Ladette to Lady - Episode 1 - page 2

28-09-2006 13:08

The ladettes have just four days to prepare for their first big test: a shooting party at Burton Agnes, one of Yorkshire’s finest country estates, at which they will be expected to show of what they’ve learnt at Finishing School so far – in particular how to behave around gentlemen.

Liz Brewer stresses the importance of ‘the chase’ and that the girls should learn not to appear too easy a target for the gentlemen.

“Don’t give them a free sample,” she says. Her comments hit a nerve with 21-year-old Rebecca who openly admits she loves having sex.

“It’s all common sense and everything she said don’t do I do, and I just feel really cheap and I just feel like a bit of a slapper. And I’ve always said I don’t care what people think of me and I didn’t think I did, but now I’m more bothered about what I think of myself now. Before it was just all a laugh being here, but now, now I am going to be a lady and I’m going to prove it.”

At the weekend’s shooting party they will be tested on everything they’ve learnt so far, and their every move watched with interest. Rosemary underlines that the value of the school is to teach them good manners and behaviour, as well as skills that they’ve never learnt before – skills that are lost in modern day life, such a sewing, how to cook meals from scratch and flower arranging.

“I know it’s old fashioned maybe, but old fashioned can be good,” says Rosemary.

The girls are chaperoned to the party by etiquette teacher Liz Brewer where they meet a selection of eligible bachelors, the cream of the public school system. To begin with the ladettes make a favourable impression; but the influence of alcohol and some gentlemen who are out to make mischief leads to a series of appalling faux pas at the dinner table. Sunday Sport model Angela Mott gaily discusses her breast implants; Chelsea Fan Laura Hearsum confides in the gentlemen about her body piercings; and scouser Louise Porter burps ostentatiously and sings at the table.

After a pheasant shoot the following morning, the ladettes return to Eggleston Hall for the ordeal of the weekly assessments. One by one the girls must face the staff and account for their performance at the shooting party and in class. Then the first ladette will be ‘invited to leave’ Eggleston Hall and a taxi is already waiting to take her away. The ladettes get the roasting of a lifetime and one by one their hard façade is stripped away leaving many in tears, and none wanting to be the first to leave.