No clothes: it’s a controversial stance.
That, of course, depends on where you are, and indeed when you are. The Ancient Egyptians wore as little as possible, and with their climate one can appreciate precisely why. The Spartans had a rigorous code of training in the nude.
But by the time of the Romans, this whole let-it-all-hang out business was considered rather de trop.
Interestingly two of the extreme ideologies of the 20th century went through their moments of naked glory. The Nazis held the human body as an idealised form, a perfectly honed machine. A look at the prologue for Olympia, by Leni Riefenstahl, shows how nudity is viewed with the same uncompromising pride as the Spartans.
And then there was Bolshevism. According to The Atlantic, family was a bourgeoise institution. It needed a good shakeup.
Russia’s first move was to abolish the term ‘illegitimate’. All children had the same rights: so far, so good.
Then they passed a law which meant it took only a few minutes to get divorced.
Anyone who didn’t want to take part in anything as temporary as these gossamer-thin legal arrangements was seen as bourgeois and prejudiced. Finally, in 1924, the League of Communist Youth arranged a series of nude marches to dispel bourgeois attitudes forever.
It didn’t catch on. The streets of Moscow and St Petersburg are now filled with Russians snugly clad against that intemperate climate.
Occasionally, public nudity is inadvertent. And it is this type which informs my tale today.
Let us time travel back more than a decade, to the time when Phil and I were new parents. We were on Planet Infant, jumping to the imperatives of a small foot-long bawling thing. We lived in a new-build house at the foot of an ancient Devon tor. Its location was lovely: we could fling first floor floor-ceiling windows outwards onto a balcony and gaze at the green hills and the rocky crag above.
That was in one direction.
But the kitchen also had patio doors. This was a town house, and it was Britain. And the gardens in new-build British townhouses are usually miniscule.
They opened onto a pocket-handkerchief of land barely bigger than our first floor balcony. It was bordered by a traditional dry stone wall. And beyond the wall? What we call here a T-junction. A road running parallel to the wall; and a road which met it at right angles, so that anyone sitting there in their car might wave cheerily to us.
Daytime privacy was a cinch. We put up a gauzy pale blue curtain which masked our day-to-day lives, yet let the light through. Problem solved.
We had been without children for about eight years and developed the habit of padding about our lair without a stitch on. We were still getting used to the rediscovered tyranny of nightclothes.
Maddie would wake in the middle of the night and need milk heating gently, or water bottled; and she, Phil and I slept in a big master bedroom at the top of the house. It was a long way down stairs, and Phil often volunteered to prepare supplies while I held the baby.
Three flights down he would pad: and because the kitchen was dark, and outside was dark, the curtain did its job well enough. Cars rarely came that way at night: it was a quiet neighbourhood.
One unbearably sultry night, he had a warm bottle in hand, ready to retrace his steps, and paused by the kitchen windows. It was dark. There was a pleasant breeze coming off the moor. Quiet lay like a blanket over everything.
And then suddenly, with paralysing speed, the light levels in the room shot up. A car had screeched up to the T-junction and its headlights were making short work of those little gauze defenders of my husband’s modesty, the curtains. They might as well have disintegrated.
Frozen in the headlights like a startled deer, Phil realised that this was no ordinary car.
No: it was a member of the local constabulary. A police car.
There are some moments which are endless, even though you fervently wish they weren’t. This was such a moment. The sharp eyes of the law freeze-framing Phil, completely unattired, with only a baby bottle to shield him.
Can one be arrested for not having any clothes on in one’s own kitchen? Large sections of McNae’s Essential Law For Journalists flew through Phil’s mind, leaving blank panic behind.
After what seemed like an eternity, and probably after the occupants of the car had finished bellowing with laughter, the car turned right and headed off, past the sheep fields, and away, leaving my horrified spouse to flee upstairs to the sanctuary of a bedroom on the third floor.
No clothes: it’s a controversial stance.
Even- or perhaps, especially – when it’s inadvertent.
Kate Shrewsday 
I am accustomed to wandering around in summer with very little on, sleeping the same. But one night I went sleepily investigating noises, and came to my full awareness naked in the sitting room, chasing not a human burglar but a cat. It could have been more serious I suppose.
It could! Next time a large duvet and a colander in the head, I think, Sidey!
maybe just a mask?
ha ha.. can’t stop laughing… 😀
What I like about your writing is how you start writing and then build a story on it… just like your story mountain…
Beginning, middle and end, Jas 🙂 All the best comedy stand-up routines have the same elements…
I remember, during our first year in France, my wife’s surprise at seeing one of the 8 inhabitants (a male farmer) of our tiny hamlet having a piss, in broad daylight, in front of our kitchen window. He had only just walked out of the front door of his own house:)
😀 At a loss for words, Roger…seulement en France…
Thanks for the belly laugh 😀
I shall pass those thanks on, Tilly….
Hilarious, poor Phil, I can imagine the thousands of thoughts that flashed through his mind during that flash of lights.
Either that or it was a long, glorious blank, Lou 😀
The only law I am aware of has to do with the properties of light and reflection. If the officer was head-on, he/she probably only saw the reflection of the headlights…but there are enough variables that the risk of exposure is real, so to speak.
Spoken like a true architect, MTM 😀 You fill me with an insane urge to jump in the car and drive back down there to test the theory by shining my headlights into the house filled with its present day occupants. Oh joy, a whole new way of getting arrested! It would explain why there was no knock at the door within minutes of the whole sad business…
I thought the same thing as MTM . . . I would have had to test the theory the next night by positioning BFF, sans vestments, by the window while I shone the headlights in his direction.
First with the kitchen lights off (as they were) and then with the kitchen lights on (to see what degree of latitude we might have in the future). 😆
If you ever do feel so inspired Nancy, feel free to test the theory and let me know whether Phil’s blushes were even necessary!
I just tested it! And the answer is a resounding . . . PERHAPS!
I shone an LED flashlight out onto the back deck which was dark (like your kitchen). What attracted my attention (initially) was the reflected light . . . but then I started to see the deck railing and chairs.
Had there been a naked man out there . . . blushing would have been in order.
It might be a FUN experiment to try with Felix sometimes. Not naked, of course. 😆
Hehe, I just hope you got Phil’s permission to relate that with the entire world population. Definitely one of those moments where time accommodatingly slows down. 🙂
Yup, a true family of exhibitionists, I got Phil to proof read before publishing 😀 Those slow-mo moments – don’t you always find yourself wishing they would fly by?
PS. I like the new theme. 🙂
Thanks IE!
Mark routinely scolds me for “giving the neighbors a show.” I sort of feel like if someone sees something they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t have been looking in through my windows… but the thought of poor Phil flashed by and flashing the constabulary is pretty hilarious.
It is 😀 We used to be exactly like you, Cameron. As the kids grow the need for dressing gowns increases exponentially…When they’re off to university I’ll revert to type once more…
I am having a good giggle here as I can well imagine the baby bottle vs. Poor Phil’s dignity! We do doggy kisses in this house – but not everyone enjoys them! As long as Al is fighting for the good side it’s all OK 🙂
Wow Tandy, that’s a comprehensive comment! Thank you 😀 Glad to hear the dogs in your life get great attention: I am 100 peer cent sure they are more choosy about their intake than our disreputable terrier…
Afternoon Kate, once when Techie was small I answered the door having just finished a breast feed, before realising I hadn’t buttoned my self back in again! How very embarrassing.
(Have you changed your theme? Very sheek)
(
Yup, out with the old in with the new 🙂 Saw it and had to have it immediately, Pseu! So glad others have had moments like the ones I had breastfeeding. I was on another planet anyway; remembering my state of decolletage was the last thing on my mind…
Hilarious!
Had it been George Bernard Shaw, he would have posed for them, as GBS once did by flinging wide a dressing gown at Knysna Lagoon beach after becoming aware that numerous binoculars were trained upon him. (Every household at The Heads village had a pair, in active daily use.)
I have never heard that story, Col 😀 Hilarious! Thanks!
My father witnessed it!
I did have a bit of chuckle at poor Phil’s expense, Kate. All he was trying to do was get a bottle for baby.
I know…..the best laid plans, Penny….
This is hilarious! I’m sure those policemen had a good chuckle. Hope your hubby recovered himself and the baby got fed!
d
Thanks Emma 🙂 He did, and the baby is nearly 12 now!
Oh, poor Phil. I’m sure no one saw anything, but I can totally understand the panic, as I know Phil is not an exhibitionist.
Sometimes things happen despite us, don’t they, Andra? 🙂
Extreme modesty protects me from such embarrassments 🙂 Debra
Must have been a slow crime night on the beat – they had to spice it up somehow!