Edith’s News

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 however we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid, grew up. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price* biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith. Usually even before she walks through the glossy black painted front door, on washing day Edith can smell the familiar scent of a mixture of Lifebuoy Soap, Borax and Robin’s Starch, which means her mother is washing the laundry of others wealthier than she in the terrace’s kitchen at the rear of the house. Yet with her father’s promotion, Edith’s mother is only laundering a few days a week now.

 

We find ourselves in the Watsford’s scullery at the back of the terrace behind the kitchen, which like most Victoria era homes, also serves as the wash house. Ada is busy looking for something between several large baskets of dirty laundry yet to be washed, and a basket of dry undergarments with lace trims that belong to the Watsford’s uppity landlady, Mrs. Hounslow, which require goffering**. “Now where did I put the other half of my goffering iron?” Ada mutters as she searches for the toothed bottom half of her black iron with its matching teeth and handle which sits atop the laundry copper***

 

Like all the houses in the terrace, the Watsford’s scullery has an old square-sided ceramic sink in the corner, set on bricks, joined to the same pipe as the one directly behind the wall in the corner of the kitchen, however the small room is dominated by the large built-in washing cauldron made of bricks, set above its own wood fire furnace with a copper cauldron in its centre. The distemper on the walls of the scullery are tinted ever so slightly blue, a traditional colour for laundries, as it made whites look even whiter. Around it stand wicker baskets for laundry, a dolly-peg**** and a very heavy black painted mangle***** with wooden rollers, whilst on the copper’s top a panoply of laundry items stand, including an enamelled water jug, bowls, irons, a washboard and various household laundry products. The room smells comfortingly clean: scents of soap and starch that have seeped into every fibre of the space.

 

“Ah! There you are!” Ada exclaims, withdrawing the bottom of her goffering iron from where it has been wedged between the brick side of the laundry copper and an empty basket on the floor. “Come here, you wretch of a thing! How did you get down there? I bet George put you down there mistaking you for a boot scrape for his dirty gardening boots!”

 

“Oh Mum! Mum!” Edith’s breathy cries proceed her, echoing through the Watsford’s terrace and announcing her presence before she bursts into the room.

 

“Goodness! Edith? What on earth!” Ada gasps in delighted surprise as she deposits the heavy goffering iron onto the top of the copper, and glances up to the open door leading from the kitchen into the scullery. “I wasn’t expecting you today, Edith love! You said you weren’t coming.” She laughs. “What a lovely surprise!”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith gasps again, catching her breath as she falls into her mother’s welcoming open arms, burying her head into her shoulder which smells comfortingly of the sweet scent of Hudson’s Soap******.

 

Releasing her daughter, Ada holds her at arm’s length and admires her smart three-quarter length pilum coloured spring coat and her usual purple rose and black feather decorated straw cloche hat. However, what strikes her more about her daughter today than her outfit is the flush in her young cheeks, the gleam in her pale blue eyes and the radiant smile gracing her lips. “Look at you, my darling girl.” The older woman self-consciously pushes loose strands of her mousey brown hair back behind her ears. Chuckling awkwardly, she remarks with a downwards glance. “Don’t you look lovely today, Edith love. Did you find out what your surprise from Frank was in the end?”

 

“Oh did I what, Mum!” Edith swoons with a sigh, leaning against the laundry copper.

 

“Well?” Ada asks, smiling in delight because of a mixture of her daughter’s unexpected appearance in her scullery and her obvious happiness. “What was it? Grab that stool from over there, and sit down.” She indicates with a careworn hand to a small three legged stool near the copper on which stands a basket of laundry waiting to be pressed. “Tell me all about it.”

 

Edith does as her mother bids, and after placing the basket of frothy, lacy laundry on the flagstone floor, settles down upon the stool which she draws up closely before the door of the copper and her mother’s anxiously awaiting figure as Ada sinks down upon the wood pile next to the copper.

 

“Do you need a glass of water, Edith love?” Ada asks, standing up quickly again and picking up a battered cream enamel jug with a green handle and a green rained lip.

 

“No Mum.” Edith huffs. “I just… need to catch my breath a little. I’ve run all the way from the Underground*******.” She indicates with her hand for her mother to resume her perch on the wood pile again.

 

“Goodness! Run all that way to tell me about Frank’s surprise!” Ada remarks sinking back down again with another chuckle. “It must have been grand: grander than a trip to Clapham Common******** I’ll wager, since you’re so dressed up.”

 

“Oh, it’s much grander and more exciting than that, Mum!” Edith enthuses.

 

“So, tell me what you did then, Edith love.”

 

“Well, I did as Frank asked me to do, and as you’ve pointed out. I got dressed up and I wore my white blouse with the Peter Pan collar*********, just like he asked me to.”

 

“You knew you weren’t going to Clapham Common then, Edith love?”

 

“Well, I didn’t know for certain, Mum, but as I was saying to Hilda on the trip up from Mayfair…”

 

“Hilda went with you?” Ada asks in surprise, her eyes widening as she speaks.

 

“No! No, Mum. Of course, as you know Hilda and I both have Wednesday half-days off, so we caught the train together from Down Street**********, but as we weren’t spending our half-day together today, we caught the train together as far as Leicester Square, before she went off to the British Museum*********** to see some famous stone or other she wanted to look at, whilst I went on to Clapham Junction.”

 

“A stone! That sounds most peculiar. Going to see a stone in a museum! Hilda is always welcome to come and look at my flagstones any day she likes,” Ada says with a sweeping gesture towards her feet. “And clean them if it so pleases her.”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith scoffs with a wave.

 

“Then again, Hilda is a little peculiar, and that’s a fact.” Ada opines. “Although I do like her in spite of those peculiarities.”

 

“Anyway Mum,” Edith says, drawing her mother back to her story. “Hilda and I had a conversation about what my surprise might be. Hilda said that it could still have been a picnic, even if I did feel a bit overdressed for the occasion.”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with dressing up for a picnic, Edith love.” Ada remarks.

 

“Hilda said the same thing, Mum.”

 

“Back when your father and I were courting, going on a picnic was a very fine occasion, and we always wore our very best bib and tucker************.”

 

“I know you did, Mum, but we didn’t go for a picnic in the end, although Frank did take me for a nice tea at some rather smart tea rooms along Lavender Hill*************.”

 

“So, Frank took you for a special tea then, Edith love? That is lovely!”

 

“He did, Mum, but that isn’t the surprise he promised me.” Edith goes on. “That came beforehand. I arrived and Clapham Junction Railway Station************** like we’d agreed, and he was there to collect me. From there he took me to a photographic studio nearby where a friend of his works, a Mr. Simpkin, as an assistant photographer. He took our photographs.”

 

“Oh, that is an even lovelier surprise, Edith love!” Ada smiles.

 

“But that isn’t the best of it, Mum!” Edith exclaims, barely able to contain herself, slipping the dainty lace glove off her left hand and holding her fingers out before her mother.

 

Ada looks at her daughter’s left hand, which is slightly careworn with housework, although not as badly as her own. Usually her hand is bare, but she cannot help but notice the gleaming thin band of silver glinting on her ring finger today. She gasps as she looks up into Edith’s beaming face.

 

“Oh Edith! Frank finally proposed!”

 

“He did, Mum! He did, and I said yes!”

 

Ada stands up from her perch on the pile of wooden logs, just as Edith gets to her own feet, and steps forward and embraces her daughter lovingly.

 

“Oh Edith!” Ada feels unshed tears stinging her eyes as they then start to leak from her lids and spill down her cheeks. “Edith I’m so happy for you***************, my darling, darling girl!”

 

Enveloped in her mother’s arms Edith sighs gratefully and presses herself closer to her mother. “Thank you, Mum. I’m so happy too!”

 

The two women break apart, both their faces awash with tears, but faces beaming with happiness.

 

“Oh Edith!” Ada laughs with relieved delight as she starts to spin herself and her daughter in the small square of flagstone covered floor in the laundry. “This is the most wonderful, wonderful news!”

 

Around and around they spin, laughing and squealing like young girls rather than women, until finally Ada’s longer pre-war ankle length skirt and old fashioned petticoats knock over a basket of laundry, sending the contents tumbling across the flagstones.

 

“Oh! Careful Mum!” Edith exclaims, bringing the two of them to a halt. “The washing.”

 

“Oh pooh to the washing, Edith love!” Ada exclaims, the smile still broad on her face and she stoops and gathers the sheets and pillow slips up. “It can always be thrown back into the copper for boiling again. It isn’t every day that my only daughter gets married! Oh, you just wait until I tell your Dad!”

 

“Well, I thought I might tell him myself,” Edith ventures. “If that’s alright, Mum.”

 

“Alright? Well of course it’s alright, Edith love!” Ada replies. “How could it not be? It is your news after all: well, yours and Frank’s that is! But can you wait that long until your Dad comes home from his afternoon shift? I mean, won’t you be expected back at Cavendish Mews?”

 

“Not today, Mum. Miss Lettice has gone off with Mr. Bruton to Essex, so I can stay until Dad gets home and my absence won’t be noticed.”

 

“Oh wonderful!” Ada claps her hands. “Your Dad and I been waiting for this announcement! Now I can tell you that not so very long ago, your young Frank came to visit us on a Sunday, and he asked us for your hand in marriage.”

 

“Really?” Edith asks. “That was very sneaky of him, especially when he told me that he’d ask when the time was right.”

 

“Well, I guess he felt that now was the right time, Edith love. He did confide in me that he felt awful telling you white lies like he did, but he had to do it, in order to keep it all a big surprise, and Your Dad and I kept quiet about it too.”

 

“Well, it certainly worked, Mum! I was so surprised when Frank asked me to marry him!”

 

“So how did he propose in the end, Edith love?” Ada asks, taking Edith’s hand and rubbing the silver band on her finger. “Tell me everything!”

 

“So, Mr. Simpkin had us settle in at the studio and he posed us for a photograph, knowing full well that Frank was going to propose, as I now know. He even handed Frank the ring behind my back. Mr. Simpkin had Frank stand in such a way that he could propose to me and slip the ring on my finger.”

 

“Did Frank get down on one knee, Edith love?”

 

“No!” Edith laughed, raising a hand to her lips girlishly. “He just blurted out, ‘Edith Watsford, would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’ and he slipped the ring onto my finger, even before I could answer.” She sighs contentedly. “Of course he needn’t have worried that I was going to say no, because of course I didn’t!”

 

Edith bursts into a fresh barrage of happy tears before falling upon her mother’s neck again, who embraces her hard and joins in her crying. Breaking apart again, Ada looks down at the ring again.

 

“Frank apologised to me about the engagement ring being silver. He promises me that my wedding ring will be gold.”

 

“And so it will be, Edith love, but a silver ring is more than enough for now.”

 

“I told him the same, Mum. He’s even had our names engraved on the inside and 1925.”

 

“Well! Isn’t that a thing!” Ada replies, suitably impressed. “Have you told Nyrie, Mrs. McTavish yet, or has Frank gone to do that now whilst you’ve come here to tell me and your Dad?”

 

“No, we’ll tell Mrs. McTavish together next week, Mum. I couldn’t wait to break the news to you though.”

 

“Oh Nyrie will be over the moon when she hears: as thrilled as I am, and your Dad will be.” Ada sighs again. “My little girl, poised to become a woman.”

 

“We’re not getting married just yet, Mum. This is an engagement ring, not a wedding ring. And we’ve already decided that I won’t tell Miss Lettice our news yet, until we’ve set a date. And I’ll hang the ring from a chain about my neck to stop it spoiling with all the hard graft I must do at Cavendish Mews, and I’ll wear it proudly on my finger on Frank’s and my days out together.”

 

“That’s very wise, Edith love. I’m sure your Miss Lettice would be understanding of you wanting to work up until you’re wed, but,” Ada screws up her face. “Well, people like her can be fickle, and you might find she dismisses you and she just employs a new maid-of-all-work.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t do that, Mum.” Edith assures her. “She says I’m invaluable to her.”

 

“No, you’re probably right, but I think you’re wise about keeping quiet about your news just for now. You might be surprised how much a marriage status can turn you from invaluable to dispensable maid in an employer’s eyes.”

 

“Well, like I said, I won’t let on until we’ve set a date.”

 

“Wise girl. You’ve got a good head screwed onto those shoulders of yours.”

 

“Well, you helped put it there, Mum. You and Dad.”

 

Ada looks around her and exclaims, “Goodness me! What are we doing, standing here in the scullery? It’s not every day that my only daughter announces she is getting married! Let’s go into the kitchen and I’ll see if I can’t find us a little something celebratory to toast your engagement with your father.”

 

Together the pair leave the laundry and the washing behind, laughing and celebrating Edith’s wonderful news.

 

*McVitie's (Originally McVitie and Price) is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie and Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Harlesden, London (where Edith’s father works). McVitie and Price's first major biscuit was the McVitie's Digestive, created in 1892 by a new young employee at the company named Alexander Grant, who later became the managing director of the company. The biscuit was given its name because it was thought that its high baking soda content served as an aid to food digestion. The McVitie's Chocolate Homewheat Digestive was created in 1925. Although not their core operation, McVitie's were commissioned in 1893 to create a wedding cake for the royal wedding between the Duke of York and Princess Mary, who subsequently became King George V and Queen Mary. This cake was over two metres high and cost one hundred and forty guineas. It was viewed by 14,000 and was a wonderful publicity for the company. They received many commissions for royal wedding cakes and christening cakes, including the wedding cake for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip and Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Under United Biscuits McVitie's holds a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.

 

**To goffer something means to crimp, plait, or flute (linen, lace, etc.) especially with a heated iron.

 

***A wash copper, copper boiler or simply copper is a wash house boiler, generally made of galvanised iron, though the best sorts are made of copper. In the inter-war years, they came in two types. The first is built into a brickwork furnace and was found in older houses. The second was the free-standing or portable type, it had an enamelled metal exterior that supported the inner can or copper. The bottom part was adapted to hold a gas burner, a high pressure oil or an ordinary wood or coal fire. Superior models could have a drawing-off tap, and a steam-escape pipe that lead into the flue. It was used for domestic laundry. Linen and cotton were placed in the copper and were boiled to whiten them. Clothes were agitated within the copper with a washing dolly, a vertical stick with either a metal cone or short wooden legs on it. After washing, the laundry was lifted out of the boiling water using the washing dolly or a similar device, and placed on a strainer resting on a laundry tub or similar container to capture the wash water and begin the drying and cooling process. The laundry was then dried with a mangle and then line-dried. Coppers could also be used in cooking, used to boil puddings such as a traditional Christmas pudding.

 

****A dolly-peg, also known as a dolly-legs, peggy, or maiden, in different parts of Britain, was a contraption used in the days before washing machines to cloth in a wash-tub, dolly-tub, possing-tub or laundry copper. Appearing like a milking stool on a T-bar broomstick handle, it was sunk into the tub of clothes and boiling water and then used to move the water, laundry and soap flakes around in the tub to wash the clothes.

 

*****A mangle (British) or wringer (American) is a mechanical laundry aid consisting of two rollers in a sturdy frame, connected by cogs and (in its home version) powered by a hand crank or later by electricity. While the appliance was originally used to squeeze water from wet laundry, today mangles are used to press or flatten sheets, tablecloths, kitchen towels, or clothing and other laundry.

 

******Robert Spear Hudson (1812 – 1884) was an English businessman who popularised dry soap powder. His company was very successful thanks to both an increasing demand for soap and his unprecedented levels of advertising. In 1837 he opened a shop in High Street, West Bromwich. He started making soap powder in the back of this shop by grinding the coarse bar soap of the day with a mortar and pestle. Before that people had had to make soap flakes themselves. This product became the first satisfactory and commercially successful soap powder. Despite his title of "Manufacturer of Dry Soap" he never actually manufactured soap but bought the raw soap from William Gossage of Widnes. The product was popular with his customers and the business expanded rapidly. In the 1850s he employed ten female workers in his West Bromwich factory. His business was further helped by the removal of tax on soap in 1853. In time the factory was too small and too far from the source of his soap so in 1875 he moved his main works to Bank Hall, Liverpool, and his head office to Bootle, while continuing production at West Bromwich. Eventually the business in Merseyside employed about 1,000 people and Hudson was able to further develop his flourishing export trade to Australia and New Zealand. The business flourished both because of the rapidly increasing demand for domestic soap products and because of Hudson's unprecedented levels of advertising. He arranged for striking posters to be produced by professional artists. The slogan "A little of Hudson's goes a long way" appeared on the coach that ran between Liverpool and York. Horse, steam and electric tramcars bore an advertisement saying "For Washing Clothes. Hudson's soap. For Washing Up". Hudson was joined in the business by his son Robert William who succeeded to the business on his father's death. In 1908 he sold the business to Lever Brothers who ran it as a subsidiary enterprise during which time the soap was manufactured at Crosfield's of Warrington. During this time trade names such as Rinso and Omo were introduced. The Hudson name was retained until 1935 when, during a period of rationalisation, the West Bromwich and Bank Hall works were closed.

 

*******Harlesden is an interchange station on Acton Lane in north-west London. It is on the Bakerloo line of the London Underground and the Lioness line of the London Overground, between Stonebridge Park and Willesden Junction stations. The railway line here is the border between the Harlesden and Stonebridge residential area in the east, and the Park Royal industrial estate to the west. The southern end of Willesden Brent Sidings separates the station from the West Coast Main Line.

 

********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.

 

*********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.

 

**********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 British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. Established in 1753, the British Museum was the first public national museum.

 

************“Best bib and tucker” is an informal, old fashioned idiom that means one's best, most formal clothes. It's a humorous way of saying someone is dressed up nicely, as if for a special occasion. The phrase originates from the time when men's shirts often had a frill at the front (the "bib") and women might wear a decorative lace piece over their neck and shoulders (the "tucker").

 

*************Lavender Hill is a bustling high street serving residents of Clapham Junction, Battersea and beyond. Until the mid Nineteenth Century, Battersea was predominantly a rural area with lavender and asparagus crops cultivated in local market gardens. Hence, it’s widely thought that Lavender Hill was named after Lavender Hall, built in the late Eighteenth Century, where lavender grew on the north side of the hill.

 

**************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.

 

***************In more socially conscious times it was traditional to wish the bride-to-be happiness, rather than saying congratulations as we do today. Saying congratulations to a bride in past times would have implied that she had won something – her groom. The groom on the other hand was to be congratulated for getting the lady to accept his marriage proposal.

 

This cheerful laundry scene is not all you may suppose it to be, for the fact is that all the items are from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in thus tableau include:

 

The red brick copper in the centre of the image is a very cleverly made 1:12 artisan miniature from an unnamed artist. Believe it of not, it is made of balsa wood and then roughened and painted to look like bricks. I acquitted it from Doreen Jeffries’ Miniature World in the United Kingdom.

 

The great wrought mangle with its real wooden rollers is made of white metal by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.

 

The dolly-peg is an antique Victorian dollhouse miniature and it’s tub is sitting behind it. I am just lucky that something from around 1860 just happens to be the correct scale to fit with my 1:12 artisan miniatures.

 

There is a panoply of items used in pre-war laundry preparation on the white painted surface of the copper. There are two enamel rather worn and beaten looking bowls and an enamel jug in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. The grater and the two small irons also come from there. The boxes of Borax, Hudson’s Soap and Robin’s Starch and the bottle of bleach in the green glass were made with great attention to detail on the labels by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

Before the invention of aerosol spray starch, the product of choice in many homes of all classes was Robin starch. Robin Starch was a stiff white powder like cornflour to which water had to be added. When you made up the solution, it was gloopy, sticky with powdery lumps, just like wallpaper paste or grout. The garment was immersed evenly in that mixture and then it had to be smoothed out. All the stubborn starchy lumps had to be dissolved until they were eliminated – a metal spoon was good for bashing at the lumps to break them down. Robins Starch was produced by Reckitt and Sons who were a leading British manufacturer of household products, notably starch, black lead, laundry blue, and household polish.

 

Reckitt and Sons who were a leading British manufacturer of household products, notably starch, black lead, laundry blue, and household polish also produced Jumbo Blue, which was a whitener added to a wash to help delay the yellowing effect of older cotton. Rekitt and Sons were based in Kingston upon Hull. Isaac Reckitt began business in Hull in 1840, and his business became a private company Isaac Reckitt and Sons in 1879, and a public company in 1888. The company expanded through the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. It merged with a major competitor in the starch market J. and J. Colman in 1938 to form Reckitt and Colman.

Done