‘Ladettes’ are now officially recognised and have taken their place in the New Oxford English Dictionary with the definition ‘young women who behave in a boisterously assertive or crude manner and engage in heavy drinking sessions’. Among the many definitions offered for ‘lady’ the first is ‘a well-mannered and considerate woman with high standards of proper behaviour’.
The aim of Ladette to Lady is to take eight of the former and in just a few weeks transform them into the latter, a sort of reverse Big Brother format. It is no easy task and the staff of Eggleston Hall, a former finishing school near Barnard Castle in County Durham, fear they are going to have an uphill struggle.
The staff, led by school principal Gill Harbord, include society party planner Liz Brewer (Millionaire winner Judith Keppel but without the niceness), elocution coach Kate Forrester, cookery teacher Rosemary Shrager (Clarissa Dickson-Wright on speed) and Lindka Cierach, dressmaker to the Royals.
During their time at Eggleston Hall the young women will learn deportment, elocution, floristry, dressmaking and sexual etiquette, and will show off their newly acquired skills in a weekly task. Their progress will be assessed by the staff and each week one of the hapless ladette-ladies will be “invited to leave” – nothing so brutal as a booting-out here, Eggleston Hall is far too genteel for that! One wonders what would happen if one of the invitees were to turn down her invitation to leave?