Tea for Two in Edith’s Kitchen

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 we are in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith, her maid’s, preserve, where Frank Leadbetter, the young grocery delivery boy and sometimes window dresser of Mr. Willison’s Grocery in Binney Street, Mayfair, has just finished unpacking Edith’s latest grocery order for the household. Edith has been stepping out with Frank for a while now, and now that they are committed to one another, they hope to make it official soon by announcing their engagement to Edith’s parents and Frank’s grandmother, Mrs. McTavish.

 

“Do you have time to stop for tea, Frank?” Edith asks cheerfully as she places a can of tinned peaches onto a lower shelf of the kitchen dresser.

 

“If we make it a quick one, yes.” Frank agrees tentatively. “I still have to make a delivery to Lady Hackney’s cook all the way up along Upper Brook Street*, and finally a drop off some groceries to Hilda at the Channon’s in Hill Street.”

 

“Well luckily the pot’s not long been filled,” Edith replies, patting the top of the white china teapot sitting on the table, covered with a tea cosy knitted in yellow, blue, purple and cream by her mother, Ada. “Sit of a spell.” She smiles indicating to a chair drawn up to the table. “We need to give you a bit of strength for you to cycle all the way down Upper Brook Street.”

 

“Thanks Edith,” Frank sighs gratefully as he slips into the worn seat of the Windsor chair at the top of Edith’s deal pine kitchen table. “I wish Lady Hackney’s cook was as hospitable as you.”

 

“A bit of tartar**, is she?” Edith asks as she withdraws a Delftware cup and saucer from the kitchen dresser and puts it on the table next to hers.

 

“Is she ever! She barks orders and looks down her nose at me.” Frank opines. “As if she’s any better than me.”

 

“Of course she isn’t, Frank.” Edith assures her beau soothingly as she takes a seat in her usual Windsor chair adjunct to Frank’s. “She’s just like me.” She pauses. “Shall I be mother then***?”

 

“Yes please Edith!” Frank replies eagerly as he picks up the Delftware jug and sloshes some milk into his teacup**** before adding a dash to Edith’s as well. Edith picks up the pot and pours tea for Frank into his cup before then filling her own. “And you’re nothing like Lady Hackney’s cook.”

 

“No, Frank!” Edith giggles, returning the pot to the table. “I only meant that she’s a servant, just like me, or even you for that matter. It doesn’t matter who she works for. She could even work for Their Majesties, and she’d still be a servant.”

 

“Oh!” Frank adds two spoonfuls of sugar to his tea and stirs it before handing the sugar bowl and teaspoon to his sweetheart who accepts them from him.

 

Frank looks at the surface of the table. Across it are spread several colourful, glossy film magazines including Picturegoer***** and Photoplay****** alongside a copy of the Daily Mail.

 

“I see you’re keeping busy.” Frank notes with an air of sarcasm as he picks up a copy of Photo Play Magazine******* featuring a rather striking coloured portrait of motion picture star Norma Shearer******** painted by Earl Christy*********. In the portrait she gazes up over her shoulder with kohl rimmed eyes, an image that is both striking and provocative at the same time to his mind.

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith hisses. “Can’t a poor hard-working girl have a tea break?”

 

“Only if her tea break is with her best beau.” Frank smirks cheekily.

 

“I’ll have you know, Frank Leadbetter, that I’d not long finished ironing Miss Lettice’s newspaper********** before you arrived to deliver my grocery order.”

 

Frank murmurs a muffled agreement with his sweetheart, eyeing her with a knowing look.

 

“And I was just taking a break before I settled down to decide what took Miss Lettice for diner,” Edith defends as she pats two small cookbooks perched on the edge of the table to her left. “Since she is dining in tonight.”

 

Frank nods but continues to eye her knowingly.

 

“Oh, you are awful, Frank!” Edith sighs in exasperation.

 

“I don’t mind what you do in your spare time.” Frank says, smiling a little more broadly as he speaks. “I just hope Miss Lettice doesn’t catch you enjoying these magazines on her time.”

 

“No fear.” Edith chuckles. “I think after five years, I have finally cured her of barging into my kitchen unannounced like she was used to doing when I first came here. All the same though,” she adds a little self-righteously. “I think I do have the right to stop for a tea break during the morning, and I don’t think Miss Lettice would bemoan me for that. I have been up since six after all.”

 

“I’m sure she wouldn’t. You don’t have to prove anything to me.” Frank agrees, chuckling to himself as he takes a sip of his tea.

 

“What?” Edith asks, glaring at Frank. “What’s so funny?”

 

“You are Edith.” Frank admits. “I do love it when I can rile you up just a little. You are even prettier when you are being self-defensive.”

 

Edith sits back in her seat, looking appalled. “I have a right mind to throw this tea all over you, Frank Leadbetter!” she mutters.

 

“What, and ruin all your precious moving picture magazines in the process?” Frank exclaims. “I don’t think so!”

 

Edith looks anxiously at her magazines on the table. “Well, perhaps I’ll move them first. Then I’ll fling this tea on you.”

 

“Well, I like that!” Frank retorts with a snort and a good-natured guffaw. “My best girl prefers her magazines over me!”

 

“That will teach you for riling me up, Frank Leadbetter!” Edith says with a smirk, unable to hold the pretence of appearing to be angry with her sweetheart any longer.

 

The pair settle back comfortably in their seats, laughing happily together as they sip their tea and look at one another with love and affection.

 

“Frank,” Edith ask tentatively. “Do you think I should have my hair bobbed?” She pats the side of her wavy blonde hair, which is fastened in a chignon at the back of her neck.

 

“What?” Frank gasps, choking on his mouthful of tea as he does. Coughing, he quickly covers his mouth with his hand to make sure he doesn’t splutter on Edith’s magazines.

 

“Let me get you some water, Frank!” Edith exclaims, as she goes to get up from her seat.

 

“No. No!” Frank manages to answer her, pushing his right arm out across Edith’s waist to bar her from getting up. “I’ll… be fine.” After a few more coughs he manages to ask hoarsely, “Why on earth do you want to get your hair bobbed, Edith?” He reaches out his right hand again but this time he places it with a gentle and loving touch upon her tresses draped partially across her ear. “It’s so soft and lovely as it is.”

 

“But don’t you think I’d look glamorous with bobbed hair, Frank?” Edith asks. She leans forward and pulls her latest copy of Photoplay from beneath the Picture Play magazine with Norma Shearer on the cover. Edith holds up the magazine next to her face. On the cover of Photoplay is a portrait of newcomer silent picture actress Louise Brooks*********** posing dramatically in a cheongsam************ holding a fan up to her cheek. “Like her! Look at how stylish it looks! So smart.”

 

“I like your hair as it is, Edith. It’s soft and beautiful, and frames your face so much more nicely than I think that sharp look would. It’s so severe, and you aren’t severe, Edith.”

 

“But all the girls are doing it now.” Edith mewls.

 

“But you aren’t just any girl, Edith.” Frank replies, now moving his hand to her left cheek, where he caresses her soft skin gently. “You’re my best girl, and I like you the way you are.”

 

“But it would be so much easier to manage.” Edith adds.

 

Frank looks at her with gentle, sparkling eyes. “We’ve had this conversation before. Please, don’t bob your hair.”

 

Edith sighs deeply and places the magazine down on the table again. “Alright Frank. I won’t.”

 

“That’s my best girl.” Frank purrs. “Thank you.”

 

The pair fall into companionable silence for a short while as they both finish their cups of tea.

 

Sighing with pleasure as he finishes his drink, Frank returns the cup to its saucer and stands. “Well, I’d better be getting along on my way. Heaven forbid, that I should be late in delivering Lady Hackney’s cook’s tin of Tate and Lyall’s************* golden syrup.”

 

“Is that all you are delivering to her?” Edith asks in shock.

 

“Just that.” Frank confirms.

 

“That’s just awful, Frank!” Edith replies hotly. “Surely she could have sent her kitchen maid or one of Lady Hackney’s tweenies, maids or footmen to get it for her! What a cheek!”

 

“Such is the plight of a lowly and humble grocer’s boy.” Frank opines with a sigh and a fall of his shoulders.

 

“There’[s nothing lowly about you, Frank!”

 

“Thank you, Edith.” Frank smiles back gratefully.

 

“Fancy you having to bicycle all the way along Upper Brook Street, just to deliver a single tin of golden syrup! That cook sounds as bad as Mrs. Clifford’s maid, Myra, downstairs: a toffee-nosed snob, and that’s a fact!”

 

“You’re beautiful when you’re fired up too, Edith Watsford.” Frank murmurs lovingly. “Still,” He smiles down at her. “Toffee-nosed snob or not, Lady Hackney’s cook will be fit to be tied if I’m too much longer, and then I’ll get what for from Mr. and Mrs. Willison if word gets back to them that I was late delivering to her. The Willisons are toffee-nosed snobs every bit as much as Myra or Lady Hackney’s cook, and they are proud of every one of the titles on their books, even if most of them are tardy in paying their accounts. I wouldn’t have a job if I lost them Lady Hackney’s business.”

 

“So much for your wonderful new world for the working man.” Edith grumbles as she stands herself, and starts to gather up her magazines, shuffling them into a stack.

 

“It is coming, Edith.” Frank assures her. “And things are already changing.”

 

“How?”

 

“Well, not so long ago, you would have been in a great deal of trouble if you’d stopped for a break like this.” He waves his hand across the tea things on the table. “But now it’s a right given you.”

 

“It’s not much, Frank.”

 

“But it is something,” Frank assures Edith. “And many small concessions add up to big changes. We just have to be patient for a bit longer.”

 

“Well,” Edith huffs with determination as she enfolds her arms around her magazines as she draws them up to her chest. “Luckily I’m a patient girl.” She looks poignantly at Frank.

 

“Not much longer now, Edith.” Frank replies softly. “Thinking of which,” he adds more brightly. “What are you doing on your Wednesday afternoon off?”

 

“I haven’t really made any firm plans yet, Frank. I thought I might invite Hilda to come with me to Mrs. Minkin’s haberdashery in Whitechapel. She needs more wool for her knitting, and I want the latest copy of Weldon’s**************. I want to make a new summer frock. Why do you ask? Don’t tell me you’ve got Wednesday afternoon off too?”

 

“As a matter-of-fact, I do.” Frank crows.

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith exclaims. “I haven’t said anything to Hilda yet. Shall we make plans to do something?”

 

“I’d like that.” Frank replies brightly with a beaming smile. “In fact, I’d like to make a suggestion!”

 

“What do you want to do, Frank?”

 

“Well, I can’t really tell you, because I want it to be a surprise.”

 

“A surprise?” Edith squeezes the magazines more tightly as she gasps. “Frank, I love surprises!”

 

“Do you think you could make it to Clapham Junction by one on Wednesday, Edith?”

 

“By one?” Edith ponders. “I don’t see why not. I could catch the train from Down Street*************** to Leicester Square, and then take the Southern**************** from Waterloo. Could you meet me at Clapham Junction Railway Station*****************?”

 

“I think I could manage that.” Frank replies with a winning smile. “Wear that lovely white blouse of yours with the Peter Pan collar****************** if you would.”

 

“Oh! Are we going on a picnic to Clapham Common*******************?” Edith asks.

 

“If I told you,” Frank replies with an exasperated sigh. “It wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”

 

“I suppose not.” Edith agrees begrudgingly. “Let’s hope the weather is good, just in case it is.”

 

*The western continuation of Brook Street, Mayfair, (to Park Lane) is called Upper Brook Street; its west end faces Brook Street Gate of Hyde Park. Both sections consisted of neo-classical terraced houses, mostly built to individual designs. Some of them were very ornate, finely stuccoed and tall-ceilinged, designed by well known architects for wealthy tenants, especially near Grosvenor Square, others exposed good quality brickwork or bore fewer expensive window openings and embellishments. Some of both types survive. Others have been replaced by buildings from later periods.

 

**A tartar is a bad-tempered or aggressively assertive person, typically a woman, and is based upon the hard crust of calcium salts and food particles on the teeth which is known as tartar.

 

***The meaning of the very British term “shall I be mother” is “shall I pour the tea?”

 

****In the class-conscious society of Britain in the 1920s, whether you added milk to your cup of tea first or the tea was a subtle way of defining what class you came from. Upper-class people, or those who wished to ape their social betters added milk after the tea, whereas middle-class or working class people comfortable in their own skins were known to add milk before the tea.

 

*****Picturegoer was a fan magazine published in the United Kingdom between 1911 and 23 April 1960.

 

******Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines, its title another word for screenplay. It was founded in Chicago in 1911. Under early editors Julian Johnson and James R. Quirk, in style and reach it became a pacesetter for fan magazines. In 1921, Photoplay established what is considered the first significant annual movie award. For most of its run, it was published by Macfadden Publications. The magazine ceased publication in 1980.

 

*******Picture Play, originally titled Picture-Play Weekly was an American weekly magazine focusing on the film industry. Its first edition was published on April 10, 1915. It eventually transitioned from a weekly to a monthly magazine, before ending its production run, when it continued as Your Charm, in March 1941.

 

********Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated women. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare, and was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee, winning Best Actress for The Divorcee (1930).

 

*********F. Earl Christy was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1882. The "F" is believed to stand for "Frederic". At seventeen, he painted originals for the Boardwalk Atlantic City Picture company, with many of his early works published by the J. Hoover and Sons Calendar Company of Philadelphia. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts from 1905 to 1907. Christy produced dozens of magazine covers including; Dell Publishing Company for Modern Romances, Modern Screen and Radio Stars, Ainslee's magazine, American Magazine, Sunday Magazine of the New York Times, Collier's, Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, Liberty Magazine, McClure's Photoplay Magazine, and Puck Magazine. He also created illustrations for many calendar prints, ink blotters, postcards and Princess Pat Cosmetic's advertisements. Most of his images were of beautiful girls primarily playing sports such as basketball, golf and tennis. Earl Christy never married and lived most of his life with one or both of his sisters. He passed away on Long Island New York in 1961.

 

**********It was a common occurrence in large and medium-sized houses that employed staff for the butler or chief parlour maid to iron the newspapers. The task of butlers ironing newspapers is not as silly as it sounds. Butlers were not ironing out creases, but were using the hot iron to dry the ink so that the paper could be easily read without the reader's ending up with smudged fingers and black hands, a common problem with newspapers in the Victorian and Edwardian ages.

 

***********Mary Louise Brooks was an American film actress during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career.

 

************A cheongsam is a straight, close-fitting silk dress with a high neck and slit skirt, worn traditionally by Chinese and Indonesian women. It was developed in the 1920s and evolved in shapes and design over years, and gained popularity in Western society as an outfit that represented the exoticism of the orient.

 

*************The Tate and Lyall sugar packet was acquired from Jonesy’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. In 1859 Henry Tate went into partnership with John Wright, a sugar refiner based at Manesty Lane, Liverpool. Their partnership ended in 1869 and John’s two sons, Alfred and Edwin joined the business forming Henry Tate and Sons. A new refinery in Love Lane, Liverpool was opened in 1872. In 1921 Henry Tate and Sons and Abram Lyle and Sons merged, between them refining around fifty percent of the UK’s sugar. A tactical merger, this new company would then become a coherent force on the sugar market in anticipation of competition from foreign sugar returning to its pre-war strength. Tate and Lyle are perhaps best known for producing Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Lyle’s Golden Treacle.

 

**************Created by British industrial chemist and journalist Walter Weldon Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was the first ‘home weeklies’ magazine which supplied dressmaking patterns. Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was first published in 1875 and continued until 1954 when it ceased publication.

 

***************Down Street, is a disused station on the London Underground, located in Mayfair. The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway opened it in 1907. It was latterly served by the Piccadilly line and was situated between Dover Street (now named Green Park) and Hyde Park Corner stations. The station was little used; many trains passed through without stopping. Lack of patronage and proximity to other stations led to its closure in 1932. During the Second World War it was used as a bunker by the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and the war cabinet. The station building survives and is close to Down Street's junction with Piccadilly.

 

****************The Southern Railway (SR), sometimes shortened to 'Southern', was a British railway company established in the 1923 Grouping. It linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, South coast resorts and Kent. The railway was formed by the amalgamation of several smaller railway companies, the largest of which were the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SE&CR). The construction of what was to become the Southern Railway began in 1838 with the opening of the London and Southampton Railway, which was renamed the London and South Western Railway.

 

*****************Clapham Junction is a major railway station near St John's Hill in south-west Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Despite its name, Clapham Junction is not in Clapham, a district one mile to the south-east. A major transport hub, Clapham Junction station is on both the South West Main Line and Brighton Main Line, as well as numerous other routes and branch lines which pass through or diverge from the main lines at this station. It serves as a southern terminus of both the Mildmay and Windrush lines of the London Overground.

 

******************A Peter Pan collar is a style of clothing collar, flat in design with rounded corners. It is named after the collar of Maude Adams's costume in her 1905 role as Peter Pan, although similar styles had been worn before this date. Peter Pan collars were particularly fashionable during the 1920s and 1930s.

 

*******************At over eighty-five hectares in size, Clapham Common is one of London’s largest, and oldest, public open spaces, situated between Clapham, Battersea and Balham. Clapham Common is mentioned as far back as 1086 in the famous Domesday Book, and was originally ‘common land’ for the Manors of Battersea and Clapham. Tenants of the Lords of the Manors, could graze their livestock, collect firewood or dig for clay and other minerals found on site. However, as a result of increasing threats from encroaching roads and housing developments, it was acquired in 1877 by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and designated a “Metropolitan Common”, which gives it protection from loss to development and preserves its open character.

 

This comfortable domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:

 

Edith’s deal kitchen table is covered with lots of interesting bits and pieces. The tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in the United Kingdom. The Deftware cups, saucers, sugar bowl and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot. The vase of flowers are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium and inserted into a real, hand blown glass vase.

 

Edith’s two cookbooks are made by hand by an unknown American artisan and were acquired from an American miniature collector on E-Bay. The newspaper which features an image of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future Queen Elizabeth and one day Queen Mother, is a copy of a real Daily Mail newspaper from 1925 and was produced to high standards in 1:12 by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

The Picture Play, Photoplay and Picturegoer magazines are 1:12 miniatures made by artisan Ken Blythe. I have a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my miniatures collection – books mostly. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! Sadly, so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. As well as making books, he also made other small paper based miniatures including magazines like the ones you see displayed here. They are not designed to be opened. What might amaze you in spite of this is the fact is that all Ken Blythe’s books and magazines are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make them all miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

Edith’s Windsor chairs are both hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniatures which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat of either chair, but they are definitely unmarked artisan pieces.

 

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 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.

 

The tin bucket, mops and brooms in the corner of the kitchen all come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.

Done