Sir, – Further to recent correspondence (February 27th), the only place where I experienced gender priority at table was at a fancy French restaurant in Piccadilly in London. It was a work do with a set menu. The waiter had just served the woman to my left.
As the waiter approached, I assumed I was next. However, he did that nose-in-the-air thing and, with magnificent disdain, circled exaggeratedly around me, and served the woman to my right.
And then feigned deafness for the rest of the meal. Women were served first, and I was an egalitarian troglodyte.
Growing up in rural Tyrone in the 1970s and 1980s, I never heard of a men-first dinner or tea rule.
The then-prevalent relaxed rural approach to time-keeping meant that whoever arrived first was served first, regardless of gender.
And if you were too late, the dog would be served before you. – Yours, etc,
SEÁN MacCANN,
Trillick,
Co Tyrone.