I was very tickled by the referent "The Borchester Lady". "The Lady" (a ladies' magazine) used to be funded mostly by its advertisements for nannies.   

I note that no-one has mentioned "laydees" yet.

Ake, you are wholly wrong. In primitive societies, such as would prevail in a "dying earth" scenario, modes of address and demands for respect become primal, even more so than under the code of the pnctilio and in intervening armigerous societies.