Brotherly kiss may be return to custom

Press, 3 May 1984, Page 10

Brotherly kiss may be return to custom

NZPA-AAP London Prince Charles greeted his youngest brother, Prince Edward, yesterday with an embrace and a kiss on the cheek, and sparked talk of a new fashion for men. The “Daily Express,” featuring a front page picture of the Royal peck, said that Palace-watchers had never seen such a greeting between members of the Royal Family before. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said, “It’s not something that needs explaining away or commenting on.” The hug and kiss were delivered during Prince Charles’s visit to Cambridge, where Edward is studying. The “Daily Express’s” women’s editor, Katharine Hadley, writes that the

Princes could be unwittingly cutting a “curious taboo.” She says that in Britian men stop kissing their sons as early as eight “Grown men — unless they are footballers or actors — do not kiss. In Britain anyway,” she writes. A hug or an arm around another man’s shoulder is acceptable. “But most men recoil from a kiss,” Hadley sayd. “Yet in other countries, the manly kiss is common.” She says that in other times, such as Queen Victoria’s day, male members of the Royal Family thought nothing of a public kiss. “Perhaps, in 1984, the Queen’s sons are taking a small lead and returning to the Victorian tradition of publicly expressing affection between men,” she says.