'How I tamed ten wild women'

THE taxi pulls up on the sweeping drive and spits out its swaggering occupant, a slim young woman with a flash of blue in her hair. Five minutes later, another taxi arrives outside the imposing entrance of Eggleston Hall in Teesdale and a young woman with long brown hair wearing a cut-off T-shirt, ripped jeans and a tongue stud hops out.

From an upstairs window, Gillian Harbord stares down at the first of her charges and shudders. Here to be filmed for a television reality show, are ten beer-swilling, loudmouthed, flatulent "ladettes" - a phrase coined to describe women with outlandish male tendencies. The young women have agreed to take part in the programme to change their masculine ways and become ladies.

Sitting in Eggleston Hall's Coach House Bistro, Gillian puts her hand to forehead, smiling broadly at the recollection and admits she was horrified when she first met the ladettes.

"I nearly died and I wanted to go home," she says. "I had no desire to come down and teach. I'd never seen or even heard of a ladette. When I saw them they were very frightening to me as a group. I found them quite intimidating and I think they knew that."

Gillian had been recruited by the programme-makers to teach floristry and morals to the ten women, having taught at Constance Spry's Winkfield Place, a finishing school in Berkshire, and at Eggleston Hall, in the days when it was a school for young ladies.

By setting the show at Eggleston Hall, the programme-makers were effectively reopening it as a traditional finishing school, teaching etiquette, manners and social graces. But its then principal, Rosemarie Gray, argues that Eggleston was always much more than a simple finishing school.

Widowed in 1971 and left with three children, the youngest of whom was eight, Rosemarie opened the school in 1972 in order to "make the best use of her skills" and the venue - a large country house. At Eggleston, the young ladies of the county and beyond were taught practical skills, enabling those who were interested to pursue careers and those who were less academically inclined to flourish, she says.

The ladies, aged between 16 and 18, learned cordon bleu cookery, dressmaking, upholstery, typing, shorthand and floristry over a year.

The school closed in 1991, when Rosemarie retired and her son Sir William Gray and his wife Juliet took over the running of the hall. They have established it as a picturesque venue for weddings, conferences, floristry and cookery demonstrations, and have created a bistro and shop as well as renowned gardens.

But since the television show, the couple have been inundated with requests for lessons in etiquette and deportment, even though they were never on Eggleston's original syllabus. (The women who attended generally had no need for lessons in good manners).

Among the inquirers are a group of six women who want to come and learn social graces such as RSVP-ing, introductions and hosting parties, and a young woman from Saudi Arabia who wants to complete her education in England.

As a result, the Grays are considering holding a short etiquette course, including advice on manners, make-up and styling. Gillian, who is likely to run any new course, says it would be aimed at women of all ages and possibly men.

"I believe we're going back to wanting to see some good behaviour and manners because they haven't been passed down," she says. "But it seems to be going full circle now. I think they have been lying dormant and this programme has brought the issue very much to the fore."

It is a job that Gillian would love to take up again. She still finds it heart-warming to hear from former pupils and shows me an email from a mum-of-two, who was 17 when she attended Eggleston. She writes to say she has seen Gillian on television and wants to thank her for being inspirational, having forged a career for herself in floristry.

"I love that bit of it," smiles Gillian warmly. "You teach to the best of your ability and that often means that you can't be particularly nice all the time and you do think to yourself, 'I really did put that lot through it', so it is lovely to hear from them." It is evident that Gillian had enormous fun teaching, and while she was admittedly rather strict, she loved watching her pupils blossom into accomplished young women. She is warm and engaging and far removed from the austere, disapproving character who scowls at the ladettes in the TV programme every week, pursing her lips a great deal and continually chastising them for their tawdry behaviour. Even her appearance is softer as she sits, legs crossed at the ankle, in a floral blouse, pastel pink skirt, and her beloved pearl necklace and pearl earrings.

"Ah," she says, recoiling at the portrayal of herself on television. "I think they wanted me to be the stern one. We even had a director saying, 'you can't smile at them' which was very difficult because you couldn't encourage them in the way you normally would do."

Filming began on the show in late April and continued for five weeks, which was long enough for the ladettes to see their tutors as human, says Gillian.

"They could see that we wanted them to do well and I think that was the turning point, that we really did want them to succeed. We never wanted to stamp on them, we wanted them to be their own people. You don't want to take away the spirit and break them in any way."

It was the same philosophy the teachers at Eggleston adopted at the time.

"Nobody was ever asking them to be the little woman," she says. "Even if you're a high-flying career woman you can still have manners. I think it's even more important when you're dealing with high-powered people that you know how to deal with them. A lot of people don't realise that it's awfully nice to shake hands and that when you do, you don't want to shake hands like a limp fish."

She shakes her head when discussing the absence of good manners today, citing it not only as a youth problem, but a social problem "across the board".

"You find this 'easy come, easy go' attitude where it doesn't matter what you say or do," she says. "Nowadays, the person who stands out in a crowd is the one who's polite and that's so sad. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I still like the courtesy of a man holding a door open for me. I don't think it's over the top to have a little bit of refinement."

By way of example, she stares in the distance behind me at a middle-aged, well-dressed woman and whispers conspiratorially: "Right behind you is somebody waving their fork about in the air. It's those sort of things, it's quite nice to keep the fork down. There is a lot more money now, but it doesn't always maketh the man." I nod in agreement and take my elbows from the table.

In addition to showing the need for good manners, Ladette to Lady has been an intriguing My Fair Lady-style social experiment. Although the ladettes rebelliously group together initially, much like children in a school playground, once the more disruptive elements have left, they can be seen wanting to succeed and change their loutish ways. They are full of bravado when together, but reduced to tears at the thought of de-boning a baby chicken.

Gillian is keeping quiet about the eventual winner of the show, but she last saw the ladettes at a recent launch party, at which there was a free bar. Surprisingly, rather than revert to type, the women refrained from taking excessive advantage of the alcohol on offer or, as they were wont to do, snogging any bystanders. It was a proud moment for the tutors.

"They were all very much improved," says Gillian. "It would have been a classic case where we would have se en a ladette, but we didn't. It was a lovely party. Overall, it was amazing what we managed to do, but really it was up to the girls all along."

* Ladette to Lady is on ITV1 on Thursdays at 9pm.