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Matchmaking From 1984 to 2011
by Heather Heber-Percy
I started my introduction agency in 1984 and, quite frankly, I didn\'t have a clue as to what I was taking on. I had no qualifications and not an ounce of business acumen, but I did have a lot of enthusiasm and energy to invest. It all started off with a throw away remark when someone said to me, \'Heather, why don’t you start an introduction agency for lonely farmers?\' I decided to do just that, simply because I had young children at home and I wanted to earn extra money. Looking back, it was an incredibly naive thing to do and could have turned out to be extremely risky, since my back room became the agency and that was there we interviewed the people who came forward in response to some, initially, rather tacky advertising. Attitudes towards introduction agencies during the 1980s was - to say the least - sceptical and derisive, and somehow I had to overcome the prejudices of middle class England in the heart of the Shropshire countryside.
Together with a close friend called Geraldine, who still works with me today, we put a brochure together and started advertising in the Farmers Weekly. Within a few weeks farmers were calling us and requesting brochures but, strangely, after having sent the brochure out, we would hear no more, which was extremely worrying. We decided to call some of the farmers who had requested brochures to try and find out why they were not interested, only to reveal that most of them had been looking for a call-girl agency and were under the impression that that\'s what we were offering, until they received the brochure! We quickly changed our advertising to reflect the seriousness of our intentions and eventually received a more sensible response. The BBC decided to do a documentary on us and the Farming Programme invited us on to their show to talk about lonely farmers.
Over the last twenty-five years I have seen an enormous change of attitude towards the dating industry as a whole, thank goodness. It has now become socially acceptable to meet through an agency, although men still feel that by joining an introduction agency they have not been able to find a partner on their own. Certainly, it is the attitude of most men that they still wish to be the ones to pursue rather than be pursued, especially men in their late 50s onwards.
What most people do not realise, is that society has changed out of all recognition during the last fifteen years. If you take yourself back in time to the late 1950s, people from all walks of life would happily go off to their local dance hall and dance the night away with complete strangers. They would be accompanied by the music from relatively large live bands who would play a variety of jazz and music for wonderful foxtrots, waltzes and, of course, the samba. Edmundo Ross was at the height of his career and excited the musical tastes of people across the social divide. It was socially acceptable to meet people this way and, of course, because people danced closely to each other they had to talk to each other. But, when rock and roll music kicked in, that was the end of any meaningful dialogue for many years. In the 1960s virtually every dance hall in the country closed down and a little bit of important social history disappeared forever. Also in the late 1950s people began to move away from their home towns to work, especially as the car became more reliable and the UK because more prosperous. This, sadly, had a gently corrosive effect on families and relationships generally, as we slowly distanced ourselves from close ties. Television didn\'t help either: it was easier to sit in front of a screen rather than go out with friends and of course cheaper. But again, people stopped communicating with each other to a large extent and, as television became more sophisticated, old-fashioned social exchanges between neighbours and close friends became less and less frequent. Perhaps this all sounds rather too far-fetched, but it has had an impact on how we manage to connect with other people today. There are, of course, many other factors involved, but suffice it to say that simply meeting the love of your life through family or friends is no longer an option at any age. Thinking now about my agency, I truly feel that if people come to us we, in a way, become like their family and friends, doing the job that mums and dads did years ago for their sons and daughters, except that now, of course, we have such a high divorce rate that we also encompassing a much older age group too. Would you believe people are joining our agency up to the age of 80 - and why not? Why should someone of 80, if he or she is fit and active, have a live life along? We were never meant to be alone as creatures on this earth and companionship is such a blessed thing. One of my client said to me recently that she wanted to find someone who she could \'sit in the silence with and not feel the silence\'. It\'s all about sharing life\'s ups and downs, sometimes getting incredibly irritated with each other, but at the end of the day would you really want to be without your partner? Life is so much more meaningful when it is shared with someone special.
Interestingly, our clients are embracing a new freedom in this new society. They are not necessarily giving up their lifestyles, i.e. homes and livelihoods, to be with their partner, they are spending time with each other in both homes and perhaps only spending weekends together. But is that so wrong? No, not in my opinion; it means that families need not be concerned about mother or father selling up and giving it all to the new partner, money stays put, because they each have their own separate finances. It means, simply that family harmony is retained and the couple concerned can go on enjoying each other\'s company without falling out with concerned sons and daughters! |
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