There’s an Actress in the Drawing Room
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today it is Tuesday, and we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. Being Tuesday, Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman* who comes on Tuesdays and every third Thursday to do the hard jobs is busy polishing the floors in Lettice’s bedroom, whilst Edith arranges tea things on the deal kitchen table in the middle of the room whilst she waits for the copper kettle on the stove to boil.
“Oh good!” Mrs. Boothby sighs as she slips into the kitchen via the door that leads from the flat’s entrance hall. “You’ve got the kettle on, dearie!” A fruity cough emanates from deep within her wiry little body as she deposits her polishing box beneath the sink and puts the dirty rags that require washing down the laundry chute. “Nah just I’ll just sit ‘ere for a few minutes and you can give me a reviving cup of Rosie-Lee** and I’ll ‘ave a fag before I get started on scrubbin’ the bathroom.”
“Oh no you don’t!” Edith says sharply as she places her own hand firmly over the opening of Mrs. Boothby’s blue beaded handbag before the old Cockney woman can grab her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut.
“What?” Mrs. Boothby looks up at Edith in surprise. “I’m only goin’ for me fags, dearie, not a pistol.”
“Miss Lettice has a guest and I’ve just made a Victoria sponge.” She indicates to the golden sponge cake with jam and cream oozing from its middle standing next to Lettice’s Art Deco tea service. “I don’t want it or the tea I’m making smelling of your foul cigarette smoke, Mrs. Boothby!”
“Me smoke ain’t foul!” the older woman snaps back.
“Yes, it is, Mrs. Boothby.”
How Edith hates the older woman’s habit of smoking indoors. When she lived with her parents, neither smoked in the house. Her mother didn’t smoke at all: it would have been unladylike to do so, and her father only smoked a pipe when he went down to the local pub.
“The stench comin’ from privy down the end of my rookery, now that’s foul, dearie.”
“It’s all relative Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says cheerily. “Now, I will make you a cup of tea since I’m boiling the kettle for Miss Lettice,”
“Oh, ta.” Mrs. Boothby says sarcastically.
“But if you want to smoke today,” Edith ignores her. “Please go and do so on the porch outside.”
Mrs. Boothby groans as she picks herself out of Edith’s comfortable Windsor chair. Grumbling quietly, but not so quietly that Edith can’t hear her muttering, the old woman fossicks through her capacious bag and snatches out a cigarette she had already rolled previously and her box of Swan Vesta matches. She mooches over to the kitchen door that leads to the tradesman’s stairs and lights her cigarette, folding her bony arms akimbo across her sagging chest.
“Thank you.” Edith says diplomatically, even though she doesn’t really want to thank the Cockney woman at all.
“So,” Mrs. Boothby blows a plume of blueish silver smoke out into the outer corridor. “An American, then.”
Edith knows Mrs. Boothby is fishing for gossip on Lettice’s guest, and she doesn’t like to gossip with the charwoman. Unlike her friend and fellow maid Hilda, Mrs. Boothby is not very discreet. “Mmn,” she says non-committally as she starts placing the tea things on a square silver tray, a new purchase by Lettice from Asprey’s.
“Oh come on, dearie,” Mrs. Boothby’s eyes roll as she speaks. “Don’t be prim and propa. Ooh is she then?”
“You know I don’t like to gossip, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies.
“Well, you’d be the only maid this side of St. James what don’t, dearie.”
“All I know is that Miss Lettice asked me to bake a Victoria sponge for her guest, and that’s what I’ve done.”
“Well ya know ‘er name anyroad, ‘cos ya let ‘er in. Ya can tell me that much at least.”
“Her name is Miss Ward.”
“Wanetta Ward,” Mrs. Boothby crows triumphantly. “I ‘eard Miss Lettice talkin’ to ‘er.”
“Well, if you’ve been listening at keyholes, Mrs. Boothby, I don’t suppose anything I told you would be news then.”
“Oh come on, dearie,” she cries. Knowing the chink in Edith’s armour she continues. “What’s she look like then?”
As soon as the words are out of Mrs. Boothby’s mouth, Edith’s eyes light up. She loves fashion and the glamourous people that Lettice mixes with. Not that Mrs. Boothby knows it, because she never goes into her room, but Edith has scrapbooks of cuttings of London’s rich and famous clipped from Lettice’s discarded newspapers and magazines in her drawers.
“Oh she’s very glamourous! Tall and statuesque.”
“Aah,” Mrs. Boothby says dismissively, but the cocked eyebrow that Edith can’t see gives away that her interest has been piqued.
“Her hair is a soft curly rich dark auburn set in girlish bob, and she has peaches and cream skin. She is wearing an orchid silk chiffon dress with a matching satin slip. It’s daringly short!” Edith gushes. “You can see the bottom of her calves even before sits down.”
“Well, she must be American for certain then, ta wear somethin’ so daring.” Mrs. Boothby coaxes carefully.
“She has a beautiful hat to match which is covered in silk flowers. She wouldn’t let me take it from her. Something about her luck? I didn’t really understand. She walks with a walking stick, just for show I think as she has a very elegant gait.”
“Oh. I wonder if she’s an actress on the stage?”
“Maybe. She certainly has the bearing of a person who commands attention.”
“Or maybe,” the charwoman continues, puffing out another cloud of smoke. “Maybe she’s one of them movin’ picture actresses, like what I’ve seen up at the Premier*** in East Ham.”
“Imagine!” Edith enthuses, her eyes sparking. “A real American moving picture star!” She looks to the green baize door that leads to the living areas of the flat.
“Yes, imagine.” Mrs. Boothby smiles wistfully as she takes a long drag on her cigarette.
“Oh, you are awful Mrs. Boothby!” Edith gasps, suddenly realising what she’s done. “You’ve made me gossip.”
“Oh, now don’t you worry your pretty ‘ead about it, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby soothes the young maid. “I’m only int’rested in ooh frequents the houses I clean for so I knows I’m in a respectable establishment. I won’t tell a soul. I promise!”
The charwoman smiles a yellow toothy grin that makes Edith regret her lack of discretion slightly.
“Per’aps she’s come ta be a film star in London. I read in the papers that they’s makin’ films ‘ere in London, over in ‘Oxton**** nah the war’s over!”
“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that Mrs. Boothby.” she mutters, turning her back on the Cockney woman to hide the blush crossing her face after realising that she has been taken in by her.
Taking the kettle off the stove Edith fills the elegant gilded white porcelain pot and stirs it. She goes to the dresser and removes a pretty Delftware teacup and saucer and puts it on the table. She pours of little of the tea from Lettice’s pot into the cup, adds a splash of milk and some sugar. She refills Lettice’s pot.
“Tea, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith places the Delftware teacup and saucer into the Cockney woman’s empty right hand as it pokes out from beneath her left elbow.
“Oh, ta!” she replies gratefully. Lifting the cup to her lips she takes a sip, savouring the delicious hot beverage.
“I must take the tea in to Miss Lettice.” Edith says in as businesslike a fashion as she can manage.
“And yer want ta get annuva geezer at your beautiful star again.” Another fruity cough escapes her throat as she chuckles to herself. “Ain’t I right?” She taps her nose with her left hand, the glowing but of the cigarette nestled between her index and middle fingers. “I know a young girl’s heart. B’lieve it or not, I used ta be a young slip of a fing once too!”
“Just leave the cup in the sink before you clean the bathroom.” Edith blanches at being caught out as starstruck. “I will have these things to wash later.”
Edith smiles conspiratorially at Mrs. Boothby, picks up the tray of tea things, holds her head high and slips through the green baize door into the dining room of the flat to serve her mistress and her glamorous guest, American Wanetta Ward in the drawing room beyond.
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.
***The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.
****Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. It stands on a silver tray that is part of tea set that comes from Smallskale Miniatures in England. To see the whole set, please click on this link: www.flickr.com/photos/40262251@N03/51111056404/in/photost...
The Victoria sponge (named after Queen Victoria) is made by Polly’s Pantry Miniatures in America. The vase of flowers on the table is made of glass and it and the bouquet have been made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The box of Lyon’s tea has been made by Jonesey’s Miniatures in England.
On the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot stands a Cornishware cannister. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
There’s an Actress in the Drawing Room
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today it is Tuesday, and we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. Being Tuesday, Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman* who comes on Tuesdays and every third Thursday to do the hard jobs is busy polishing the floors in Lettice’s bedroom, whilst Edith arranges tea things on the deal kitchen table in the middle of the room whilst she waits for the copper kettle on the stove to boil.
“Oh good!” Mrs. Boothby sighs as she slips into the kitchen via the door that leads from the flat’s entrance hall. “You’ve got the kettle on, dearie!” A fruity cough emanates from deep within her wiry little body as she deposits her polishing box beneath the sink and puts the dirty rags that require washing down the laundry chute. “Nah just I’ll just sit ‘ere for a few minutes and you can give me a reviving cup of Rosie-Lee** and I’ll ‘ave a fag before I get started on scrubbin’ the bathroom.”
“Oh no you don’t!” Edith says sharply as she places her own hand firmly over the opening of Mrs. Boothby’s blue beaded handbag before the old Cockney woman can grab her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut.
“What?” Mrs. Boothby looks up at Edith in surprise. “I’m only goin’ for me fags, dearie, not a pistol.”
“Miss Lettice has a guest and I’ve just made a Victoria sponge.” She indicates to the golden sponge cake with jam and cream oozing from its middle standing next to Lettice’s Art Deco tea service. “I don’t want it or the tea I’m making smelling of your foul cigarette smoke, Mrs. Boothby!”
“Me smoke ain’t foul!” the older woman snaps back.
“Yes, it is, Mrs. Boothby.”
How Edith hates the older woman’s habit of smoking indoors. When she lived with her parents, neither smoked in the house. Her mother didn’t smoke at all: it would have been unladylike to do so, and her father only smoked a pipe when he went down to the local pub.
“The stench comin’ from privy down the end of my rookery, now that’s foul, dearie.”
“It’s all relative Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says cheerily. “Now, I will make you a cup of tea since I’m boiling the kettle for Miss Lettice,”
“Oh, ta.” Mrs. Boothby says sarcastically.
“But if you want to smoke today,” Edith ignores her. “Please go and do so on the porch outside.”
Mrs. Boothby groans as she picks herself out of Edith’s comfortable Windsor chair. Grumbling quietly, but not so quietly that Edith can’t hear her muttering, the old woman fossicks through her capacious bag and snatches out a cigarette she had already rolled previously and her box of Swan Vesta matches. She mooches over to the kitchen door that leads to the tradesman’s stairs and lights her cigarette, folding her bony arms akimbo across her sagging chest.
“Thank you.” Edith says diplomatically, even though she doesn’t really want to thank the Cockney woman at all.
“So,” Mrs. Boothby blows a plume of blueish silver smoke out into the outer corridor. “An American, then.”
Edith knows Mrs. Boothby is fishing for gossip on Lettice’s guest, and she doesn’t like to gossip with the charwoman. Unlike her friend and fellow maid Hilda, Mrs. Boothby is not very discreet. “Mmn,” she says non-committally as she starts placing the tea things on a square silver tray, a new purchase by Lettice from Asprey’s.
“Oh come on, dearie,” Mrs. Boothby’s eyes roll as she speaks. “Don’t be prim and propa. Ooh is she then?”
“You know I don’t like to gossip, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies.
“Well, you’d be the only maid this side of St. James what don’t, dearie.”
“All I know is that Miss Lettice asked me to bake a Victoria sponge for her guest, and that’s what I’ve done.”
“Well ya know ‘er name anyroad, ‘cos ya let ‘er in. Ya can tell me that much at least.”
“Her name is Miss Ward.”
“Wanetta Ward,” Mrs. Boothby crows triumphantly. “I ‘eard Miss Lettice talkin’ to ‘er.”
“Well, if you’ve been listening at keyholes, Mrs. Boothby, I don’t suppose anything I told you would be news then.”
“Oh come on, dearie,” she cries. Knowing the chink in Edith’s armour she continues. “What’s she look like then?”
As soon as the words are out of Mrs. Boothby’s mouth, Edith’s eyes light up. She loves fashion and the glamourous people that Lettice mixes with. Not that Mrs. Boothby knows it, because she never goes into her room, but Edith has scrapbooks of cuttings of London’s rich and famous clipped from Lettice’s discarded newspapers and magazines in her drawers.
“Oh she’s very glamourous! Tall and statuesque.”
“Aah,” Mrs. Boothby says dismissively, but the cocked eyebrow that Edith can’t see gives away that her interest has been piqued.
“Her hair is a soft curly rich dark auburn set in girlish bob, and she has peaches and cream skin. She is wearing an orchid silk chiffon dress with a matching satin slip. It’s daringly short!” Edith gushes. “You can see the bottom of her calves even before sits down.”
“Well, she must be American for certain then, ta wear somethin’ so daring.” Mrs. Boothby coaxes carefully.
“She has a beautiful hat to match which is covered in silk flowers. She wouldn’t let me take it from her. Something about her luck? I didn’t really understand. She walks with a walking stick, just for show I think as she has a very elegant gait.”
“Oh. I wonder if she’s an actress on the stage?”
“Maybe. She certainly has the bearing of a person who commands attention.”
“Or maybe,” the charwoman continues, puffing out another cloud of smoke. “Maybe she’s one of them movin’ picture actresses, like what I’ve seen up at the Premier*** in East Ham.”
“Imagine!” Edith enthuses, her eyes sparking. “A real American moving picture star!” She looks to the green baize door that leads to the living areas of the flat.
“Yes, imagine.” Mrs. Boothby smiles wistfully as she takes a long drag on her cigarette.
“Oh, you are awful Mrs. Boothby!” Edith gasps, suddenly realising what she’s done. “You’ve made me gossip.”
“Oh, now don’t you worry your pretty ‘ead about it, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby soothes the young maid. “I’m only int’rested in ooh frequents the houses I clean for so I knows I’m in a respectable establishment. I won’t tell a soul. I promise!”
The charwoman smiles a yellow toothy grin that makes Edith regret her lack of discretion slightly.
“Per’aps she’s come ta be a film star in London. I read in the papers that they’s makin’ films ‘ere in London, over in ‘Oxton**** nah the war’s over!”
“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that Mrs. Boothby.” she mutters, turning her back on the Cockney woman to hide the blush crossing her face after realising that she has been taken in by her.
Taking the kettle off the stove Edith fills the elegant gilded white porcelain pot and stirs it. She goes to the dresser and removes a pretty Delftware teacup and saucer and puts it on the table. She pours of little of the tea from Lettice’s pot into the cup, adds a splash of milk and some sugar. She refills Lettice’s pot.
“Tea, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith places the Delftware teacup and saucer into the Cockney woman’s empty right hand as it pokes out from beneath her left elbow.
“Oh, ta!” she replies gratefully. Lifting the cup to her lips she takes a sip, savouring the delicious hot beverage.
“I must take the tea in to Miss Lettice.” Edith says in as businesslike a fashion as she can manage.
“And yer want ta get annuva geezer at your beautiful star again.” Another fruity cough escapes her throat as she chuckles to herself. “Ain’t I right?” She taps her nose with her left hand, the glowing but of the cigarette nestled between her index and middle fingers. “I know a young girl’s heart. B’lieve it or not, I used ta be a young slip of a fing once too!”
“Just leave the cup in the sink before you clean the bathroom.” Edith blanches at being caught out as starstruck. “I will have these things to wash later.”
Edith smiles conspiratorially at Mrs. Boothby, picks up the tray of tea things, holds her head high and slips through the green baize door into the dining room of the flat to serve her mistress and her glamorous guest, American Wanetta Ward in the drawing room beyond.
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.
***The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.
****Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. It stands on a silver tray that is part of tea set that comes from Smallskale Miniatures in England. To see the whole set, please click on this link: www.flickr.com/photos/40262251@N03/51111056404/in/photost...
The Victoria sponge (named after Queen Victoria) is made by Polly’s Pantry Miniatures in America. The vase of flowers on the table is made of glass and it and the bouquet have been made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The box of Lyon’s tea has been made by Jonesey’s Miniatures in England.
On the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot stands a Cornishware cannister. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.