By HILARY GAVIN
FOR as long as I can remember I’ve been aware of Hollywood star Groucho Marx’s quip to a private-members’ club, when he allegedly said: “Please accept my resignation, I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”
If you’ve never heard of Groucho Marx and his brothers Chico, Harpo, Gummo and Zeppo – take a look at their Wikipedia page here (Marx Brothers – Wikipedia).
I should admit that I’ve never been a fan of the zany Marx Brothers comedies, which were so popular with moviegoers in the 1930s, but I’m mentioning him here in passing because I absolutely adore the Seventies romance The Way We Were.
The epic film follows the love affair between Jewish student and Marxist activist Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) and Hubbell Gardiner (Robert Redford) – a carefree White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) with few political convictions.
It seems so sad to be writing today about the extraordinarily talented actor Robert Redford just weeks after his death – especially as he looks so devastatingly handsome in the official trailer for The Way We Were (see above).
All I can say is that I was captivated by the movie directed by Sydney Pollack and adapted from a novel by Arthur Laurents, which was based on his experiences at Cornell University and the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Of course, I was born in the early Sixties after the US Republican senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy had died so I know very little about so-called McCarthyism in Washington in the 1950s when McCarthy et Co hounded lefty Hollywood stars for their alleged Communist sympathies often based on gossip and hear’say.
Saying that, I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies when Cold War paranoia was rife both in the West and in the Soviet Union, spawning conflicts across the globe and dirty tricks by both CIA and KCB spies along with our own MI6 operatives.
I can only imagine the suspicion, mistrust, anxiety and fear Hollywood actors, producers and scriptwriters must have endured as they faced being black-balled following a grilling by McCarthy and his fellow “witch-hunters“.
And there is a scene in The Way We Were which, in my mind, encapsulates the absurdity of this period of time in California when Hubbell (Redford) and Katie (Streisand) attend a Hollywood party that is anything but carefree.
Now, I can’t remember what fancy dress costume scriptwriter Hubbell was wearing at the fictitious soiree (The Great Gatsby, perhaps), but I seem to recall Katie was dressed as Harpo Marx sounding a car hooter by way of an alarm.
No doubt there was a Groucho somewhere, but – to be honest – I wouldn’t have wanted to be at that showbiz party constantly fretting about what you should or shouldn’t say in case someone you believed was trustworthy betrayed you.
Thankfully, I’ve never mixed in high-powered circles so I’ve had the freedom to be my true self in my life and, to be honest, I’ve never enjoyed mixing in crowds.
No doubt a medical expert will diagnose me as slightly autistic because I’ve always felt as though I’ve been swimming against the tide socialising inanely with others.
Throughout my blog I have shared my love of playing golf with the few readers who follow my life exploits; and I reckon I’m quite good at the game too.
Saying that, one of the major reasons I gave up playing golf in my midlife was the snobbery I witnessed by some well-heeled lady golfers who reckoned they were a cut above the likes of so many folk from ordinary families like mine.
Whilst writing, I should say that I don’t believe the majority of “the ladies” at my golf club are at all haughty – but there are a few committee members who simply make me feel like the fictitious working-class Liverpudlian Shirley Valentine.
For the uninitiated, Shirley Valentine was a one-character play by Willy Russell adapted into a British film starring Pauline Collins in 1989 which I primarily remember for its amusing and heart-warning school assembly scene.
Now, I’m not sure why the headmistress (whose name escapes me) decided that naughty Shirley, who would smoke behind the bike sheds, was a complete dunce but she did, and there was little doubt that she’d already condemned her to a life of drudgery as a stay-at-home housewife whose life would effectively end at forty.
This schoolmistress’s blinkered class-riven worldview on life came to the fore when she asked the school assembly the, quite frankly, unanswerable question: “Who invented the wheel?”
Of course, Shirley knew the answer, and her hand shot up, but the headmistress ignored her by scanning the hall expecting a more worthy pupil to reply.
She only turned to Shirley in desperation after quizzing a school prefect who let her down and was horrified to discover that Shirley knew her stuff. If I remember, the aghast headmistress said (and I’m paraphrasing): “How could you possibly know that, Shirley, someone must have told you.”
Quick as a flash, Shirley retorted: “Well, how else would I bleeding-well know it?”
Now, you’re aware that I’ve never had children but I reckon it must be nigh-on impossible for youngsters to comprehend the Cold War paranoia of the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies and Eighties growing up after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
And I doubt teenage girls nowadays can put themselves in the shoes of so many women of my late mother’s generation who were expected, as the saying went, ” to be chained to the kitchen sink” as housewives and mothers, and were considered “past it” aged forty.
I’m thankful that those bad old days are now behind us but I must say I don’t expect my fellow lady golfers, who are wives, mothers and grandmothers, to continue to ignore the plight of teenagers who are endangering themselves reaching our golf club’s driving range, adventure crazy golf course and gaming Escape Room.
Yes, you’ve guessed it, I’m raising the thorny matter of teenagers standing at the Stagecoach bus stop on the corner of Green Lane and the busy B2145 who are at risk of being hit by motorcycles, cars and vans, or, heaven forbid, articulated lorries.
As you know, I’d like an update from the bosses at Stagecoach, WSCC and at my golf club on whether they can either re-site the bus stop or find a safe route for young adults to walk along to and from our golf course leisure complex.
I’d also like to safeguard my fellow lady members by asking our golf club whether Sutton-based ESP Leisure Ltd’s (company reg no 02550976) software Elite Management System is safe – because I’ve had problems in the past with multiple receipts on their Elite Live booking system and they still use the Worldpay bank card clearing company which some accountants I’ve spoken to question.
Righto, I’m not going to go over old ground regarding Worldpay – but I suspect I’ll be facing a heap of trouble from the ladies committee at my club and my fellow golfers who say they’re on the course to play golf and forget about life’s woes.
Pity, because I like playing golf too and I only wish I could forget the bigger picture. Still, I can’t change who I am so I’m bowing out before it’s too late.
UPDATED: Monday, October 20th, 2025 at 7.30am. Just a quick note to say I bypassed my golf club’s ladies committee to speak to my club’s management instead and was so pleased to discover that they are being proactive about my concerns outlined above. I should also say that some of my club’s ladies’ committee have reached out to me, and one took time to have a long chat with me about my concerns. All I can say is that times change because I was under the mistaken outdated belief that my ladies’ section was there to ensure members’ welfare and discuss any matters that might affect them and their members as a whole by liaising with managers at a golf club. Still, I’m a born optimist so I hope my individual voice has now been heard. HG
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Hilary Gavin
Journalist & Writer
T/A Business ‘n’ Commas (sole trader)
6 Southover Way
Hunston
CHICHESTER
West Sussex
PO20 1NY
Tel: 07940 444664
email: grumpywoman@hilarygavin.blog
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