Edith the Faerie Godmother

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 little maid’s room off the Cavendish Mews kitchen, which serves as Edith, Lettice’s maid’s, bedroom. The room is very comfortable and more spacious than the attic she shared with her friend and fellow maid, Hilda, in her last position sat Mrs. Plaistow’s. The room is papered with floral sprigged wallpaper, and whilst there is no carpet, unlike Lettice’s bedroom, there are rugs laid over the stained floorboards. The room is big enough for Edith to have a comfortable armchair and tea table as well as her bed, a chest of drawers and a small wardrobe. Best of all, the room has central heating, so it is always warm and cosy on cold nights.

 

Lettice is busily working on the redecoration of some of the principal rooms of Member of Parliament for the constituency of Towers Hamlets*, Mr. Charles Hatchett, and his wife Dolly’s new Queen Anne’s** Gate townhouse, which has finally been made habitable after many years of neglect under its former owner, a decrepit old Admiral of Queen Victoria’s navy. Lettice has been commissioned by Mrs. Hatchett to redecorate three principal rooms on the first floor of the newly renovated and restored townhouse. In her mistress’ absence, Edith has a little more free time on her hands, and so she is spending the morning pleasurably laying out some new fabric that she recently acquired from a jumble sale*** held at her family’s parish church of All Souls**** in Harlesden to raise funds for the underpaid Welsh coal miners*****. Edith sighs with pleasure as she runs her hand over the pretty pink, blue and yellow floral pattern of the fabric.

 

“Now, I wonder which buttons would be better?” Edith muses as she tosses two cards of buttons atop the fabric, one set made of a lovely chartreuse green faceted glass, and the other rounded clear glass. “Hhhmmm…” she ponders. “The clear, I think.”

 

She then unfurls four rolls of dainty lace: one dainty cream two very pale blue and one pink, also acquired from Vicar Dunn’s****** jumble sale for the Welsh miners. She carefully considers each pretty piece. “Which would I like?” she contemplates as she sits back on her haunches and picks out the pattern from her copy of The Lady’s World Fancy Workbook******* bought from Mrs. Minkin’s haberdashery in Whitechapel and considers the design of the pretty spring frock she has chosen.

 

Edith is so emersed in running her hands joyfully over the soft cotton fabric and playing with the lace that she doesn’t hear the back door to the flat open.

 

“Yoo-hoo********!” comes Edith’s voice in a cheerful call, drifting across the empty kitchen, which is quiet, save for the deep tick of the kitchen clock on the wall, which is made all the more sonorous by the silence enveloping the room. “It’s only me, Edith.”

 

“Oh, morning, Hilda,” Edith calls in reply through her open bedroom door. “I’m in here.”

 

The young maid’s head appears around the doorframe, her unruly and slightly wiry mousy brown waves, inherited from her father, pinned and shoved in a haphazard way beneath her cream straw cloche hat decorated with white feathers. “Morning Edith!” she says good naturedly with a cheery smile. “I got your postcard********* yesterday to say you wanted me to pop around after I’d run my errands for Mrs. Channon this morning.”

 

Edith glances up from the floor where she kneels and smiles at her best friend and fellow maid-of-all-work, who works around the corner from Cavendish Mews in Hill Street for Lettice’s married friends, Mr. and Mrs. Channon.

 

“I did!” Edith beams. “And your timing couldn’t be better. Come in! Come in!” she encourages Hilda with a beckoning hand.

 

Gingerly Hilda steps into Hilda’s room, feeling awkward at being in such an intimate and private space. Even though they are best friends, and shared a lumpy old horsehair mattress in one of Mrs. Plaistow’s attic rooms for a few years, that ended six years ago when Edith left the townhouse in Pimlico to come and work as Lettice’s live-in maid, so Hilda feels she is intruding. She tries not to look around the small room too much and focusses her gaze upon the floor, which is made up of stained wooden floorboards, over which a rug has been thrown.

 

“Now Hilda,” Edith begins earnestly. “I need your opinion about which of these laces to trim a new spring frock with.”

 

“My opinion?” Hilda asks in surprise, her eyes growing wide and her mouth falling open in astonishment at Edith’s proclamation.

 

“Yes, your opinion.” Edith replies matter-of-factly.

 

“About fashion?” Hilda goes on, flabbergasted.

 

“Why yes, Hilda.” Edith assures her. “Is that too onerous a task?”

 

“No. No!” Hilda defends. “Not at all. It’s only…” Her full and rounded cheeks flush with embarrassment. “You never ask me for my opinions on fashion, Edith.”

 

“Well, I am now, Hilda.” Edith insists, grabbing Hilda’s brown leather handbag and bringing her down more closely to where the fabric and lace are laid out on the floor.

 

“What am I looking at?” Hilda asks.

 

“If this fabric was used to make a new frock for you, which lace would you choose, Hilda?”

 

Edith hands up the ends of the four choices. Hilda lowers herself into Edith’s comfortable floral sprigged armchair and carefully considers the four examples of lace she has been handed. Her chubby and slightly jowly face screws up in concentration, her lips becoming a rich and full pout as she considers. Finally, after a few minutes of careful deliberation, Hilda hands Edith the pink lace, which is made up of a pretty Art Deco diamond pattern.

 

“That one.” Hilda affirms. “It’s simple and elegant, and quite fashionable. As you know,” She puts the more floral pieces aside, draping them over the arm of the chair. “I’m not that much of a florally girl myself.”

 

“And these clear glass buttons, rather than the green ones?”

 

Hilda looks as Edith holds up both button cards. “Oh yes, definitely the clear ones.” she opines.

 

“I thought so.” Edith agrees.

 

“But why are you asking me, Edith?” Hilda asks. “If the frock is for you, shouldn’t you suit yourself?”

 

“Because it’s not, Hilda.” Edith says with a happy laugh. “I’m going to make you a frock! Surprise!”

 

Hilda leaps from the armchair in astonishment and puts her hands over her mouth. “For me, Edith?”

 

“Yes!” Edith affirms, scrambling up off the floor and facing her friend, grasping her hands as she does. “That’s why I wanted to see you this morning. I wanted your opinion, and also to take your measurements.”

 

“Oh, but you mustn’t do that, Edith!” Hilda gasps. “That fabric is far too nice for me! Better you make a frock for yourself out of it. Frank will appreciate it so much. It’s such a lovely pattern and colours.”

 

“And what about Mr. Simpkin… John?” Edith asks.

 

“What about him?”

 

“Well,” Edith shrugs. “Wouldn’t he appreciate you dressed in a pretty summer frock made from this fabric?”

 

Hilda cannot speak for a moment, her mouth flapping open and closed like a codfish, but with no utterance emanating from it. Finally she manages to stammer, “Oh I… I’m sure he… he would.” Her cheeks feel with colour as she blushes red. “But you mustn’t Edith. This is your fabric.”

 

“I know.” Edith replies matter-of-factly. “Have you time to stop for a quick cup of tea?”

 

“Well yes,” Hilda replies. “Mrs. Channon isn’t expecting me back for a little while, I suppose.”

 

“Excellent!” Edith exclaims, as she leads the way out of her bedroom and back into the kitchen.

 

A short while later, Edith and Hilda are seated around Edith’s deal table which dominates the floorspace of the Cavendish Mews kitchen.

 

“Thank you!” Hilda says. “Lovely.” She accepts the cup of tea proffered to her by Edith, and sticks a biscuit from the Hunley and Palmers********** tin on the table between her full, unpainted lips. “Do you really mean to make me a frock, Edith?”

 

Edith nods as she slips her own cup of tea in front of her. “I do, Hilda.”

 

“I say! That’s awfully kind of you!” she munches on the biscuit.

 

“Well, I have the hand treadle sewing machine Mrs. Boothby sold me,” Edith says, mentioning Lettice’s chain smoking old Cockney charwoman*********** who comes every Tuesday to assist Edith by doing all the hard graft Edith doesn’t do, like scrub the linoleum, scour the bathroom or clean the stove. “It makes things ever so much easier than hand stitching an entire garment.”

 

“But why would you do that for me?” Hilda exclaims in disbelief.

 

“What do you mean, why would I? Why wouldn’t I?”

 

“Well, it’s your fabric, lace and buttons. You must at least allow me to pay for it, if you insist on making it.” She reaches out and grasps her handbag, opening the flap of it and delving into it to fins her coin purse.

 

As her right hand grasps her purse within the darkened confines of the bag, she feels Edith’s hand pressing on hers through the brown leather.

 

“No Hilda.” Edith insists. “I won’t hear of it. It only cost me a few pence anyway. I bought it at a jumble sale to raise money for the coal miners up north, when I was visiting Mum and Dad the other Sunday morning.”

 

“But I…” Hilda stammers.

 

“I’d like to make it for you, Hilda.” Edith persists. “Now that you and Mr. Simpkin seem to be getting along so well, I thought he might like to see you in a colour other than chocolate, mushroom, oatmeal or moss green.”

 

“They are good, serviceable colours, Edith!” Hilda defends her rather drab wardrobe choices.

 

“Good and serviceable is no good if Mr. Simpkin takes you dancing at the Hammersmith Palais************, Hilda.” Edith says with a wink as she takes a sip of her tea.

 

“Oh!” Hilda blushes red again. “John… err that is… Mr. Simpkin isn’t much for dancing, Edith. I doubt he’ll take me there.”

 

“You might be surprised what a young man who is smitten will do, Hilda.”

 

Hilda’s blush intensifies as she munches a mouthful of biscuit whilst Edith smiles across the table at her, giving her a knowing look.

 

Realising her gentle teasing is perhaps making her best friend feel a little uncomfortable, Edith changes tack.

 

“Well the museum then. Wouldn’t you like to walk into the British Museum************* on Mr. Simpkin’s arm in a smart new summer frock of pink and blue flowers, or sit at Lyon’s Corner House************** at the top of Tottenham Court Road with him, dressed so smartly. All the Nippies*************** will be so jealous to see you in an Edith Watsford original creation.” Edith laughs good naturedly.

 

Hilda joins in her best friend’s laughter.

 

“You’d really do that for me, Edith?”

 

“Of course I will, Hilda!” Edith replies. “haven’t you just heard me say so?”

 

“Yes, but it’s hard to believe, Edith. I’d never ask that of you.”

 

“Well, you aren’t Hilda.” Edith insists. “I want to make it for you. Besides,” Edith adds. “It will give me good practice for when I get married. Mum and I will need to make you a bridesmaid’s frock, as well as my own wedding frock, and they need to look perfect, since everyone will be looking at us.”

 

“At you.” Hilda interjects, correcting her friend.

 

“No, at both of us. You’ll be my maid-of-honour, not my matron-of-honour, which technically means you are unmarried. Anyway, I’m sure that as best man to Frank, Mr. Simpkin will have eyes for you, and certainly not for me.”

 

“Well…” Hilda murmurs.

 

“You’d be doing me a favour, Hilda. Really you will. I need to get in as much practice sewing as I can, and by me making it for you, we can see what cut and style is going to suit you best.”

 

“Are you sure you won’t take at least the cost of the fabric from me, Edith?” Hilda asks, reaching again towards her handbag as it sits on the tabletop.

 

“No Hilda!” Edith insists. “It didn’t cost me much, and I was aiding a cause Frank is proud to know I am supporting, since he feels for the poor miners plight.”

 

“Well so do I.” Hilda adds. “Mrs. Minkin passed around a hat**************** at our knitting circle the other week to help raise money for them, and I made sure I gave all could comfortably afford from my purse.”

 

“Well then,” Edith replies. “You’ve done your bit for the miners, and so have I. You deserve a nice present.”

 

Hilda sighs and smiles, tentatively at first, before breaking into a much wider, beaming grin. “You’re like a faerie godmother from a panto*****************, Edith.”

 

Edith laughs. Waving an imaginary magic wand over Hilda’s head, she pronounces, “Yes Hildarella, you shall go to the ball!”

 

*The London constituency of Tower Hamlets includes such areas and historic towns as (roughly from west to east) Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Wapping, Shadwell, Mile End, Stepney, Limehouse, Old Ford, Bow, Bromley, Poplar, and the Isle of Dogs (with Millwall, the West India Docks, and Cubitt Town), making it a majority working class constituency in 1925 when this story is set. Tower Hamlets included some of the worst slums and societal issues of inequality and poverty in England at that time.

 

**Queen Anne’s Gate is a street in Westminster, London. Many of the buildings are Grade I listed, known for their Queen Anne architecture. Simon Bradley and Nikolaus Pevsner described the Gate’s early Eighteenth Century houses as “the best of their kind in London.” The street’s proximity to the Palace of Westminster made it a popular residential area for politicians.

 

***A jumble sale is a British community event, often held in church or village halls, where donated second-hand goods are sold to raise funds for charity or local organisations. Common items sold include used clothes, books, toys, and bric-a-brac at very low prices.

 

****The parish of All Souls, Harlesden, was formed in 1875 from Willesden, Acton, St John's, Kensal Green, and Hammersmith. Mission services had been held by the curate of St Mary's, Willesden, at Harlesden institute from 1858. The parish church at Station Road, Harlesden, was built and consecrated in 1879. The town centre church is a remarkable brick octagon designed by E.J. Tarver. Originally there was a nave which was extended in 1890 but demolished in 1970.

 

*****Following a post-war slump, market downturns, and the government’s return to the Gold Standard, coal mine owners demanded substantial wage cuts in 1925, threatening to remove the national minimum wage. In some cases, proposed wages were lower than unemployment benefits. Owners sought to increase the working day as well, which would have meant more time in hazardous conditions for less pay for the miners. Mining was fraught with danger, with over one thousand two hundred miners killed annually across Britain and many more suffering life-altering injuries and industrial diseases. When mine owners, backed by the British government, threatened to terminate the 1924 wage agreement in July 1925 (known as Red Friday) a nine month government subsidy was paid to keep mines open. This was not a victory for the miners, but rather a temporary delay that allowed the government to stockpile coal and prepare for the inevitable showdown. The fear of the workhouse or absolute destitution was a constant pressure on mining families in the Valleys. Employers were already implementing harsh conditions, forcing miners into a position where they felt they had no choice but to fight for the right to work. These conditions, compounded by the eventual withdrawal of the subsidy and the subsequent lockout in May 1926, created a deeply entrenched, desperate situation for Welsh communities before the General Strike of 1926 occurred.

 

******The vicar of All Souls Parish Church in Harlesden between 1918 and 1927 was Ernest Arnold Dunn.

 

*******The Lady’s World Fancy Work Book was a quarterly magazine published from 1906 until the late 1920s – a spin-off from a monthly magazine, The Lady’s World. The Fancy Work Book covered sewing, included dress patterns and was well known for all the kinds of needlecrafts it covered, but especially knitting and crochet.

 

********The slang term "yoo-hoo" originated in the United States in the early 1920s as an imitative, informal exclamation used to grab someone's attention from a distance. It likely evolved from Nineteenth Century calls, with early examples appearing in the 1910s and specifically in Oxford English Dictionary records from 1924. Now you might think it odd that an English girl would use an American exclamation like that, but by 1926 when this story is set, girls like Hilda flocked to the cinema regularly, and the moving pictures shown came predominantly from the United States, and already American idioms, phrases and calls were slipping into the language of Britons, especially thee lower and middle-classes.

 

*********One hundred years ago, postcards were the most common and easiest way to communicate with loved ones not only across countries whilst on holidays, but across neighbourhoods on a daily basis with the minutiae of life on them. This is because unlike today where mail is delivered on a daily basis, or in some cases every few days, there were several deliveries done a day. At the height of the postcard mania in 1903, London residents could have as many as twelve separate visits from the mailman in one day.

 

**********Huntley and Palmers is a British firm of biscuit makers originally based in Reading, Berkshire. The company created one of the world’s first global brands and ran what was once the world’s largest biscuit factory. Over the years, the company was also known as J. Huntley and Son and Huntley and Palmer. Huntley and Palmer were renown for their ‘superior reading biscuits’ which they promoted in different varieties for different occasions, including at breakfast time.

 

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

 

************The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.

 

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

 

**************J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.

 

***************The name 'Nippies' was adopted for the Lyons waitresses after a competition to rename them from the old fashioned 'Gladys' moniker - rejected suggestions included ‘Sybil-at-your-service’, ‘Miss Nimble’, Miss Natty’ and 'Speedwell'. The waitresses each wore a starched cap with a red ‘L’ embroidered in the centre and a black alpaca dress with a double row of pearl buttons.

 

****************"To pass the hat around" means to solicit or collect small voluntary donations of money from a group of people, usually to buy a gift, help someone in need, or fund a cause. It refers to an informal, often impromptu, fundraising effort.

 

*****************A pantomime (shortened to “panto”) is a theatrical entertainment, mainly for children, which involves music, topical jokes, and slapstick comedy and is based on a fairy tale or nursery story, usually produced around Christmas.

 

This cheerful and busy domestic sewing scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The copy of the Lady’s World Fancy Work Book is a 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. 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! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but 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. In this case, the magazines are non-opening, however what might amaze you 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 this a miniature artisan piece. 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.

 

Hilda’s brown handbag, appearing on the floor in front of Edith’s chair, is handmade from soft leather. I bought it along with many other items from an American miniature collector named Marilyn Bickel.

 

The buttons on the cards are in truth tiny beads. They were acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. The spools of cotton in the foreground, the lacquered sewing box in the background and tape measure all come from various online shops who sell dollhouse miniatures.

 

The shears with black handles on the fabric open and close. Made of metal, they came from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The fabric is real, vintage and French (circa 1930) and is a small corner of a few metres I acquired from an antiques dealer. The lace is also real lace which all came from my friend in Dorset who helps find me interesting pieces of haberdashery.

 

The corner of Edith’s armchair that can be seen in the top of the photo is upholstered in blue chintz, and is made to the highest quality standards by J.B.M. Miniatures. The back and seat cushions come off the body of the armchair, just like a real piece of furniture.

 

The floorboards are a print of a photo taken of some floorboards that I scaled to 1:12 size to try and maintain a realistic look.

Done