Christmas Shopping in Harrods Toy Department

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.

 

Lettice recently visited her family home, Glynes, in Wiltshire after fleeing London in a moment of deep despair. Lettice’s beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, had organised a romantic dinner at the Savoy* for he and Lettice to celebrate his birthday. However, when Lettice arrived, she was confronted not with the smiling face of her beau, but the haughty and cruel spectre of his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia. Lady Zinnia, and Selwyn’s Uncle Bertrand had been attempting to marry him off to his cousin, 1923 debutante Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lady Zinnia had, up until that moment been snubbing Lettice, so Selwyn and Lettice arranged for Lettice to attend as many London Season events as possible where Selwyn and Pamela were also in attendance so that Lettice and Selwyn could spend time together, and at the same time make their intentions so well known that Lady Zinnia wouldn’t be able to avoid Lettice any longer. Zinnia is a woman who likes intrigue and revenge, and the revenge she launched upon Lettice that evening at the Savoy was bitterly harsh and painful. With a cold and calculating smile Lady Zinna announced that she had packed Selwyn off to Durban in South Africa for a year. She made a pact with her son: if he went away for a year, a year during which he agreed neither to see, nor correspond with Lettice, if he comes back and doesn’t feel the same way about her as he did when he left, he agreed that he will marry Pamela, just as Bertrand and Lady Zinnia planned. If however, he still feels the same way about Lettice when he returns, Lady Zinnia agreed that she would concede and will allow him to marry her.

 

Leaving London by train that very evening, Lettice returned home to Glynes, where she stayed for a week, moving numbly about the familiar rooms of the grand Georgian country house, reading books from her father’s library distractedly to pass the time, whilst her father fed her, her favourite Scottish shortbreads in a vain effort to cheer her up. However, rather than assuage her broken heart, her father’s ministrations only served to make matters worse as she grew even more morose. It was from the most unlikely of candidates, her mother Lady Sadie, with whom Lettice has always had a fraught relationship, that Lettice received the best advice, which was to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with her life: keep designing interiors, keep shopping and most importantly, keep attending social functions where there are plenty of press photographers. “You may not be permitted to write to Selwyn,” Lady Sadie said wisely. ‘But Zinnia said nothing about the newspapers not writing about your plight or your feelings on your behest. Let them tell Selwyn that you still love him and are waiting for him. They get the London papers in Durban just as much as they get them here, and Zinnia won’t be able to stop a lovesick and homesick young man flipping to the society pages as he seeks solace in the faces of familiar names and faces, and thus seeing you and reading your words of commitment to him that you share through the newspaper men. Tell them that you are waiting patiently for Selwyn’s return.”

 

Since then, Lettice has been trying to follow her mother’s advice and has thrown herself into the merry dance of London’s social round of dinners, dances and balls in the lead up to the festive season. Carefully heeding another piece of her mother’s advice, she has avoided being seen on the arm of any eligible young men, and just as Lady Sadie predicted, the press has been lapping up the story of Lettice’s broken heart as she shuns the advances of other young men whilst she awaits Selwyn’s eventual return from Durban, publishing the details in all their tabloids with fervour.

 

Today we are not at Cavendish Mews. Instead, we are just a short distance away in Knightsbridge on London’s busy shopping thoroughfare of the Brompton Road, where amidst the throng of London’s middle-class housewives and upper-class ladies shopping for amusement, Lettice is trying to throw herself enthusiastically into Christmas shopping with her best friend, Margot Channon, visiting Harrods**. The usually busy footpath outside the enormous department store with its famous terracotta façade seems even busier today as the crowds are swelled by visitors who have come in from the outer suburbs of London and elsewhere around England to join Lettice and Margot and do a spot of their own Christmas shopping. Around them, the vociferous collective chatter of shoppers mixes with the sound of noisy automobiles, chugging double decker busses and the occasional clop of horses hooves as they all trundle along the Brompton Road.

 

The two smartly dressed ladies enter London’s most expensive and grand department store, and following Lettice’s lead, they make their way upstairs to the toy department on Harrod’s top floor. The pair meander between tables laden with mountains of boxed dolls, teddy bears, toy tea sets and dolls’ house furnishings, jostling for space with excited children in toy heaven escorted by their frazzled nannies, or in a few cases, their distracted parents. Fleets of child sized tricycles, rocking horses, railway engines and pedal automobiles stand in line before the counters, their doll and teddy bear passengers awaiting their child drivers. Dolls houses with peaked roofs and beautiful gingerbreading stand open, displaying their tastefully decorated interiors for every passing girl to look at, admire and envy, whilst stacks of the latest sporting toys and equipment are ogled and pawed at by little boys. The air is punctuated with laughter, squeals of delight and the occasional sharp slap and harsh words of admonishment when a child does more than just look at what is on display.

 

“Even the most well-bred children become little monsters at Christmas time.” mutters Margot irritably as two giggling children in smart coats and hats tear past her, their hurried footsteps absorbed into the thick plush of patterned Art Nouveau carpet beneath their feet. “Not that I was of course. My nanny would have been dismissed immediately if I behaved in public the way some of these children are.”

 

Lettice doesn’t reply, but walks alongside her friend, looking absently at a selection of brightly decorated smiling golliwogs sitting on a three-tier display stand.

 

“You know what, Lettice darling?” Margot asks, picking up on a thread of conversation the two friends had begun as they looked through the windows of Harrods along the Brompton Road a few minutes before.

 

“What Margot?” Lettice asks rather distractedly as her gaze moves from the golliwogs to several plush toy poodles standing in front of a wonderful, fully rigged wooden sailboat.

 

“I may not be a great fan of Sadie,” Margot admits. “She’s difficult, exacting and far too critical of you as her daughter.”

 

Margot looks thoughtfully at Lettice, who appears somewhat diminished as she walks alongside her best friend, almost swimming in her familiar powder blue three-quarter length coat, her pale and wan face lacking its usual colour as she peers out from above her thick arctic fox fur stole wrapped around her. Even her smart hat, another millinery creation from her wonderful Putney discovery Harriet Milford, appears bigger on her today, and Margot notices that Lettice’s blonde hair, freshly set in soft Marcelle waves*** around her face, appears lacklustre in spite of her visit to the coiffeur.

 

“But,” Lettice asks, tentatively, pausing and looking at her friend dressed in a smart russet outfit of a three quarter length coat and matching hat, accessorised by a beautiful red squirrel stole.

 

“But what, Lettice darling?”

 

“Your sentence Margot. Don’t be coy, or worse obtuse,” Lettice tuts, looking her friend squarely in the face. “You may not be a fan of Sadie, but?”

 

“Well,” Margot says with a guilty lilt. “For once I jolly well agree with your mother.”

 

“You do?”

 

“I do!” admits Margot. “I think she was right to pack you off back here to London. It’s the only place you will get your shine back.” Margot pauses before adding. “You are looking a little peaky, my dear, if you will forgive me for saying.”

 

“I will, Margot darling. It’s a rare occurrence for Mater to ever insist I return to London.” Lettice snorts as they continue to slowly traverse the aisle lined with every conceivable toy and populated with a mass of wriggling and writhing excitable children. “Usually, it’s the other way around! Why must I come back to this big, horrible city when everything I could possibly need is right on my doorstep in dull old Wiltshire.”

 

“Moping about Glynes for too long would just have exacerbated your feelings of sadness.” Margot goes on. “Especially with your dear Pappa pandering to you.”

 

“Have you been talking to Mater about me?” Lettice asks in surprise, stopping in her tracks.

 

“No!” laughs Margot, looking back at her friend’s surprised face. “What a preposterous idea! We don’t even like one another! Why on earth would you ask that?”

 

“You’ll laugh when I tell you this,” explains Lettice. “But she intimated the exact same thing to me whilst I was staying down at Glynes.”

 

True to Lettice’s prediction, Margot does laugh. “Well, Sadie may lack empathy, but when it comes to matchmaking, it seems that she does have some common sense and knowledge.”

 

“So, you don’t think I’m foolish for doing what Mater suggested?”

 

“For getting on with things, or trying to at any rate?” Margot asks. “Good heavens, no! Why? Who has been saying you’re foolish for coming back to London?”

 

“When I arrived home, Cilla telephoned me and invited me to dine at the Langbourne Club****.”

 

“Humph!” opines Margot. “You’d think with her newly minted American millionaire husband, Cilla could find a new club to be a member of: somewhere more fitting than Fishmonger Hall Street to entertain you over luncheon.”

 

“Oh I don’t know,” Lettice brightens for a moment. “I rather enjoyed having tea and cucumber sandwiches surrounded by the working women of London.”

 

“Cilla would be wise to bury the fact that at one stage she and her mother were in such an impecunious position that she took up a secretarial course and worked in the city office of banker, just to keep the wolves away from the door.” mutters Margot bitterly. “Which she lied to all of us, her friends, about by saying it was a social experiment to aid her understanding of the conditions of working women in the city so she could help improve them.”

 

“Now, don’t be cruel, Margot.” Lettice chides her best friend mildly. “It doesn’t suit you.”

 

“But it’s true! Cilla lied to us all. I thought we were all friends.”

 

“We are, Margot darling.”

 

“But she lied to us, Lettice.”

 

“Only to save face, Margot darling. You know what that’s like. We all do.” Lettice soothes. “Anyway, you’re hardly a one to talk of impecunious circumstances when you think of some of the financial scraps you and Dickie have been in since you were married.” She cocks a knowing eyebrow. “We all know that he might be the future Marquess of Taunton, but he hasn’t a bean.”

 

“That’s besides the point, Lettice darling!” deflects Margot. “Anyway, what did Cilla have to say whilst you were luncheoning on soggy cucumber sandwiches and lukewarm milky tea with views of the Pool of London*****?”

 

“She thinks I’m silly to keep designing interiors and shopping and worse still for attending social functions, especially those where there are lots of photographers and reporters, whom she has noticed me talking to at length.”

 

“That’s because Cilla is a foolish girl who only ever reads silly romance novels and the social pages of the newspapers.” snaps Margot. “Now that she has her wealthy husband, and her future is secure, she thinks of little else.”

 

“I must confess,” Lettice admits guiltily. “I mean, I wasn’t really in the mood for her chatter anyway, but it was most awfully trying, listening to her prattle on about how wonderful life is, now that she’s Mrs. Georgie Carter.”

 

“It just goes to show you how thoughtless she is to talk like that around you when she knows of your heartbreak every bit as much as I do. It’s heartless and unthinking!”

 

“Never mind Margot darling. It’s done now. There’s no need to get cross over it.”

 

Seeming not to hear her friend, Margot continues, “She is just as self-obsessed as the heroines in those ridiculous romances she reads.” She casts her eyes up to the ornate white painted plaster cornicing above. “I’m glad I managed to introduce some alternatives to your reading repertoire.”

 

“Oh yes,” Lettice sparks up momentarily again. “I did enjoy ‘Whose Body?’******. Miss Sayers’ character of Lord Peter Wimsey is simply wonderful!”

 

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, Lettice darling!” purrs Margot with delight, seeing a welcome spark in her friend’s blue eyes and a tentative smile on her pale lips. “And to see you enthusiastic about something for a change. In spite of your most valiant efforts to be gay and put on a brave face, I cannot help but notice how farouche******* you have been since you came back from Wiltshire. Now, thinking of Glynes, I think Sadie’s suggestion that we get you in front of as many flashing camera bulbs and reporters desperate to report on your perceived ill-fated wait for Selwyn was pure genius!”

 

“Margot!”

 

“I know! I don’t imagine you ever thought you’d hear me say that about Sadie, but she genuinely is right. If you can’t communicate with Selwyn because Lady Zinnia forbids it, then let the newspapers do it for you. If they report on your pining for him, he’ll find out about it soon enough. Even if he doesn’t read the society pages, other people of his acquaintance in Durban will, and they will pop any mention of him in front of his very nose. You and I both know that when our names or pictures appear, everyone clamours to ask us whether we’ve seen ourselves in the society pages.”

 

“As if we hadn’t.” scoffs Lettice, rolling her eyes.

 

“As if we hadn’t.” agrees Margot with an affirmative nod. “No! Ignore silly Cilla, her judgement and her feeble ideas. Let’s do what your mother suggests and keep you out and about.” Margot looks rather nervously at a display of rather ghoulish looking French bisque dolls stacked to her left. “Thinking of which, why did you want to come to Harrod’s toy department anyway? Being surrounded by all these children,” A piercing scream from a little boy or girl pierces the air, making Margot cringe. “Really is most disturbing.”

 

“Well, it is getting towards Christmas, and I don’t have anything for my nice and nephew.” Lettice admits. “I’ve been too preoccupied with, well with other things, as you know.” she adds guiltily.

 

“You don’t have to justify your distractedness to me, Lettice, darling!” Margot links arms comfortingly with her best friend. “You know perfectly well that I understand and support you.”

 

“Thank you Margot, you really are a brick.” Sighs Lettice.

 

“That’s more like my Lettice of old.” Margot smiles. “Now, do you have any idea what your niece and nephew want from Father Christmas this year? The sooner we are out of here, the better as far as I’m concerned.”

 

“Do you think you’ll feel any differently about children, once you have your own, Margot darling?”

 

“Now don’t you start!” Margot snaps as she points a glove clad finger warningly at her friend.

 

“What did I say, Margot darling?”

 

“Oh, nothing.” Margot replies, deflating as quickly as she arced up. “I’m sorry, Lettice darling. Forgive me?”

 

“Of course, dear Margot, but whatever has happened to make you snap like that?”

 

“It’s just my awful mother-in-law the Marchioness is all.”

 

“Is she pressing you about starting a family again?”

 

“Again?” Margot laughs scornfully. “She never stops, even to draw breath. She tells me at every opportunity,”

 

“Which thankfully isn’t too many.” Lettice grasps her friend’s hands with her own glove encased ones.

 

“Thankfully no.” Margot agrees. “She tells me constantly that it’s my duty as a wife, and a Channon, to ensure the succession of the title by producing an heir. It isn’t as if,” She lowers her voice to a barely perceptible whisper as she moves her head close to Lettice’s. “Dickie and I haven’t been trying. We have. It just doesn’t seem to be happening. Unlike the Marchioness perceives, I’m not a clock that runs smoothly day in and day out.”

 

“Of course you aren’t, Margot darling.” Lettice assures her friend as tears start to well up in Margot’s eyes. “It will all happen, when time intends.”

 

A young girl nearby reaches up towards a teddy bear, and when she cannot reach it, her face turns from pale pink to red and then purple as she bellows loudly in protest with tears cascading down her fat cheeks.

 

“And when I do, I intend to give it to our nanny to take care of until it is at least of age.” Margot replies with disgust as she stares with open hostility at the crying child as a nanny in a grey cape and pillbox hat sweeps her up in her arms. “Filthy little beasts that children are.”

 

Lettice laughs at the combination of her best friend’s remark and look of repugnance.

 

“Come along Margot darling. Let’s keep going.”

 

Lettice comes to a halt before a glass fronted counter laden with such an array of wonderful toys and garlanded with festive tinsel******** that you can barely see it beneath all the festive cheer. Teddy bears of differing sizes jostle for space with a marvellous faerie tale castle upon which stand several painted lead and wooden soldiers. Two beautifully painted lead knights prepare to joust before its drawbridge entrance. Stacks of colourful bricks showing letters of the alphabet stand next to rocking wooden toys, whilst various games perch between them all.

 

“What are you thinking of?” Margot asks, looking at all the toys, before reaching out and giving a little model railway engine with red and grey livery and shiny brass workings a gentle nudge that projects it slightly further along the edge of the counter.

 

“Well,” Lettice begins. “I bought Harrold some jousting knights for Christmas last year. Lally said that between she and Charles posing as Father Christmas, Pappa and me, he ended up with a very fine collection.”

 

“So you think you might like to add to it?” Margot ventures as she gingerly picks up a knight in silver armour on horseback wearing cobalt blue livery.

 

“No,” Lettice says in a rather distracted fashion as she glances across the counter. “I don’t think I will this year. He has enough lead soldiers and knights.”

 

“Does any boy have enough lead soldiers and knights?” Margot laughs in rhetorical reply as she replaces the knight back onto the glassy surface of the counter.

 

“No, you’re right, dear Margot. But I was thinking I might buy him this.”

 

Lettice picks up a brightly decorated game box before her and holds it out to her best friend.

 

“The Wonderful Game of Oz*********,” Margot reads aloud, scruitinising the cover which features Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man on it, with the Emerald City sparkling in the background.

 

“I bought Harrold ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’********** and ‘The Land of Oz’ for his birthday, and Lally said that he just devoured them. He adored all the characters. I thought that now Annabelle is a bit older, brother and sister could probably play this companionably together, at least for a little while, and give Lally and Nanny a small amount of respite.”

 

“That sounds promising, Lettice darling.”

 

“I thought so.”

 

“May I help you, ladies?” asks a young male assistant who has slipped up silently to the counter as Lettice and Margot have been chatting.

 

“Aside from clearing the department of every single child under the age of eighteen,” Margot remarks, handing the clean shaven young man in Harrods livery the game box. “You might wrap this up for us.”

 

“Very good, madam.” he replies obsequiously.

 

“And don’t stray too far,” Margot adds. “We aren’t quite done yet.”

 

“Of course, madam,” the shop assistant agrees with a differential nod before retreating to wrap the box.

 

“Thank you,” Lettice says to her friend.

 

“And for your niece?” Margot asks.

 

“Well, after I gave her a big teddy bear like this one, last year,” Lettice tugs on the paw of a beautiful big buff coloured mohair bear. “I have heard nothing from Annabelle but how very much she wants me to give her a bear this year.” She picks up a pretty toffee coloured bear with black glass eyes and a sweet face with a vermilion bow about his neck. “So I think that’s an easy choice.”

 

Margot considers the bear in her friend’s hands. “He is sweet.” she remarks.

 

“Yes, he does have a rather lovely face.” Lettice agrees. “Oh, and ever since she discovered Rupert Bear*********** in her father’s ‘Daily Express’ she has been obsessed by him.” She picks up a pretty and colourful box decorated with Rupert bear rambling across the idyllic English countryside towards his home in Nutwood. “So perhaps this as well.”

 

“My goodness Lettice!” remarks Margot. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so decisive when it comes to shopping before.”

 

“Well,” admits Lettice, glancing awkwardly around her. “I must confess that being surrounded by all these noisy and rambunctious children is rather unnerving.”

 

“I couldn’t agree more.” replies Margot with a shudder.

 

“I don’t mind my own niece and nephew, in small doses, but all these excitable children really are too, too tiresome.”

 

“We’ll get these packaged up then, and we’ll go and take tea in the Georgian Restaurant************. Then we can talk more privately, and without a single child in sight, about your plans to keep Selwyn close to your heart, even if he is far away. What do you say, Lettice darling?”

 

“I think that sounds perfect, Margot darling!” Lettice sighs, smiling genuinely at her dear friend.

 

*The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.

 

**Harrods is a department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London. It is owned by Harrods Ltd. In 1824, at the age of twenty-five, Charles Henry Harrod established a business at 228 Borough High Street in Southwark. He ran this business, variously listed as a draper, mercer, and a haberdasher, until at least 1831. His first grocery business appears to be as 'Harrod & Co. Grocers' at 163 Upper Whitecross Street, Clerkenwell, in 1832. In 1834, in London's East End, he established a wholesale grocery in Stepney at 4 Cable Street with a special interest in tea. Attempting to capitalise on trade during the Great Exhibition of 1851 in nearby Hyde Park, in 1849 Harrod took over a small shop in the district of Brompton, on the site of the current store. Beginning in a single room employing two assistants and a messenger boy, Harrod's son Charles Digby Harrod built the business into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery, fruits and vegetables. Harrods rapidly expanded, acquired the adjoining buildings, and employed one hundred people by 1881. However, the store's booming fortunes were reversed in early December 1883, when it burnt to the ground. Remarkably, Charles Harrod fulfilled all of his commitments to his customers to make Christmas deliveries that year—and made a record profit in the process. Begun in 1894, the present building with its famous terracotta façade was completed to the design of architect Charles William Stephens. The same year Harrods extended credit for the first time to its best customers, among them Oscar Wilde, Lillie Langtry, Ellen Terry, Charlie Chaplin, Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Sigmund Freud, A. A. Milne, and many members of the British Royal Family. Beatrix Potter frequented the store from the age of seventeen. First published in 1902, her children’s book, ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’, was soon on sale in Harrods, accompanied by the world's first licensed character, a Peter Rabbit soft toy (Peter and toys of other Potter characters appeared in Harrods catalogues from 1910). In 1921, Milne bought the 18-inch Alpha Farnell teddy bear from the store for his son Christopher Robin Milne who would name it Edward, then Winnie, becoming the basis for Winnie-the-Pooh. On 16 November 1898, Harrods debuted England's first "moving staircase" (escalator) in their Brompton Road stores; the device was actually a woven leather conveyor belt-like unit with a mahogany and "silver plate-glass" balustrade. Nervous customers were offered brandy at the top to revive them after their 'ordeal'.

 

***Marcelling is a hair styling technique in which hot curling tongs are used to induce a curl into the hair. Its appearance was similar to that of a finger wave but it is created using a different method. Marcelled hair was a popular style for women's hair in the 1920s, often in conjunction with a bob cut. For those women who had longer hair, it was common to tie the hair at the nape of the neck and pin it above the ear with a stylish hair pin or flower. One famous wearer was American entertainer, Josephine Baker.

 

****Langbourne Club on Fishmonger Hall Street, provided a place where women who worked in the city could lunch and meet. Less luxurious than some of the West End clubs for women, it still offered companionship and comfort, particularly for single women working in offices who lived in bedsits and boarding houses. The club was entered from Fishmonger Hall Street, a narrow lane leading out of Upper Thames Street just west of London Bridge. Next door was the great facade of Fishmongers' Hall. Progressively, members of the Langbourne Club were allowed to invite their male friends to luncheon. There were organisations within the club which dealt with dances, musical and dramatic societies.

 

*****The Pool of London is a stretch of the River Thames from London Bridge to below Limehouse.

 

******Whose Body? is a 1923 mystery novel by English crime writer and poet Dorothy L. Sayers. It was her debut novel, and the book in which she introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey.

 

*******Farouche is an old fashioned term for someone who is sullen or shy when in company.

 

********One of the most famous Christmas decorations that people love to use at Christmas is tinsel. You might think that using it is an old tradition and that people in Britain have been adorning their houses with tinsel for a very long time. However that is not actually true. Tinsel is in fact believed to be quite a modern tradition. Whilst the idea of tinsel dates back to Germany in 1610 when wealthy people used real strands of silver to adorn their Christmas trees (also a German invention). Silver was very expensive though, so being able to do this was a sign that you were wealthy. Even though silver looked beautiful and sparkly to begin with, it tarnished quite quickly, meaning it would lose its lovely, bright appearance. Therefore it was swapped for other materials like copper and tin. These metals were also cheaper, so it meant that more people could use them. However, when the Great War started in 1914, metals like copper were needed for the war. Because of this, they couldn't be used for Christmas decorations as much, so a substitute was needed. It was swapped for aluminium, but this was a fire hazard, so it was switched for lead, but that turned out to be poisonous.

 

*********’The Wonderful Game of Oz’ was just one of the many pieces of promotional merchandise that was produced after the great success of the Oz series of books written by L. Frank Baum. Based on the books and characters, the game board and pieces are based on the John. R. Neil book illustrations. John. R. Neil illustrated all the Oz books except ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ which was illustrated by W. W. Denslow. In the game, you make your way through Oz, from Munchkinland to the Emarald City. It was published by Parker Brothers in Salem Massachusetts in 1921.

 

**********‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ is based on whimsical stories he told his children, Lyman Frank Baum’s book is known as the first American faerie tale. Following the adventures of Kansas girl Dorothy Gale and her friends the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion across the Land of Oz, ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ was just the first of fourteen Oz books written by L. Frank Baum. Originally published somewhat reluctantly, the book is now one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been widely translated into any number of languages. It led not only to further books but to successful Broadway shows, silent films and of course the MGM movie musical, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ in 1939 starring Judy Garland as Dorothy.

 

***********Rupert Bear is a British children's comic strip character and franchise created by artist Mary Tourtel and first appearing in the ‘Daily Express’ newspaper on the 8th of November 1920. Rupert's initial purpose was to win sales from the rival ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘Daily Mirror’. In 1935, the stories were taken over by Alfred Bestall, who was previously an illustrator for Punch and other glossy magazines. Alfred proved to be successful in the field of children's literature and worked on Rupert stories and artwork into his nineties. More recently, various other artists and writers have continued the series. About fifty million copies have been sold worldwide. Rupert is a bear who lives with his parents in a house in Nutwood, a fictional idyllic English village. He is drawn wearing a red jumper and bright yellow checked trousers, with matching yellow scarf. Originally depicted as a brown bear, his colour soon changed to white to save on printing costs,[2] though he remained brown on the covers of the annuals.

 

************The Georgian Restaurant is a stalwart of Harrods Department Store, originally located on the top floor. Harry Gordon Selfridge was the founder of cafes and restaurants in department stores. His idea was that a restaurant or café dedicated strictly to the female clientele of a department store made the establishment a safe place where ladies could shop and socialise “unmolested”. Moreover, restaurants such as Harrods Georgian Restaurant served as a haven for ladies, tired of shopping, to stop and take light refreshments, before then continuing on with their shopping expedition, thus spending more money within the store. It worked wonderfully for Selfridges on Oxford Street and the idea was quickly taken up and replicated in all the major department stores of London.

 

This festive toyshop full of a wonderful array of toys may seem real to you, but it is in fact made up entirely of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The toys on the countertop come from various different suppliers. The teddy bears, the coloured blocks with letters on them, the dualling medieval knights on horseback, the rocking toy, the rocking horse, the little steam railway engine, the castle and the soldiers on them all came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. ‘The Wonderful Game of Oz’, ‘Father Tuck’s Plays in Fairyland’ and the ‘Teddy Bear Game’ are all 1:12 artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. ‘Father Tuck’s Plays in Fairyland’ even has authentic cut outs found in the original box inside! The box with Rupert the bear on it comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

On the shelves in the background, the teddy bears, toy soldiers Noah’s Ark and animals, dolls, wooden pull toys and drum all come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The little wooden trains and carriages I have acquired from various miniatures stockists over many years. The ‘Blow Football’ game is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

The garlands on both the counter and the shelves behind come from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The wood and glass display cabinet buried beneath the toys and Christmas garlanding I obtained from a seller of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

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