘Sir’ and he addresses me by my surname. Trouble is, so does his personal assistant, who is posh but a slip of a girl. She does so in front of my daughter, who is older than her. How can I get her to see that I resent her calling me by my surname without upsetting the applecart? Perhaps I sound petty and ridiculous, but you have no idea how it riles me; I suppose because it makes me feel inferior and reminds me of the change in status I should have come to terms with by now.
G.M., Derbyshire
A. Next time you are alone with the slip of a girl and she addresses you by your surname, turn round pleasantly and say, ‘Look, we’ve got to know each other pretty well by now, can’t we be on Christian-name terms?’ She will be hard pushed to justify a negative response.
Q. My wife and I have been invited to a reeling party. I am of wholly English extraction but my wife is a Scot. Is it appropriate for me to wear a kilt of her tartan or would that be a fearful gaffe?
G.C., by email
A. There is no protocol laid down on this matter. The unpompous, such as Roddy Martine, an authority on kilt-wearing, feel that the more kilts worn the better since ‘it is good for Scotland’. He even welcomes the likes of Madonna and Robbie Williams beating a path to the door of 21st-Century Kilts and stocking up on leather and pin-striped kilts.
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