Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin

 

Dublin (Irish: Baile Átha Cliath) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. It is on the east coast of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, at the mouth of the River Liffey, and is bordered on the south by the Wicklow Mountains. It has an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the Dublin Region (formerly County Dublin), as of 2016, was 1,347,359, and the population of the Greater Dublin area was 1,904,806.

 

There is archaeological debate regarding precisely where Dublin was established by the Gaels in or before the 7th century AD. Later expanded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin, the city became Ireland's principal settlement following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800. Following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland.

 

Dublin is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration and industry. As of 2018 the city was listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as a global city, with a ranking of "Alpha −", which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce

 

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, most famously stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, his published letters and occasional journalism.

 

Joyce was born in Dublin into a middle-class family. A brilliant student, he briefly attended the Christian Brothers-run O'Connell School before excelling at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's alcoholism and unpredictable finances. He went on to attend University College Dublin.

 

In 1904, in his early twenties, Joyce emigrated to continental Europe with his partner (and later wife) Nora Barnacle. They lived in Trieste, Paris, and Zurich. Although most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe centres on Dublin and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there. Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses, he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."

In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" may refer to an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself. Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one's personality, the shadow is largely negative, or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. There are, however, positive aspects which may also remain hidden in one's shadow (especially in people with low self-esteem).Contrary to a Freudian definition of shadow, therefore, the Jungian shadow can include everything outside the light of consciousness, and may be positive or negative. "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." It may be (in part) one's link to more primitive animal instincts, which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.

 

Carl Jung stated the shadow to be the unknown dark side of the personality.According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognised as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections remain hidden, "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object--if it has one--or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power."These projections insulate and harm individuals by acting as a constantly thickening veil of illusion between the ego and the real world.

 

From one perspective, 'the shadow...is roughly equivalent to the whole of the Freudian unconscious'; and Jung himself asserted that 'the result of the Freudian method of elucidation is a minute elaboration of man's shadow-side unexampled in any previous age'.Jung also believed that "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity";[9] so that for some, it may be, 'the dark side of his being, his sinister shadow...represents the true spirit of life as against the arid scholar.'The shadow may appear in dreams and visions in various forms, and typically 'appears as a person of the same sex as that of the dreamer'.[11] The shadow's appearance and role depend greatly on the living experience of the individual, because much of the shadow develops in the individual's mind rather than simply being inherited in the collective unconscious. Nevertheless, some Jungians maintain that 'The shadow contains, besides the personal shadow, the shadow of society ... fed by the neglected and repressed collective values'.Interactions with the shadow in dreams may shed light on one's state of mind. A conversation with the shadow may indicate that one is concerned with conflicting desires or intentions. Identification with a despised figure may mean that one has an unacknowledged difference from the character, a difference which could point to a rejection of the illuminating qualities of ego-consciousness. These examples refer to just two of many possible roles that the shadow may adopt and are not general guides to interpretation. Also, it can be difficult to identify characters in dreams—"all the contents are blurred and merge into one another ... 'contamination' of unconscious contents"so that a character who seems at first to be a shadow might represent some other complex instead.

 

Jung also made the suggestion of there being more than one layer making up the shadow. The top layers contain the meaningful flow and manifestations of direct personal experiences. These are made unconscious in the individual by such things as the change of attention from one thing to another, simple forgetfulness, or a repression. Underneath these idiosyncratic layers, however, are the archetypes which form the psychic contents of all human experiences. Jung described this deeper layer as "a psychic activity which goes on independently of the conscious mind and is not dependent even on the upper layers of the unconscious—untouched, and perhaps untouchable—by personal experience" (Campbell, 1971). This bottom layer of the shadow is also what Jung referred to as the collective unconscious.

 

Encounter with the shadow

 

The encounter with the shadow plays a central part in the process of individuation. Jung considered that 'the course of individuation...exhibits a certain formal regularity. Its signposts and milestones are various archetypal symbols' marking its stages; and of these 'the first stage leads to the experience of the SHADOW'.[14] If 'the breakdown of the persona constitutes the typical Jungian moment both in therapy and in development',it is this which opens the road to the shadow within, coming about when 'Beneath the surface a person is suffering from a deadly boredom that makes everything seem meaningless and empty ... as if the initial encounter with the Self casts a dark shadow ahead of time'.[16] Jung considered as a perennial danger in life that 'the more consciousness gains in clarity, the more monarchic becomes its content...the king constantly needs the renewal that begins with a descent into his own darkness'his shadow—which the 'dissolution of the persona' sets in motion.

 

"The shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself" and represents "a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well".[19] If and when 'an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of (and often ashamed of) those qualities and impulses he denies in himself but can plainly see in others—such things as egotism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions—...[a] painful and lengthy work of self-education".The dissolution of the persona and the launch of the individuation process also brings with it 'the danger of falling victim to the shadow ... the black shadow which everybody carries with him, the inferior and therefore hidden aspect of the personality'of a merger with the shadow.Merger with the shadow According to Jung, the shadow sometimes overwhelms a person's actions; for example, when the conscious mind is shocked, confused, or paralyzed by indecision. 'A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps ... living below his own level':hence, in terms of the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 'it must be Jekyll, the conscious personality, who integrates the shadow ... and not vice versa. Otherwise the conscious becomes the slave of the autonomous shadow'.

 

Individuation inevitably raises that very possibility. As the process continues, and 'the libido leaves the bright upper world ... sinks back into its own depths...below, in the shadows of the unconscious',so too what comes to the forefront is 'what was hidden under the mask of conventional adaptation: the shadow', with the result that 'ego and shadow are no longer divided but are brought together in an — admittedly precarious — unity'.The impact of such 'confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a stand-still that hampers moral decisions and makesconvictionsineffective...tenebrositas,chaos,melancholia'.Consequently, (as Jung knew from personal experience) 'in this time of descent—one, three, seven years, more or less—genuine courage and strength are required',with no certainty of emergence. Nevertheless, Jung remained of the opinion that while 'no one should deny the danger of the descent ... every descent is followed by an ascent ...enantiodromia'; and assimilation of—rather than possession by—the shadow becomes at last a real possibility.

Assimilation of the shadow Enantiodromia launches a different perspective. 'We begin to travel [up] through the healing spirals...straight up'.Here the struggle is to retain awareness of the shadow, but not identification with it. 'Non-identification demands considerable moral effort...prevents a descent into that darkness'; but though 'the conscious mind is liable to be submerged at any moment in the unconscious... understanding acts like a life-saver. It integrates the unconscious'reincorporates the shadow into the personality, producing a stronger, wider consciousness than before. 'Assimilation of the shadow gives a man body, so to speak',and provides thereby a launching-pad for further individuation. 'The integration of the shadow, or the realisation of the personal unconscious, marks the first stage of the analytic process...without it a recognition of anima and animus is impossible'. Conversely 'to the degree to which the shadow is recognised and integrated, the problem of the anima, i.e., of relationship, is constellated',and becomes the centre of the individuation quest.Nevertheless, Jungians warn that 'acknowledgement of the shadow must be a continuous process throughout one's life'; and even after the focus of individuation has moved on to theanimus/anima, 'the later stages of shadow integration' will continue to take place—the grim 'process of washing one's dirty linen in private',accepting one's shadow.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)

As for Carl Jung, my father had never heard of him. But, when he witnessed the almost magical, transformative effect the letter created, he knew he had to find out about its author. Like a Grail questing knight who had "entered the forest at its darkest point," my father had become alert to clues and hints from the dream lions realm, the place from whence Meaning sprang. There was something significant here he felt. He asked the wild-eyed man in the ragged clothes over to his table and invited him to sit down. Then, for the first time, he learned about the Swiss healer. What he learned transformed him. Again I quote from his journals: One of the few things of which I am absolutely sure is that we live and move and have our being in the midst of a mystery that is beyond our imagining. The more we explore the mystery, the deeper it becomes. It is, I think, the chief responsibility of mankind to carry out that exploration with its utmost ability. It is not limited to technological or scientific exploration. It is better defined as an expansion of consciousness. The individual human being is the only carrier of the differentiated consciousness of which I speak. The expansion of consciousness gives meaning to my existence. I could not have said these words before becoming acquainted with the works of C.G. Jung. Maybe I would have eventually come to the same conclusion. I dont know. I do know that I have found my experiences confirmed by him and this gives me the confidence to trust the ideas resulting from these experiences. Later, he more succinctly put it to a close friend, "Jung saved my life." After that fateful meeting in the café, my father was on his way. Throughout the 1960s, with gathering speed he read everything he could get his hands on, either written by, or about, Jung. By 1970, he very probably owned one of the largest personal libraries on Analytical Psychology in Texas. This took some real doing in that it was done long before the Internet and chain bookstores existed, and in a place that was remote and removed from the mainstream of American intellectual life, to say the least. But assemble a library he did, with all the care and effort that the most dedicated medieval alchemist devoted to his own art. As a boy, I often accompanied him to our local bookshop to pick up those Bollingen Series books with the mysterious, black dust covers. I particularly recall his anticipation the day Volume 9, Aion, arrived. But all this was only preparation, only a prelude to the real task. Entire passages were meticulously underlined in his firm hand, any unknown terms defined in the margins. He tilled the pages like a field and the resulting harvest was full measure. Nearly every page of his battered copy of Memories, Dreams, Reflections was scored with penciled lines and notes. Due to his own health issues, he found particular resonance in Answer To Job. He sifted Jungs words like a prospector, seeking the transforming gold. To paraphrase Jung, however, he did not try to ape the Swiss psychiatrists "stigmata", but, rather, strove to authentically live his own life. Jung once commented, "Thank God Im Jung and not a Jungian." My father understood that.

The great contribution of Jung is not that his ideas form any final explanation . . . but that they are penetrating insights that open doors and lead the way for further elaboration and understanding. And there was no whitewashing. My father realized Jung cast a deep shadow. He was aware of his counter transference issues and especially of that most grievous failure of all in which Jung inadequately and with a still lamentable diminution of feeling all-too-late said he "slipped up." Dad was well conscious of his own human weakness, too, and he wrestled with that angel until the end.

www.cgjungpage.org/learn/articles/culture-and-psyche/729-...

 

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.

 

This afternoon we have not strayed far from Cavendish Mews and are still in Mayfair, on Bond Street where the premises of the Portland Gallery stand. Lettice has important business with the patrician Mr. Chilvers, the gallery owner, with whom she wishes to discuss acquiring a new painting.

 

“Shall I call you a taxi, Miss?” Edith, Lettice’s maid, asked as Lettice bustled into drawing room of Cavendish Mews, swathed in fox furs to protect her from the chilly late morning autumnal London air outside, announcing she was going to Portland Gallery.

 

“Oh, you are a brick, Edith!” Lettice replied breezily, but then continued just before Edith set down her feather duster and prepared to walk down to the taxi rank in the next street, “But really there’s no need. It’s such a lovely day outside, I think I’ll walk.”

 

Edith looked out of the drawing room window at the dull grey skies hanging above the terrace opposite and crumpled her nose, before she looked back with surprise at her mistress as she fiddled with the large pearl studded hatpin that was skewered through her hair at the back of her head, holding her elegant red felt broad brimmed hat in place.

 

“Are you quite alright, Miss?”

 

Lettice stopped fiddling with the hatpin. “Oh, quite Edith. I’ve got it fastened now.” She sighed as she turned to her Chippendale china cabinet and caught a glimpse of her modish reflection in the spotless glass not long cleaned by Edith. “There! It’s nice and secure.” She tugged on the brim of her hat as she spoke, just to prove the point.

 

“I didn’t mean about your hat, Miss.” Edith scoffed.

 

“Then what did you mean, Edith?”

 

“Well, if you’ll pardon me, Miss, but you don’t walk anywhere,” Edith replied matter-of-factly.

 

“Well, a girl is afforded the luxury of changing her mind and habits every now and then, isn’t she, Edith?” Lettice retorted blithely.

 

“On a day when it looks like rain?” The maid looked sceptically at her mistress through appraising screwed up eyes.

 

“I’ll take a brolly, then.” Lettice huffed as she slipped on a pair of bright red leather cuff length gloves. “Will that satisfy you Edith?”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith replied, sounding every bit like she felt quite the opposite as Lettice swept out.

 

A short while later, as Lettice walked up the street towards Bond Street, the sharp clicking sound of her heels on the concrete footpath blending with the noise of footsteps and the chugging of engines as pedestrians and motor cars passed her, she sighed and breathed deeply, smiling happily to herself. With her snakeskin handbag jostling around the crook of her right arm, and one of her stumpy handled umbrellas swinging in her left, she allowed her mind to drift as she walked brusquely.

 

For nearly a year Lettice has been patiently awaiting the return of her beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Now Lettice has been made aware by Lady Zinnia that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice has been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he has become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice returned to Cavendish mews and milled over her options over a week as she reeled from the news. Then, yesterday morning she knew exactly what to do to resolve the issues raised by Lady Zinnia’s unwelcome news about her son. Taking extra care in her dress, she took herself off to the neighbouring upper-class London suburb of Belgravia and paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.

 

Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice recently reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening.

 

Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Last night, turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded.

 

As she walked, Lettice’s thoughts drifted back to the previous evening when she had sat on the sofa next to Sir John in his elegant drawing room, as they discussed the future after he had agreed to hold to his terms if she married him.

 

“Would you mind horribly, if we waited until after Christmas and New Year, before we announce our engagement to my family, John?” Lettice asked cautiously. Sir John’s bright face darkened slightly as she did so, and she thought she could see a sadness in his eyes. “You do mind.”

 

“No, no I don’t mind,” he replied a little awkwardly. “I… I just don’t understand why, Lettice.”

 

“I’m not ashamed of you, or of our engagement, if that’s what you’re worried about, John.” Lettice assured him quickly with an earnest look.

 

Sir John’s face brightened again, as relief softened his features, rather like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

 

“No, “ Lettice went on. “I just don’t want there to be any speculation that your proposal of marriage is something I am rushing into on the tail of my break with Selwyn.”

 

“His break with you, you mean, Lettice.”

 

“Yes,” Lettice chuckled sadly. “His break with me. Thank you for reminding me of that fact.”

 

“He’s a damn fool to let you slip though his fingers, Lettice, and I must say.” Sir John’s brow crumpled as he spoke.

 

“Thank you, John.”

 

“But going back to your point about speculations. I thought your parents would be thrilled for us. I mean, it was your mother who asked me to come to her Hunt Ball in 1922 as a potential suitor.”

 

“Oh and they will be, John.” Lettice replied hurriedly, pushing aside and ignoring her father’s very vocal aspersions that Sir John is an old lecher. “They will. It’s just that,” She paused as she gathered her thoughts. “Being my father’s favourite, he always pays extra attention to me, and considering how upset I was after Lady Zinnia sent Selwyn to Durban, it would seem odd - out of character - if I just blurted out and said that Selwyn and I no longer have an arrangement, and now I’m marrying you. If we…”

 

“Let the dust settle?”

 

“Exactly, John!” Lettice enthused. “Then, they will be more receptive to our engagement, and not think it so odd.”

 

Lettice observed as Sir John ruminated, considering her reasoning.

 

“Very well,” he finally replied. “You know your parents better than I, Lettice.”

 

“Oh thank you, John!” she exclaimed.

 

“But not too long, mind you.” he tempered her enthusiasm. “I’d like our intentions known early in the new year, so that we may marry in November.”

 

“Of course, John.”

 

“Anyway, how could I refuse my bride-to-be anything?” His eyes softened as she stared at her.

 

As he chuckled good naturedly, Lettice added with hope in her voice, “I have another condition of our marriage, John.”

 

His chuckles grew as he said, “Of course you do, Lettice. In my experience, it seems it is every bride’s prerogative to have conditions.”

 

“I didn’t think you were overly familiar with brides, John.”

 

“Well, I’ve never really been the marrying kind, before you that is, as you know Lettice. However, many an elicit affair of mine has ended with the peal of wedding bells, so I suppose in my own oblique way, I’ve known a good many brides.” He glanced anxiously up into Lettice’s face as he spoke, gauging her reaction to his statement. “I hope that doesn’t shock you too much.”

 

“As I said before, John. Now that I know you better, and am starting to understand you better too,” she replied kindly. “No, it doesn’t.”

 

“Jolly good!” he sighed with relief. “So, what is it then?”

 

“What is what, John?”

 

“What is the bride-to-be’s condition then?”

 

“Oh that!” Lettice laughed, waving her hand dismissively before her, the diamonds on her fingers glinting in the lamplight of Sir John’s drawing room. “Well, now I think about it, there are actually two.”

 

“Two now?” Sie John’s eyebrows knitted as he spoke. “Best you tell me them then, lest the groom has any counter conditions of his own.”

 

“Well, the first I don’t think you’ll mind too much, John.”

 

“Then indulge me, Lettice.” Sir John mused with an indulgent smile. “What is it?”

 

“Well, if I am to be mistress of your houses once we are married,”

 

“Our houses, you mean, Lettice.” Sir John corrected her.

 

“Our houses,” Lettice replied. “I should very much like to keep on my maid, Edith.”

 

“Well, as chatelaine of several houses, I’ll be more than happy to hand over the staffing to you, my dear. But you’ve talked about her before. Isn’t she just an ordinary maid-of-all work?”

 

“Yes and no. She was an under parlour maid in her previous position. However, if she comes with me, I want her to have a new position.”

 

“Oh yes?”

 

“I should like her to be my lady’s maid.”

 

Sir John looked surprised at her suggestion. “But I thought you were so proud of being a modern woman, Lettice, and had no need for a lady’s maid. You said so yourself when we met at Gossington. You told me that it’s the 1920s, so you don’t need a maid to fasten you into your outfits nowadays.”

 

“Well, I don’t really, and I get my hair done by a professional coiffeuse*.”

 

“Then what would you propose this maid of yours?”

 

“Edith.”

 

“Edith, do?” Sir John queried. “As my future wife, I don’t mind indulging you, Lettice. However,” he cautioned. “I will not fritter my money away on staff who do nothing.”

 

“Well Edith wouldn’t do nothing. I’ve discovered, thank in part to Gerald Bruton, that she’s an excellent seamstress, and with a mother who is laundress, she knows how to goffer** lace to perfection, so whilst I don’t need her to dress me, she does an excellent job of maintaining my wardrobe.”

 

“So, a Mistress of the Robes*** for the future Lady Nettleford-Hughes, then?”

 

“I’d like that, John.”

 

He chuckled again, still with good humour as he replied, “Well, then you shall have your wish.” Sitting back on the Regency striped sofa next to Lettice he continued, “And what is your second condition, My Lady?”

 

“Well, were you speaking in earnest before, when you said I could buy and hang the Picasso?”

 

Lettice held her breath as she waited for Sir John to answer.

 

“I said so, didn’t I?”

 

“You did.”

 

“Then you may. Go and see Chilvers this week, and tell him to put that daub, however ghastly it is, on my account and take it home with you to Cavendish Mews.”

 

“Oh John!” Lettice threw her arms around Sir John in unbridled delight at his agreement. “Thank you!”

 

In her reverie, Lettice almost walks past the impressive three storey Victorian Portland Gallery building with its Portland stone facings, which is where the gallery takes its name from. The ground floor part of the façade has been modernised in more recent times, and features large plate glass windows through which passers by may look at the beautiful objets d’art artfully presented in them by Mr. Chilvers. Currently one window artfully displays a clutch of pottery pieces by Bernard Leach****, whilst the other has a single modernist vase of white marble set up against a rich red velvet curtain, giving it a very dramatic look.

 

Lettice momentarily looks at her reflection in the the full length plate glass doors on which the Portland Galleries’ name is written in elegant gilt font along with the words ‘by appointment only’ printed underneath in the same hand, before walking proudly inside. As the door closes behind her, shutting out the sound of noisy automobiles and chugging busses and the clatter of footsteps on the busy pavement and the chatter of shoppers, the air about her changes. In the crisp and cool silence of the gallery Lettice’s heels click across the black and white marble floor. Her eyes flit in a desultory fashion around the red painted gallery hung with brightly coloured paintings and populated with tables, cabinets and pillars upon which stand a myriad of different sculptures and other artistic pieces.

 

“Ah! Miss Chetwynd!” a mature frock coated man greets Lettice with a broad smile. Taking her hand, he kisses it affectionately, yet with respect. “How do you do.”

 

“Mr. Chilvers!” Lettice greets the smartly dressed gallery owner with a warm smile and the familiarity of the regular client that she is. “How do you do.”

 

Born Grand Duke Pytor Chikvilazde in the Russian seaside resort town of Odessa, the patrician gallery owner with the beautifully manicured and curled handlebar moustache fled Russia after the Revolution, escaping aboard the battleship HMS Marlborough***** from Yalta in 1919 along with the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and other members of the former, deposed Russian Imperial Family. Arriving a in London later that year after going via Constantinople and Genoa, the Russian emigree was far more fortunate than others around him on the London docks, possessing valuable jewels smuggled out of Russia in the lining of his coat. Changing his name to the more palatable Peter Chilvers, he sold most of the jewels he had, shunned his Russian heritage, honed his English accent and manners, to reinvent himself as the very British owner of an art gallery in Bond Street, thus enabling him to continue what he enjoyed most about being Grand Duke Pytor Chikvilazde and enjoy a thriving arts scene. As one of his more high profile customers, Mr. Chilvers happily fawns over Lettice, delighted that she chooses to patronise his very exclusive gallery for pieces to decorate the interiors of her clients’ homes with.

 

“Always a pleasure to have you present in my humble little establishment, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Chilvers remarks obsequiously, releasing Lettice’s fingers and clasping his hands together in front of him. “Now, when you telephoned this morning, you mentioned you wanted to buy a painting.” His dark eyes glitter with anticipation. “Which one of my beauties has taken your fancy?”

 

“Well, Mr. Chilvers,” Lettice remarks as she strides across the floor of the gallery, smoothly gliding around pedestals and tables displaying pieces of art. “You’ll hardly be surprised when I tell you that I’m interested in…” But the words she is about to utter die on her tongue as she stares up at the painting hanging above the fireplace. Her mouth slackens and her throat becomes suddenly dry as she looks at it. “Where is it, Mr. Chilvers?”

 

“Ahh! I feared as much.” Mr. Chilvers sighs with regret. “The Picasso.”

 

“Yes! Where have you moved ‘The Lovers’ to, Mr. Chilvers?”

 

“I’m afraid that the Picasso is no longer available, Miss Chetwynd.” he replies, opening his hands in a meek gesture of apology.

 

“No longer available?” Lettice utters disbelievingly.

 

“I’m afraid it’s been sold, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Chilvers elucidates. When he sees Lettice’s face fall, he continues, “I did try to warn you at my little autumnal soirée, that there were others in the room that evening, who had taken a fancy to ‘The Lovers’. Mister Picasso’s new works are causing quite a sensation this season in fashionable avant-guard circles.”

 

“But I was ready to buy it.” Lettice manages to utter in a strangulated voice.

 

“I’m very sorry, Miss Chetwynd.” he apologises again. “But it is too late.”

 

“I don’t suppose you could give me the name of the person who acquired it, Mr. Chilvers?” Lettice asks furtively with s sly gaze and a shy smile.

 

“Miss Chetwynd!” the gallery owner chides her mildly with a disapproving look. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, would countenance asking me such a thing! Many is the time you have acquired art from me that someone else has desired. You know as well as I do that discretion is my byword, and is therefore that of the Portland Gallery. I would never compromise the anonymity of my purchasers.”

 

“Yes, of course! How foolish of me!” Lettice excuses herself with a shaking head. “Forgive me, Mr. Chilvers.”

 

“There is nothing to forgive, Miss Chetwynd.” he purrs. “But, perhaps there is something else I can show you that might take your fancy?”

 

He indicates above the mantle upon which stand several pieces of art pottery, to the selection of paintings in wooden and gilded frames hanging above it. Lettice looks at the street scenes, landscapes and seascapes painted in watercolours and oils. All are lovely, but uninspiring in her eyes as she stares at their muddy browns and ochres.

 

“No, thank you, Mr. Chilvers.” Lettice says shaking her head slowly, unable to avoid keeping the disappointment from her voice as she speaks. “They lack the… the…” In her regret at having not bought the Picasso on the evening of the Portland Gallery’s autumn show, she cannot find the words as she gesticulates around her.

 

“The vitality, perhaps, Miss Chetwynd?” Mr. Chilvers ventures politely.

 

“Exactly, Mr. Chilvers!” Lettice sighs in a deflated fashion. “The vitality, the colour, the movement, of Mr. Picasso’s works.”

 

“Well, I might be able to get another piece of Picasso’s work, Miss Chetwynd, but as I said, his pieces have been creating quite a stir, so it may be a little while before I get one.”

 

“It doesn’t matter, even if you do, Mr. Chilvers.” Lettice sighs. “It won’t be ‘The Lovers’, will it?”

 

“Sadly, not, Miss Chetwynd.” the gallery owner replies regretfully.

 

The pair fall into silence for a short while.

 

“I do have the work of a promising young English artist named Roland Penrose****** coming as part of a shipment from France, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Chilvers says optimistically. “He is a friend of Picasso, and Penrose’s work has been influenced greatly by him. His work is quite striking, I can assure you. I really think you will like it.”

 

“No, no, Mr. Chilvers.” Lettice rebuts sadly. “Thank you, but no. It was ‘The Lovers’ I had set my heart upon.”

 

“I understand, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“It’s my own idiotic fault for not buying it when you encouraged me to.”

 

The pair fall into silence again as they both look up at the paintings hanging on the gallery wall in front of them.

 

“It is funny, is it not, Miss Chetwynd,” Mr. Chilvers remarks. “What passions can stir the heart.”

 

“Indeed it is, Mr. Chilvers.” Lettice replies with another deep sigh, as she contemplates her own passion, recent heartbreak, and now the renewal of her life that she is about to embark on, as Lady Nettleford-Hughes.

 

*A coiffeuse is the old fashioned term for a woman who is a hairdresser.

 

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

 

***A Mistress of the Robes is a position held by a woman of high rank in the royal household who is in charge of a queen’s wardrobe

 

****Bernard Howell Leach was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery".

 

*****In 1919, King George V sent the HMS Marlborough to rescue his Aunt the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna after the urging of his mother Queen Dowager Alexandra. On the 5th of April 1919, the HMS Marlborough arrived in Sevastopol before proceeding to Yalta the following day. The ship took Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and other members of the former, deposed Russian Imperial Family including Grand Duke Nicholas and Prince Felix Yusupov aboard in Yalta on the evening of the 7th. The Empress refused to leave unless the British also evacuated wounded and sick soldiers, along with any civilians that also wanted to escape the advancing Bolsheviks. The Russian entourage aboard Marlborough numbered some 80 people, including forty four members of the Royal Family and nobility, with a number of governesses, nurses, maids and manservants, plus several hundred cases of luggage.

 

******Sir Roland Algernon Penrose was an English artist, historian and poet. He was a major promoter and collector of modern art and an associate of the surrealists in the United Kingdom. After studying architecture at Queens' College, Cambridge, Penrose switched to painting and moved to France, where he lived from 1922 and where in 1925 he married his first wife the poet Valentine Boué. During this period he became friends with the artists Pablo Picasso, Wolfgang Paalen and Max Ernst, who would have the strongest influence on his work and most of the leading Surrealists.

 

Whilst this up-market London gallery interior complete with artisan pieces may appear real to you, it is in fact made up completely with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection. This tableau is particularly special because almost everything you can see is a handmade artisan miniature piece.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Central to our photo the copy of “Place du Théâtre Francois, Paris” is a 1:12 miniature painted by hand in the style of Pissarro by miniature artist Ann Hall. The frame was handmade too.

 

The two pen and watercolour images hanging to the right of the photograph are by miniature artist R. Humphreys. I acquired these through Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The jug and bowl on the fireplace mantle had been hand fashioned and painted by an unknown miniature artisan ceramicist, as are the two vases that flank it. The jug and bowl I acquired from a private collector of miniatures selling their collection on E-Bay, whilst the vases came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The jug and the vase on the stands to either side of the fireplace are by unknown artisans as well. They were acquired from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The two pedestals either side of the fireplace were made by the high end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

thebass.org/art/haegue-yang/

HAEGUE YANG

IN THE CONE OF UNCERTAINTY

 

NOV 2,2019-APR 5,2020

 

In the Cone of Uncertainty foregrounds Haegue Yang’s (b. 1971, Seoul) consistent curiosity about the world and tireless experimentation with materializing the complexity of identities in flux. Living between Seoul and Berlin, Yang employs industrially produced quotidian items, digital processes, and labor-intensive craft techniques. She mobilizes and enmeshes complex, often personal, histories and realities vis-à-vis sensual and immersive works by interweaving narrative with form. Often evoking performative, sonic and atmospheric perceptions with heat, wind and chiming bells, Yang’s environments appear familiar, yet engender bewildering experiences of time and place.

 

The exhibition presents a selection of Yang’s oeuvre spanning the last decade – including window blind installations, anthropomorphic sculptures, light sculptures, and mural-like graphic wallpaper – taking its title from an expression of the South Florida vernacular, that describes the predicted path of hurricanes. Alluding to our eagerness and desperation to track the unstable and ever-evolving future, this exhibition addresses current anxieties about climate change, overpopulation and resource scarcity. Framing this discourse within a broader consideration of movement, displacement and migration, the exhibition contextualizes contemporary concerns through a trans-historical and philosophical meditation of the self.

 

Given its location in Miami Beach, The Bass is a particularly resonant site to present Yang’s work, considering that over fifty percent[1] of the population in Miami-Dade County is born outside of the United States, and it is a geographical and metaphorical gateway to Latin America. Yang has been commissioned by the museum to conceive a site-specific wallpaper in the staircase that connects the exhibition spaces across The Bass’ two floors. This wallpaper will be applied to both transparent and opaque surfaces to accompany the ascending and descending path of visitors within the exhibition. Informed by research about Miami Beach’s climatically-precarious setting, the wallpaper, titled Coordinates of Speculative Solidarity (2019), will play with meteorological infographics and diagrams as vehicles for abstraction. Interested in how severe weather creates unusual access to negotiations of belonging and community, as well as the human urge to predict catastrophic circumstances, the work reflects a geographic commonality that unconsciously binds people together through a shared determination to face a challenge and react in solidarity.

 

Yang’s exhibition encompasses galleries on both the first and second floors of the museum and exemplifies an array of Yang’s formally, conceptually ambitious and rigorous body of work. Considered an important ‘Light Sculpture’ work and one of the last made in the series, Strange Fruit (2012-13) occupies one of the first spaces in the exhibition. The group of anthropomorphic sculptures take their title from Jewish-American Abel Meeropol’s poem famously vocalized by Billie Holiday in 1939. Hanging string lights dangling from metal clothing racks intertwined with colorfully painted papier-mâché bowls and hands that hold plants resonate with the poem’s subject matter. The work reflects a recurring interest within Yang’s practice, illuminating unlikely, less-known connections throughout history and elucidating asymmetrical relationships among figures of the past. In the story of Strange Fruit, the point of interest is in a poem about the horrors and tragedy of lynching of African-Americans in the American South born from the empathies of a Jewish man and member of the Communist party. Yang’s interests are filtered through different geopolitical spheres with a keen concentration in collapsing time and place, unlike today’s compartmentalized diasporic studies.

 

Central to In the Cone of Uncertainty is the daring juxtaposition of two major large-scale installations made of venetian blinds. Yearning Melancholy Red and Red Broken Mountainous Labyrinth are similar in that they are both from 2008, a year of significant development for Yang, and their use of the color red: one consists of red blinds, while the other features white blinds colored by red light. With its labyrinthine structure, Red Broken Mountainous Labyrinth bears a story of the chance encounter between Korean revolutionary Kim San (1905-1938) and American journalist Nym Wales (1907-1997), without which a chapter of Korean history would not survive to this day. Yearning Melancholy Red references the seemingly apolitical childhood of French writer and filmmaker Marguerite Duras (1914-1996). While living in French Indochina (present-day Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos), Duras and her family experienced a type of double isolation in material and moral poverty, by neither belonging to the native communities nor to the French colonizers, embodying the potentiality for her later political engagement. Despite their divergent subject matter, both works continue to envelop an interest in viewing histories from different perspectives and the unexpected connections that arise. By staging the two works together, what remains is Yang’s compelling constellation of blinds, choreographed moving lights, paradoxical pairings of sensorial devices – fans and infrared heaters – and our physical presence in an intensely charged field of unspoken narratives.

 

A third space of the exhibition will feature work from Yang’s signature ‘Sonic Sculpture’ series titled, Boxing Ballet (2013/2015). The work offers Yang’s translation of Oskar Schlemmmer’s Triadic Ballet (1922), transforming the historical lineage of time-based performance into spatial, sculptural and sensorial abstraction. Through elements of movement and sound, Yang develops an installation with a relationship to the Western Avant-Garde, investigating their understanding in the human body, movement and figuration.

 

Observing hidden structures to reimagine a possible community, Yang addresses themes that recur in her works such as migration, diasporas and history writing. Works presented in In the Cone of Uncertainty offer a substantial view into Yang’s rich artistic language, including her use of bodily experience as a means of evoking history and memory.

 

Haegue Yang lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Seoul, South Korea. She is a Professor at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Yang has participated in major international exhibitions including the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018), La Biennale de Montréal (2016), the 12th Sharjah Biennial (2015), the 9th Taipei Biennial (2014), dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (2012) and the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) as the South Korean representative.

 

Recipient of the 2018 Wolfgang Hahn Prize, she held a survey exhibition titled ETA at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in the same year, which displayed over 120 works of Yang from 1994-2018. Her recent solo exhibitions include Tracing Movement, South London Gallery (2019); Chronotopic Traverses, La Panacée-MoCo, Montpellier (2018); Tightrope Walking and Its Wordless Shadow, La Triennale di Milano (2018); Triple Vita Nestings, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, which travelled from the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2018); VIP’s Union, Kunsthaus Graz (2017); Silo of Silence – Clicked Core, KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2017); Lingering Nous, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016); Quasi-Pagan Serial, Hamburger Kunsthalle (2016); Come Shower or Shine, It Is Equally Blissful, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015); and Shooting the Elephant 象 Thinking the Elephant, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2015). Forthcoming projects include the Museum of Modern Art (October 2019), Tate St. Ives (May 2020) and Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto (2020).

 

Yang’s work is included in permanent collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; M+, Hong Kong, China; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea; Tate Modern, London, UK; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; and The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA. Her work has been the subject of numerous monographs, such as Haegue Yang: Anthology 2006–2018: Tightrope Walking and Its Wordless Shadow (2019); Haegue Yang: ETA 1994–2018 (2018); Haegue Yang – VIP’s Union (2017); and Haegue Yang: Family of Equivocations (2013).

Project 52 - Week 12

 

Believe in yourself and you can achieve,

things you never thought possible.

Believe in yourself and you can discover,

new talents hidden inside you.

Believe in yourself and you can reach,

new high that you thought immeasurable.

Believe in yourself and you can elucidate,

the problem that defy every solution.

Believe in yourself and you can tackle,

the hardest of all situations.

Believe in yourself and you can make,

the complicated things seem simple.

Believe in yourself and you can enjoy,

the beauty of the nature's creation.

Believe in yourself and you can learn,

skill of gaining knowledge from experience.

Believe in yourself and you can discern,

new depths in your life.

Believe in yourself and you can perform,

way beyond your expectations.

Believe in your aim and work towards it,

with elation, determination and dedication.

Believe in yourself and you’ll feel blessed,

as you are the god’s special creation.

 

by Sagar Satpathy.

Turn of a Friendly Card

************************************************************

Based on a true adventures of a rogue active in the waning years of the 1930’s as discovered in the criminal archives of Chatwick University.

 

Act 1

I begin my tale in the present…

 

That afternoon a soiree was given as part of the purchase price of the tickets for the annual Autumn Charity Ball to be presented later that evening at the manor’s great house. Since I was alone, I just went mainly for the free food and to rub my elbows with the wealthy guests who would be in happy attendance there, and at the Ball. I was alone, but certainly not bored. There was a game I enjoyed playing to pass the time at these affairs that entailed scoping out by their dress and day jewels worn, those ladies whom would be most likely to be wearing the better costumes and sparklers that evening. It often proved to be a most beneficial insight into the actions and mannerisms of the very rich. I walked amongst the cheerful guests, eying one here ( a lady in satin and pearls) and another there( a high spirited girl with a diamond pin at the throat of her frilly silken blouse). It was as I was passing the latter that the friend she had been talking too (dressed like a vamp), bumped up against me. I caught her, steadying her as they both giggled. I didn’t mind, for the lassie’s too tight satin sheath tea dress had been an enticement to hold, and the gold bracelet that had been dangling from her gloved wrist had been a pleasure to observe. I kissed her gloved hand, rings glittering, as I apologized gallantly for my clumsiness. Her eyes were bright, almost as bright as the twin necklaces of gold that hung swaying down pleasantly from between her ample bosom. I left them, moving on to greener pastures, and it was very green, all of it….

 

It was then that I detected another pretty lassie. It was her long fiery red hair with falling wispy curls that first captured my attention. She was wearing a fetchingly smart white chiffon party dress that commanded me to acquire a closer examination. She appeared to be a blithe spirit, seemingly content with just being by herself and roaming about with casual elegance, the extensive grounds of the manor proper. I began to discreetly follow her at a distance. Although she did not wear any jewelry, her manner and the eloquent way she moved is what attracted me the most. It would be very interesting to seek her out later that evening and she what she would have chosen to decorate herself with. I followed her as she sojourned into the depths of a traditional English garden with a maze of lushly green trimmed 8 foot high hedges

 

As I strolled through the hedgerows in her wake I allowed my mind to wander its own course. Suddenly I straightened up, my reverie broken by an epiphany of sorts. I allowed myself to grin and the lady whose enchantment I was swollen up in, at that moment turned, and seeing my beaming smile assumed it was for her and gave me a rather cute nod of her head. I answered in same, as I headed en route to a nearby stone garden bench to allow my thoughts to think through themselves.

 

But before I go on, allow me the pleasure to sojourn and reminisce about an incident that occurred several years prior:

*******************

I was still working unaided in those days, travelling on to a new next quest that would take me just outside of Surrey.

I had just purchased my train ticket and had seen my luggage safe on board when I decided to rest in the lounge, it being some 45 minutes before allowed to enter personally aboard. Being so early the lounge was almost deserted, only one other occupant. I assumed she was waiting for someone on an incoming train due to the fact she carried no luggage. She was obviously well off, well dressed in satins and lace, and her jewels shone magnificently in the dim lights. Especially one of her rings, noticeably lying loosely around a finger, it sparkled with an expensive brilliance. I had seen one like it in a tiffanies store, worth almost 250 pounds. But she did not appreciate the show her jewelry was putting on under the lounge lights, for she was fast asleep.

 

I circled around her, aiming for a seat next to her, eyeing her and her possessions carefully. I noticed her purse had fallen off her lap and lay on the floor. An idea popped into my head, and I picked the purse up, and looked around carefully, before placing my plan into action. But I was thwarted as an older, matronly lady was spotted heading our way. I slipped the purse into my jacket and moved off before I was noticed. Of course she came in and took the empty seat across form the sleeping princess, and soon busied herself with knitting. As the older lady had sat down, not quietly, the wealthy lady stirred waking up at the noise. I went into a corner and sat, waiting. The two ladies soon fell into conversation; the minute’s ticked by excruciatingly slow. Soon I noticed we even had more company.

He was a lad of only fourteen, but with a devilish look about him that marked him a kindred spirit to meself, and his quick eyes were darting about taking it all in as he stood outside the paned glass window.

 

It was as the first announcement of boarding the train that I saw a chance for opportunity to strike.

The older lady folded up her knitting and clinching her bag, bid adieu to her new friend,( befuddled a little by the old ladies constant stream of gossip), and headed to the train. I was twenty steps ahead of her and was standing behind the youth as she left the lounge. I tapped him on the shoulder; he looked around at me suspiciously, and then caught sight of the shilling I was holding in front of his nose. I quickly whispered a few words into his ear on how he could earn it, and his grin spread as he bought into my story. I still held onto the shilling as he darted around and inside the lounge. I watched as he ran up behind the lady, circling her, then running in front of her he tripped over her leg, as she helped him up, her hand with the ring reaching down, he turned and spat onto the wrist and sleeve of that hand, than standing he ran away. Running alongside me, I handed him the shilling in passing as he ran off, disappearing in to the street.

 

I went inside and approached the astonished lady, as she was looking for her purse to get a handkerchief, confused as to its absence, while she held up her soiled hand( ring glittering furiously) in utter disbelief. I approached, catching her attention by the soothing words I uttered to her. I took her hand, unbelieving with her at just had happened, and I as I apologized for the youth of today I produced my own silk handkerchief and starting with her silky sleeve, began to wipe it off, continuing my tirade of displeasure and contempt at what had just occurred to the dear lady as I did so. As I finishing wiping her down, ending with her warm slender fingers, I kissed them, just as the last boarding announcement came over (perfect timing!) I let her go, explaining that I must catch my train. I turned and without looking back made the train just as it was letting off steam before chugging off.

 

I gained my private carriage just as the train began to lurch away. It wasn’t until after the train began its journey that I casually removed my silk handkerchief from my pocket and unwrapped it carefully, admiring up close the shimmering, valuable tiffany ring that was lying inside. I pocketed it, and then remembered the purse. I took it out and examined its contents: coin and notes equaling a handsome amount, a gold (gilded) case, embroidered lacy handkerchief, small silver flask of perfume, and ( of all things)a large shimmering prism , like one that would have dangled from a fancy crystal chandelier. A prism?, I questioned with interest as I examined it. It was pretty thing, about the circumference of a cricket ball, but shaped like a pendulum, it shimmered and glittered like the most precious of jewels. Why she had it in her purse? I couldn’t guess, and I saw no value in it, so I pocketed it and allowed it to leave my mind.

 

As I settled into my seat I began to think of the lad I had just met, I had been right on the money as far as his eagerness for mischief. Actually he reminded me of myself at that age, and I wondered if that lad with the shifty eyes would also turn out to follow the same course I had explored.

 

Which Begs the question, what had I turned out to become. And since I’m still reminiscing

I’ll give little background material about me, hopefully I don’t come across as being too conceited about my self-taught skills..

 

I had never been one to take the hard road, and even at a young age I was always looking for angles, or short cuts to make some money.

Once, while watching for some time a street magician and his acts. I observed a pick pocket working the crowd. He approached a pair of well-dressed ladies in shiny clothes, and standing behind them bided his time and then lifted a small pouch from one velvet purse, and a fat wallet from a silken one, then he moved on. Now both ladies were wearing shiny bracelets, one with jewels. I thought that he could have realized a greater profit if he had nicked one or both of the bracelets first, than try for the contents of their purses. The bracelets’ alone would have realized a far greater profit than what he lifted from their purses. It further occurred to me that by mimicking some of the sleight of hand tricks and misdirection that the magician was using on his audience, it could be accomplished. A hand placed on the right shoulder and as the lady turned right, whisk off the bracelet from her left wrist, and excuse oneself, that sort of thing.

 

So, I practiced (on my sisters, who proved to be willing accomplices to “my game”) and learned to pick their purses and pockets. I than moved onto their jewelry, starting by lifting bracelets and slipping away rings, before advancing to the brooches, necklaces and earrings they were wearing. After I was satisfied at my skill level, I went out and worked the streets. Sometimes using my one sister who was also hooked on what I was doing as a willing partner.

But I found myself still not being satisfied, in the back of my mind I thought there had to be a more lucrative way to turn a profit.

 

I’d found my answer when an attractive lady in a rustling satin gown zeroed in on me while I was “visiting” a ballroom. She was jeweled like a princess right up to the diamond band she wore holding up her piles of soft locks like a glimmering crown. The more she drank, the closer she got and I decided that her necklace would definitely help pay my expenses more than the contents of her purse (although I had already lifted the fat wallet from her small purse), and I did have very expensive tastes to pay for. So I took her onto the dance floor.

 

I was amazed at how easily I had been able to open the necklace’s clasp , slipping it over her satiny shoulder, lifting it off and placing it safely in my pocket with almost no effort. Then she decided to be playful once the song ended and brushed up against me. She felt the necklace in my pocket and before I could act she had her hand in and pulled it out.

 

The silly naive twit thought I was teasing her and told me that for my penance I had to go up to her suite in order to put it back on for her. I kept up the charade as best as I could.

 

And that’s where we ended up. A little bit of light fondling began as I placed the necklace back around her throat. I began to tease her, plied her with more and more alcohol as I tried to keep my distance, and virginity. Finally she passed out in a drunken stupor, but not before I had learned where she hid her valuables by suggesting she should lock her jewels up for the night..

 

With her safely unconscious, I began to strip her clean off all her jewels, reclaiming the necklace first. Then I visited all her jewelry casket and began looting it. I even took her small rhinestone clutch with the diamond clasp; of course I already had liberated its small wallet.

 

When I’d left her lying happily asleep in bed, still in her satin gown( the only item left to her that shined), I knew I had found a much more profitable line of “work”

 

So I began making circuits around to the haunts of the very rich, I still kept may hand in pickpocketing, so to speak, but centered only on those “pockets” containing mainly jewelry. I also began to carefully explore new ways of acquiring jewels” in masse”, so to speak.

 

Soon I had accumulated many tricks and tools, having them at my disposal to put into action once required, and for the remaining years up till the present had managed to live quite comfortably off of the ill-gotten gains using them allowed me to acquire.

 

Which brings me back to the train ride, my prism, and the rest of my background story before I retun to the present tale. Please be patient.

*****

So, anyway, I reached Surry without any further incident and disembarking, made my way out to the large country house where I would be staying to take a short rest, vacation if you will. But, pardon the play on words, for there is never any rest for the wicked, is there?

 

I had become acquainted with a servant of the old mansion ( almost a small castle, really) , that was about a mile off. I managed to learn a great deal, and soon found myself, on the pretense of visiting her, exploring the grounds. There was to be a grand ball taking place a couple of weekends away , and the maid had filled my ears with the riches that would be displayed by the multitude of regal ladies making an appearance. I began to think about trying to make a little bit of profit from my vacation. I am not sure how the idea developed, but the prism that I still had in my possession, came up centrally into my plans.

 

Late on the evening of the regal affair, I snuck over, covered head to toe in black, with my small satchel off tools by my side. I set up a candle behind an old stone ivy covered wall in a far corner of the rather large and intricate English garden that surrounded the inner circle around the mansion. I than strung the jewel-like prism in front of it. Standing behind the wall, I would strike the prism with a long stick I was holding whenever I observed sparkles emanating from silkily gowned ladies walking in the distance, solitary or in pairs. The prism would flash fire, sort of like a showy lure being used when fishing in a crooked trout stream. Only I was fishing for far sweeter game than trout. My objective was to trick certain types of jeweled ladies (scatterbrains some may call them) by luring them down onto the path beyond the wall, using their natural curiosity to my advantage.

 

I had at least two strikes rise up to my lure in the second hour.

On was a pretty lady in flowing green satin number, decorated with plenty of emeralds, which, hidden in the shadows, I observed were probably paste. I let her wonder about; as she looked and played with the shiny toy, remaining hidden until she grew bored and wandered off.

The second was a slender maiden wearing a long sleek black gown with long ivory silk gloves. I had never before seen a lady so decked out in jewels, literally head to toe. With the exception of the rhinestones adorning her heels, the rest of the lot was real, so valuably real that I could feel my mouth salivating at the thoughts of acquiring her riches. Now in Edwardian times only older, married ladies would be allowed the privilege of wearing a diamond Tiara. But in these modern times, it had become culturally acceptable for any well-to do lady, single or otherwise, to wear one out in society. Even so, they were still rarely worn, and seldom seen outside the safety of large gatherings. But there it was, a small, delicately slender piece of intricate art that glistened from the top of her head like some elegant beacon. That piece alone was probably worth more than I had made all the last four months combined!

I began to skirt around in the shadows, placing myself in position to cut off her retreat. Her diamonds blazed as she approached, eyeing the swinging prism with total concentration. Which was unfortunate, because as I was about to leave the shadows, she walked into the thorns of a rose bush, screeching out, and attracting the notice of a pair of gentlemen who had just crossed the path quite a ways off, called out when they heard the commotion. She started to become chatty with them, obviously coming on to her rescuers, my prism all but forgotten. Than before I knew it, in a swishing of her long gown, she was gone, “swimming” off before I was able to set me ”hook”.

 

Which I was able to do on the third strike, almost an hour later, just as I was beginning to ponder wither I should call it off and head back home..

 

They were a pair of young damsels in their young twenties. They may have been sisters, or cousins at the least. I still remember how my heart leapt into my throat as they observed my colourful prism and turned down the old flagstone path. I had not seen anyone out and about for some time, so I knew they would be no would be rescuers around to come to their aid

And, best of all, they were both dressed for the kill!

One, the blonde, was clad in a black velvet number that one could cannily describe as quite form fitting. As were the small ropes of pearls that hung from all points of interest, pretty with a matching pricelessness.

But her cousin, as I will refer to her, out shone black velvet quite literally.

This one, a stunning raven haired beauty, wore a long streaming gown of liquid ivory satin. A diamond brooch sparkled as it held up a fold of the gown to her waist. The fold allowed her to show a rather daring amount of a slender bare calf. The brooch was not paste, but a real jewel that had been added for the nights festivities ( To be successful, one learns to read these signs accurately) Her ears and neckline were home to a matching set of pure white diamonds. A wide diamond bracelet graced a bare right wrist ,so she must be left handed I instinctively thought, an observation that would have aided me if I were planning on having a go for slipping the bracelet from her wrist, but tonight I was planning a much more daring attempt to empty the entire jewel casket, so to speak.

 

They went to the prism, playing with it a bit, I had begun to circle around, when I noticed black velvet pointing out with multiple ringed fingers, to something further down the path past the wall.

 

With a clicking of heels I let the pair pass, they apparently wanted to see what was on the other side of the wall. I followed; it was not hard, because the necklace the raven haired one wore, diamonds fully encircling her throat, rippled and sparkled from their perch, caught in the full harvest moon’s cast, giving me more than enough light to shadow them quietly .

 

After a while they caught on that something/someone was following them, but as they turned they could see nothing. I was in black, and hooded, invisible to them in the shadows of the trees. They whispered amongst themselves, now worried, realizing that there were dangers lurking beyond the pale, in their case, the safety of the gardens , especially for ones decked out as they were. They then turned and headed right back from where they had come, right into my waiting arms.

 

It is interesting what good breeding does for young, poised ladies. For, as I stepped out of the shadows, a finger of my right hand to my lips, my Fairborn in my left hand, its black blade glinting wickedly in the moonlight , they did not scream out or shout for help. Instead the pair merely let out small gasps, and then they both, in a quite charming synchronized display of disbelief, place each one hand over their open mouths, and the other upon their perspective necklaces.

 

And as I flourished my wicked looking Fairbairn–Sykes blade in their direction, they unquestioningly reached around and undid those pretty necklaces, tremblingly handing them out to me, like actresses following a well-read script. I took the little pretties and after stuffing them into my satchel, held out again my free hand, my fingers beckoning. Not a word was spoken between us, as the frightened pair of young ladies began removing their shimmering jewels and added them in a neat little growing pile along my open palm. The raven haired girl even undid her brooch without me having to command her to do so. Once I had stashed it all away, I motioned for them to turn back around, than with a little helpful prodding on my part, they began moving forward back down the hill, away from the garden. The one in white hobbling a little now as she kept tripping over the hem of her dress, now no longer held up by the stolen brooch.

 

After we had traveled about 200 meters I had them stop, and take off their high heels. Then picking the pretty things up, I motioned them to turn back around and made them walk back the way we had come in their bare feet, watching the pair awkwardly hobble barefooted down the wooded path. They would be quite a while on their journey back, allowing me more than ample time to make me escape. I threw their shoes off to the side and went briskly the other way, reaching the place was staying at , gaining my room without notice. But not before I had hidden the jewels inside an old stump to retrieve them at a later date. I never really heard so much as a whisper of the incident, other than from the pretty lips of my friendly maiden. The wee hours of the morning before my early departure for the train station found me revisiting the stump and retrieving my satchel and its precious cargo. After hiding it all in a false bottom of my case I laid my head on the pillow and drifted off to sleep as I wondered what had happened to the little prism, marveling at how useful it had ended up proving to be.

 

So, how does this story (journey rather) relate to the one I had already started? Please read on, and enrich your curiosity… my dear readers.

****************************************************************************

Act 2

 

So, with apologies for my lengthy elucidation, but I now return you back to the garden party I was now attending on that warm fall day. But, as you will see, my prism story needed to be told in order to add a bit of flavor to what was about to unfold.

 

As I sat on the garden bench I formulated my plans. I should be able to acquire the main piece tonight at the Ball, I would have time this afternoon to retrieve my ever handy satchel and its array of tools and have it hidden at the spot I had already selected. It was perfect, located at the end of the path I had found, or rather the charming lady in the smart chiffon dress had found for me. A gas lamp would provide adequate light for my “lure”, and it led to a back wood where I could lead any victims away and liberate them of their valuables before making my escape. I rose, just enough time to walk my escape route, before setting up and then be dressed for the evening’s festivities. I looked around, I was alone now, my lady in white had disappeared, following her own course, whatever it may have been.

 

The Autumn Ball that evening was in full swing by the time I arrived. Being a cool fall day, most of the women were wearing long gowns and dresses, and that, for whatever the reason, usually meant they were decked out with more layers of jewelry than say , if it had been the middle of summer. In order to put my plan in action I need and intrinsic piece of the trap, a prism. The one I had once had was long ago lost, a minor pawn in a game to take a pair of princesses.

 

I knew exactly the type of prism required for my plan, and so began mingling amongst the guests with that in mind.

 

I started out by walking through to the chamber like ballroom where a full orchestra was starting to play. The first person I saw from the garden party was the little tramp who had been wearing the too tight satin tea dress. That dress had been replaced with a long silky gown, her gold jewelry replaced with emeralds; including a thin bracelet that had taken the place of the gold one that she had so obligingly dangled in my larcenous path. I decided to avoid her In principle, and in doing so spied someone quite interesting.

 

That someone was a pretty lady in a long velvet gown standing off to one side, idly watching the many dancers out on the floor. The dancing couples were forming an imagery of a rainbow coloured sea of slinky swirling gowns and with erupting fireworks of sparkling jewels, ignited by pair of immensely large chandeliers that hung over the dance floor, setting them off. I made my way, skirting the dance floor to reach her, my eyes on her jewels, which were making pretty fireworks of their own. I happened to walk up just as a waiter with a tray of drinks was passing by. Plucking off a drink I offered it to the lady with one hand, my other hand placed on her back as If to steady myself. She laughed prettily, and taking the drink I met her eyes, as she was focused on reaching and holding the glass in her slippery gloved hand, mine was on the ruby and diamond necklace. My hand behind her had flicked open the simple hook and eye clasp of the antique piece and was in the process of lifting it up and whisking it away from her throat. As I said a few words to her, I pocketed it, while also taking in the rest of her lovely figure and its shiny decorations, before biding adieu. She smiled, her pale bare neckline now quite glaringly extinguished of its fire.

 

It was about an hour later, after spotting, but unable to make inroads with several likely candidates, that I finally struck gold (figuratively). It came in the form of a young couple arguing between themselves in a far corner of the chamber. She was lecturing a rather handsome man in a tux, her jeweled fingers flying in his face. If she hadn’t been moving about in such an animated fashion as she lectured, I may not have even noticed her. But as it happened I did, especially noticeable was the sanctimonious lady’s wide jeweled bracelet that was bursting out in a rainbow of colorful flickers as her hand was emphatically waving, as her long gown of silk swished around with every movement she made. Perfect. I watched for a bit, and sure enough they moved off, the man heading for the patio leading outside, the wealthy girl following him, still giving him lashes with her tongue. I moved and managed to have her bump into me simply by stepping on the hemline of her long gown. For a few seconds I was the one on the receiving end of her wrath, but I took it like a man, I could see in the eyes of her tongue lashed husband, that he was grateful for the respite. I was also grateful; grateful for the quite wide, very shimmering, bracelet that I had removed from her wrist and now was residing in my pocket.

 

I began to leave the patio, but was stopped by a matronly lady in ruffles, laces and pearls, her breath heavy with alcohol. She started to question me on what the couple had been on about. Then without waiting for an answer she launched herself into a tirade of her own, her gem encrusted, silken gloved fingers, waving in my face for emphasis. It was almost ten minutes before I was able to make my escape. Which I did, but not before slipping off one of the lecturing ladies vulgarly large cocktail rings.

 

I headed onto the patio; the time was getting ripe for my plan, which I was now ready to put into motion, now having acquired its most essential piece. I went to the end of the large patio, weaving in and out of the by now well liquored guests whom had assembled there. Across the way I saw a lady tripping over her own gown. By the time I reached her she had fallen down, giggling merrily. Two of us rushed to her aid, she was busy gushed her thanks to the rescuer she knew, while ignoring the one she didn’t! Which was unfortunate on her part, for by ignoring me, she also was ignorant of the fact that I was busy lifting the small stands of black pearls from her wrist. I left unnoticed, much like a shadow fading out of the light, or at least that’s how it seemed. Finally I reached the patios outer edge without further incident, or gain. I went on the grass and turned a corner with the intention of going, post haste around the house to reach the gardens by the long way, hoping not to be seen by anyone. But I no sooner turned the corner, when I realized that it was not to be the case.

 

It was my blithe spirit in white chiffon from the garden party, pardon me, soiree. She was unescorted, looking up at the moon above a stone turret with one lit window, so intently that my presence had not been noticed. I had been absolutely correct in my observation of her as far as what she would be wearing for the evening. For what she had lacked in ornaments at the soiree, she had more than made up for in the evening festivities. She was absolutely gorgeous, resplendent in as beautiful a silvery satin gown that I had ever witness. It was just pouring down, shimmering along her delightful figure. Her long blazing red hair was still curling down and free, but now a pair of long chandelier earrings cascading down from her earlobes, were peeking out every now and then as they swayed with her every movement. Her blazingly rippling necklace was all diamonds, dripping down the front of her tightly satin covered bosom, twinkling iridescently like an intensively glimmering waterfall. Her slender gloved wrists were home to a pair of dangling diamond bracelets that were almost outshone by her many glistening rings. All in all she was quite a lure all too herself

 

I came up to her, starling her from her reverie. Taking up her hand, I looked into her startled, suddenly blushing face. I complimented her on the fine gown she wore. She thanked me, and I could see I that she suddenly remembered she me as the chap who she thought smiled to her in the garden. She seemed to accept my compliment quite readily. I chanced it( although Lord knows I was short on time) and asked her to a dance. I did not think she would agree, so it was with a little bit of surprise, hoping she would politely decline and walk off, leaving me free to go about my business unobserved. But she accepted, and I will admit that my heart leapt as she agreed (although in the back of my mind I knew I should be off if my plan was to work). The music had stopped so we made small talk as we slowly walked back to the ballroom. Her name was Katrina. It seems she was waiting for someone, which suited my plans, but he was late and so she had time. Which may have sounded dismissive, but from the apologetic way she said it, it was anything but the sort.

 

The orchestra started to tune back up as we entered, and taking her offered hand up, was soon lost in the elegance of my appealing partner. It was a long dance, and a formal one, but I could tell she was subtly anxious to be off on her meeting, as I was to be off to my own adventure. But Katrina did not really allow it to show, which was very uncharacteristic of her someone with her obvious breeding. So I was ready when the by the end of the music she begged her condolences and took flight. I watched her as she fluidly moved away, her jewels sparkling, all of them. On her mission to meet Mr. X I thought, for whom I was already harboring a quite jealous dislike. I should be off I thought to meself.

 

But I stood, still as stone; totally mesmerized by the way Katrina’s swirling silvery satin gown was playing out along her petite, jewel sparkling figure. It wasn’t till the last of her gown swished around a corner out of sight that I moved, but not without having to shake my head to clear the thoughts of her out of it. Well old son, focus. For by now the guests were starting to wander a bit afield in the waning hours of the Autumn Ball, and my small window of opportunity was closing fast. If my little plan was going to have any chance of success it would have to be now.

 

I walked out and made my way to one of the outside exist of the garden wall. Reaching into my pocket as I did so, fingering the bracelet, now cold, that had belonged to the quarrelsome lady,and soon would be playing another role, far from one its former mistress would ever have dreamed off. I also felt my new acquisition, still warm from my dance partner’s body. I will admit that I had felt a twinge of regret for taking it from a lady I had found to be most charmingly captivating. But slipping off the diamonds up and away from her throat had been as temptingly easy as it had been automatic. I had advantageously made use of the sleekness of her scintillatingly silky gown, and with the distractions created by the movements of the dance, successfully managed to keep Katrina’s attention safely diverted from the reality of why my fingers were ever so gently, caressingly sliding along her slippery gowns neckline. The truth was I had originally placed my hand there because it had felt so right, and I was a little startled when my fingers had subconsciously started playing with her necklaces clasp. Before I knew it, they had flicked open the gemstone clasp of her obviously expensive diamond necklace, and had lifted up. As I watched out of the corner of my eye, almost like I was a spectator, as opposed to being the perpetrator, I saw the chain move up and over her shoulder; its diamonds sparkling with is as the necklace disappeared from view behind her back.

It was a favored technique that I had perfected to the point that by this stage of my career I nearly always acquired my objective. But, as odd as it sounds, I was not happy with myself on this occasion.

 

But I did not long dwell on my mixed feelings on taking the charming lass’s diamonds, for by now I had reached my place of ambush. It was in one of the farthest reaches of the garden, at a bend on the end of a long path that, with a gas lamp at its beginning just off the patio, would allow me to see from some distance off. Behind me was a break in the hedge wide enough for a person to walk through comfortably. It was here, off a tree limb, underneath a second ornate cast iron gas lamp, which was now lit, that I hung the shimmering bracelet that I had sought out and acquired for just that reason

 

I walked around and saw that it could be seen flickered off in the distance from the woods, Perfect! Earlier I had hidden my satchel with a hood and knife and bit of rope in the hollow of an old tree. I now retrieved them, and after getting ready, found my position and waited. At 10 minutes past the first hour of my wait, with nary a single glimpse of anyone, I started to fidget. My corner may be just a bit too desolated I was beginning to admit to myself. It seemed that most of the guests were staying by the patio. I was starting to think that I should pack it in, possibly rejoining the guests for one last parting( of someone from her Jewelry). I was just reaching down to pick up my satchel when I suddenly saw something flash under the gas lamp at the beginning of the path, and my senses immediately perked up. I watched as the wisps of rich shimmery satin moved closer, I stiffened, drooling with anticipation, the game was afoot.

  

I could see clearly the flickering jewels she wore, and by their blazing sparkles of rippling fire, I knew that my long vigil would not have been in vain. As the lady drew I recognized her gown of silvery satin! I knew who was making those tantalizing flashes of appealing treasures. Katrina!

 

I watched as she approached, in all her glittering elegance. My heart and conscious was in turmoil, but I knew I probably would not get a second chance. I could not let her get away unscathed. Beside, from the shock of being confronted with a masked scoundrel wielding a wicked blade, she would be in no shape to recognize her assailant. She stopped, apprehensively looking back towards the bright lights of the Manor, Then turning back I saw she had a self-satisfied smile creeping upon her face. She reached up, and undoing her hair, shook it down, curls of softness cascading down, hanging loosely down. It was as she performed this provocative act, that I saw her eyes open wide in curiosity; she had spied my pretty little “prism”. The charming fish was hooked.

 

I waited, watching her approaching ever closer to fate, and from my concealment, I basked in her glow. My heart beating fast, my adrenaline pumping, for the remaining jewels (I thought of her necklace in my custody) that she possessed I already had witnessed were quite valuable. She passed my hiding spot and went to the hanging, shimmering object. As she reached up, looking around, she failed to see me approaching in the shadows. I came up from behind, jabbing a finger in her back as I reached her, I gruffly in no uncertain terms, snarled for her to freeze and make no sound. She stiffened under my touch, but made no move or outcry. I went around; pointing my knife in her direction, looking into her sad doe wide eyes as she realized what was going to happen next. She was trembling; from fear I guessed, and knew I had her right where I wanted. As I made my demands upon her, gimme them jewels sister, she, not surprisingly, was very compliant in giving them up to me. She reached for her necklace last, and looked entirely shocked to find her throat bare, as she searched the neckline of her gown I saw her look into my hand, now dripping with her precious jewelry, almost as if to see if she had not already removed it. She looked apologetically into my eyes, startled; almost pleading that she didn’t know what had happened to it. I just played dump. She than spoke for the first time, sir, may I ask to keep my purse? Her words would have instantly melted even the coldest chunk of ice, I looked down at the little silvery clutch hanging from her arm on its rhinestone chain, I nodded, indicating that she could, and saw relief wash over her face. I told her she now needed to turn around and walk off into the woods ahead of me. She hesitated, and I told her no harm would befall her, I had no intentions along those lines.

 

About 5 meters in I stopped her, and had her remove her shoes, as she bent over to undo the high heels rhinestone clasps I watched her gown tightly outlining her figure. She tripped on the hem of her gown, and as she attempted to keep her balance, accidently let her purse slip off her shoulder. Without thinking I reached down to pick it up for her as she tried reached for it simultaneously

 

The small purse was far heavier than it should have been. Curious I opened it, finding that it contained a rather extensive array of mismatched jewelry, glittering in unbelievably expensive fire . I looked into Katrina’s horror struck eyes dumb founded, as she looked guiltily into mine. The gig was up. The jewels belonged to the lady of the manor, my muse in silver was a thief, a female version of me very self.

 

Aye, what’s this than luv? I questioned her as she looked into my eyes, hers large with a mixture of fright and disbelief. She melted before me, fainting, I caught her in my arms, and it was no ruse. I held her as she came to, holding her warm, silky figure lovingly to mine. I did not know what to think. Nor could I ever explain what possessed me to do what I did next. As she came to, her eyes opened, and I removed my mask, looking back into them deeply.

 

Oh, she gasped, I’m glad it was you, startled that she had said the words out loud. She than started to coyly blushes, quite demurely. Something sparked in me, and unless she was an incredibly good actress, it did also for Katrina. Our eyes both looked into the others, melting away in the lust of the moment. We embraced, deeply, and I held her squirming warm slick figure tight in my enveloping arms. I looked over her shoulder, eyeing the glistening bracelet hanging from its branch. To catch a thief, the thought suddenly opened in my mind, what a great title for a novel I thought to myself, as I buried my nose into Katrina’s luxuriously soft hair.

 

We talked for a bit, walking off into the woods, then she looked into my eyes again, a coy, look that melted me on the spot, and that was the end of it, we embraced again, and wholly gave ourselves to one another. What about your man I asked suddenly remembering, my man she questioned , than oh, you mean the Lord, I was waiting for him to come down from smoking in his tower study, that’s where the lady’s jewels are kept. She broke into an Irish brogue as she said the last bit, and that I guessed was her natural tongue. she laid a hand on the side of my face, thanks for being jealous though, me lad.

I should collect my lure I said, which made her smile; it was such an enticing smile at that. We started to head back and watched as it dangled in front of us flickering. With a far off look in her green eyes, Katrina spoke as if in deep though.

 

The daughter of the house, she has a bracelet on like the one you have dangling, a bracelet of diamonds that I had taken a fancy to, wishing it had been in the safe along with the rest of the ladies of manors jewelry. I knew who she was talking about. The one in green taffeta I asked? Aye lad, that’s the one. Actually her necklace would be just as easy, and worth more I said. Just then her bright green eyes gleamed, Give me about a half an hour, she told me, we will put your little lure to use again. She noticed my hesitation, don’t worry luv she said soothingly placing a gloved hand to my cheek, no longer was it sparkly with its stolen bracelet and rings. I’ll leave my purse with you, can’t very well be carrying it around now can I? I nodded my consent, my mind burning with the thoughts she had alluringly placed there.

  

She turned, and then hesitated; turning back she said I probably should not go back in naked luv. I smiled, reaching in I pulled out her necklace and placed it around her throat. With a little gasp she blurted, so it was you, I was wondering who and when it had happened. It’s not the first time I’ve had me jewels lifted, but it’s a bloody annoyance to have to let them get away with it, crawls under my skin to have pretend not to notice so that I don’t draw any attention to me self before making my move to steal the posh ones jewels.

 

But you, mister, I never felt as much as a prickling. I was ready to assume my pretties had been a victim of a broken clasp this time. I gave a little nod in acceptance. That wasn’t exactly a compliment lad, she said in what I hopped was a subtle jest. Just last summer some clumsy bugger slipped of me earrings, my favorite pearls, as we were danc… she stopped, seeing the guilt in my eyes. Men! As thieves you are all of the same skin she spat out angrily, or attempted to sound angry, for the look in her eyes to me she wasn’t. I best be off, before I change me mind about out little endeavor.

 

With that she swirled around on her heels, and started off, but not before turning and giving me an extremely coy look of interest. As she swirled back around I heard her say loud enough for my ears, I’ll learn me self to be a picker of pockets, see how males like to be taken advantage of in their vulnerabilities! She nodded to herself as she said it. Then suddenly she stopped, than twirled on her heels, her gown swirling enticingly along her figure. Looking me dead in the eye she said, “Vie ne est pas d'attendre que la tempête , mais d'apprendre à danser sous la pluie” !

 

What does that mean? I questioned in a low voice, perplexed.

 

Maybe, Mon Cheri, someday I will tell you… And with that she turned on her heel, her gown once again swirling about, and went, determinedly, swishing her way back up the path. I just watched. I had never heard anyone speak French with an Irish Brogue and I had found it to be rather provocative!

 

I watched as she swished and swayed her way back through the hedge and regained the path leading back to the manor. Her plan was simple; she would lead the daughter of the house to my corner and as she had done, go out with her to look at the swinging charm. I would then make my appearance, rob both ladies of their finery, and telling the daughter to wait until I released her friend, walk off with Katrina as a hostage, and we would both take off and make good our escape. A simple plan, so simple it should actually work.

 

So, there I was. Holding a purse with a small fortune in jewels, my pocket full of more jewels worth an additional pretty farthing, and her charms were wearing off by her leaving. And my thieving nature coming back, reawakened from the spell they had been under!

 

The devil of my conscious crept out on my shoulder, the angel markedly absent from the other.

 

Look mate, she may not be all she seems, and possibly has some other game in mind. Maybe she does have a male confidante helping her out… and was actually on her way to fetch him. He said in my inner ear. And, after all, you took her diamonds twice, didn’t ye now? Do you really think shell forgive you of that me lad?

 

And there is no honor amongst thieves, as the saying goes, he added as a closing argument...

 

I rolled it over in my mind…I could leave, absconding with it all, book a cruise to the states or down under where there lay untried fertile grounds to ply my trade. Not to mention working over my fellow passengers aboard the cruise ship while they attended the fancy affairs that were always going on, or so the brochures always seemed to show……

 

Then In the distance I caught a wisp of Katrina’s long silvery gown. She was coming, and not only with the daughter of the manor, but also with a spare. For I could see a purple coloured gown swishing alongside with the prey in rustling green taffeta.. I watched as all three ladies, resplendent with the rippling fiery gems they all possessed, came up the path, gowns sweeping out , shimmery from the now misty distance.

 

The thought of making my escape with all the loot continued to haunt me, there was still time now to take off without notice, or I could rob all three, and leave with purple silk as my hostage, Katrina would not be able to say anything on chance of giving up her part of the game, or I could just be a good lad and sty with the script that Katrina had written. Take a chance, roll the dice and believe that she was all she had me believing she could ever be.

 

As they came closer I knew my time was running out. The thoughts of just looking out for myself kept coming up playing the devil with my conscience as the precious seconds ticked away…

 

No honor amongst thieves…

What will it be, old boy I challenged myself,

What will you have it be?........

To see what his decision ultimately was, and the eventual path it led to, see the album question answered)

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Life is not about waiting out the storm, but about learning to dance in the rain.

Vie ne est pas d'attendre que la tempête , mais d'apprendre à danser sous la pluie .

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Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives

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The River Lune in Lancaster, Lancashire.

 

It runs for 53 miles through the counties of Cumbria and Lancashire. Several elucidations for the origin of the name Lune exist. Firstl, it may be Brittonic and derived from lǭn meaning "full, abundant", or "healthy, pure". Or that it came from Old English Ēa Lōn a phonetic adaptation of a Romano-British name referring to a Romano-British god Ialonus who was worshipped in the area.

 

Information Source:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Lune

 

VIDEO: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jli9s_PCKFs

 

••• SCRIPT/LYRICS: •••

 

MOLEMAN'S EPIC RAP BATTLES!!!!!

 

STEVEN UNIVERSE…

 

…VS…

 

…NORMAN BATES!

 

BEGIN!

 

Steven Universe:

We…

…Shouldn't have to bother trading blows two-sidedly,

Because your brain has excess vacancies if you'd go fighting me!

I'm checking in to checkmate chumps, no need for shelter from a rainstorm,

And won't be here come the morning, but I'll tell it to you plain, Norm:

You look like if they made Andrew Garfield fuse with Seymour Skinner,

But don't start up, spinning webs of lies, when I drop by for dinner;

Fans of mine go flaming lame establishments that do me wrong,

So put your rounds on hiatus and learn to love the Steven-bomb!

 

Norman Bates:

I'll not be tolerating fat-ass posers, preaching love and peace,

With ukulele-strumming sappier than IZ's…

Mother, please…

This freak's whore matron lives inside his gut, straight out of Total Recall,

So if you've got any, show some; go tell off the little meatball!

Wipe that wormy smile right off your bean-headed face and listen:

I go more than just a little mad come time to lay some dissing

On the white male Cap of S.J.W. America,

Who's far from either of his home-worlds, faced with trouble to be wary of!

As my guest of dishonor, your roasting will be a shoo-in

For this host who boasts the most, and you alone will come out ruined!

Mother raised no fool who'd heed the crap this half-breed bastard states;

Vince Vaughn's performance schtick more firmly grasped the task to master Bates!

 

Steven Universe:

Those bars couldn't scratch me were my gemstone gypsum; quite contrarily,

These triple-A-grade raps are cutting you with crystal-clarity!

A far cry from restorative, what I spit here amounts to acid,

And you'll share your dad's demise, like:

Connie: He can't see without his glasses!

Steven: Anyone, though, could see plain that your mom's off her wretched rocker;

If I knew no better, I'd swear I'd just heard three separate squawkers!

You're trapped in a private bubble by that hag's controlling force;

I've watched stabler relationships get straight self-dragged to ocean floors!

I do hope that you like it in your little motel; honestly,

But you'll get put to bed for good if you don't show some modesty,

You meager mouse! This tiger of a skillionaire's about to pin you;

Make like other feline forms with your aggression: discontinue!

No fat fry-boy'd fantasize your words'll get the best of me:

You'll be force-fed mine, á la far more infernal such entities,

'Cause I mean Bismuth: you don't wanna push me past my point of breaking!

Call me Ste-Van Sant; I'm matching you for every shot you're taking!

 

Norman Bates:

"Crystal clarity", he says; let me have at that addled shit,

And I'll show him elucidation!

Stay your hand; I'll handle this!

Boy, you can handle taking out the garbage; you ain't up to snuff

To carry this the way I can on your two legs!

Enough; enough!

Denying my lyrics' meatiness? Your own fanatics won't be happy;

They'll deem it more problematic than the crap they did to Zamii!

Understand me, or'd Rebecca Sugar-coat that, true to form

For a tart-bitch whose art-list starts with Eds and Ratatouille porn?

Get out of my hair, and hop into some carnationed walking dead's:

You'd better run-run-run away; I'm making like the Talking Heads,

And burning down the house until I'm free of all your verbal sinning,

For this battle, as a contest, ended with its own Beginning!

Watch me prove your emo matriarch inferiorly powered:

Knock you off your balanced breakfast, friend, 'til tears rain down in showers!

It's your final curtain call if you don't stay this confrontation;

Forty thousand bucks says you won't last halfway through its duration!

You're no Brody Baker, boy: best not boost beefs by bashing mamas;

Yeah, it's taxing that I'm asked to keep her acts from catching drama,

But I'll always do it for her for as long as we're together,

And that is to say, and don't forget it: you'll be here forever.

 

Steven Universe:

Threads alleging you descent-deceived were reeled back to the Spool?

I need no retroactive tricks; spit real-time counters as we duel,

While twenty-three years won't see you come back home once I've testified,

Seen through this nightmare by the same free speech ol' Dylan exercised,

Plus the same self-defense young Dylan exercised against your fury,

For this E.R.B.'s like A&E: I'll end you prematurely,

And you'll thank me for it, surely! Your whole outlook is defective,

So step off Susanna; let me let you see the full perspective:

Your split mind's cracked like a Rutile, and as for off-color jokes,

A sixfold grandma's Alice version'd have to wonder what you smoke!

Alarming points were made the day returning Homeworld forces landed,

And with six-decade-old spoilers, I'm being still-heavier-handed:

You should put your mom someplace, alright, but no madhouse will have her;

Try a mausoleum for the morbid, mummified cadaver,

And while hard-to-swallow truths quite clearly aren't your cup of tea,

The glass that poisoned her sure was, although you struck reluctantly,

And that's the sole detail for which I wouldn't give full clemency,

Because the mommy dearest to this boy was his worst enemy!

In fact, Crawfordian comparisons would paint her ire tamer:

If you'd wound up back inside her womb, she'd pay for wire hangers!

Now, your psyche's self-implanted with a vengeful vestige of her,

Mortally unmaking matches to divest you of a lover,

Save for memories of back when you slept next to one another!

Even Oedipus would go:

Lars: You are the densest motherfucker… AAAAAH!

 

(*REE, REE! REE, REE! REE, REE! REE, REE!*)

 

Norman Bates, "Norma Bates":

Fade to black for now for Norm, for Mother knows best in these matters;

Son, you're staring down the singular most seminal of slashers,

Whose small serving size of slayings was hardly hearty for the reaper,

But tonight, I'm stacking up the bodies, starting with a threefer!

I can see your geological progenitor's revered,

But single-year-old spoiler alert: they had you wrongly-steered.

A big ol' birdie couldn't tell all on her alleged act of violence,

But when I speak what the truth is, don't expect a smash to silence.

Her remaking took one stone's turn to a dorsal point of view,

But her deception can't be spun to any sort of rosy hue,

And you would know it, too! I heard it from a little fairy-Cartman:

You yourself confessed in your pursuit of planetary pardon

That you are incarnate of her soul, reforged in flesh and mind;

Made as a mule for managing the mess past forms had left behind.

She quit on life and ditched her proven, tried and true confidant-rock

To hitch a ride on Mr. Universe's suiciding cock!

Now, it's the Pink entelechy entire's trial, Quartz and all:

I'll be judge, jury, executioner and tearer-down of walls,

Of arteries, that is, so let me drive my knife into your heart,

And crack you to your very core; deny your life a third restart!

 

Steven Universe, "Pink Diamond":

Well, then, if you'd insist, a planet-champ commander's what I'll be,

Outspoken with sardonic humor and a hammer's subtlety!

This Diamond does the hitting here, stepped to the plate to pitch a flow

Against the sour transvestite of the Hitchcocky Horror Picture Show!

This bitch should know: a Gem-boss hero's got stars in his eyes;

Behind yours lives what the superior Sam Loomis summarized!

They ought to put you in a zoo, man: not some kind of Eden, either:

For if Norman's kind were mankind's norm, then I wouldn't even be here!

Don't complain of abdicating blame, Ms. "Wouldn't-harm-a-fly";

Bates is to Osborn as that carcass is to some wack Goblin mask!

I'm restoration of a culture's cornerstone, personified

For reformation from its harshness as a grand iconoclast!

I'm making Homeworld great again, though oppositely to America,

When all-inclusive love is what I usher in the era of,

Aberrance such as parents of apparent nuts as gimmicks,

Madly mimicked to extents of axing pregnant mates, omitted!

Don't expect you'll get me fretting with your serial killings;

I'd be hard-pressed to feel less threatened from your cereal-shilling,

And bringing up ride-hitching, are we? You'll regret that something awful

As you're finished with as faint fanfare as Bloch's own second novel!

End your call, "Ed"; you aren't even modeled, truly, after Gein;

Try some pathetic, obese maker of B movie magazines!

A single bound brought me up here for a return long-overdue;

There'll be no shortage, though, of legwork as I walk all over you!

 

Norman Bates, "Norma Bates":

Go get encased to taste your race of faking's fate; launched into space.

I'll Gallagher-smash all your Pikmin progeny, then break your your face,

While I fall closer to the form of flora Silverstein portrayed:

I give my all in setting out to take your everything away;

Leave but a stump, sunk in the swamp! I'll bust you, no failing, no contest:

Shatter Pink for sure, for real, and thus to Mohs' scale in the process;

Recreate some Swedish taxidermy with your dainty lion,

And we'll see if you still shine on after I get crazy, Diamond!

You'll say "Uncle" soon enough, and no, it isn't April Fools':

I'd blast you back to Kindergarten, if you'd ever been to school,

And just as your rogue runt of her dark army's litter slept too long,

You'll be left six-feet-under-grounded for the next millennium!

I speak authoritatively, like your big sisters blasting light,

To wreck your body, soul and mind, and do it all in black and white,

Suspenseful in the real way with the buildup to my blow-barrage,

While you have all the tact of your wack fifty-foot Nicki Minaj!

Yo, here's my fifty cents: it's down the drain for your hopes in the worst way;

Gonna watch your life ebb out like it's every one of your birthdays!

Getting diced to pieces on the mic, you'll be reduced to tears,

So emulate your own turf's breed of Onion, boy: avert your ears!

I'm going out on a limb here, although some Peridot, I ain't:

Log four-five-one will soon attest the Steven perished on this date!

You couldn't attack me free of peril in your own room of illusion;

Go and ask Maude's buddy Harold: Mother knows no substitution!

 

Steven Universe, "Pink Diamond":

Qu'est-ce que c'est; so, you suppose your killer win a fated thing?

You ought to know: it isn't over 'til the skinny lady sings!

You couldn't get a clue on my case if your name was Peter Sellers,

'Cause you're out of your mind, Bates: a fruitloop; best keep to the cellar!

As for lapses from the actual, I've had them, too; outright

Enacted past-abstractions, napping, trapped on freakshow jungle moons,

But in no dream would I stand for this! The tear-shedding you incite

Undoes that of the blood you've spilled, like:

Lars: …Bada-bingo, bongo-boom.

Steven: The spelling-out of your psychosis marked the low point of an opus,

But give me eight bars, and I'll succinctly state your diagnosis:

You're corrupted to the core; devoid of happiness in life,

And that's ignoring all the people you go stabbing with your knife!

I've pacified planet-sized Frankensteins smack-dab inside Earth's mantle,

But your mental clusterfuck is far too huge to help be handled!

Blue and Yellow both agree that such fixation is pathetic;

Tell me: what's the use of feeling murderously schizophrenic?

 

Norman Bates, "Norma Bates":

You chose poorly with time-travel, to which you yourself bore witness,

Yet it henceforth was forgotten, like some Harry Potter business.

I assure you: in this battle, you'll forevermore be finished;

Penetrating past projections, I defy blow-blocker gimmicks!

Plus, don't bother if it's some old sword you'd take up, grasp and harness;

Your girlfriend could do it better, and I'd snap that crap regardless!

While the junk involved when you two get together's dubious,

I'll slice you even, Steven; to the most distinct of juicy bits!

I'll see blood volumes lowered quarts, subjecting Rose's bud to nipping;

Give the biggest boot to Gems and holograms since twenty fifteen!

Follow fandom's lead and conjure yet another lame persona;

There's no way, dear, you'd escape your stay here were your name Rihanna!

Mother, this has gotten out of hand; it can't continue!

Shove it;

It's too late to turn your back against me now, boy, and besides,

Where was this protest when our other pretty patrons kicked the bucket?

But he's just a kid!

Trust me: within, a stone-cold slut's what hides!

I'll be your Sandman, though think less Chordettes, and more Metallica;

It's exit, son and enter, mother as she's forced smack out of ya',

So welcome to your final comeback, Pink! Skipping all celebratory formalities,

Cut it straight to the chase: make your case; be yourself as you're met with a gory fatality!

 

………

 

Steven Universe:

…DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK! There's only Steven; has been for years,

Like motherfuckers adhered to Ghostbusters' worst fears!

With lines between being finally drawn, let lines one sees be finely-drawn

As inner light rejoins the ether with a scream of FEIM ZII GRON!

Even while you're repentant, evil taints your every essence,

Cupid's arrow for potential sweethearts made a deadly sentence,

And it's evident: change your mind? I'd sooner get through to Crowder;

Your own better half alone could hope to shoo the shrew from power.

 

Norman Bates:

Don't just stand there, now; go after him!

I shouldn't do it…

What?!

Son, I command you: pick that blade back up, and put it through his gut!

I won't…

You'll let me at once out of your mind's space, you useless sack of nuts!

How about I'll defiantly beat a dead horse hind-faced, abusive hag to dust?!

Noooooo…

…And now it's over, isn't it? Yet, I can't just move on,

When murderous maternal madness has maintained for much too long;

They'll surely lock me up forever. Even so, though, I'll be free, then,

From delusion, dominance and the darkest of inner demons…

…And Steven.

 

WHO WON?

 

WHO'S NEXT?

 

I DECIDE!

 

MOLEMAN'S EPIC RAP BATTLES!!!

Tools:

-ReShade 4.5.4 + Custom Shaders

-CE Table By Phokz + Extra Tweaks by Elucidater

-4K DSR

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 not in Lettice’s flat. Instead, we have followed Lettice south-east, past the Royal Academy, across Picadilly, through the neighbouring borough of St James’ with its private clubs and gentlemen’s tailors, over St James’ Park and Birdcage Walk where once the Royal Menagerie and aviaries of King James I and King Charles II had stood, to Queen Anne’s Gate* in Westminster, lined with fine early Eighteenth Century townhouses. Walking beneath a cloudy spring sky with teasing peeks of blue between the rolling white and grey clouds, Lettice strides up the street with unhurried footsteps, cutting a fine figure in her three-quarter length fox fur coat with a wide brimmed red felt hat positioned at a jaunty angle on her head. The heels of her red pumps click along the footpath as she looks up pleasurably and admires the simple, elegant façades of the red and rich brown brick buildings around her, all set with rigid rows of twelve, nine and six pane Georgian windows. She pauses to make a closer inspection of one of the ornately carved canopies** over the main door of a residence. Painted in white to match the window frames of the house, the wood of the canopy is finely carved with a mixture of flowers, draped festoons, oak leaves and acorns. In the centre, the face of a woman, possibly Queen Anne herself, peers out surrounded by the curls of her hair and lace of her collar. It is then that she realises as she notices the shiny brass numbers nailed to the black painted door, that she has reached her destination. “Very nice.” she murmurs in a mixture of approval and admiration. She can hear the muffled sound of distant hammering but cannot tell whether it emanates from the house she stands before, or another in the row. Looking behind her she notices several tradesmen’s vehicles parked amidst the smarter Austins and Worsleys along the street. Walking up the two Portland stone steps to the front door she notices a bell pull sticking out of the red brick to the left of the door. She pulls it. From within the house the sound of a loud bell echoes hollowly, implying that the interior is devoid of furnishings. She waits, but when no-one comes to open the door, she exercises the bellpull for longer. Once again, the bell echoes mournfully from deep within the house behind the closed door. Finally, a pair of shuffling footsteps can be heard along with indecipherable muttering and then a vaguely familiar fruity cough as the latch to the door turns.

 

“Mrs. Boothby!” Lettice exclaims, coming face-to-face with the wrinkled face of her charwoman*** as the old Cockney woman opens the door to the townhouse.

 

“Well, as I live an’ breave!” she exclaims in return with a broad and toothy smile before coughing loudly again, making Lettice wince. “If it ain’t Miss Lettice! G’mornin’ mum!” Dressed in a bright floral cotton pinny over her dress and with an equally bright and cheerfully patterned scarf tied around her head, she bobs a curtsey respectfully. “You must be ‘ere to see Mrs. ‘Atchett! C’mon in wiv ya!”

 

Lettice walks through the door held open by Mrs. Boothby and steps into a well proportioned vestibule devoid of furnishings, but with traces of where furniture and paintings once were by way of tell-tale shadows and outlines on the floor and walls. Now that she has stepped into the townhouse, she can hear the hammering and sawing of tradesmen more clearly, confirming that the work she heard from outside is happening in this building. Ahead of her a carved dividing screen of two burnished mahogany columns with a delicate glass lunette**** of seven panes of clear glass splaying out from a central semi-circle above, frames an equally empty hallway at the end of which she can see the sweeping curl of a bannistered Georgian staircase with dainty spindles along it. Only a non-working clock with a brass frame showing the wrong time graces the walls of the hallway, imbedded into a space above a closed doorway that may possibly lead downstairs the servants’ quarters in the basement.

 

“Come this way, mum. Mrs. ‘Atchett’s frough ‘ere, just up the stairs, in the drawin’ room on the first floor.” Mrs. Boothby says. “If you can call it that right now.” The old woman leads the way, her low heeled shoes slapping across the dusty, stained and badly damaged parquetry floor, pieces of which are missing or sticking up, splintered. Noticing Lettice’s concerned look, the Mrs. Boothby goes on, “You mustn’t mind the mess, mum. It’s all sixes ‘n’ sevens ‘round ‘ere, what wiv tradesmen thumpin’ in and out in their ‘obnail boots*****. C’mon up.”

 

“How is it that you are here, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice asks in bewilderment as she follows the older woman down the hallway and up the staircase, which she finds is carpeted in a tatty, filthy and moth eaten Victorian stair runner.

 

“Well, you know ‘ow it is, mum. Word gets ‘round.” Mrs. Boothby replies with air of mystery.

 

“Does it, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice queries, eyeing the back of her charwoman sceptically as they ascend the stairs with Mrs. Boothby in the lead.

 

“Indeed it does, mum!” Mrs. Boothby replies cheerfully, releasing another of her fruity coughs as she does.

 

“This is quite a coincidence.” Lettice adds, remembering when she first visited the Pimlico flat of one of her former clients, the American film actress Wanetta Ward, and found Mrs. Boothby answering the door. “This wouldn’t happen to be because you heard from Edith that I was potentially going to do some redecoration for Mrs. Hatchett, would it Mrs. Boothby?”

 

Mrs. Boothby stops on the first floor landing. Turning back to face Lettice she allows her hand to rest upon the curving mahogany bannister. “’Eavens no, mum! Our Edith is the soul of discretion! She’d never gossip ‘bout you or ‘ooever you’re decoratin’ for!” she purposefully lies with an air of conviction in her voice, determined not to let Edith, Lettice’s maid, suffer any consequences because Mrs. Boothby easily wheedled out of her the fact that Mrs. Hatchett was setting up a house in Queen Anne’s Gate with her Member of Parliament husband. “’Er mum brung ‘er up proppa, just like mine did me.”

 

“Of course, Mrs. Boothby!” Lettice finds herself apologising. “So, how did you find this position, working for Mrs. Hatchett, then, Mrs. Boothby?”

 

“Well I cleaned for Lady Pembroke-Duttson, just ‘round the corner from ‘ere ‘till ‘er ‘ouse burnt dahwn in November that is. I was doin’ for ‘er in ‘er new ‘ouse in them fancy Artillery Mansions******, and she mentioned that Mrs. ‘Atchett was movin’ into the neighbour’ood, so I made some enquiries. So, ‘ere I is.” She spreads her careworn hands expansively. “Lady Pembroke-Duttson left a big gap in me schedule, so I’m ‘opin’ this’ll be permanent like soon.”

 

“But I thought you just said you were still cleaning for Lady Pembroke-Duttson, Mrs. Boothby.” Lettice says with a sceptical squint.

 

“Ay?” the old woman asks.

 

“You just said that you were cleaning for Lady Pembroke-Duttson.” Lettice elucidates. “How can she leave a gap in your schedule of jobs if you’re still cleaning for her.”

 

Thinking quickly on her feet, Mrs. Boothby releases a throaty chuckle, blushing as she does. “Lawd luv you, mum! Cleanin’ a flat in Artillery Mansions ain’t like cleanin’ ‘er old ‘ouse what burnt dahwn. ‘Er old ‘ouse ‘ad ever so many rooms, whereas now she’s got rooms ‘bout the size of yours, mum. That leaves a big gap, mum.”

 

Lettice silently wonders whether the old charwoman’s story holds any truth, however she has no proof that it doesn’t, so she just smiles benignly and nods. Whether Mrs. Boothby squeezes titbits of gossip from Edith or not, the pair of domestics keep Lettice’s Cavendish Mews flat spick and span, and with such difficulty finding decent staff in the aftermath of the war, Lettice decides that she best say nothing about her suspicions to Edith.

 

“Anyway,” Mrs. Boothby adds. “It’s only right, ain’t it?”

 

“What is, Mrs. Boothby?”

 

“Me cleanin’ for Mr. and Mrs. “Atchett, mum.”

 

“How so, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice queries.

 

“Well, Charlie ‘Atchett’s the MP for Tower ‘Amlets*******, and that includes me, what wiv me own ‘ouse bein’ in Poplar! It’s only right!”

 

“Does Mrs. Hatchett know that you clean for me, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice asks warily, holding her breath as she speaks.

 

“Lawn no, mum.” Mrs. Boothby cackles.

 

“Well, just see that she doesn’t, Mrs. Boothby.” Lettice snaps, irritated by the cockney woman’s gib attitude to the situation. “I can’t have a whiff of any perceived potential gossip from me with Mrs. Hatchett. I won’t have any such thing jeopardise this commission.”

 

“As if I would.” Mrs. Boothby replies with a lofty air. “Come along now. She’s just in ‘ere.”

 

The pair walk down a dingy oak panelled corridor lined with open doors through which Lettice can see a series of rooms in different states of decay and repair, all empty except for one where a group of workmen on scaffolds strip paper off a wall and patch the brickwork behind it, and a second where men are laying a new floor, which is where all the hammering is emanating from. The old Cockney woman leads Lettice past a fine mahogany door that has been removed from its hinges and into a gloomy room devoid of furniture except for a pair of old, mouldering brown leather wingback******** armchairs, a neat pedestal table and a portrait sitting on an easel. A large white marble fireplace is being scrubbed with a wiry brush by another charwoman, far younger than Mrs. Boothby, overweight and with a mass of black curls tied back off her face by a rag bandeau********* on her hands and knees in front of the grate, grunting noisily with her laboured movements, her efforts revealing beautiful white details from beneath many years of brown grime.

 

“Well, she was ‘ere, mum.” Mrs. Boothby apologises in surprise. “I dunno know where she’s gawn now.” She looks at the other charwoman cleaning the fireplace. “’Ere, Elsie! You know where Mrs. ‘Atchett’s gawn?”

 

“Nah!” the charwoman grunts back monosyllabically before pausing in her labours and leaning back on her haunches and looks up at Mrs. Boothby, ignoring Lettice’s presence entirely. “Gawn to the lav most likely. I think I need it too. Cleanin’ this fireplace gives me the shits**********!”

 

Lettice sucks in a gulp of air in shock at the other woman’s vulgarity.

 

“Elsie!” Mrs. Boothby exclaims aghast. “Whachoo fink you’re doin’, sayin’ words like that in front of a laydee! This ‘ere is the Honourable Miss Lettice Chetwynd, what’s a friend of Mrs. ‘Atchett’s.” She gesticulates with sweeping gestures around Lettice like a vendeuse*********** showing off a model in the latest fashion.

 

“So?” Elise replies, yawning loudly, giving Lettice ample view of her grey, rotting teeth. “’S not my concern!” Scrabbling off her knees with another exhausted groan, she wanders off lazily, her down-at-heel slippers slapping loudly across the floor as she exits the room through another door, muttering to herself as she does.

 

“I do beg your pardon, mum.” Mrs. Boothby apologises profusely.

 

“It’s quite alright, Mrs. Boothby.” Lettice replies, gracefully attempting to smooth over the nasty gaff from the other woman.

 

“No it ain’t! Elsie’s got no right to talk to you like that! Elsie was ‘ere when I arrived. I dunno, ‘cos I don’t talk to ‘er much, but I fink she’s the daughter of one of the carp’nters,” She indicates behind her with her right thumb. “And the wife of annuva. She’s very rude, lazy, and got no respect for no-one.” Her old face crumples in distaste. “She certainly ain’t no friend of mine, and that’s a fact!”

 

“Really, it’s quite fine.” Lettice assures Mrs. Boothby.

 

“I’ll go see if I can find Mrs. ‘Atchett for you, mum.” Mrs. Boothby says soothingly, bustling from the room through the same open door Elsie had exited through.

 

Left alone, Lettice is better able to explore and take in her gloomy surroundings. The walls are papered in old fashioned Victorian flocked wallpaper which must once have been a beautiful gold, but is now dreary, faded and tattered. Large floor to ceiling bookshelves made of dark mahogany run along the walls to either side of the fireplace, adding to the overall cheerlessness of the room. Dirty and torn scrim hangs at the window, obscuring the view and the much needed daylight. There is a pervading smell of damp which is only offset by the scent of freshly cut timber coming from the carpenters laying the floor down the hallway. Lettice notices a single ornate pedestal appearing out of the gloom in the space to the right of the fireplace. Various cleaning agents have been left around the room: some Vim*********** on an empty bookshelf beneath a bright yellow cleaning cloth, probably deposited there by Mrs. Boothby, and some Zebo Grate Polish************* on the mantle along with a feather duster. The blue, red and yellow Victorian carpet beneath her feet must once have been very fine, but now, like the stair runner is faded, worn and dirty. In fact, aside from the portrait on the easel, there is a thick film of filth on almost every surface, as though it has been decades since the room was property cleaned. The portrait however, is dazzling by comparison to its surroundings. Set in a simple gold frame, the oil on canvas depicts Mrs. Hatchett with her modishly styled blonde hair and pale peaches and cream complexion in a pale blue gown against a neutral coloured background. Mrs. Hatchett’s eyes glitter and sparkle whilst a gentle smile teases the edges of her reddened lips. The strokes are bold and the image has a sense of energy and about it.

 

“Do you like it, Miss Chetwynd?” comes a familiar voice.

 

Lettice turns and sees Dolly Hatchett standing in the doorway Mrs. Boothby and Elsie had disappeared through. Like her portrait, Mrs. Hatchett’s pale blue eyes twinkle and sparkle with life, and her soft skin has a gentle glow to it as she smiles at Lettice, her simple gesture adding warmth and joy to the cheerless room. No wonder Captain Charles Hatchett, home on leave during the Great War, had fallen in love with the chorus girl from ‘Chu Chin Chow’************** as he watched her in the darkened auditorium of His Majesty’s Theatre. Wrapped in a sleek full length mink coat with a string of pearls at her throat and a fashionable black felt cloche from under which her blonde waves poke, the slightly awkward and gauche wife of the once banker, now Member of Parliament, that Lettice met for the first time at her Sussex home in 1921 is gone. In her place stands an elegant and confident woman whose experience, social advancement and successes since that time have given her a presence which Lettice cannot help but admire.

 

“Mrs. Hatchett!” Lettice exclaims. “You look wonderful!”

 

Mrs. Hatchett laughs, her peal beautiful and carefree, as she steps into the room, walking with poise across the carpet to Lettice’s side. “No, not me, Miss Chetwynd, the portrait!”

 

“Oh!” Lettice turns and glances back at the painting before returning her attention to Mrs. Hatchett. “Oh it’s marvellous too, but not nearly so much as you, Mrs. Hatchett.” she enthuses.

 

“You always were so kind to me, Miss Chetwynd,” Mrs. Hatchett says with a dismissive sweep of her hand. “Thank you.” She blushes.

 

“You’ve changed so much, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice remarks with a smile. “You are nothing like the, dare I say it, mousey, young woman I met in 1921! You’re so, so assured, self-possessed!”

 

Mrs. Hatchett laughs again. “I’m still little Dolly Hatchett the chorus girl under my warpaint.” She cocks an expertly plucked and shaped eyebrow, also newly acquired since Lettice last met her, over her eye. “I’m just better at disguising her now, so I can be the suitable wife successful MP for Towers Hamlets, Charles Hatchett, needs.”

 

“I’m sure it’s more than that, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice counters.

 

“Maybe,” Mrs. Hatchett admits quietly. “But if it is, I have you and dear Mr. Bruton to thank for it. You helped me to understand that I deserved more respect than that which I received from my mother-in-law, and Mr. Bruton taught me the power of clothes when it comes to presenting a confident appearance.”

 

“Indeed he has!” Lettice sighs. “You look ever so smart and select, Mrs. Hatchett.”

 

“Thank you, Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs. Hatchett purrs. “Goodness, it does seem an age since that wonderful weekend at ‘The Gables’.”

 

“Yes, we were celebrating the completion of my interior decoration for you.”

 

“And you encouraged me to let myself be dressed by Mr. Bruton that first evening. Now everyone in Rotherfield and Mark Cross, and a good many more beyond it, follows what I wear with interest and try to mimic it.”

 

“Well, I’m happy for you, Mrs. Hatchett.”

 

A gust of wind blows outside, causing the windows to rattle in their casings and the scrim to quiver. The rasp of leaves echoes from the fireplace and some dust and soot falls from the chimney and into the empty blacklead grate.

 

Lettice shivers. “I’m glad you warned me to wear a fur coat here, Mrs. Hatchett. It’s rather chilly.”

 

“I’d have had a fire laid, Miss Chetwynd,” Mrs. Hatchett apologises. “But I’m a bit apprehensive that the whole place doesn’t ignite before I get chimney sweeps in to check and clean the flues. One of the daily women I’ve hired told me of a woman who lived not far from here that she cleaned for, whose house went up in flames dramatically in November.”

 

“Did she?” Lettice tries to muffle a gentle smile with her hand.

 

“She did! She said she was lucky to get away with her life!”

 

Lettice’s smile broadens as she recognises the more innocent, less worldly, but more endearing Dolly Hatchett carefully obscured beneath the layers of Gerald’s couture, just as Mrs. Hatchett assured her she was.

 

“Anyway,” Mrs. Hatchett goes on. “What do you think of the House of Usher?”

 

“You don’t like it, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice queries, surprised considering how enthused Mrs. Hatchett had sounded over the telephone about she and her husband’s new London home, intended to replace the pied-à-terre*************** in Kensington that Charles and she are currently using as their London base.

 

“Oh I do from the outside,” Mrs. Hatchett quickly explains. “But this…” Her voice trails off as she waves her hand around the room.

 

“Yes,” Lettice sighs. “This.”

 

As if the house knows that it is being spoken of disparagingly, some more soot falls from somewhere high above, crashing and crumbling into the grate in a disgruntled fashion.

 

“Charlie tells me that her bones are good,” Mrs. Hatchett goes on. “But looking about these rooms all I see is decay.”

 

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, Mrs. Hatchett!” Lettice blusters. “It seems to me that you’ve already begun the house’s rebirth and renewal. The rooms are well proportioned, being early Eighteenth Century.”

 

“Aaahh…” Mrs. Hatchett sighs contentedly. “And that’s why I need your eye of possibility again, Miss Chetwynd. You saw through all my mother-in-law’s drab Victorian décor at ‘The Gables’ and envisioned how beautiful and light it could be, and you brought that vision to fruition. Now you can see it here, or at least I hope you can, somewhere under the layers and layers of filth and decomposition.”

 

“I think I can.” Lettice admits, looking around the room again.

 

She goes to sit in the larger of the old wingback brown leather chairs.

 

“Oh, I shouldn’t do that if I were you, Miss Chetwynd!” Mrs. Hatchett exclaims, putting out her hands to stop Lettice from sitting.

 

“Why ever not, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice asks in surprise.

 

“Well, for a start, in case you hadn’t noticed, we do have a bit of damp problem. There’s nothing to say it hasn’t gotten into the furniture left by the auctioneers when they cleaned the house out.”

 

“Yes,” Lettice sniffs and screws up her nose a little. “There is a definite sense of dampness in the air.”

 

“Oh, and behind these worn old papers,” She gesticulates around the room again. “And in the plaster ceilings, under the wainscots, and,” She moves the toe of her black leather pump back and forth on the carpet, making the parquet flooring beneath groan. “And the floorboards.”

 

“Oh don’t, Mrs. Hatchett!” Lettice pleads her hostess, who smiles cheekily when she sees Lettice shiver.

 

Stopping her torment of the floor, Mrs. Hatchett goes on. “Secondly, I believe he died there.”

 

“Who?” Lettice’s eyes grow wide as she stares at the worn seat of the chair.

 

“The Admiral.” Mrs. Hatchett replies, pointing to the single painting hanging on the wall in the room, hanging above the fireplace.

 

Lettice looks up at the portrait, which like most everything else in the room is dark and covered in a film of dirt. Through the filth, beneath the cracking golden yellow layers of varnish, Lettice can see a rather handsome looking gentleman in a dark frock coat and orange breeches leaning against a wall, gazing out of the frame into the distance.

 

“Or so I have on good authority.” Mrs. Hatchett adds.

 

“From whom?” Lettice asks in alarm.

 

“From his old housekeeper.” Mrs. Hatchett replies. “She came with the house, staying on after the Admiral died to show us, as the new owners, the quirks of the house.”

 

“That’s quite a quirk!” Lettice looks askance at the chair.

 

“Apparently, he was one hundred and twelve when he died. He was bed, ahem…” Mrs. Hatchett clears her throat awkwardly. “Chair ridden and he only lived in this room and a few others since 1910. You wait until I show you some of the downstairs rooms towards Birdcage Walk where the garden has unceremoniously entered the house.”

 

“Well, I shall lo…” Lettice begins when a sudden rattling over crockery interrupts her words.

 

“’Ere we are mum… err… Miss… Miss Chetwynd,” Mrs. Boothby stutters as she quickly remembers that she is supposed to pretend that she doesn’t know Lettice. “And Mrs. ‘Atchett.” The old woman walks into the room carrying a wooden tray on which sit two plain white teacups and saucers, a matching milk jug, sugar bowl, a non-matching but pretty floral teapot covered in pink roses, and a tin of Huntly and Palmer**************** biscuits.

 

“Oh splendid timing Mrs. Boothby!” Mrs. Hatchett sighs, clapping her steepled fingers in delight.

 

With a groan, Mrs. Boothby lowers it onto the pedestal table. “Take a seat, mu… Miss Chetwynd and Mrs. ‘Atchett!”

 

“I think I’d prefer to stand.” Lettice remarks, looks askance at the chair.

 

“Suit yourself.” Mrs. Boothby remarks, looking oddly first at Lettice and then at the chair, screwing up her nose as she considers the chair may be a little grubby, but not beyond her mistress sitting in. “Do you want me to keep cleanin’ in ‘ere, mum?” she addresses Mrs. Hatchett.

 

Lettice almost replies automatically, but luckily her utterance is cut off by Mrs. Hatchett.

 

“If you’d just focus on the dining room for now, thank you Mrs. Boothby. You may return here after Miss Chetwynd and I have finished our business.”

 

“Very good, mum.” Mrs. Boothby answers, dropping a quick bob curtsey. She turns and goes to walk away. Then she turns back to Mrs. Hatchett. “Oh, and mum?”

 

“Yes Mrs. Boothby?” Mrs. Hatchett asks.

 

“You’re still alright wiv me ‘avin that old teapot I found,” She nods towards the floral teapot on the tray.

 

“Oh yes, Mrs. Boothby. Of course! Of course!” Mrs. Hatchett replies.

 

She giggles once the old Cockney woman has left the room. “I do believe she is a bit of a collector.” She smiles indulgently at Lettice. “But I rather like her, so I can’t help but indulge her.”

 

“She is certainly nicer than the other daily woman I met.” Lettice adds seriously.

 

“Oh, the other one came with them.” Mrs. Hatchett indicates through the door off its hinges into the hallway where the banging of nails being hammered into wood continue. “She’s rather slovenly, and certainly sullen.”

 

“You still can’t quite manage the staff, can you, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice chuckles.

 

Mrs. Hatchett chuckles self consciously in return. “I told you that it’s still little me under this façade that you and Mr. Bruton helped to create.” She muses silently to herself, smiling before continuing, “I think I might employ her as a daily.”

 

“What?” Lettice ask in surprise. “Who?”

 

“Mrs. Boothby. The old woman who answered the door to you and brought our tea in. She’s been very reliable and works hard, she knows the area well, has a cheerful disposition, and she seems to have some rather good references.”

 

Lettice does not reply to Mrs. Hatchett’s remarks about Mrs. Boothby as Mrs. Hatchett sets about pouring tea into the teacups, which Lettice notices are thicker and plainer than what she is used to, and assumes that they must be part of an old servant’s set from below stairs, left when the Admiral’s more finer possessions were cleared out by the auctioneers who sold off his estate. Perhaps the teapot escaped by being hidden in an out of the way corner cupboard, she considers.

 

“So, Mrs. Hatchett,” Lettice finally says with a sigh, accepting a cup of tea proffered to her by Mrs. Hatchett to which she adds sugar and milk. “You’d like me to decorate this room, a dining room and another reception room?”

 

“Yes, Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs. Hatchett enthuses. “The suite of principal rooms on this floor, which Charlie and I will use as our main entertaining space.”

 

“I shall have to see the state of the other rooms.” Lettice sips her tea as she stands next to Mrs. Hatchett and looks again around the gloomy interior in the midst of which they stand with a critical eye.

 

“I shall take you on a tour directly after we’ve had our tea, Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs. Hatchett replies. “And I’ll show you some of the rooms you won’t have to deal with, luckily for you. Biscuit?” She opens the tin of Huntley and Palmer’s Empire Assortment and proffers the selection of biscuits to Lettice.

 

“I can’t take your commission on straight away.” Lettice tempers her companion’s enthusiasm as she selects a jam fancy from amongst the biscuits on the offing in the tin. “I’ve just accepted a commission from another client who wants some work done on her country house in Essex.”

 

“Oh, that’s alright!” Mrs. Hatchett replies, selecting a Bourbon biscuit for herself. “This place won’t be shipshape for a good month or two yet: maybe even longer. Work is only really just getting started.” She bites into her biscuit and munches it pleasurably.

 

“And what do you envisage this time, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice asks after finishing her own mouthful of biscuit and sip of tea. “Oh, and just to be clear, I won’t settle for chintz of any kind this time.”

 

“Oh no, my dear Miss Chetwynd! Of course not!” Mrs. Hatchett assures her.

 

“Well, I know you have a fondness for it, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice eyes Mrs. Hatchett over the white china edge of her cup as she takes another sip of tea.

 

“I do, Miss Chetwynd. I won’t lie.” Mrs. Hatchett admits guiltily. “But not this time. Not here.”

 

“Good!” Lettice replies. “Then we are in agreeance.”

 

“When you came to ‘The Gables’, Miss Chetwynd,” Mrs. Hatchett goes on. “I told you that I didn’t need you to ape the houses of peers with your own taste.”

 

“Yes, I remember that, Mrs. Hatchett.”

 

“Well this time, because this is a London house, and a place where Charlie and I plan to entertain other MPs and dignitaries, I need Queen Anne’s Gate to exude stability, knowledge and most of all, sophistication.”

 

“And what does that look like to you, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice asks.

 

“No, what does it look like to you, Miss Chetwynd? You once again have a clean slate to work with.” She looks around her critically. “Or rather it will be when you come back.”

 

“If I agree.” Lettice counters.

 

“Can you resist such an offer, Miss Chetwynd? I’m giving you carte blanche to redesign and decorate these rooms.”

 

“Do you really mean that, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice asks. When Mrs. Hatchett nods her confirmation, Lettice goes on, “Well, if I am to be given carte blanche, may I ask, how avant-garde might I be permitted to be with this interior design?”

 

“As much as you want, Miss Chetwynd!” Mrs. Hatchett says with a hopeful lilt. “Carte blanche! Neither Charlie nor I know anything about art perse, so we’ll be guided by you. My only request is that I was hoping you could take some of your inspiration from my portrait in your design.” She walks over to her portrait and rubs the edge of the gilded frame affectionately. “You see, I’m really rather proud of it, and I want it to hang above the fireplace in here in place of the Admiral’s portrait.”

 

“A centrepiece?”

 

“Yes, that’s right!”

 

Lettice looks at the portrait again, carefully admiring the vivid brushstrokes of the artist who has so expertly captured Mrs. Hatchett’s spirit. “Very good, Mrs. Hatchett.” she agrees with a smile.

 

“Oh hoorah!” Mrs. Hatchett deposits her teacup and what is left of her biscuit on the tray and claps her hands in delight. “So, what have you in mind, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“There is an exhibition happening in Paris in April. It’s called ‘Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes’*****************. It is highlighting and showcasing the new modern style of architecture and interior design: a style I am an exponent of. I’m planning to go when it opens, Mrs. Hatchett, and I’m hoping to gather new ideas on interior design there and incorporate them into my own. Since the house won’t be finished for a few months, I could use your interior designs to showcase some of my ideas inspired by the exhibition.”

 

“I say!” Mrs. Hatchett breathes. “How deliciously fashionable! I’d have the most avant-garde house amongst the MPs’ wives! That would be a feather for my cap!”

 

“Yes, it would, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice purrs. “You’d be the most fashionable, the most up-to-date, the most smart and select.”

 

“Yes! I agree!” Mrs. Hatchett laughs. “As avant-garde and daring as you like, Miss Chetwynd!”

 

“Then we’d best finish our tea so you can show me around, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice concludes.

 

*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.

 

**Originally a street and a square, Queen Anne’s Gate began life as Queen Square and Park Street. The two were separated by a high wall until 1873when the two areas were combined into Queen Anne’s Gate. Queen Square was constructed first, then when Park Street was constructed, residents of Queen Square were so concerned that the road would be used as a cut through for carriages to avoid the traffic of King Street, the Sanctuary and Tothill Street that a subscription was collected for the building of the wall to avoid the residents having the peace of their square disturbed. The architecture of the buildings in the original Queen Square part of Queen Anne’s Gate is superb, and the main doors to the majority of buildings have very elaborate decorated wooden canopies.

 

***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.

 

****A lunette is a crescent- or half-moon–shaped or semi-circular architectural space or feature, usually above a doorway or walkway, variously filled by windows, masonry, a painted mural, or sometimes left void.

 

*****Hobnailed boots (known in Scotland as “tackety boots”) are boots with hobnails (nails inserted into the soles of the boots), usually installed in a regular pattern, over the sole. They usually have an iron horseshoe-shaped insert, called a heel iron, to strengthen the heel, and an iron toe-piece. They may also have steel toecaps. Often used for mountaineering, the hobnails project below the sole and provide traction on soft or rocky terrain and snow, but they tend to slide on smooth, hard surfaces. They have been used since antiquity for inexpensive durable footwear, and were often by workmen and the military.

 

******Built in Westminster, quite close to the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament Artillery Mansions was just one of the many fine Victorian mansion blocks to be built in Victoria Street around St James Underground Railway Station in the late 1800s. Constructed around open courtyards which served as carriageways and residential gardens, the mansion blocks were typically built of red brick in the fashionable Queen Anne style. The apartments were designed to appeal to young bachelors or MPs who often had late parliamentary sittings, with many of the apartments not having kitchens, providing instead communal dining areas, rather like a gentleman’s club. Artillery Mansions, like many large mansion blocks employed their own servants to maintain the flats and address the needs of residents. During the Second World War, Artillery Mansions was commandeered by the Secret Intelligence Service as a headquarters. After the war, the building reverted to private residences again, but with so many of its former inhabitants either dead, elderly or in changed circumstances owing to the war, it became a place to house many ex-servicemen. The Army and Navy Company, who ran the Army and Navy Stores just up Victoria Street registered ‘Army and Navy Ltd.’ at Artillery Mansions as a lettings management company. By the 1980s, Artillery Mansions was deserted and in a state of disrepair. It was taken over by a group of ideological squatters who were determined to bring homelessness and housing affordability to the government’s attention, but within ten years, with misaligned ideologies and infighting, the squatters had moved on, and in the 1990s, Artillery Mansions was bought by developers and turned into luxury apartments.

 

*******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.

 

********A wingback chair is a type of chair with a back that curves out to the sides. Wingback chairs are named for the wings, or extensions, of fabric on either side of the seat, typically, but not always, stretching down to the arm rest. The wings can be made of wood or metal, but they're typically padded and upholstered in fabric. The wingback chair was invented in the Sixteenth Century. It was created during a period of fine English furniture design when English furniture makers were creating furniture that has elaborate designs and ornate carvings. The name “wingback chair” is derived from the chair's back wings. The wings were added to provide support for the head and neck of the person sitting in it, as well as affording the sitter with protection from draughts and to trap the heat from a fireplace in the area where the person would be sitting. Hence, in the past, these were often used near a fireplace. They also provided a place for a person to rest their arms, which gave it its distinctive look—a shape similar to that of a bird's wing or butterfly wing.

 

*********A bandeau is a narrow band worn round the head to hold the hair in position.

 

**********Believe it or not, but the interjection of “shit” was not uncommon by the 1920s amidst the lower classes. The earliest known use of the interjection shit is in the 1860s. It is also recorded as a noun from the Old English period (pre-1150).

 

***********Derived from the French, a vendeuse is a saleswoman, usually one in a fashionable dress shop.

 

************Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.

 

*************Zebo (or originally Zebra) Grate Polish was a substance launched in 1890 by Reckitts to polish the grate to a gleam using a mixture that consisted of pure black graphite finely ground, carbon black, a binding agent and a solvent to keep it fluid for application with a cloth or more commonly newspaper.

 

************* ‘Chu Chin Chow’ is a musical comedy written, produced and directed by Oscar Asche, with music by Frederic Norton, based on the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It was the most popular show in London’s West End during the Great War. It premiered at His Majesty’s Theatre in London on the 3rd of August 1916 and ran for 2,238 performances, a record number that stood for nearly forty years!

 

**************The Fall of the House of Usher is a short story in the horror/gothic genre by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The story revolves around the narrator visiting his the house of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher: the House of Usher falling slowly but more surely into decrepitude as the story goes on, before finally splitting in two as the narrator flees, and silking into a lake.

 

***************A pied-à-terre is a small flat, house, or room kept for occasional use.

 

****************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, morning and afternoon tea and reading time.

 

*****************The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts was a specialized exhibition held in Paris, from April the 29th (the day after it was inaugurated in a private ceremony by the President of France) to October the 25the, 1925. It was designed by the French government to highlight the new modern style of architecture, interior decoration, furniture, glass, jewelry and other decorative arts in Europe and throughout the world. Many ideas of the international avant-garde in the fields of architecture and applied arts were presented for the first time at the exposition. The event took place between the esplanade of Les Invalides and the entrances of the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, and on both banks of the Seine. There were fifteen thousand exhibitors from twenty different countries, and it was visited by sixteen million people during its seven-month run. The modern style presented at the exposition later became known as “Art Deco”, after the exposition's name.

 

Although this may appear to be a real room, this is in fact made up with 1:12 miniatures from my miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The two intentionally worn leather wingback chairs are both 1:12 artisan miniatures which I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. The small pedestal table, the white plaster fireplace, the black painted metal fire basket and fender, black painted fire irons, easel, metal step ladder and pedestal also come from there. The painting on the easel is my own selection of what I thought Mrs. Hatchett might look like, put into a gilded frame that also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop.

 

The wooden tea tray is a 1;12 artisan miniature piece that I acquired from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay. The floral teapot is an artisan piece as well, decorated by the artist Rachel Munday, whose work is highly prized by miniatures collectors. The Huntley and Palmer’s Empire Assorted Biscuit tin containing a replica selection of biscuits is also a 1:12 artisan piece. The plain white teacups, milk jug and sugar bowl are painted metal and come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.

 

The painting hanging above the fireplace came from Amber’s Miniatures in the United States.

 

On the fireplace stands a bottle of Zebo grate polish and a can of Brasso. Zebo (or originally Zebra) Grate Polish was a substance launched in 1890 by Reckitts to polish the grate to a gleam using a mixture that consisted of pure black graphite finely ground, carbon black, a binding agent and a solvent to keep it fluid for application with a cloth or more commonly newspaper.

 

The feather duster on the fireplace mantle I made myself using fledgling feathers (very spring) which I picked up off the lawn one day thinking they would come in handy in my miniatures collection sometime. I bound them with thread to the handle which is made from a fancy ended toothpick!

 

On s shelf to the right of the photo on top of a yellow cleaning cloth is a can of Vim with stylised Edwardian. Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.

 

The flocked wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend who encouraged me to use it as wallpaper for my 1:12 miniature tableaux.

 

The large Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin

 

Dublin (Irish: Baile Átha Cliath) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. It is on the east coast of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, at the mouth of the River Liffey, and is bordered on the south by the Wicklow Mountains. It has an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the Dublin Region (formerly County Dublin), as of 2016, was 1,347,359, and the population of the Greater Dublin area was 1,904,806.

 

There is archaeological debate regarding precisely where Dublin was established by the Gaels in or before the 7th century AD. Later expanded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin, the city became Ireland's principal settlement following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800. Following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland.

 

Dublin is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration and industry. As of 2018 the city was listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as a global city, with a ranking of "Alpha −", which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce

 

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, most famously stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, his published letters and occasional journalism.

 

Joyce was born in Dublin into a middle-class family. A brilliant student, he briefly attended the Christian Brothers-run O'Connell School before excelling at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's alcoholism and unpredictable finances. He went on to attend University College Dublin.

 

In 1904, in his early twenties, Joyce emigrated to continental Europe with his partner (and later wife) Nora Barnacle. They lived in Trieste, Paris, and Zurich. Although most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe centres on Dublin and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there. Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses, he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce_Centre

 

The James Joyce Centre is a museum in Dublin, Ireland, dedicated to promoting an understanding of the life and works of James Joyce.

 

The Centre is situated in a restored 18th-century Georgian townhouse at 35 North Great George's Street, Dublin, dating from a time when north inner city Dublin was at the height of its grandeur. On permanent exhibit is furniture from Paul Leon's apartment in Paris, where Joyce wrote much of Finnegans Wake, and the door to the home of Leopold Bloom and his wife, Molly, number 7 Eccles Street one of the more famous addresses in literature, which had been rescued from demolition by John Ryan. Temporary exhibitions interpret and illuminate various aspects of Joyce's life and work.

 

There is another Joycean display at the James Joyce Tower in Sandycove.

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 is not long returned from Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice visited her family home for Christmas and the New Year until not long after Twelfth Night*. For nearly a year Lettice had been patiently awaiting the return of her then beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Having been made aware by Lady Zinnia in October that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice had been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he had become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice returned to Cavendish Mews and milled over her options over a week as she reeled from the news. Then, after that week, she knew exactly what to do to resolve the unpleasant issues raised by Lady Zinnia’s unwelcome news about her son. Taking extra care in her dress, she took herself off to the neighbouring upper-class London suburb of Belgravia and paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.

 

Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice recently reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show in Soho, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded. However, in an effort to be discreet, at Lettice’s insistence, they did not make their engagement public until the new year: after the dust about Selwyn’s break of his and Lettice’s engagement settled. Sir John motored across from Fontengil Park in the days following New Year and he and Lettice announced their engagement in the palatial Glynes drawing room before the Viscount and Lady Sadie the Countess, Leslie, Arabella and the Viscount’s sister Eglantyne (known by all the Chetwynd children affectionally as Aunt Egg). The announcement was received somewhat awkwardly by the Viscount initially, until Lettice assured him that her choice to marry Sir John has nothing to do with undue influence or mistaken motivations. However, the person most put out by the news is Aunt Egg who is not a great believer in the institution of marriage, and feels Lettice was perfectly fine as a modern unmarried woman.

 

Today Lettice is entertaining her Aunt Egg in her elegantly appointed Cavendish Mews drawing room in an effort to curry favour with her and change her mind about the engagement of Lettice and Sir John.

 

“Oh Aunt Egg!” Lettice exclaims in exasperation, sinking in the rounded back of her white upholstered tub chair. “After the somewhat mediocre response to my engagement to John, I need someone in my corner.”

 

“And why would that be me, my dear Lettice?” Eglantyne asks.

 

“Well, I… I just thought.” Lettice stammers.

 

“You thought what, Lettice?”

 

“Well, usually you are at odds with Mater. If Mater says it is white, you say it is black. I thought, well I thought that since Mamma seems to be as lukewarm to the idea of me becoming the next Lady Nettleford-Hughes..”

 

“That I would immediately be for it, my dear?” Eglantyne finishes Lettice’s statement for her as she picks up her teacup and sips some more tea from it beneath lowered lids, avoiding Lettice’s imploring gaze, before returning it to its saucer.

 

“Well… well yes.” Lettice admits guiltily.

 

Lettice’s Aunt Egg, as well as being unmarried, is an artist and ceramicist of some acclaim. Originally a member of the Pre-Raphaelites** in England, these days she flits through artistic and bohemian circles and when not at her Little Venice*** home in her spacious and light filled studio at the rear of her garden, can be found mixing with mostly younger artistic friends in Chelsea. Her unmarried status, outlandish choice of friends and rather reformist and unusual dress sense shocks Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, and attracts her derision. In addition, she draws Sadie’s ire, as Aunt Egg has always received far more affection and preferential treatment from her children. Viscount Wrexham on the other hand adores his artistic little sister, and has always made sure that she can live the lifestyle she chooses and create art. Today Eglantyne has eschewed her usual choice of an elegant and column like Delphos gown**** and has opted instead for a rather loose and slightly mannish two piece suit of dark navy wool crêpe. However, as a lover of colour and bohemian style, she has accessorised it with a hand painted Florentine silk scarf splashed with purples and magentas, and as usual, she has strings of colourful glass bugle bead sautoirs***** cascading down her front. When she was young, Eglantyne had Titian red hair that fell in wavy tresses about her pale face, making her a popular muse amongst the Pre-Raphaelites she mixed with. With the passing years, her red hair, when not hennaed, has retreated almost entirely behind silver grey, save for the occasional streak of washed out reddish orange. Today she has hidden it beneath a very impressive turban, which in spite of being dyed navy to match her suit, is at odds with it, especially with a rather exotic aigrette****** of magenta dyed feathers affixed with a diamante brooch sticking out of it.

 

“Yes, I was more than a little surprised at Sadie’s lack of enthusiasm for your marriage to John when you announced your engagement, especially when you consider how much she tried to foist you under his nose.” She snorts derisively. “As if he didn’t know of your existence as a young jeune fille à marier*******.” Eglantyne goes on. “However, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Lettice my dear, but today I am not the Thoroughbred to back. For once,” She sighs resignedly. “I am in complete agreement with your mamma.”

 

“What?” Lettice asks, looking across the low black japanned coffee table at her aunt. “Won’t you wish your favourite niece well in her marriage Aunt Egg?”

 

“Who says you are my favourite niece?” Eglantyne asks finally engaging Lettice’s gaze with her own emerald green eyes and cocking an eyebrow as she does.

 

“You do!” Lettice retorts in surprise. Then she adds with a little hurt in her voice, “Or rather, you used to.”

 

“But as you have opined, my dear, on many occasions - you are quite sure I call your sister Lally and all your female cousins, ‘my favourite niece’. You’ll never know, will you my dear,” the older woman continues with a cheeky smile. “I like to keep you all guessing who will inherit my jewels when I die.”

 

“Oh Aunt Egg!” Lettice scoffs. “You mustn’t talk like that.”

 

“We all of us are going to die one day, Lettice. Anyway,” Eglantyne smiles and reaches out to her niece, wrapping her knee in one of her gnarled and bejewelled hands in a comforting and intimate gesture. “To allay your fears, you are probably the most like me out of all of you girls, with your artistic tendencies, so why shouldn’t you be my favourite? I’ve always enjoyed indulging you.” She withdraws her loving touch and sinks back into her seat. “Mind you, you might be more of a favourite to me if you let me smoke in here.” She taps her gold cigarette case containing her favourite Black Russian Sobranies******** sitting on the green and gold embroidered stool next to her.

 

“In case you’ve forgotten, Aunt Egg, my drawing room is also my showroom for my interior design business. It’s bad enough that Mrs. Boothby smokes in the kitchen when she comes.”

 

“So, this Mrs. Boothby of yours can smoke, but I can’t?” Eglantyne asks with effrontery.

 

“Mrs. Boothby is my char*********, Aunt Egg. You are my aunt. Good chars like Mrs. Boothby are hard to find, what with the servant problem**********.”

 

“And aunts are easily replaceable?” Eglantyne laughs.

 

“No, but you know what I mean, Aunt Egg!” Lettice laughs. “I’d hate for my drawing room to wreak of cigarette smoke.”

 

“You may not like to hear this my dear, but whilst you might be my favourite because you are most like me in temperament and artistic abilities,” Eglantyne smiles and picks up her teacup again. “In some ways, you are just like your mother.”

 

“Well, if I am your favourite niece, why won’t you give my engagement your blessing, Aunt Egg?” Lettice asks imploringly again.

 

“You know me well enough, my dear Lettice, to know that I have no faith in the institution of marriage.” Eglantyne replies matter-of-factly. “Why on earth should I wish to celebrate with congratulations and champagne, or tea for that matter.” She foists her cup upwards as she speaks. “The contract that sells my independent and intelligent niece with a head for business that many men could well do with, like a chattel to her husband?” She shakes her head. “We shan’t fall out over this, and please know that I love you dearly, but for once, I don’t understand you Lettice. You have a perfectly good and full life.” She gesticulates broadly around her with dramatic and sweeping gestures. “Why would you want to spoil it with an engagement?”

 

“Well I…” Lettice begins, but is interrupted by Edith, her maid as she enters the drawing room, ringing her hands anxiously. Lettice looks across at her. “Yes, what is it, Edith? I don’t think the pot needs replenishing yet, thank you.”

 

“Beg pardon, Miss, but I haven’t come to replenish the pot.” Edith explains. “There’s a man at the tradesman’s entrance with a parcel which he says is for you.”

 

“A parcel, Edith?”

 

“Yes Miss. A very large parcel too, all wrapped up in brown paper.”

 

Lettice looks first at her aunt who returns it with a quizzical gaze, and then glances down at the floral patterns in the Chinese silk carpet at her feet, her face crumpling as she does so. “I’m not expecting any parcels.”

 

“That’s what I thought, Miss.” Edith agrees with a curt nod. “I don’t know if I ought to let him in.”

 

“Well, why ever not, Edith?”

 

“Well, he looks a little rough, if you don’t mind me saying, Miss. He’s a delivery man you see, Miss.”

 

“Delivery men often look rough, Edith.” Lettice opines.

 

“What does he want, Edith?” Eglantyne asks.

 

“That’s just the thing, Miss Chetwynd.” Edith replies, addressing the older woman. “He says Miss Lettice is expecting his parcel.”

 

“But I’m not.”

 

“Yes Miss. Err… I mean, no Miss.” Edith stammers.

 

“Where is he from?” Lettice asks.

 

“The Portland Gallery in Soho, Miss.”

 

“The Portland Gallery? Oh!” gasps Lettice, placing her teacup aside and straightening her skirt so it sits neatly just over her knee. “Show him in!”

 

“Very good Miss.” Edith answers in a slightly worried tone, lowering her head and retreating.

 

“Mr. Chilvers must be sending me something very special on approval if I don’t know anything about it!” Lettice exclaims, bouncing a little in her seat as she trembles with excitement.

 

“Indeed.” her aunt agrees with a smile and a nod.

 

Just then, the bell at the front door rings. When no-one answers it, it jarringly sounds again.

 

“Edith!” Lettice calls from her seat. “Edith there is someone at the door!”

 

“Edith’s dealing with the tradesman from the Portland Gallery.” Eglantyne points out helpfully.

 

“Oh yes!” Lettice exclaims. She rises from her seat as the doorbell rings a third time. “Then I suppose I must go and answer it. Would you excuse me, Aunt Egg?”

 

As Lettice enters the entrance hall with its black japanned console table, Edith comes in through the doorway that leads from the service area of the house.

 

“Beg pardon, Miss. I’m just trying to deal with the man from the Portland Gallery. The parcel’s ever so large and he needs someone to hold the doors open for him, Miss.”

 

“It’s alright, Edith.” Lettice assures her with a wave and a nod of her head. “I’ll answer the front door.”

 

“Thank you, Miss.” Edith replies gratefully, retreating quickly back into the corridor behind the door.

 

When Lettice answers the door, she finds to both her surprise and delight, Sir John on her threshold, dressed in a splendid three-quarter length grey winter overcoat with a glossy beaver fur collar, it’s smart cut and perfect fit indicating at a glance that it has come from one of the finest Jermyn Street*********** tailors. He holds his silver topped walking cane in his grey glove clad hand and smiles warmly at Lettice, his eyes sparkling at the sight of her.

 

“Well, this is a surprise, John!” Lettice exclaims in pleasure.

 

“No more than it is a surprise to find you answering your own front door, Lettice my dear.” Sir John says with a mirthful lilt to his voice, a cheekiness turning up the corners of his smile. “What a thoroughly modern woman you are to dispense with the usual protocols.”

 

“Well,” Lettice replies with an awkward and embarrassed laugh. “Usually I wouldn’t, but… well Edith is occupied with a tradesman bringing me an apparently large package from the Portland Gallery.”

 

“That sounds rather thrilling, my darling!” Sir John replies with arched eyebrows. Elegantly, he leans in and kisses Lettice’s right cheek before stepping back slightly and withdrawing a bunch of beautiful red roses with a theatrical flourish and a smile from behind his back. “For you!”

 

“Oh John!” Lettice exclaims, accepting the proffered red blooms, their velvety petals slightly open and releasing a waft of sweet fragrance. “They’re beautiful.” She spends a moment admiring them and appreciating their scent before she suddenly realises that Sir John is still standing on her front doormat. “Oh, where are my manners!” she gasps. “Please, do come inside.” She steps aside and allows Sir John to enter. “Aunt Egg is visiting too. We’re just in the drawing room.”

 

“Oh splendid.” Sir John opines. “lead the way.”

 

The pair walk back into the drawing room where Aunt Egg remains seated. Lettice scurries ahead and deposits the roses on the stool next to the seat her aunt occupies before she pulls a back japanned Chippendale chair across the carpet and draws it up to the coffee table between Lettice’s two armchairs.

 

“Look who it is, Aunt Egg!” Lettice says brightly.

 

“John!” Eglantyne replies. “What a surprise. How do you do.”

 

“How do you do, Eglantyne.” he replies. “I just happened to be passing, and I thought I’d stop, in the hopes of catching Lettice.”

 

“And with a bunch of roses!” Eglantyne remarks, reaching out at touching the rich blooms. “You are sure of yourself.”

 

Lettice turns to her fiancée as he places his derby on a small round chinoiserie tabletop and starts to unbutton his coat whilst still clutching his gloves and his cane in his left hand. “Here, let me take those.” she says apologetically, reaching out. Laughing awkwardly as she accepts his coat she adds, “As you can see, I’d never make a good maid.”

 

“It’s just as well that I don’t want to marry one then, isn’t it, Lettice my darling.” Sir John replies with a chuckle.

 

She smiles. “Aunt Egg and I were just having tea. I’ll have Edith fetch a third cup when she arrives.”

 

Moments later an unnerved Edith shows a rather burley fellow in overalls and a workman’s cap clutching a tall and wide parcel wrapped in brown paper into the drawing room where he stands awkwardly before the assembled company, somewhat dumbstruck by the elegant surroundings and well dressed inhabitants of Lettice’s drawing room as he glances around.

 

“You must be Mr. Chilver’s man.” Lettice says, breaking the awkward silence.

 

“Yes mum! Said ‘e ‘ad a package for you, mum. Special delivery.”

 

“Yes! Yes! Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting it, but if you would be good enough to lean it down here,” she indicates with a sweeping gesture to the Hepplewhite desk next to the fireplace. “Thank you.”

 

“Yes mum.” the delivery man says gratefully, gently lowering the parcel with a groan and leaning it against the edge of the desk.

 

“Excellent.” Lettice replies. “Oh Edith,”

 

“Yes Miss?”

 

“Could you take Sir John’s coat, hat and gloves, please.” Lettice proffers the clothing items to her maid. “And fetch another cup, please.”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith replies, accepting the items and bobbing a quick curtsey before turning to go.

 

“Oh and Edith,” Lettice goes on.

 

“Yes Miss?” Edith answers, turning back.

 

“Please take a couple of sixpences out of the housekeeping money tin to tip our man here.” Lettice smiles gratefully at her maid. “I’ll replenish it later.”

 

“Yes Miss,” Edith replies bemused. “Very good, Miss.”

 

“Much obliged, mum.” the burly man replies, snatching his cap from his head and twisting it anxiously between his hands, before turning at Edith’s insistence and following her as she guides him back through the green baize door between the dining room and the service area of the flat.

 

“Were your ears burning, John?” Eglantyne asks.

 

“No!” he chuckles in reply. “Should they have been?”

 

“Lettice and I were just discussing your engagement.” Eglantyne elucidates.

 

“Were you?” Sir John arches his elegantly shaped eyebrows as he gazes knowingly and undeterred at Eglantyne. “Ahh well, thinking of that,” he goes on, a confident smile gracing his thin lips. “I know you wouldn’t have been expecting this parcel, Lettice my dear.” His smile broadens with pleasure, not least of all for having an audience in Eglantyne. “But it comes from me. I arranged to have it sent over. Mr. Chilvers has been kindly holding onto it for me.” He steps over to the parcel and hoists it up with a groan, leaning it against himself as the edge rests on the black japanned surface of the coffee table. “Now that it is official, and our engagement will be appearing in The Times, and the Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser************, this is my gift to my bride-to-be!”

 

“Oh John!” Lettice exclaims.

 

“What is it?” Eglantyne asks, leaning forward, her beads trailing down her front rattling noisily together as she does.

 

“Well, why don’t you open it and find out, Lettice?” Sir John says, gazing at his future bride expectantly and extending his left hand encouragingly towards her as he speaks.

 

Lettice needs no second bidding. With trembling hands, she steps forward and gingerly tears at a loose piece of paper which rips noisily as she pulls it asunder. The corner of a simple wooden frame appears first, and then as she continues to tear at the paper, growing more excited with each rip, Lettice can soon see the bold colours and energetic strokes of thickly layered paint on canvas.

 

“Picasso’s ‘The Lovers’!” Eglantyne gasps in amazement.

 

“You bought it!” Lettice exclaims, raising her hand to her painted lips, upon which a broad smile appears. “For me?”

 

Angular lines pick out the faces and torsos of two figures on the canvas. Eyes, noses, hands, two thin lines making up a mouth. Fragmented, distorted and distracted the image radiates intimacy as much as it does boldness: a hand resting on a shoulder, the pair of figures’ heads drawn closely together, both with eyes downcast.

 

“Well, I could hardly declare that I would allow you to hang these daubs of modern art you so dearly, if in my opinion misguidedly, love, unless I gave you at least one to hang.” Sir John says proudly.

 

“Oh John! I don’t know what to say!” Lettice places a chaste kiss on his proffered left cheek.

 

“A thank you is customary.” Sir John answers with a chuckle.

 

“Thank you! You are a darling, John!” Lettice gushes, kissing him chastely on the lips this time, and embracing her fiancée. “Oh! I love it!”

 

Sir John chuckles. “I’m glad, Lettice darling.”

 

“But where will you hang it for now, Lettice?” Eglantyne asks. “Until you can hang it on one of John’s walls?” she adds, referring to Sir John’s previous comment.

 

“Well, I thought Lettice could hang it in here, above the fireplace.” Sir John answers for Lettice, indicating to the space above the mantle currently occupied by a colourful still life of pottery and fruit.

 

“Oh no!” Lettice exclaims, shaking her head. “It’s far too intimate a painting to hang in here.” The tips of her fingers run across her lips playfully and her eyes sparkle as Lettice drunks in the fine details of the colours and the textures of the brushstrokes. “I shall hang it in my boudoir, and that way I can look at it every morning until we are married, John darling!”

 

Lettice immediately turns on her heel and hurries out of the drawing room and into the entrance hall of the flat, calling for Edith to help her move a painting in her bedroom.

 

“Well,” Eglantyne remarks as she sinks back languidly into her seat again, staring up at the painting in Sir Johns hands. “You are full of surprises, my dear John.”

 

Sir John lifts the painting off the surface of the coffee table and shakes it, freeing it of the last of its brown paper protective wrapping.

 

“I never would have imagined you buying a Picasso.” Eglantyne goes on, admiring the boldness of the artwork as Sir John lowers it back to the ground and carefully leans it against the edge of the desk again.

 

“Well,” he remarks as he bends down and gathers up the paper, scrunching it noisily together in a big ball. “It’s not for me, but for Lettice.” He pauses with the large ball of paper in his hands and looks at Lettice’s aunt earnestly. “I really do care for her, you know.” he states with determination.

 

“Oh I don’t doubt it, John, but as I was saying to Lettice before your unexpected arrival, I cannot with all good conscience condone your engagement.”

 

“Why not, Eglantyne?”

 

“You know perfectly well, John, that I am a free spirit. I don’t believe in, nor have any faith in, the institution of marriage that society seems so desparate to conform us all to.” Eglantyne replies matter-of-factly. “As I remarked to Lettice just a short while ago, why on earth should I wish to celebrate the contract that sells my beautiful, intelligent and independent niece like a chattel?” She picks up her nearly empty teacup of now tepid tea. “Lettice had a perfectly good and full life before she became engaged to you.”

 

“Now don’t be bitter, Eglantyne dear.” Sir John chides.

 

“I’m not. I’m simply stating the fact that Lettice was perfectly fine on her own: a single and independent modern woman, just as she has every right to be.”

 

“Has she no right to be a happily married woman, Eglantyne?”

 

“She won’t be happy with you, John. No girl with marriage prospects like Lettice will. And, before you say it,” She wags a heavily bejewelled gnarled finger at Sir John. “I didn’t encourage her involvement with Selwyn Spencely either, unlike her mother who is so besotted with pedigree and titles, so I’m not playing favourites. Lettice was perfectly fine without any man in her life. In fact, she was just embarking on what promised to be a most successful career as an interior designer, but now pfftt!” Sir John can see her lips pursed tightly together in disapproval. Her eyes glow with frustration. “It’s gone! Just like that!”

 

“Says whom?” Sir John asks defensively.

 

“Your marriage contract.” Eglantyne replies with squinting eyes boring into him.

 

“No, it doesn’t, Eglantyne, or rather it won’t, which shows you just how little you know, and what little faith you place in me as a suitable suitor for your precious favourite niece!” When her eyes grow wide in surprise at his sudden harsh outburst at her, Sir John continues, “I’ll have you know that I have made an agreement with Lettice that when she marries me, she may continue her interior design business. Heaven save me from a bored and idle wife with nothing to do all day.” He rolls his eyes.

 

“Except interfere in your own affairs.”

 

“Exactly Eglantyne!” Sie John agrees. “I’m a businessman. She’s a businesswoman, and a successful one, as you’ve pointed out. Why should I stop her from reaching the heights she aspires to and her full potential?”

 

“Then you’re a better man than I took you for, John.” Eglantyne acquiesces.

 

“You did say I was full of surprises.”

 

“I did.”

 

“But?” Sir John says, picking up the unspoken word from Eglantyne’s lips. He shakes his head. “Do you really despise me so?”

 

Eglantyne lifts her eyes to the ornate plaster ceiling above as she shakes her own head as she raises her hand to her rumpled brow. She sighs heavily. “I don’t despise you, John.”

 

“Then what, Eglantyne?”

 

“Come.” She pats the Art Deco patterned cushioned seat of the Chippendale chair next to her. As he walks around the coffee table and lowers himself onto it, she continues, “You mustn’t spread this rumour around, John, but I actually quite like you as a person. I think you and I are rather alike in some ways, which is probably why I do like you. We’re both forthright, even when society suggests we ought not to be, and you’ve never conformed to the societal rule that you should get married.”

 

“Then…”

 

“Until now.”

 

“Well, maybe I just hadn’t met the right girl, up until now.” Sir John defends, smiling smugly with a cocked eyebrow, staring at Eglantyne with defiance.

 

“Oh come!” Eglantyne scoffs. “You’ve never involved yourself with the right girls to get married to in the first place, John. You’ve always had a penchant for chorus girls - young chorus girls. Everyone knows that.” She glances up and looks towards the open doorway of the drawing room. In the flat beyond it she can hear Lettice instruct Edith to help her remove a painting off her boudoir wall. “Well, almost everyone.”

 

“Is that all?” Sir John laughs.

 

“What do you mean is that all?” Eglantyne exclaims in effrontery. “I may not have the belief in the sanctity of marriage, but that isn’t to say my niece doesn’t! This is not an inconsequential step for her. I question your motives.” She eyes him now that they are at the same level. “Just what are you up to, John?”

 

“Me?” He feigns innocence as he holds his hands up in defence. “I’m not up to anything, as you so bluntly put it, Eglantyne. Perhaps your somewhat suspicious mind will be put at ease when I tell you that your intelligent young niece has walked into this marriage proposal with completely open eyes.”

 

“I doubt that!” Eglantyne scoffs again.

 

“Oh but that is where you are wrong, Eglantyne. She knows about my… err… dalliances, shall we say, just as you do.”

 

“So, she knows about Paula Young then?” Eglantyne asks, referring to the young up-and-coming West End actress who is the latest in Sir John’s list of conquests.

 

“Not by name as such, no.” Sir John admits. “I felt it was a little…” He pauses as he tries to think of the correct phrasing. “Indelicate at this sensitive stage in our engagement to introduce her by name. However, she does know, Eglantyne, and she also knows that I won’t shame her publicly – which I give you my assurance I won’t. I’ll never give her a reason to reproach me, and in return for her allowing me my little dalliances with the likes of Paula and those who follow her into my bed thereafter, and keeping them in her confidence, she gets to maintain her business unimpeded by me, be the chatelaine of all my properties, and live a life of luxury. In return, I get an intelligent and pretty wife to appear alongside me at social functions, and maybe some of that idle society gossip can finally be put to bed.”

 

“Really, John?” Eglantyne exclaims in disbelief. “It’s hardly a marriage I’d condone my niece to enter. A marriage of convenience that suits you.”

 

“I promise I’ll make her happy, Eglantyne.” Sir John assures her.

 

“With pretty paintings paid for with deep pockets?” Eglantyne gesticulates towards the Picasso.

 

“We’re both getting exactly what we want out of the bargain.”

 

“Really, John?” Eglantyne asks again with incredulity. “I don’t possibly see how being permitted to continue her business affairs is enough in a marriage to make Lettice happy.”

 

“If I’m being perfectly honest, which I know I can be with you, dear Eglantyne,” Sir John goes on. “As part of our arrangement, so long as she gives me an heir, and there is no question as to his paternity, I am also giving Lettice the opportunity to engage in arrangements of her own outside the marriage bed, should she choose to indulge.”

 

Eglantyne shudders. “I still cannot condone such a marriage, even with that clause. A marriage of two people loving anyone other than one another is recipe for tears and divorce. There is no happiness that I can see for poor Lettice.” She sighs. “Nor for you in the long run, you sad, misguided soul. However, she has made up her mind,” She pauses. “For now ,anyway, whilst she is besotted with the idea. Let’s see how long that lasts for once the realties of this arrangement of yours start to solidify in Lettice’s mind. Will you let her go if she comes to her senses before she walks up the aisle?”

 

“Of course, Eglantyne. Lettice isn’t the only one who has her eyes open. I know I’m much older than her, and that perhaps my dalliances may be too much for a sensitive soul like Lettice, but I aim to keep them as discreetly far away from her sphere as possible.”

 

“Can a leopard change his spots, thus?” Eglantyne leans forward. “Don’t forget that I have known you for a long time, John. Discretion has never been your strongest suit.”

 

“Well, Eglantyne,” Sir John stares back at her. “We shall just have to wait and see.”

 

“Indeed we will see.” Eglantyne nods knowingly.

 

*Twelfth Night (also known as Epiphany Eve depending upon the tradition) is a Christian festival on the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, marking the coming of the Epiphany. Different traditions mark the date of Twelfth Night as either the fifth of January or the sixth of January, depending on whether the counting begins on Christmas Day or the twenty-sixth of December. January the sixth is celebrated as the feast of Epiphany, which begins the Epiphanytide season.

 

**The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" modelled in part on the Nazarene movement. The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse. The group sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian art. They rejected what they regarded as the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. The Brotherhood believed the classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art, hence the name "Pre-Raphaelite".

 

***Little Venice is an affluent residential district in West London, England, around the junction of the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, the Regent's Canal, and the entrance to Paddington Basin. The junction, also known as Little Venice and Browning's Pool, forms a triangular shape basin designed to allow long canal boats to turn around. Many of the buildings in the vicinity are Regency white painted stucco terraced town houses and taller blocks (mansions) in the same style.

 

****The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. It was championed by more artistic women who did not wish to conform to society’s constraints and wear a tightly fitting corset.

 

*****A sautoir is a French term for a long necklace that suspends a tassel or other ornament.

 

******An aigrette is a headdress consisting of a white egret's feather or other decoration such as a spray of gems.

 

*******A jeune fille à marier was a marriageable young woman, the French term used in fashionable circles and the upper-classes of Edwardian society before the Second World War.

 

********The Balkan Sobranie tobacco business was established in London in 1879 by Albert Weinberg (born in Romania in 1849), whose naturalisation papers dated 1886 confirm his nationality and show that he had emigrated to England in the 1870s at a time when hand-made cigarettes in the eastern European and Russian tradition were becoming fashionable in Europe. Sobranie is one of the oldest cigarette brands in the world. Throughout its existence, Sobranie was marketed as the definition of luxury in the tobacco industry, being adopted as the official provider of many European royal houses and elites around the world including the Imperial Court of Russia and the royal courts of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Greece. Premium brands include the multi-coloured Sobranie Cocktail and the black and gold Sobranie Black Russian.

 

********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.

 

**********With new employment opportunities opening for working-class women in factories and department stores between the two World Wars, many young people, mostly female, left the long hours, hard graft and low wages of domestic service opting for the higher wages and better treatment these new employment opportunities provided.

 

***********Jermyn Street is a one-way street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster in London. It is to the south of, parallel, and adjacent to Piccadilly. Jermyn Street is known as a street for high end gentlemen's clothing retailers and bespoke tailors in the West End.

 

************The Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser is weekly newspaper which serves the towns of west Wiltshire, including Trowbridge. Printed in Trowbridge it was established in 1854 by Benjamin Lansdown, as The Trowbridge and Wiltshire Advertiser. Benjamin was born in Trowbridge and was the son of a woollen mill employee but this was not the path he wished to follow and he was apprenticed as a printer alongside Mr John Sweet. He bought a hard press and second-hand typewriter before starting his own newspaper, along with establishing his own stationery shop in Silver Street around 1860. He moved the business into 15 Duke Street around 1876. Duke Street became home to the impressive R. Hoe & Co printing press that allowed printers to use continuous rolls of paper, instead of individual sheets, to speed up the process and countless copies of the newspaper rolled off the press at Duke Street for many years. The newspaper was based there for more than one hundred years and the business remained within the Lansdown family for generations until it was finally sold in the early 1960s. Over the years in had various names including The Trowbridge and North Wiltshire Advertiser from 1860 until 1880, The Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser from 1880 until 1949, The Wiltshire Times between 1950 and 1962 and The Wiltshire Times & News between 1962 and 1963. It then became known as the Wiltshire Times – the banner it holds today. In 2019, the Wiltshire Times and its sister paper the Gazette & Herald moved to offices on the White Horse Business Park in North Bradley, stating that its Duke Street building was no longer fit for purpose. These offices later closed in 2020 as the three Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns struck. The Wiltshire times is still serving the local community both in a paper and an online format with a small team of journalists who passionately believe in the value of good trusted journalism and providing in-depth local news coverage.

 

This 1920s upper-class drawing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Central to our story, the “Lovers” painting by Picasso is a 1:12 miniature painted by hand in the style of Picasso by miniature artist Mandy Dawkins of Miniature Dreams in Thrapston. The frame was handmade by her husband John Dawkins.

 

Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era called “Falling Leaves”. The glass comport is made of real glass and was blown by hand is an artisan miniature acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The bunch of red roses to the far left of the image also comes from Beautifully handmade Miniatures.

 

The very realistic floral arrangements around the room are made by hand by the Doll House Emporium in America who specialise in high end miniatures.

 

The Vogue magazine that you see on Lettice’s coffee table is a 1:12 size miniature 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, although this is amongst the exception. In some cases, you can even read the words of the titles, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books 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. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

Sir John’s silver knobbed walking stick is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. The top is sterling silver. It was made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures.

 

Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chairs are of black japanned wood and have removable cushions, just like their life sized examples. To the left of the fireplace is a Hepplewhite drop-drawer bureau and chair of black japanned wood which has been hand painted with chinoiserie designs, even down the legs and inside the bureau. The Hepplewhite chair has a rattan seat, which has also been hand woven. To the right of the fireplace is a Chippendale cabinet which has also been decorated with chinoiserie designs. It also features very ornate metalwork hinges and locks.

 

On the top of the Hepplewhite bureau stand three real miniature photos in frames including an Edwardian silver frame, a Victorian brass frame and an Art Deco blue Bakelite and glass frame.

 

The fireplace is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace which is flanked by brass accessories including an ash brush with real bristles.

 

The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug, and the geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

If you look closely at the faint and fuzzy centre of this picture, you will find a ghostly galaxy — the not-so-spooky-sounding UDG4 — captured using ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST).

 

UDG stands for ultra-diffuse galaxy: objects as large as the Milky Way but with 100 – 1000 times fewer stars. These galaxies are extremely faint and lack star-forming gas, which makes them appear almost like a fluffy cosmic cloud, or a smudge in space. Their origins remain uncertain, but astronomers speculate that they could be “failed” galaxies that lost their gas supply early in their lifetimes.

 

This image of UDG4 was taken as part of a study from a much larger program, the VST Early-type Galaxy Survey (VEGAS), which aims to investigate very faint structures in galaxy clusters — large groups of many galaxies bound together by gravity. The study, led by Enrichetta Iodice from the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Italy, has found several UDGs in the Hydra Cluster, but more observations are needed to elucidate their true nature.

 

Given their flimsy appearance, UDGs can be difficult to spot. Nevertheless, the VST, equipped with its OmegaCAM camera, provides exquisite sensitivity to light, allowing astronomers to study such elusive objects.

 

Credit: ESO/Iodice et al.

To Infinity and Beyond: This Is the Afterlife ~

 

Turning inside out, the young shaman falls though a long swirling tunnel formed of his inverted self, his unbodied mouth and eyes agape in a primal rush toward extinction.

 

He accelerates t

hrough a tightly wound vortex that shifts and bends to accommodate his course, always centred in the swirling tube which never touches his falling, disembodied perspective. The tunnel is made of light, and of his own bloodstream, and of all the memories and unremembered details of materiality and personality that made up his life – yet not merely ‘his’ life.

 

Every human, fish, bird, animal, insect, cell and blood corpuscle that has ever lived is there with him, all at once – the dying shaman can feel their bright fear and ecstasy pouring through him as they all rush toward an unseen destination around the curving, translucent bends of the primal vortex. Even though every being dies alone – no matter if a multitude of witnesses is present – the moment of death itself is one great screaming orgasm experienced simultaneously by every one, every single thing that has ever lived – all our eyes and mouths and ganglia agape at the same simultaneous culmination of our material existence.

 

The tunnel is an eternally vivid living record of past events and future dreams, all memories and visions embroidered into the seamless fabric of its swirl – and Ram’yana’s private past and the panoply of his personal memories are displayed most prominently to him, brightly livid episodes which emerge from the tubular walls as he passes. His strongest experiences – the most impressive ones, that imprinted themselves most brightly into the palimpsest of his being – leap out at him in high relief as he turns and twists and falls and flies, a singular eye of consciousness accelerating toward the endless end of the convoluted time tunnel that’s leading him home.

 

As the world we experience slips past us at the periphery of our sensoria, an ongoing tunnel vision moves with us at the extremity of our perceptions, whether dying, dead or alive. Journeying out of the physical plane, outside the material matrix of the world, Ram’yana is beyond time and the ken of time-bound beings; as he leaves four dimensional Timespace and approaches the speed of light everything twists into a tunnel which lengthens fore and aft.

 

He sees his grandfather and grandmother, Mickey Mouse and Pluto, all the dogs and cats and mice and goldfish that shared his boyhood years, the smells of his houses and the flavours of his lovers. He hears the laughter of his kindergarten friends, their bright faces visible all around him singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, while pretty little Abigail jumps over a spinning rope twirled by Gina and Hannah, her long blonde pink-ribboned pigtails rotating around the sides of her head.

 

He holds his mother’s huge hand, grasping her finger through the wooden bars of his bassinet while she sings to him in the sultry evening air. He witnesses the expression of semi-resigned shock on his father’s face during the Cuban missile crisis and again when Kennedy was shot, sees the squashed remains of mosquitoes on the wall above his crib, watches the strange lights moving in the sky while all the neighbours point and speculate, sinks again with a collapsing sandbank on Bondi Beach, swept away with hundreds of panicking faces being pulled out to the deep sea along with him, while hundreds of man-eating sharks are driven off by the beating, splashing oars of desperate lifesavers.

 

He sees his mother’s eyes for the first time all over again and screams at the hard slap on his bottom as he hangs before Doctor Traub’s thick-lensed glasses in the bright, antiseptic birth theatre. His paternal grandmother smiles at him as she leans over and obscures his view of the magnificent giant yellow flowers of the magnolia tree while she wheels him in his pram; he can still smell the cloying fragrance of the flowers. His mother’s mother screams as he holds a dingo puppy up for her inspection and she tumbles over backward in her bedroom, breaking her hip while his eight year old eyes wash the scene away with tears that burn through the illusory years.

 

The Cat in the Hat and the Mighty Thor; the smell and Hungarian accent of alcoholic Uncle Tony, putting him off beer for years with his first taste of bitter ale at the age of six, and the bright laughing face of his babysitter Wendy by the blazing wood fire; the spray of blood when he cut his wrist falling onto a broken bottle at the age of three and the dizzying view from the emergency surgeon’s high private balcony; the first time he kissed a girl and the first time he dreamed of kissing a girl, all bound up together; flying through the sky in a propeller-driven passenger plane, watching circular rainbows following him in the clouds below.

 

White sulphur-crested cockatoos and sparrows circle his yard while kookaburras laugh in the gum trees; the first terrifying time his father holds him up high in the air to place him in the fork of a tree; his first night after he ran away from home, reclining on a beanbag in a Kings Cross commune reading Philip Jose Farmer’s pertinent To Your Scattered Bodies Go – everything is there, each scene and sensation embedded within and revealing a multitude of others. Everything. His dying mind seeks out everything he’s ever experienced, seeking a way back into the womb of living as he falls through something else entirely, riding a rollercoaster beyond the imagination of the most topologically tormented tycoon.

 

As Ram’yana falls he flashes before the eyes of his whole life – as others fall with him, many others, all others, sharing the time tunnel with his self-judging awareness. In the eternity of the Fall everything hidden or repressed is exposed in the Divine Light of clear sight and each being is their own Judge, emerging from the blindfold of their material existence to weigh their own soul on the ineradicable scales of justice and mercy. Conscience is the soul and the soul is immortally, inescapably honest with itself when released from the fetters of self-deceit and delusion.

 

Beyond time, at the singular moment of the great primal rush that is the birth and death canal leading from one world to the next, everyone experiences the same thingat the same time. We all come and go together in a mind-blowing orgasm; dreaming or screaming, laughing or crying, all emotion quails and pales before the rush of unstoppable motion that dwarfs any and every trivial concern.

 

No thought of gods or devils, life or death in the primal scream toward the Light at the end of the tunnel – the only thing that matters is holding onto your headless hat and the wordless regrets felt toward all the people, animals and conscious entities you ever knew deeply, or ever loved – and still love, deeply, tenderly, with a perspective of forgiveness, understanding and compassion never vouchsafed to your flesh-bound, in-coiled, emotion-embroiled mortal personality.

 

Ram is every human who ever lived and died, every fish ever caught in a current to swirl down into lightless depths beyond its control, every bird caught in a whirlwind that flings it to flinders, every animal diving for cover into cloaking vegetation from an inescapable predator, every individual blood corpuscle flinging itself on the way to the crushing pressure at the heart of its warm, pulsating cosmos. As he pours through the end of the world the tunnel twists and whirls, always hiding the point of it all, the point of no return, the heart of the matter, the source of every thing and being – and his mind expands to simultaneously see his spiraling course as a single thread in a vast interwoven image.

 

The tunnel is one thread among myriad drab and colourful strands in a great uncharitable tapestry, an inextricable part of its intricate pattern. The dying shaman follows the course of his life along its undulating strand and sees that his thread rises and falls above and beneath uncountable other interlocking threads, a spectrum of hues and textures in the enormously unfathomable tapestry. As his thread rises above another he is ‘conscious’, while the thread it occludes is ‘dreaming’; where his strand is covered by another thread, his mortal body sleeps and dreams while the other strand lives their waking life. Everyone and everything is there, all at once, simultaneously, lain out and displayed before him with no need for the flow of time to elucidate the infinite multiplicity of being.

 

Turn the tapestry around. The thought comes unbidden and the cloth reverses itself around him in a loopy topological twist; the implicately shared complementary nature of consciousness becomes apparent to his blown mind as he sees himself dreaming the lives of others, and others dreaming through his waking eyes and flesh. The intermingling pathways wind around the curving delineaments of their divine co-creation, which turns into itself like a Moebius strip until the beginning of one thread seamlessly winds into the end of another. The falcon is the hunter is the arrow is the feather is the truth. All is alive and whole; nothing is partial or frayed.

 

The tapestry is vast, but he’s able to follow his individuated thread through the colourful patterns and sees that the enormous conglomeration of dreams and lives is incomplete – not completed by the path of the single thread that is his experience of existence, rising from the tapestry to enter him as him. At the same timeless moment, Ram’yana approaches the plexus of light that is the destiny of all nations, women and men – the future and past of all that are born to fall along with him, minds blown in the blinding light of the immortal portal.

 

An immaculate blazing white-hot sun glows at the end of the tunnel. He can see it ever more clearly through the transparing walls of the vortex, thinning and fading in the face of the overwhelmingly brilliant source and core of existence. Ram sees the arcs of a trans-finite net spreading outward from the source, sees an infinitude of other vortices approaching its plexus from more angles than he can wrap his bodiless head around. They pass through each other in ways that defy and tease his mortal three-dimensionally entrained mind – but the arrangement makes subtle sense to a higher form of his being, trembling on the edge of an unchartable metamorphosis into something so much greater as to be intrinsically unimaginable. Simultaneously, on another level, the individual personality of the shaman approaches its ultimate rebirth and transformation in his flight toward the blinding light of the central sun.

 

The source of all is the hot, bright core and central axis of the centreless multiverse, the eternal end of every tunnel; the maw of a transdimensional creature about to swallow him up, the Infinite Light of God and his own silent heart gently glowing in timeless repose. He flies around a final bend in the dissolving tunnel, surging toward the arcane net that veils the core – which flares into him as the tunnel widens, opening into the final straight.

 

Ram’yana flashes toward the weave that’s flung to the ends of the cosmos, spreading himself to embrace the Light – and as he reaches it, he encounters the safety net. A web-like sieve is strung across the open maw of All, and as Ram’yana passes though it a great, resounding BOUMMB fills the boundless universe – the sound of one heartbeat, as loud as the boom that eternally creates the unborn, ever-living universe; the sound of Shiva’s eye opening and of one hand clapping.

 

Before your time, he hears and feels, not ready, not yet – unfinished – and he feels himself shrinking toward an infinitesimally small spot in the multitude of multiverses – back into the weave, where plan net X marks the spot where all things meet in his current-bound primate life.

 

Boumb… Boom…. Boom!

  

That’s why I’m here, writing this to you ‘now’ – the same ‘now’ that you are reading it in, really. I and eye remember it all vividly, not as something to slowly forget or avoid in the unfocused mind’s eye, but as an ongoing experience that is with me now, always, dynamically imprinted. It is with me as it is with you, when you close your eyes and open your memory to see truly through the waters of forgetfulness, to the infinite waters of eternal life.

 

Life and death, sensory wakefulness and supersensory dreaming are the same thing, appearing as the warp and weft of the reversible tapestry of existence. And everyone, each of us, is the whole tapestry, inextricably interwoven – everyone is everyone, and that’s about as close as this constraining corsetry of early third millennium Inglesh needs to get at this point in infinite time – xcept, perhaps, for the most important thing of all -

 

Every one you truly touch and are touched by, in every way, leaves the deepest and most prominent engravings in your heart, mind and soul. What we do unto others is what we do to ourselves – and other living beings are more than mere memory mirrors or handy usable tools. That’s what draws us back for more, and more again – the need to do better by our selves – over and over, until we do it right. Then we get another choice – or another chance to ride the carousel Wheel of Fortune again, if we so choose.

 

The multiple layers of ascendant consciousness are a self-filtering system of co-evolution – a system of slowly developing focus and perspective that leads our awareness to other dimensions, already inextricably interwoven with the relatively ‘familiar’ bounds of our largely unknown but ever-present reality. There’s no dim-witted hierarchy of order-givers or sword-wielding guardians barring the doors of higher perception – the gateway to Heaven on Earth. There’s just you – and me, and all of us, together. We all have our time to shine, and that time is always now.

 

Yet Death is not Dying. In the Bardo spaces between thy flowering carnations of existence, all the bright religious hopes and turgid superstitious terrors await the untrained monkey mind in its ongoing fall toward dissolution or reintegration. The Bardo Realms are entire worlds or pocket universes as apparently solid as the full-blown reality ye imagine around thee, right where thou art sitting, right now. How do ye know thou art alive, not dreaming this experience, right here and now? Do ye think that’s air you’re breathing?

   

A true story

 

By Ram Ayana @ hermetic.blog.com/2012/03/13/to-infinity-and-beyond-this-...

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’s, parents live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home, although with her husband’s promotion as a Line Manager, she no longer needs to do it quite so much to supplement their income. Whilst far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, the Harlesden terrace has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith and her seafaring brother, Bert.

 

We find ourselves in Ada’s kitchen, the heart of the Watsford’s little home. Even before she walked through the glossy black painted front door today, Edith could smell the familiar scent of her mother’s delicious baking, and as she walked into the terrace’s kitchen at the rear of the house, she found Ada making one of her favourite seasonal treats: hot cross buns* for Easter.

 

Edith is sitting at her usual perch on a tall ladderback chair drawn up to the round table, worn and scarred by years of heavy use that dominates the cluttered, old fashioned kitchen as her mother withdraws a tray of four large and delicious looking hot cross buns from the baking oven on the left-hand side of the old kitchen range that dominates the far wall of the kitchen. The air of the kitchen is injected with the sweet, mouthwatering smell of cooked currants, cinnamon, nutmeg and a hint of orange. Holding the battered metal baking tray with a thick yellow cloth with red edging, Ada slips it onto the kitchen table with a clatter, making the four golden brown hot cross buns rattle around.

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith gasps with admiration as she looks at the perfectly baked buns with glistening raisins poking out of the dough like jewels, decorated with their creamy white flour paste crosses. “They look perfect!”

 

“They smell perfect too!” pipes up George, who, being a Sunday, is sitting in his chair by the range, enjoying his Sunday Express crossword** as he absorbs its cosy heat.

 

“Thank you, both of you.” Ada remarks with a satisfied smile, placing her hands on her fleshy hips as she admires her own handiwork with twinkling caramel brown eyes. “They aren’t bad, even if I do say so myself.”

 

“Mum!” Edith exclaims again. “They are far better than that! I can never get my hot cross buns to be as light and fluffy as yours.”

 

“Do you give it a good knead like I’ve told you to, Edith love?” Ada asks her daughter.

 

“I do, Mum.” Edith nods.

 

“And you remember my saying?” Ada continues.

 

“Yes Mum: ‘make fresh today and bake fresh tomorrow’. I make sure I let the dough rest and rise the day before, just like you’ve told me to do.” Edith replies. “I never bake hot cross buns with dough I’ve made the same day, and they still don’t come out as light and fluffy as yours.”

 

“Well, I know what I think it is, Edith love.” Ada says, tapping her nose knowingly with a careworn finger.

 

“What is it, Mum?”

 

“You won’t like it, Edith love.”

 

‘Oh, please tell me, Mum!” Edith pleads. “Is it something I’m doing wrong?”

 

“Oh no!” Ada retorts, quickly reassuring her daughter. “I wouldn’t say that. I think it’s your equipment.”

 

“But Miss Lettice’s kitchen is lovely and up-to-date, Mum! She even has a beautiful gas stove to bake in.”

 

“And therein lies the problem.” Ada replies, standing up straight and reaching over, tapping the cool black leaded top of her range with affection, smiling beatifically as she does. “Nothing beats these good old coal ranges when it comes to baking.”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith exclaims aghast. “You’re so… so…”

 

“Old fashioned, Edith love?” Ada asks.

 

“Traditional, Mum!” Edith assures her.

 

“I told you, you wouldn’t like my reason,” Ada replies. “But there it is nonetheless, Edith love. They may be a bit old hat***, dirty, and somewhat problematic and recalcitrant at times, but nothing beats a good old coke**** range for baking.”

 

“Your Mum has a point, Edith love.” George remarks, looking over the top of his newspaper, his blue pencil clutched between his right index and middle finger peering around the edge of the printed sheets. “I can’t say there is anything she has baked in that oven that hasn’t come out looking and smelling wonderful.”

 

“You just want a freshly baked hot cross bun, George love.” Ada says, eyeing her husband knowingly and wagging a finger at him.

 

“Well,” George remarks, folding his newspaper crisply in half and casting it and his pencil onto the kitchen table as he drags his Windsor chair across the flagstones and sits at the table opposite his daughter. ‘Now that you mention it, I wouldn’t say no to one.” He rubs his stomach, enwrapped in an argyle patterned***** knitted vest, indicating his hungriness. “No-one makes hot cross buns as nicely as you do, Ada my love.”

 

“Oh you!” Ada flaps her red trimmed yellow cloth at him playfully, before leaning forward with a groan to kiss her husband tenderly on the lips. “You always know how to wrangle what you want out of me.”

 

“Flattery never fails.” George admits with a gormless grin.

 

“Alright Edith love.” Ada says with a sigh, albeit a happy one as she happily gives in to her husband’s indulgence. “Will you be a help and fetch down the tea things and some plates, whilst I fill the Brown Betty******.”

 

“Yes Mum!” Edith replies with eagerness, anxious to enjoy and savour the delight of one of her mother’s home made hot cross buns.

 

A short while later the table is set with a selection of Ada’s mismatched china pieces, all market finds she has made by her over the years, taken down from the shelves of the great, dark Welsh dresser behind Edith’s ladderback chair. George has a pretty blue and white floral sprigged Royal Doulton******* cup, whilst Ada has a pink, yellow and blue floral Colclough******** one, and Edith has her favourite yellow rose Royal Albert********* teacup with its dainty fluted sides and gilt edge. The Brown Betty sits gleaming between them, steam rising in delicate curlicues from her spot, flanked by a pretty Victorian milk jug and sugar bowl which is missing its lid.

 

“Right then!” Ada says cheerfully as she picks up a plate. “One for you George.” She picks up a hot cross bun and plops it on the plate and hands it to her husband, who accepts it gratefully with wide, hungry eyes. “And one for you, Edith love.” She picks up a second bun and places it on a plate which she then hands to her daughter. “And lastly one for me.” She adds one to her own plate. ‘Please help yourself to butter.” She indicates with an open hand to the small square of butter sitting in a gleaming clear glass dish.

 

“I wonder who will get the last one?” George asks, eyeing the remaining hot cross bun on the silver baking tray.

 

“Yes, I wonder.” Ada says sarcastically with raised eyebrows, knowing full well, as does Edith, that George will claim the last one for himself.

 

“You know the story of how your mum and I met, don’t you Edith love?” George asks as he cuts his bun in half with a knife.

 

Edith rolls her eyes. “Of course I do, Dad!” she replies with a good natured smile. “You have told Bert and I more times than I can count how you met Mum at the young people’s social picnic in Roundwood Park********** organised by the Vicar of All Souls***********. You tell us that Mum wouldn’t have been nearly as attractive if she hadn’t been carrying a tin of her best biscuits at the time.”

 

“Pshaw!” Ada scoffs as she butters her own hot cross bun before handing the dish to her husband.

 

“It’s true.” He accepts the butter dish. “Your mum knows the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and it certainly is mine.”

 

“Pshaw!” Ada repeats. “You mean you weren’t attracted to me anyway?” She turns back to her daughter. “I looked very fetching that day. I was wearing my new Sunday best dress for spring which I’d made especially for the picnic. It was made of cotton decorated with sprigs of pink roses, and it had leg-of-mutton sleeves************. I was wearing my best Sunday hat too, made of straw with the dried flowers around the brim.”

 

“Yes,” George replies, clearing his throat awkwardly. “You were as lovely as a summer’s day, Ada.”

 

Ada giggles rather girlishly, an unusual thing for Edith to witness and pushes a few loose strands of her mousy brown hair flecked with grey that has come loose from her bun behind her ear. “Your father was too shy to talk to me. It was only because I thought he looked rather handsome in his Sunday best suit and I asked him if he’d like a biscuit that we even spoke.”

 

“I say, steady on, old girl!” George retorts, clearing his throat awkwardly again. “That’s not how I remember it.”

 

“Men seldom remember the truth of things in the aftermath.” Ada winks at her daughter conspiratorially. “They are very good at inventing their own history.”

 

“Well, anyway,” George blusters as his cheeks redden with embarrassment, suggesting there is more than a little truth to his wife’s story. “What I wanted to ask you, Edith,” He focusses his attention on his daughter, trying to ignore his wife’s smug smile, pausing his buttering of his hot cross bun “Was, did I ever tell you about the first Easter Sunday picnic we had after your mother and I had been stepping out together?”

 

“No.” Edith replies, accepting the butter dish as he passes it to her, sitting more upright in her seat as she pays close attention. “I don’t think so.”

 

“Do you remember that picnic, Ada love?” George asks, smiling at his wife, his eyes sparkling with happiness and love.

 

Ada pauses for a moment, her buttered bun paused between her plate and her mouth. Her brow crumples over her eyes as she concentrates. “I remember the crocuses were out. The lawns near the old Lodge House Café************* were a sea of purple and lilac, with a smattering of orange.”

 

“As they are every spring, Ada love.” George remarks.

 

Edith bites into one half of her hot buttered hot cross bun and sighs with happiness, savouring the taste of the freshly baked and lightly spiced dough and warm, juicy currants as she chews.

 

“Do you remember anything else, Ada love?” George asks his wife as he bites into his own hot cross bun, washing the mouthful down with a swig of tea from his cup.

 

“I obviously must have made hot cross buns.” Ada adds hopefully, but the doubt in her voice demonstrates clearly that she doesn’t remember. “Or you wouldn’t have brought this reminiscence up.”

 

George chuckles, snoring through his nose as he finishes his mouthful of hot cross bun. “I’ll say you did!” he manages to say jovially as he chews.

 

Edith swallows her mouthful of bun and deposits the remainder on her plate. Picking up her teacup she asks before sipping its contents, “Well don’t keep me in suspense, Dad!” She swallows her tea. “What happened?”

 

“Yes, what did happ…” Ada begins, before halting mid-sentence and starting again. “Am I going to want our daughter to hear whatever you’re about to share, George Watsford?” She returns her untouched half of her bun to her plate and looks sharply at her husband.

 

“Goodness Ada, how suspicious you are.” George chuckles good naturedly. He turns to his daughter. “That’s marriage for you. Are you sure you want to marry Frank?” he adds jokingly.

 

“Oh Dad!” Edith laughs, flapping her hand dismissively at him.

 

“What are you going to tell our daughter, George?” Ada persists.

 

“I was simply going to tell Edith about how popular your hot cross buns were that day.” George elucidates.

 

“Oh well, that’s alright then.” Ada replies, heaving a sigh of relief, easing her tensed shoulders and settling back into the round spindled back of her Windsor chair. Picking up the half a hot cross bun she gives her permission by nodding and saying, “Go ahead.” She then takes a bite of her bun and sighs happily.

 

After quickly scoffing the remainder of his first half of his hot cross bun, George rubs his buttery fingers together before steepling them over his plate and staring at his daughter who returns his gaze with alert eyes, anxious to know what transpired. “Well Edith, as you know at these sorts of occasions, once again being a young people’s Easter Sunday picnic organsied by the Vicar, everyone knew everyone else.”

 

George pauses and looks at his wife to see if she remembers the picnic, however her face remains passive, her eyes inquisitive.

 

“Go on Dad.” Edith says with anticipation.

 

“And of course that meant that everyone also knew about your mum’s baking prowess.” George goes on.

 

“Oh George!” Ada gasps, blushing at her husband’s compliment.

 

“What happened, Dad?” Edith asks.

 

“Well, on the day of the Easter Sunday picnic, your mum had baked me a basket of fresh hot cross buns that we were able to share, but when we sat down,” He turns his attentions back to his wife. “Lilian and Ernie Pyecroft, who were of course only young lovers a-courting then too and not married, came and joined us.” George chuckles as he remembers. “Your mum offered them a freshly baked hot cross bun each, which they took. And then your Aunt Maud arrived with your Uncle Sydney and she offered them a bun each, and then the Vicar and his wife walked past, so she offered them one each.”

 

“It was the right and Christian thing to do, George,” Ada defends herself. “To offer the Vicar and his wife a hot cross bun each! I could hardly have not! I would have looked stingy.”

 

“Aha!” George laughs, pointing at his wife. “You do remember then, Ada!”

 

“Of course I remember, George love.” Ada replies, her face flushing with embarrassment.

 

“Well, what was so wrong with offering the Vicar and his wife a hot cross bun, Dad?” Edith asks. “I’d have done the same.”

 

“Of course you would, Edith love.” Ada purrs. “I’m proud of you.”

 

“Because,” George explains with a loud guffaw. “By the time she had done that, she’d given away all the hot cross buns she’s made for us, and I didn’t get to have a one that day!”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith replies as she starts to giggle.

 

“I was just trying to be a good, Christian soul.” Ada defends herself again, folding her arms akimbo, but blushing bright red as she does.

 

“You were that,” George laughs harder. “To my detriment!”

 

Then even Ada starts to laugh at the tale of that Easter many springs ago before the war. “At least I made you some more the next Sunday when we had a picnic, George Watsford! And you were able to have as many as you wanted.”

 

George’s laughs start to subside, and he concurs with this wife.

 

“What did you eat then, if all the hot cross buns were gone?” Edith asks her parents.

 

“Oh don’t worry, Edith love. I knew your father had a good appetite, so I’d also made a nice cherry cobbler, which we made short work of.”

 

“We did that.” George agrees.

 

The family trio continue to enjoy their hot buttered fresh hot cross buns, chuckling away at George’s tale as they finish them off. The kitchen feels warm and cosy filled with the smell of Ada’s hot cross buns and the sound of their gentle enjoyment of them. True to his usual form, George scoffs the last of his first hot cross bun, and then helps himself to the last one on the tray between them all. Ada and Edith smile at him indulgently as they watch him enjoy it like a little boy.

 

“More tea, Edith love?” Ada asks, picking up the Brown betty and proffering its tilted spout towards her daughter’s teacup.

 

“Yes please, Mum.” Edith replies, lifting up her cup.

 

As Ada fills her daughter’s cup, a thoughtful look crosses Edith’s face.

 

“Mum, I’ve just had the loveliest idea.” she says looking up at her mother.

 

“What’s that, Edith love?” Ada asks.

 

“Well, why don’t we have a picnic on Easter Sunday in Roundwood Park: you Dad, me and Frank!” Edith enthuses. “You can bake hot cross buns and I’ll make some sandwiches. It will give me a good excuse to use the wonderful picnic basket Bert brought back from Australia for me.”

 

“What about Mrs. McTavish, Edith?” George asks.

 

“Oh, she’s gone to stay with her brother in Aberdeen, as she does every year at Easter, Dad, so it’s just Frank on his own.”

 

“Well, I think that sounds like a capital idea, Edith.” Ada agrees. “Let’s do it! What do you think, George?”

 

“I’m happy to, Ada love, but only on one condition though.” George adds.

 

“What?” Ada and Edith ask at the same time.

 

“That there are to be no giving of hot cross buns to any passenger vicars.” Georg says with a definite nod as he eats the last of his second hot cross bun.

 

*A hot cross bun is a spiced bun, usually containing small pieces of raisins and orange peel, marked with a cross on the top, which has been traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, India, Pakistan, Malta, the United States and the Commonwealth Caribbean. They are available all year round in some countries now, including the United Kingdom and Australia. The bun marks the end of the season of Lent and different elements of the hot cross bun each have a specific meaning, such as the cross representing the crucifixion of Jesus, the spices inside signifying the spices used to embalm him and sometimes also orange peel reflecting the bitterness of his time on the cross.

 

**The Sunday Express became the first newspaper to publish a crossword in November 1924.

 

***The term “old hat”, meaning out-of-date or old fashioned, is a relatively new saying, dating from 1911, taken quite literally from the words “old” and “hat”.

 

****Coke is a grey, hard, and porous coal-based fuel with a high carbon content. It is made by heating coal or petroleum in the absence of air. Coke is an important industrial product, used mainly in iron ore smelting today, but was also commonly used as a cheap fuel in stoves and forges in the Victorian and Edwardian eras before the and even in the immediate years after the Second World War. The unqualified term "coke" usually refers to the product derived from low-ash and low-sulphur bituminous coal by a process called coking.

 

*****An argyle pattern features overlapping diamonds with intersecting diagonal lines on top of the diamonds. They are traditionally knit, not woven, using an intarsia technique. The pattern was named after the Seventeenth Century tartan of Clan Campbell of Argyll in western Scotland.

 

******A Brown Betty is a type of teapot, round and with a manganese brown glaze known as Rockingham glaze. In the Victorian era, when tea was at its peak of popularity, tea brewed in the Brown Betty was considered excellent. This was attributed to the design of the pot which allowed the tea leaves more freedom to swirl around as the water was poured into the pot, releasing more flavour with less bitterness.

 

*******Royal Doulton is an English ceramic manufacturing company dating from 1815. Operating originally in Vauxhall, London, later moving to Lambeth, in 1882 it opened a factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in the centre of English pottery. From the start the backbone of the business was a wide range of utilitarian wares, mostly stonewares including storage jars, tankards and the like, and later extending to pipes for drains, lavatories and other bathroom ceramics. From 1853 to 1902 its wares were marked Doulton & Co., then from 1902, when a royal warrant was given, Royal Doulton. It always made some more decorative wares, initially still mostly stoneware, and from the 1860s the firm made considerable efforts to get a reputation for design, in which it was largely successful, as one of the first British makers of art pottery. Initially this was done through artistic stonewares made in Lambeth, but in 1882 the firm bought a Burslem factory, which was mainly intended for making bone china tablewares and decorative items. It was a latecomer in this market compared to firms such as Royal Crown Derby, Royal Worcester, Wedgwood, Spode and Mintons, but made a place for itself in the later 19th century. Today Royal Doulton mainly produces tableware and figurines, but also cookware, glassware, and other home accessories such as linens, curtains and lighting. Three of its brands were Royal Doulton, Royal Albert and (after a post-WWII merger) Mintons. Royal Doulton is one of the last great British bone china manufacturers still in existence.

 

******** Colclough Bone China was founded in Staffordshire in 1890 by Herbert J. Colclough, the former mayor of Stoke-on-Trent. Herbert loved porcelain and loved the ordinary working man. One of his desires was to bring fine bone china, a preserve of the upper and middle classes, to the working man. He felt that it would give them aspirations and dignity to eat off fine bone china. Colclough Bone China received a Royal Warrant from King George V in 1913. Colclough went on to innovate the production of fine bone china for the mass market in the 1920s and 1930s. They produced the backstamp brands Royal Vale and Royal Stanley. Colclough Bone China merged with Booth’s Pottery and later acquired Ridgeway China. Eventually they amalgamated with Royal Doulton in the 1970s.

 

*********In 1896, Thomas Clark Wild bought a pottery in Longton, Stoke on Trent, England, called Albert Works, which had been named the year before in honor of the birth of Prince Albert, who became King George VI in 1936. Using the brand name Albert Crown China, Thomas Wild and Co. produced commemorative bone-china pieces for Queen Victoria's 1897 Diamond Jubilee, and by 1904 had earned a Royal Warrant. From the beginning, Royal Albert's bone china dinnerware was popular, especially its original floral patterns made in rich shades of red, green, and blue. Known for incredibly fine, white, and pure bone china, Royal Albert was given to the sentimental and florid excesses of Victorian era England, making pattern after pattern inspired by English gardens and woodlands. With designs like Serena, Old English Roses, and Masquerade and motifs inspired by Japanese Imari, the company appealed to a wide range of tastes, from the simplest to the most aristocratic. In 1910, the company created its first overseas agency in New Zealand. Soon it had offices in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Willing to experiment with the latest in industrial technologies, the company was an early adopter of kilns fuelled by gas and electricity. Starting in 1927, Royal Albert china used a wide variety of more stylized backstamps, some with the crown, some without, and others stylized with script and Art Deco lettering. Some of these marks even had roses or other parts of the pattern in them. Patterns from the years between the wars include American Beauty, Maytime, Indian Tree, Dolly Varden, and Lady-Gay. The '40s saw patterns like Fragrance, Teddy's Playtime, Violets for Love, Princess Anne, Sunflower, White Dogwood, Mikado, Minuet, Cotswold, and the popular Lady Carlyle. Royal Albert incorporated as a limited company in 1933, and in the 1960s it was acquired by Pearson Group, joining that company's Allied English Potteries. By 1970, the porcelain maker was completely disassociated with its T.C. Wild & Sons origins and renamed Royal Albert Ltd. Pearson Group also acquired Royal Doulton in 1972, putting Royal Crown Derby, Royal Albert, Paragon, and the Lawleys chain under the Royal Doulton umbrella, which at this point included Minton, John Beswick, and Webb Corbett. In 1993, Royal Doulton Group was ejected from Pearson Group, for making less money than its other properties. In 2002, Royal Doulton moved the production of Royal Albert china from England to Indonesia. A few years later, Waterford Wedgwood absorbed Royal Doulton Group and all its holdings, which currently makes three brands, Royal Doulton, Minton, and Royal Albert, including the Old Country Roses pattern, which is Royal Albert’s most popular design.

 

**********Roundwood Park takes its name from Roundwood House, an Elizabethan-style mansion built in Harlesden for Lord Decies in around 1836. In 1892 Willesden Local Board, conscious of a need for a recreation ground in expanding Harlesden, started the process of buying the land for what is now Roundwood Park. Roundwood Park was built in 1893, designed by Oliver Claude Robson. He was allocated nine thousand pounds to lay out the park. He put in five miles of drains, and planted an additional fourteen and a half thousand trees and shrubs. This took quite a long time as he used local unemployed labour for this work in preference to contractors. Mr. Robson had been the Surveyor of the Willesden Local Board since 1875. As an engineer, he was responsible for many major works in Willesden including sewerage and roads. The fine main gates and railings were made in 1895 by Messrs. Tickner & Partington at the Vulcan Works, Harrow Road, Kensal Rise. An elegant lodge house was built to house the gardener; greenhouses erected to supply new flowers, and paths constructed, running upward to the focal point-an elegant bandstand on the top of the hill. The redbrick lodge was in the Victorian Elizabethan style, with ornamented chimney-breasts. It is currently occupied by council employees although the green houses have been demolished. For many years Roundwood Park was home to the Willesden Show. Owners of pets of many types, flowers and vegetables, and even 'bonny babies' would compete for prizes in large canvas tents. Art and crafts were shown, and demonstrations of dog-handling, sheep-shearing, parachuting and trick motorcycling given.

 

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

 

************A gigot sleeve is a sleeve that was full at the shoulder and became tightly fitted to the wrist. It was more commonly known as a leg-of-mutton sleeve.

 

*************Oliver Claude Robson who designed Roundwood Park decided that a café would be a good addition to the park, so in 1897 a suitable building was designed and constructed by council employees. It was made of brick and timber with a steeply pitched slate roof and gables, with a verandah surrounding it. Various owners succeeded one another. In 1985, a new building was constructed because the old one became run down.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic 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. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The hot cross buns on the silver baking tray on the kitchen table have been made in England by hand by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The Brown Betty teapot, made of real glazed pottery, comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. various odd china pieces all come from online stockists of miniatures 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 pencil on top of it is a 1:12 miniature as well, acquired from Melody Jane Dolls’ House Suppliers. It is only one millimetre wide and two centimetres long.

 

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel, including Ada’s tan soft leather handbag seen resting against her basket at the right of the picture.

 

Edith’s black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers was made by an unknown artisan. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. This hat is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.

 

In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table, the Windsor chair and the ladderback chair to the left of the photo, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. There are also some rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and a bread tin 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 The Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutionised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a jar of Bovril, a tin Bird’s Golden Raising Powder, some Ty-Phoo tea, a tin of S.P.C. canned fruit and some Oxo stock cubes. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.

 

Bovril is the trademarked name of a thick and salty meat extract paste similar to a yeast extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston. It is sold in a distinctive bulbous jar, and as cubes and granules. Bovril is owned and distributed by Unilever UK. Its appearance is similar to Marmite and Vegemite. Bovril can be made into a drink ("beef tea") by diluting with hot water or, less commonly, with milk. It can be used as a flavouring for soups, broth, stews or porridge, or as a spread, especially on toast in a similar fashion to Marmite and Vegemite.

 

In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.

 

Bird’s were best known for making custard and Bird’s Custard is still a common household name, although they produced other desserts beyond custard, including the blancmange. They also made Bird’s Golden Raising Powder – their brand of baking powder. Bird’s Custard was first formulated and first cooked by Alfred Bird in 1837 at his chemist shop in Birmingham. He developed the recipe because his wife was allergic to eggs, the key ingredient used to thicken traditional custard. The Birds continued to serve real custard to dinner guests, until one evening when the egg-free custard was served instead, either by accident or design. The dessert was so well received by the other diners that Alfred Bird put the recipe into wider production. John Monkhouse (1862–1938) was a prosperous Methodist businessman who co-founded Monk and Glass, which made custard powder and jelly. Monk and Glass custard was made in Clerkenwell and sold in the home market, and exported to the Empire and to America. They acquired by its rival Bird’s Custard in the early Twentieth Century.

 

S.P.C. is an Australian brand that still exists to this day. In 1917 a group of fruit growers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley decided to form a cooperative which they named the Shepperton Fruit Preserving Company. The company began operations in February 1918, canning pears, peaches and nectarines under the brand name of S.P.C. On the 31st of January 1918 the manager of the Shepparton Fruit Preserving Company announced that canning would begin on the following Tuesday and that the operation would require one hundred and fifty girls or women and thirty men. In the wake of the Great War, it was hoped that “the launch of this new industry must revive drooping energies” and improve the economic circumstances of the region. The company began to pay annual bonuses to grower-shareholders by 1929, and the plant was updated and expanded. The success of S.P.C. was inextricably linked with the progress of the town and the wider Goulburn Valley region. In 1936 the company packed twelve million cans and was the largest fruit cannery in the British empire. Through the Second World War the company boomed. The product range was expanded to include additional fruits, jam, baked beans and tinned spaghetti and production reached more than forty-three million cans a year in the 1970s. From financial difficulties caused by the 1980s recession, SPC returned once more to profitability, merging with Ardmona and buying rival company Henry Jones IXL. S.P.C. was acquired by Coca Cola Amatil in 2005 and in 2019 sold to a private equity group known as Shepparton Partners Collective.

 

Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.

 

The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).

Turn of a Friendly Card

************************************************************

Based on a true adventures of a rogue active in the waning years of the 1930’s as discovered in the criminal archives of Chatwick University.

 

Act 1

I begin my tale in the present…

 

That afternoon a soiree was given as part of the purchase price of the tickets for the annual Autumn Charity Ball to be presented later that evening at the manor’s great house. Since I was alone, I just went mainly for the free food and to rub my elbows with the wealthy guests who would be in happy attendance there, and at the Ball. I was alone, but certainly not bored. There was a game I enjoyed playing to pass the time at these affairs that entailed scoping out by their dress and day jewels worn, those ladies whom would be most likely to be wearing the better costumes and sparklers that evening. It often proved to be a most beneficial insight into the actions and mannerisms of the very rich. I walked amongst the cheerful guests, eying one here ( a lady in satin and pearls) and another there( a high spirited girl with a diamond pin at the throat of her frilly silken blouse). It was as I was passing the latter that the friend she had been talking too (dressed like a vamp), bumped up against me. I caught her, steadying her as they both giggled. I didn’t mind, for the lassie’s too tight satin sheath tea dress had been an enticement to hold, and the gold bracelet that had been dangling from her gloved wrist had been a pleasure to observe. I kissed her gloved hand, rings glittering, as I apologized gallantly for my clumsiness. Her eyes were bright, almost as bright as the twin necklaces of gold that hung swaying down pleasantly from between her ample bosom. I left them, moving on to greener pastures, and it was very green, all of it….

 

It was then that I detected another pretty lassie. It was her long fiery red hair with falling wispy curls that first captured my attention. She was wearing a fetchingly smart white chiffon party dress that commanded me to acquire a closer examination. She appeared to be a blithe spirit, seemingly content with just being by herself and roaming about with casual elegance, the extensive grounds of the manor proper. I began to discreetly follow her at a distance. Although she did not wear any jewelry, her manner and the eloquent way she moved is what attracted me the most. It would be very interesting to seek her out later that evening and she what she would have chosen to decorate herself with. I followed her as she sojourned into the depths of a traditional English garden with a maze of lushly green trimmed 8 foot high hedges

 

As I strolled through the hedgerows in her wake I allowed my mind to wander its own course. Suddenly I straightened up, my reverie broken by an epiphany of sorts. I allowed myself to grin and the lady whose enchantment I was swollen up in, at that moment turned, and seeing my beaming smile assumed it was for her and gave me a rather cute nod of her head. I answered in same, as I headed en route to a nearby stone garden bench to allow my thoughts to think through themselves.

 

But before I go on, allow me the pleasure to sojourn and reminisce about an incident that occurred several years prior:

*******************

I was still working unaided in those days, travelling on to a new next quest that would take me just outside of Surrey.

I had just purchased my train ticket and had seen my luggage safe on board when I decided to rest in the lounge, it being some 45 minutes before allowed to enter personally aboard. Being so early the lounge was almost deserted, only one other occupant. I assumed she was waiting for someone on an incoming train due to the fact she carried no luggage. She was obviously well off, well dressed in satins and lace, and her jewels shone magnificently in the dim lights. Especially one of her rings, noticeably lying loosely around a finger, it sparkled with an expensive brilliance. I had seen one like it in a tiffanies store, worth almost 250 pounds. But she did not appreciate the show her jewelry was putting on under the lounge lights, for she was fast asleep.

 

I circled around her, aiming for a seat next to her, eyeing her and her possessions carefully. I noticed her purse had fallen off her lap and lay on the floor. An idea popped into my head, and I picked the purse up, and looked around carefully, before placing my plan into action. But I was thwarted as an older, matronly lady was spotted heading our way. I slipped the purse into my jacket and moved off before I was noticed. Of course she came in and took the empty seat across form the sleeping princess, and soon busied herself with knitting. As the older lady had sat down, not quietly, the wealthy lady stirred waking up at the noise. I went into a corner and sat, waiting. The two ladies soon fell into conversation; the minute’s ticked by excruciatingly slow. Soon I noticed we even had more company.

He was a lad of only fourteen, but with a devilish look about him that marked him a kindred spirit to meself, and his quick eyes were darting about taking it all in as he stood outside the paned glass window.

 

It was as the first announcement of boarding the train that I saw a chance for opportunity to strike.

The older lady folded up her knitting and clinching her bag, bid adieu to her new friend,( befuddled a little by the old ladies constant stream of gossip), and headed to the train. I was twenty steps ahead of her and was standing behind the youth as she left the lounge. I tapped him on the shoulder; he looked around at me suspiciously, and then caught sight of the shilling I was holding in front of his nose. I quickly whispered a few words into his ear on how he could earn it, and his grin spread as he bought into my story. I still held onto the shilling as he darted around and inside the lounge. I watched as he ran up behind the lady, circling her, then running in front of her he tripped over her leg, as she helped him up, her hand with the ring reaching down, he turned and spat onto the wrist and sleeve of that hand, than standing he ran away. Running alongside me, I handed him the shilling in passing as he ran off, disappearing in to the street.

 

I went inside and approached the astonished lady, as she was looking for her purse to get a handkerchief, confused as to its absence, while she held up her soiled hand( ring glittering furiously) in utter disbelief. I approached, catching her attention by the soothing words I uttered to her. I took her hand, unbelieving with her at just had happened, and I as I apologized for the youth of today I produced my own silk handkerchief and starting with her silky sleeve, began to wipe it off, continuing my tirade of displeasure and contempt at what had just occurred to the dear lady as I did so. As I finishing wiping her down, ending with her warm slender fingers, I kissed them, just as the last boarding announcement came over (perfect timing!) I let her go, explaining that I must catch my train. I turned and without looking back made the train just as it was letting off steam before chugging off.

 

I gained my private carriage just as the train began to lurch away. It wasn’t until after the train began its journey that I casually removed my silk handkerchief from my pocket and unwrapped it carefully, admiring up close the shimmering, valuable tiffany ring that was lying inside. I pocketed it, and then remembered the purse. I took it out and examined its contents: coin and notes equaling a handsome amount, a gold (gilded) case, embroidered lacy handkerchief, small silver flask of perfume, and ( of all things)a large shimmering prism , like one that would have dangled from a fancy crystal chandelier. A prism?, I questioned with interest as I examined it. It was pretty thing, about the circumference of a cricket ball, but shaped like a pendulum, it shimmered and glittered like the most precious of jewels. Why she had it in her purse? I couldn’t guess, and I saw no value in it, so I pocketed it and allowed it to leave my mind.

 

As I settled into my seat I began to think of the lad I had just met, I had been right on the money as far as his eagerness for mischief. Actually he reminded me of myself at that age, and I wondered if that lad with the shifty eyes would also turn out to follow the same course I had explored.

 

Which Begs the question, what had I turned out to become. And since I’m still reminiscing

I’ll give little background material about me, hopefully I don’t come across as being too conceited about my self-taught skills..

 

I had never been one to take the hard road, and even at a young age I was always looking for angles, or short cuts to make some money.

Once, while watching for some time a street magician and his acts. I observed a pick pocket working the crowd. He approached a pair of well-dressed ladies in shiny clothes, and standing behind them bided his time and then lifted a small pouch from one velvet purse, and a fat wallet from a silken one, then he moved on. Now both ladies were wearing shiny bracelets, one with jewels. I thought that he could have realized a greater profit if he had nicked one or both of the bracelets first, than try for the contents of their purses. The bracelets’ alone would have realized a far greater profit than what he lifted from their purses. It further occurred to me that by mimicking some of the sleight of hand tricks and misdirection that the magician was using on his audience, it could be accomplished. A hand placed on the right shoulder and as the lady turned right, whisk off the bracelet from her left wrist, and excuse oneself, that sort of thing.

 

So, I practiced (on my sisters, who proved to be willing accomplices to “my game”) and learned to pick their purses and pockets. I than moved onto their jewelry, starting by lifting bracelets and slipping away rings, before advancing to the brooches, necklaces and earrings they were wearing. After I was satisfied at my skill level, I went out and worked the streets. Sometimes using my one sister who was also hooked on what I was doing as a willing partner.

But I found myself still not being satisfied, in the back of my mind I thought there had to be a more lucrative way to turn a profit.

 

I’d found my answer when an attractive lady in a rustling satin gown zeroed in on me while I was “visiting” a ballroom. She was jeweled like a princess right up to the diamond band she wore holding up her piles of soft locks like a glimmering crown. The more she drank, the closer she got and I decided that her necklace would definitely help pay my expenses more than the contents of her purse (although I had already lifted the fat wallet from her small purse), and I did have very expensive tastes to pay for. So I took her onto the dance floor.

 

I was amazed at how easily I had been able to open the necklace’s clasp , slipping it over her satiny shoulder, lifting it off and placing it safely in my pocket with almost no effort. Then she decided to be playful once the song ended and brushed up against me. She felt the necklace in my pocket and before I could act she had her hand in and pulled it out.

 

The silly naive twit thought I was teasing her and told me that for my penance I had to go up to her suite in order to put it back on for her. I kept up the charade as best as I could.

 

And that’s where we ended up. A little bit of light fondling began as I placed the necklace back around her throat. I began to tease her, plied her with more and more alcohol as I tried to keep my distance, and virginity. Finally she passed out in a drunken stupor, but not before I had learned where she hid her valuables by suggesting she should lock her jewels up for the night..

 

With her safely unconscious, I began to strip her clean off all her jewels, reclaiming the necklace first. Then I visited all her jewelry casket and began looting it. I even took her small rhinestone clutch with the diamond clasp; of course I already had liberated its small wallet.

 

When I’d left her lying happily asleep in bed, still in her satin gown( the only item left to her that shined), I knew I had found a much more profitable line of “work”

 

So I began making circuits around to the haunts of the very rich, I still kept may hand in pickpocketing, so to speak, but centered only on those “pockets” containing mainly jewelry. I also began to carefully explore new ways of acquiring jewels” in masse”, so to speak.

 

Soon I had accumulated many tricks and tools, having them at my disposal to put into action once required, and for the remaining years up till the present had managed to live quite comfortably off of the ill-gotten gains using them allowed me to acquire.

 

Which brings me back to the train ride, my prism, and the rest of my background story before I retun to the present tale. Please be patient.

*****

So, anyway, I reached Surry without any further incident and disembarking, made my way out to the large country house where I would be staying to take a short rest, vacation if you will. But, pardon the play on words, for there is never any rest for the wicked, is there?

 

I had become acquainted with a servant of the old mansion ( almost a small castle, really) , that was about a mile off. I managed to learn a great deal, and soon found myself, on the pretense of visiting her, exploring the grounds. There was to be a grand ball taking place a couple of weekends away , and the maid had filled my ears with the riches that would be displayed by the multitude of regal ladies making an appearance. I began to think about trying to make a little bit of profit from my vacation. I am not sure how the idea developed, but the prism that I still had in my possession, came up centrally into my plans.

 

Late on the evening of the regal affair, I snuck over, covered head to toe in black, with my small satchel off tools by my side. I set up a candle behind an old stone ivy covered wall in a far corner of the rather large and intricate English garden that surrounded the inner circle around the mansion. I than strung the jewel-like prism in front of it. Standing behind the wall, I would strike the prism with a long stick I was holding whenever I observed sparkles emanating from silkily gowned ladies walking in the distance, solitary or in pairs. The prism would flash fire, sort of like a showy lure being used when fishing in a crooked trout stream. Only I was fishing for far sweeter game than trout. My objective was to trick certain types of jeweled ladies (scatterbrains some may call them) by luring them down onto the path beyond the wall, using their natural curiosity to my advantage.

 

I had at least two strikes rise up to my lure in the second hour.

On was a pretty lady in flowing green satin number, decorated with plenty of emeralds, which, hidden in the shadows, I observed were probably paste. I let her wonder about; as she looked and played with the shiny toy, remaining hidden until she grew bored and wandered off.

The second was a slender maiden wearing a long sleek black gown with long ivory silk gloves. I had never before seen a lady so decked out in jewels, literally head to toe. With the exception of the rhinestones adorning her heels, the rest of the lot was real, so valuably real that I could feel my mouth salivating at the thoughts of acquiring her riches. Now in Edwardian times only older, married ladies would be allowed the privilege of wearing a diamond Tiara. But in these modern times, it had become culturally acceptable for any well-to do lady, single or otherwise, to wear one out in society. Even so, they were still rarely worn, and seldom seen outside the safety of large gatherings. But there it was, a small, delicately slender piece of intricate art that glistened from the top of her head like some elegant beacon. That piece alone was probably worth more than I had made all the last four months combined!

I began to skirt around in the shadows, placing myself in position to cut off her retreat. Her diamonds blazed as she approached, eyeing the swinging prism with total concentration. Which was unfortunate, because as I was about to leave the shadows, she walked into the thorns of a rose bush, screeching out, and attracting the notice of a pair of gentlemen who had just crossed the path quite a ways off, called out when they heard the commotion. She started to become chatty with them, obviously coming on to her rescuers, my prism all but forgotten. Than before I knew it, in a swishing of her long gown, she was gone, “swimming” off before I was able to set me ”hook”.

 

Which I was able to do on the third strike, almost an hour later, just as I was beginning to ponder wither I should call it off and head back home..

 

They were a pair of young damsels in their young twenties. They may have been sisters, or cousins at the least. I still remember how my heart leapt into my throat as they observed my colourful prism and turned down the old flagstone path. I had not seen anyone out and about for some time, so I knew they would be no would be rescuers around to come to their aid

And, best of all, they were both dressed for the kill!

One, the blonde, was clad in a black velvet number that one could cannily describe as quite form fitting. As were the small ropes of pearls that hung from all points of interest, pretty with a matching pricelessness.

But her cousin, as I will refer to her, out shone black velvet quite literally.

This one, a stunning raven haired beauty, wore a long streaming gown of liquid ivory satin. A diamond brooch sparkled as it held up a fold of the gown to her waist. The fold allowed her to show a rather daring amount of a slender bare calf. The brooch was not paste, but a real jewel that had been added for the nights festivities ( To be successful, one learns to read these signs accurately) Her ears and neckline were home to a matching set of pure white diamonds. A wide diamond bracelet graced a bare right wrist ,so she must be left handed I instinctively thought, an observation that would have aided me if I were planning on having a go for slipping the bracelet from her wrist, but tonight I was planning a much more daring attempt to empty the entire jewel casket, so to speak.

 

They went to the prism, playing with it a bit, I had begun to circle around, when I noticed black velvet pointing out with multiple ringed fingers, to something further down the path past the wall.

 

With a clicking of heels I let the pair pass, they apparently wanted to see what was on the other side of the wall. I followed; it was not hard, because the necklace the raven haired one wore, diamonds fully encircling her throat, rippled and sparkled from their perch, caught in the full harvest moon’s cast, giving me more than enough light to shadow them quietly .

 

After a while they caught on that something/someone was following them, but as they turned they could see nothing. I was in black, and hooded, invisible to them in the shadows of the trees. They whispered amongst themselves, now worried, realizing that there were dangers lurking beyond the pale, in their case, the safety of the gardens , especially for ones decked out as they were. They then turned and headed right back from where they had come, right into my waiting arms.

 

It is interesting what good breeding does for young, poised ladies. For, as I stepped out of the shadows, a finger of my right hand to my lips, my Fairborn in my left hand, its black blade glinting wickedly in the moonlight , they did not scream out or shout for help. Instead the pair merely let out small gasps, and then they both, in a quite charming synchronized display of disbelief, place each one hand over their open mouths, and the other upon their perspective necklaces.

 

And as I flourished my wicked looking Fairbairn–Sykes blade in their direction, they unquestioningly reached around and undid those pretty necklaces, tremblingly handing them out to me, like actresses following a well-read script. I took the little pretties and after stuffing them into my satchel, held out again my free hand, my fingers beckoning. Not a word was spoken between us, as the frightened pair of young ladies began removing their shimmering jewels and added them in a neat little growing pile along my open palm. The raven haired girl even undid her brooch without me having to command her to do so. Once I had stashed it all away, I motioned for them to turn back around, than with a little helpful prodding on my part, they began moving forward back down the hill, away from the garden. The one in white hobbling a little now as she kept tripping over the hem of her dress, now no longer held up by the stolen brooch.

 

After we had traveled about 200 meters I had them stop, and take off their high heels. Then picking the pretty things up, I motioned them to turn back around and made them walk back the way we had come in their bare feet, watching the pair awkwardly hobble barefooted down the wooded path. They would be quite a while on their journey back, allowing me more than ample time to make me escape. I threw their shoes off to the side and went briskly the other way, reaching the place was staying at , gaining my room without notice. But not before I had hidden the jewels inside an old stump to retrieve them at a later date. I never really heard so much as a whisper of the incident, other than from the pretty lips of my friendly maiden. The wee hours of the morning before my early departure for the train station found me revisiting the stump and retrieving my satchel and its precious cargo. After hiding it all in a false bottom of my case I laid my head on the pillow and drifted off to sleep as I wondered what had happened to the little prism, marveling at how useful it had ended up proving to be.

 

So, how does this story (journey rather) relate to the one I had already started? Please read on, and enrich your curiosity… my dear readers.

****************************************************************************

Act 2

 

So, with apologies for my lengthy elucidation, but I now return you back to the garden party I was now attending on that warm fall day. But, as you will see, my prism story needed to be told in order to add a bit of flavor to what was about to unfold.

 

As I sat on the garden bench I formulated my plans. I should be able to acquire the main piece tonight at the Ball, I would have time this afternoon to retrieve my ever handy satchel and its array of tools and have it hidden at the spot I had already selected. It was perfect, located at the end of the path I had found, or rather the charming lady in the smart chiffon dress had found for me. A gas lamp would provide adequate light for my “lure”, and it led to a back wood where I could lead any victims away and liberate them of their valuables before making my escape. I rose, just enough time to walk my escape route, before setting up and then be dressed for the evening’s festivities. I looked around, I was alone now, my lady in white had disappeared, following her own course, whatever it may have been.

 

The Autumn Ball that evening was in full swing by the time I arrived. Being a cool fall day, most of the women were wearing long gowns and dresses, and that, for whatever the reason, usually meant they were decked out with more layers of jewelry than say , if it had been the middle of summer. In order to put my plan in action I need and intrinsic piece of the trap, a prism. The one I had once had was long ago lost, a minor pawn in a game to take a pair of princesses.

 

I knew exactly the type of prism required for my plan, and so began mingling amongst the guests with that in mind.

 

I started out by walking through to the chamber like ballroom where a full orchestra was starting to play. The first person I saw from the garden party was the little tramp who had been wearing the too tight satin tea dress. That dress had been replaced with a long silky gown, her gold jewelry replaced with emeralds; including a thin bracelet that had taken the place of the gold one that she had so obligingly dangled in my larcenous path. I decided to avoid her In principle, and in doing so spied someone quite interesting.

 

That someone was a pretty lady in a long velvet gown standing off to one side, idly watching the many dancers out on the floor. The dancing couples were forming an imagery of a rainbow coloured sea of slinky swirling gowns and with erupting fireworks of sparkling jewels, ignited by pair of immensely large chandeliers that hung over the dance floor, setting them off. I made my way, skirting the dance floor to reach her, my eyes on her jewels, which were making pretty fireworks of their own. I happened to walk up just as a waiter with a tray of drinks was passing by. Plucking off a drink I offered it to the lady with one hand, my other hand placed on her back as If to steady myself. She laughed prettily, and taking the drink I met her eyes, as she was focused on reaching and holding the glass in her slippery gloved hand, mine was on the ruby and diamond necklace. My hand behind her had flicked open the simple hook and eye clasp of the antique piece and was in the process of lifting it up and whisking it away from her throat. As I said a few words to her, I pocketed it, while also taking in the rest of her lovely figure and its shiny decorations, before biding adieu. She smiled, her pale bare neckline now quite glaringly extinguished of its fire.

 

It was about an hour later, after spotting, but unable to make inroads with several likely candidates, that I finally struck gold (figuratively). It came in the form of a young couple arguing between themselves in a far corner of the chamber. She was lecturing a rather handsome man in a tux, her jeweled fingers flying in his face. If she hadn’t been moving about in such an animated fashion as she lectured, I may not have even noticed her. But as it happened I did, especially noticeable was the sanctimonious lady’s wide jeweled bracelet that was bursting out in a rainbow of colorful flickers as her hand was emphatically waving, as her long gown of silk swished around with every movement she made. Perfect. I watched for a bit, and sure enough they moved off, the man heading for the patio leading outside, the wealthy girl following him, still giving him lashes with her tongue. I moved and managed to have her bump into me simply by stepping on the hemline of her long gown. For a few seconds I was the one on the receiving end of her wrath, but I took it like a man, I could see in the eyes of her tongue lashed husband, that he was grateful for the respite. I was also grateful; grateful for the quite wide, very shimmering, bracelet that I had removed from her wrist and now was residing in my pocket.

 

I began to leave the patio, but was stopped by a matronly lady in ruffles, laces and pearls, her breath heavy with alcohol. She started to question me on what the couple had been on about. Then without waiting for an answer she launched herself into a tirade of her own, her gem encrusted, silken gloved fingers, waving in my face for emphasis. It was almost ten minutes before I was able to make my escape. Which I did, but not before slipping off one of the lecturing ladies vulgarly large cocktail rings.

 

I headed onto the patio; the time was getting ripe for my plan, which I was now ready to put into motion, now having acquired its most essential piece. I went to the end of the large patio, weaving in and out of the by now well liquored guests whom had assembled there. Across the way I saw a lady tripping over her own gown. By the time I reached her she had fallen down, giggling merrily. Two of us rushed to her aid, she was busy gushed her thanks to the rescuer she knew, while ignoring the one she didn’t! Which was unfortunate on her part, for by ignoring me, she also was ignorant of the fact that I was busy lifting the small stands of black pearls from her wrist. I left unnoticed, much like a shadow fading out of the light, or at least that’s how it seemed. Finally I reached the patios outer edge without further incident, or gain. I went on the grass and turned a corner with the intention of going, post haste around the house to reach the gardens by the long way, hoping not to be seen by anyone. But I no sooner turned the corner, when I realized that it was not to be the case.

 

It was my blithe spirit in white chiffon from the garden party, pardon me, soiree. She was unescorted, looking up at the moon above a stone turret with one lit window, so intently that my presence had not been noticed. I had been absolutely correct in my observation of her as far as what she would be wearing for the evening. For what she had lacked in ornaments at the soiree, she had more than made up for in the evening festivities. She was absolutely gorgeous, resplendent in as beautiful a silvery satin gown that I had ever witness. It was just pouring down, shimmering along her delightful figure. Her long blazing red hair was still curling down and free, but now a pair of long chandelier earrings cascading down from her earlobes, were peeking out every now and then as they swayed with her every movement. Her blazingly rippling necklace was all diamonds, dripping down the front of her tightly satin covered bosom, twinkling iridescently like an intensively glimmering waterfall. Her slender gloved wrists were home to a pair of dangling diamond bracelets that were almost outshone by her many glistening rings. All in all she was quite a lure all too herself

 

I came up to her, starling her from her reverie. Taking up her hand, I looked into her startled, suddenly blushing face. I complimented her on the fine gown she wore. She thanked me, and I could see I that she suddenly remembered she me as the chap who she thought smiled to her in the garden. She seemed to accept my compliment quite readily. I chanced it( although Lord knows I was short on time) and asked her to a dance. I did not think she would agree, so it was with a little bit of surprise, hoping she would politely decline and walk off, leaving me free to go about my business unobserved. But she accepted, and I will admit that my heart leapt as she agreed (although in the back of my mind I knew I should be off if my plan was to work). The music had stopped so we made small talk as we slowly walked back to the ballroom. Her name was Katrina. It seems she was waiting for someone, which suited my plans, but he was late and so she had time. Which may have sounded dismissive, but from the apologetic way she said it, it was anything but the sort.

 

The orchestra started to tune back up as we entered, and taking her offered hand up, was soon lost in the elegance of my appealing partner. It was a long dance, and a formal one, but I could tell she was subtly anxious to be off on her meeting, as I was to be off to my own adventure. But Katrina did not really allow it to show, which was very uncharacteristic of her someone with her obvious breeding. So I was ready when the by the end of the music she begged her condolences and took flight. I watched her as she fluidly moved away, her jewels sparkling, all of them. On her mission to meet Mr. X I thought, for whom I was already harboring a quite jealous dislike. I should be off I thought to meself.

 

But I stood, still as stone; totally mesmerized by the way Katrina’s swirling silvery satin gown was playing out along her petite, jewel sparkling figure. It wasn’t till the last of her gown swished around a corner out of sight that I moved, but not without having to shake my head to clear the thoughts of her out of it. Well old son, focus. For by now the guests were starting to wander a bit afield in the waning hours of the Autumn Ball, and my small window of opportunity was closing fast. If my little plan was going to have any chance of success it would have to be now.

 

I walked out and made my way to one of the outside exist of the garden wall. Reaching into my pocket as I did so, fingering the bracelet, now cold, that had belonged to the quarrelsome lady,and soon would be playing another role, far from one its former mistress would ever have dreamed off. I also felt my new acquisition, still warm from my dance partner’s body. I will admit that I had felt a twinge of regret for taking it from a lady I had found to be most charmingly captivating. But slipping off the diamonds up and away from her throat had been as temptingly easy as it had been automatic. I had advantageously made use of the sleekness of her scintillatingly silky gown, and with the distractions created by the movements of the dance, successfully managed to keep Katrina’s attention safely diverted from the reality of why my fingers were ever so gently, caressingly sliding along her slippery gowns neckline. The truth was I had originally placed my hand there because it had felt so right, and I was a little startled when my fingers had subconsciously started playing with her necklaces clasp. Before I knew it, they had flicked open the gemstone clasp of her obviously expensive diamond necklace, and had lifted up. As I watched out of the corner of my eye, almost like I was a spectator, as opposed to being the perpetrator, I saw the chain move up and over her shoulder; its diamonds sparkling with is as the necklace disappeared from view behind her back.

It was a favored technique that I had perfected to the point that by this stage of my career I nearly always acquired my objective. But, as odd as it sounds, I was not happy with myself on this occasion.

 

But I did not long dwell on my mixed feelings on taking the charming lass’s diamonds, for by now I had reached my place of ambush. It was in one of the farthest reaches of the garden, at a bend on the end of a long path that, with a gas lamp at its beginning just off the patio, would allow me to see from some distance off. Behind me was a break in the hedge wide enough for a person to walk through comfortably. It was here, off a tree limb, underneath a second ornate cast iron gas lamp, which was now lit, that I hung the shimmering bracelet that I had sought out and acquired for just that reason

 

I walked around and saw that it could be seen flickered off in the distance from the woods, Perfect! Earlier I had hidden my satchel with a hood and knife and bit of rope in the hollow of an old tree. I now retrieved them, and after getting ready, found my position and waited. At 10 minutes past the first hour of my wait, with nary a single glimpse of anyone, I started to fidget. My corner may be just a bit too desolated I was beginning to admit to myself. It seemed that most of the guests were staying by the patio. I was starting to think that I should pack it in, possibly rejoining the guests for one last parting( of someone from her Jewelry). I was just reaching down to pick up my satchel when I suddenly saw something flash under the gas lamp at the beginning of the path, and my senses immediately perked up. I watched as the wisps of rich shimmery satin moved closer, I stiffened, drooling with anticipation, the game was afoot.

  

I could see clearly the flickering jewels she wore, and by their blazing sparkles of rippling fire, I knew that my long vigil would not have been in vain. As the lady drew I recognized her gown of silvery satin! I knew who was making those tantalizing flashes of appealing treasures. Katrina!

 

I watched as she approached, in all her glittering elegance. My heart and conscious was in turmoil, but I knew I probably would not get a second chance. I could not let her get away unscathed. Beside, from the shock of being confronted with a masked scoundrel wielding a wicked blade, she would be in no shape to recognize her assailant. She stopped, apprehensively looking back towards the bright lights of the Manor, Then turning back I saw she had a self-satisfied smile creeping upon her face. She reached up, and undoing her hair, shook it down, curls of softness cascading down, hanging loosely down. It was as she performed this provocative act, that I saw her eyes open wide in curiosity; she had spied my pretty little “prism”. The charming fish was hooked.

 

I waited, watching her approaching ever closer to fate, and from my concealment, I basked in her glow. My heart beating fast, my adrenaline pumping, for the remaining jewels (I thought of her necklace in my custody) that she possessed I already had witnessed were quite valuable. She passed my hiding spot and went to the hanging, shimmering object. As she reached up, looking around, she failed to see me approaching in the shadows. I came up from behind, jabbing a finger in her back as I reached her, I gruffly in no uncertain terms, snarled for her to freeze and make no sound. She stiffened under my touch, but made no move or outcry. I went around; pointing my knife in her direction, looking into her sad doe wide eyes as she realized what was going to happen next. She was trembling; from fear I guessed, and knew I had her right where I wanted. As I made my demands upon her, gimme them jewels sister, she, not surprisingly, was very compliant in giving them up to me. She reached for her necklace last, and looked entirely shocked to find her throat bare, as she searched the neckline of her gown I saw her look into my hand, now dripping with her precious jewelry, almost as if to see if she had not already removed it. She looked apologetically into my eyes, startled; almost pleading that she didn’t know what had happened to it. I just played dump. She than spoke for the first time, sir, may I ask to keep my purse? Her words would have instantly melted even the coldest chunk of ice, I looked down at the little silvery clutch hanging from her arm on its rhinestone chain, I nodded, indicating that she could, and saw relief wash over her face. I told her she now needed to turn around and walk off into the woods ahead of me. She hesitated, and I told her no harm would befall her, I had no intentions along those lines.

 

About 5 meters in I stopped her, and had her remove her shoes, as she bent over to undo the high heels rhinestone clasps I watched her gown tightly outlining her figure. She tripped on the hem of her gown, and as she attempted to keep her balance, accidently let her purse slip off her shoulder. Without thinking I reached down to pick it up for her as she tried reached for it simultaneously

 

The small purse was far heavier than it should have been. Curious I opened it, finding that it contained a rather extensive array of mismatched jewelry, glittering in unbelievably expensive fire . I looked into Katrina’s horror struck eyes dumb founded, as she looked guiltily into mine. The gig was up. The jewels belonged to the lady of the manor, my muse in silver was a thief, a female version of me very self.

 

Aye, what’s this than luv? I questioned her as she looked into my eyes, hers large with a mixture of fright and disbelief. She melted before me, fainting, I caught her in my arms, and it was no ruse. I held her as she came to, holding her warm, silky figure lovingly to mine. I did not know what to think. Nor could I ever explain what possessed me to do what I did next. As she came to, her eyes opened, and I removed my mask, looking back into them deeply.

 

Oh, she gasped, I’m glad it was you, startled that she had said the words out loud. She than started to coyly blushes, quite demurely. Something sparked in me, and unless she was an incredibly good actress, it did also for Katrina. Our eyes both looked into the others, melting away in the lust of the moment. We embraced, deeply, and I held her squirming warm slick figure tight in my enveloping arms. I looked over her shoulder, eyeing the glistening bracelet hanging from its branch. To catch a thief, the thought suddenly opened in my mind, what a great title for a novel I thought to myself, as I buried my nose into Katrina’s luxuriously soft hair.

 

We talked for a bit, walking off into the woods, then she looked into my eyes again, a coy, look that melted me on the spot, and that was the end of it, we embraced again, and wholly gave ourselves to one another. What about your man I asked suddenly remembering, my man she questioned , than oh, you mean the Lord, I was waiting for him to come down from smoking in his tower study, that’s where the lady’s jewels are kept. She broke into an Irish brogue as she said the last bit, and that I guessed was her natural tongue. she laid a hand on the side of my face, thanks for being jealous though, me lad.

I should collect my lure I said, which made her smile; it was such an enticing smile at that. We started to head back and watched as it dangled in front of us flickering. With a far off look in her green eyes, Katrina spoke as if in deep though.

 

The daughter of the house, she has a bracelet on like the one you have dangling, a bracelet of diamonds that I had taken a fancy to, wishing it had been in the safe along with the rest of the ladies of manors jewelry. I knew who she was talking about. The one in green taffeta I asked? Aye lad, that’s the one. Actually her necklace would be just as easy, and worth more I said. Just then her bright green eyes gleamed, Give me about a half an hour, she told me, we will put your little lure to use again. She noticed my hesitation, don’t worry luv she said soothingly placing a gloved hand to my cheek, no longer was it sparkly with its stolen bracelet and rings. I’ll leave my purse with you, can’t very well be carrying it around now can I? I nodded my consent, my mind burning with the thoughts she had alluringly placed there.

  

She turned, and then hesitated; turning back she said I probably should not go back in naked luv. I smiled, reaching in I pulled out her necklace and placed it around her throat. With a little gasp she blurted, so it was you, I was wondering who and when it had happened. It’s not the first time I’ve had me jewels lifted, but it’s a bloody annoyance to have to let them get away with it, crawls under my skin to have pretend not to notice so that I don’t draw any attention to me self before making my move to steal the posh ones jewels.

 

But you, mister, I never felt as much as a prickling. I was ready to assume my pretties had been a victim of a broken clasp this time. I gave a little nod in acceptance. That wasn’t exactly a compliment lad, she said in what I hopped was a subtle jest. Just last summer some clumsy bugger slipped of me earrings, my favorite pearls, as we were danc… she stopped, seeing the guilt in my eyes. Men! As thieves you are all of the same skin she spat out angrily, or attempted to sound angry, for the look in her eyes to me she wasn’t. I best be off, before I change me mind about out little endeavor.

 

With that she swirled around on her heels, and started off, but not before turning and giving me an extremely coy look of interest. As she swirled back around I heard her say loud enough for my ears, I’ll learn me self to be a picker of pockets, see how males like to be taken advantage of in their vulnerabilities! She nodded to herself as she said it. Then suddenly she stopped, than twirled on her heels, her gown swirling enticingly along her figure. Looking me dead in the eye she said, “Vie ne est pas d'attendre que la tempête , mais d'apprendre à danser sous la pluie” !

 

What does that mean? I questioned in a low voice, perplexed.

 

Maybe, Mon Cheri, someday I will tell you… And with that she turned on her heel, her gown once again swirling about, and went, determinedly, swishing her way back up the path. I just watched. I had never heard anyone speak French with an Irish Brogue and I had found it to be rather provocative!

 

I watched as she swished and swayed her way back through the hedge and regained the path leading back to the manor. Her plan was simple; she would lead the daughter of the house to my corner and as she had done, go out with her to look at the swinging charm. I would then make my appearance, rob both ladies of their finery, and telling the daughter to wait until I released her friend, walk off with Katrina as a hostage, and we would both take off and make good our escape. A simple plan, so simple it should actually work.

 

So, there I was. Holding a purse with a small fortune in jewels, my pocket full of more jewels worth an additional pretty farthing, and her charms were wearing off by her leaving. And my thieving nature coming back, reawakened from the spell they had been under!

 

The devil of my conscious crept out on my shoulder, the angel markedly absent from the other.

 

Look mate, she may not be all she seems, and possibly has some other game in mind. Maybe she does have a male confidante helping her out… and was actually on her way to fetch him. He said in my inner ear. And, after all, you took her diamonds twice, didn’t ye now? Do you really think shell forgive you of that me lad?

 

And there is no honor amongst thieves, as the saying goes, he added as a closing argument...

 

I rolled it over in my mind…I could leave, absconding with it all, book a cruise to the states or down under where there lay untried fertile grounds to ply my trade. Not to mention working over my fellow passengers aboard the cruise ship while they attended the fancy affairs that were always going on, or so the brochures always seemed to show……

 

Then In the distance I caught a wisp of Katrina’s long silvery gown. She was coming, and not only with the daughter of the manor, but also with a spare. For I could see a purple coloured gown swishing alongside with the prey in rustling green taffeta.. I watched as all three ladies, resplendent with the rippling fiery gems they all possessed, came up the path, gowns sweeping out , shimmery from the now misty distance.

 

The thought of making my escape with all the loot continued to haunt me, there was still time now to take off without notice, or I could rob all three, and leave with purple silk as my hostage, Katrina would not be able to say anything on chance of giving up her part of the game, or I could just be a good lad and sty with the script that Katrina had written. Take a chance, roll the dice and believe that she was all she had me believing she could ever be.

 

As they came closer I knew my time was running out. The thoughts of just looking out for myself kept coming up playing the devil with my conscience as the precious seconds ticked away…

 

No honor amongst thieves…

What will it be, old boy I challenged myself,

What will you have it be?........

To see what his decision ultimately was, and the eventual path it led to, see the album question answered)

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Life is not about waiting out the storm, but about learning to dance in the rain.

Vie ne est pas d'attendre que la tempête , mais d'apprendre à danser sous la pluie .

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Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives

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Huckleberry Creek (northeast of Mt Rainier), WA

 

eaten by slime mold beetles, some flies, and Canada Jays - see John Davis photo - www.flickr.com/photos/johns_pics/53321550321/

 

occasionally by humans - www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfbLSl_4o78

 

a slime mold - there is a good description at this site:

www.flickr.com/photos/atlapix/3053804078/

 

from Wikipedia - "In Scandinavian folklore, Fuligo septica is identified as the vomit of troll cats.[18]" Think I prefer "scrambled egg slime". also interesting - "Slime molds have a high resistance to toxic levels of metals; one author was prompted to write "The levels of Zn in Fuligo septica were so high (4,000–20,000 ppm) that it is difficult to understand how a living organism can tolerate them."[12] The resistance to extreme levels of zinc appears to be unique to F. septica.[13] The mechanism of this metal resistance is now understood: F. septica produces a yellow pigment called fuligorubin A, which has been shown to chelate metals and convert them to inactive forms.[14]"

 

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.198705861 - Fuligorubin A, which is responsible for the yellow color of the plasmodia of Fuligo septica, is the first tetramic acid derivative to be isolated from a slime mold. Its structure was elucidated by a combination of mass spectrometry, 1H- and 13C-NMR spectroscopy, and circular dichroic measurements. Tetramic acid derivatives are also found in mycotoxins, antibiotics, and antitumor agents.

 

my lichen photos by genus - www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections/7215762439...

 

my photos arranged by subject, e.g. mountains - www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections

 

Front entrance to a building in Parkersburg, West Virginia. This looks like a residential apartment building, but that entrance makes it look like it used to be something else. Not many buildings have a clock above the door.

 

Note: see comments below for an elucidation of this building's past and present!

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.

 

Whilst her mistress is enjoying a Christmas and New Year visit with her parents at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, Edith, Lettice’s maid is using her time before Lettice returns to give the flat a thorough dusting and clean along with the help of Mrs. Boothby, the charwoman* who comes to help Edith with all the harder jobs around the flat. Whilst Mrs. Boothby tackles the makeup stains in Lettice’s bathroom, Edith has borrowed a small ladder from Robert, the Cavendish Mews’ residential handyman, and is dusting the crystal chandelier in the dining room. She gaily hums ‘The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers’** which she had enjoyed listening to on New Year’s Eve after Frank brought a gramophone around to her parents’ house in Harlesden where they held a small party. The trade union friend Frank borrowed the gramophone from also supplied a whole range of wonderful shellac records which everyone at the party took turns selecting from to play. Thanks to his generosity, Edith and Frank had danced their way around her parent’s kitchen, foxtrotting into 1925. She smiles as she remembers the highlight of spending so much time with Frank that evening, even if her parents and friends were right there with them. She’s also glad that, thanks to Mrs. Boothby’s wise counsel, she has reconciled with the idea that if Frank is offered a job as a manager or assistant manager of a grocers in one of the new Metroland*** suburbs being bult in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex, as his wife, she will join him. As she runs a damp cloth over the pendeloques**** and festoons***** of crystal, she wonders, and quietly hopes that Frank will propose to her in 1925.

 

“’Ere Edith dearie,” Mrs. Boothby calls from the dining room floor below. “Whatchoo ‘ummin’ so cheerfully ‘bout?” She utters one of her deep fruity, phlegm filled coughs a she speaks. “Finkin’ ‘bout Frank was you?”

 

“Never you mind what I was thinking about, Mrs. Boothby!” Edith answers back, feeling the hotness of a blush rising up her neck and filling her face.

 

“Aye! Aye!” Mrs. Boothby points a gnarled and bony, careworn finger at Edith’s blushing figure up the ladder. “So, you was finkin’ of ‘im!”

 

Edith sighs. “I just wish I knew when he was going to propose, Mrs. Boothby.”

 

“Ahh! ‘E will, dearie, when ‘e’s good and ready! You’ll see!”

 

“I think I need one of those clairvoyants I see adverting discreetly in the newspapers.” Edith mutters. “They’ll give me the answers I seek.”

 

“Ahh me! Always in a rush ain’t you?”

 

“What do you mean, Mrs. Boothby?”

 

“Just sit back and enjoy the expectation, Edith dearie! That’s the best part of bein’ in love!” the old Cockney says with another fruity cough before sighing deeply. “What it is to be young an’ in love.”

 

“Oh, you do talk some rot sometimes, Mrs. Boothby!” Edith scoffs dismissively, her face growing redder. “I’ll have you know that I was simply humming to pass the time more pleasurably.” she continues, trying to cover up Mrs. Boothby’s correct assessment of her thoughts. “Cleaning chandeliers is no easy job, you know.”

 

“Try cleaning Miss Lettice’s barfroom!” the old Cockney char exclaims, arching her back, and rubbing the base of her spine, the opening of her lungs eliciting a few more heavy coughs. “Lawd knows what’s in that muck Miss Lettice wears on ‘er face, but it marks the porcelain good ‘n’ proppa. I only cleaned in there wiv Vim****** a bit before Christmas! Whatchee done, slappin’ that stuff on ‘er pretty face for, anyroad?”

 

“Miss Lettice had a few parties to attend before Christmas, Mrs. Boothby, especially those American Carters’ Thanksgiving Christmas ball in Park Lane*******.”

 

“Were it fancy dress then, this party of ‘ers?” Mrs. Boothby asks.

 

“No, just a formal ball, although by all accounts there was quite a to do. Why do you ask, Mrs. Boothby?”

 

“Well, I just fought, what wiv all them red an’ black marks on ‘er vanity, she must ‘ave slapped on a lot of makeup an’ gone in fancy dress.” Mrs. Boothby opines.

 

“Yes!” Edith giggles girlishly. “As a clown!”

 

The two women begin laughing, a little at first, then their peals growing more raucous until Mrs. Boothby starts coughing again. Doubling over as her whole wiry body is wracked with coughing, she struggles to catch her breath.

 

Edith scrambles down the ladder. “Let me get you some water.” she exclaims, rushing through the green baize door to the kitchen before Mrs. Boothby can try to say anything. She returns a few moments later with a tumbler of water. “Here!” She thrusts the glass into the old woman’s shaking hand. “Drink this.”

 

“Fank… you… Edith… dearie.” Mrs. Boothby manages to say in a horse whisper between coughs as she gratefully lifts the glass to her dry lips and gulps the water shakily, pausing every now and then to elicit another heavy cough.

 

“Come,” Edith says kindly. “Sit yourself down here.” She pulls out one of the black japanned dining chairs from the oblong table.

 

“But.. Miss Lettice…” the old woman gasps.

 

“Miss Lettice isn’t here to worry about you sitting on one of her precious dining chairs, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith assures her. “And besides,” She guides the old woman carefully down onto the white satin cushioned seat. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, even if she did know.”

 

The old woman settles against the wooden slats of the chair’s back and slowly catches her breath.

 

“That’s it.” Edith says soothingly, crouched before the old woman, rubbing the top of Mrs. Boothby’s hand lightly with her fingers. “Take a few deep breaths.” When the old Cockney coughs heavily a few more times, Edith pushes the glass across the black polished surface of the table. “Drink some more water, Mrs. Boothby.”

 

“Fanks.” Mrs. Boothby huffs.

 

Once she has finished the glass, Edith returns to the kitchen to refill it, commanding Mrs. Boothby to remain seated in her absence. When she returns with the tumbler full of fresh water again, Mrs. Boothby asks, “So what ‘appened?”

 

“What do you mean, Mrs. Boothby? “ Edith asks, taking the seat at the top of the table, diagonally across from the old Cockney charwoman. “We were taking and then, you just started coughing.”

 

“Not me, ya berk********.” Mrs. Boothby says raspily. “Miss Lettice!”

 

“What do you mean, Miss Lettice?”

 

“You said there was much ado at that fancy American party Miss Lettice went to.” Mrs. Boothby elucidates. “What ‘appened?”

 

“Well,” Edith says with a shaky intake of breath. “It was all over the newspapers the next day.”

 

“What was, Edith dearie?”

 

“Well, the hostess, Mrs. Georgie Carter used to be not so well off before she married Mr. Carter. I remember once Miss Lettice asked me to box up a few bits and pieces from her wardrobe she’d barely worn, or decided she didn’t like, and when Mrs. Carter, when she was still Miss Kitson-Fahey that is, came around for luncheon, Miss Lettice told her that she was going to give the box to charity and would Miss Kitson-Fahey please get rid of it for her.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, of course the clothes were really meant for Miss Kitson-Fahey to wear. Miss Kitson-Fahey and Miss Lettice were around the same size you see, and her clothes, even her everyday ones, were a bit shabby and old fashioned, and the next time she came to luncheon she was wearing some of them, only with the buttons changed or a new trim on them to try and disguise where they came from originally.” Edith nods. “And Miss Lettice never said anything to her.”

 

“But what’s that got to do wiv the party, Edith Dearie?”

 

“Well, now that Miss Kitson-Fahey is Mrs. Georgie Carter, well, she’s richer than Croesus********* isn’t she? So, when she wants anything now, she just gets it. And she decided that all the Bright Young Things********** like Miss Lettice at the party, should go on a scavenger hunt.”

 

“A what?” Mrs. Boothby asks.

 

“A scavenger hunt, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies. “You know, where the host or hostess of a party makes up a list of items and then their guests have to go and find them. Bert and I used to play it at each other’s birthday parties when we were little, with our friends and the local children who we invited. Mum would make a list of things that would be easily found, like a currant bun, because we were having them for birthday tea, or some flowers that grew in the garden, a peg from the laundry basket, or a certain toy, and we’d break off into groups and try and bring back as many things on the list Mum gave us as we could.”

 

“Sounds daft to me.” Mrs. Boothby grumbles.

 

“Well, Mrs. Carter’s list must have been daft because people from the party were caught all over London in the early morning doing ridiculous things. Two men from the party, drunk as lords*********** according to the newspapers, were arrested trying to get across to Duck Island************ in St James Park to steal swan feathers. Another party guest was detained for being a public nuisance after she tried to scale the wall at Buckingham Palace in order to steal the wellies************* of the King’s head gardener, and Tallulah Bankhead************** the American actress appearing in the West End was cautioned after she was caught trying to steal a sheep from a poor distressed farmer in the wee hours as he drove his flock up New Bridge Street to the Smithfield Markets!”

 

“What?” Mrs. Boothby’s eyes grow wide. “Daft that is! What people want to do, goin’ ‘round getting’ into trouble wiv Bobbies*************** an’ bovverin’ good law-abidin’ folk like that for?”

 

“For a lark, Mrs. Boothby!” Edith exclaims. “They were all things on Mrs. Carter’s scavenger hunt list.”

 

“What? A live sheep?” Mrs. Boothby scoffs.

 

“And swan feathers and wellies from the King’s gardener.”

 

“I ‘ope Miss Lettice didn’t go in for none of that silliness.”

 

“Well, I can’t say she didn’t, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith admits with a downward gaze. “But at least she had the sense not to end up in the newspapers like Ms. Bankhead or the others did. She got in very late that evening, or should I say early in morning after the party, because I was already up and having my breakfast when she came stumbling in through the front door with her sister Mrs. Lanchenbury, wearing a bobby’s helmet!”

 

“No!” gasps Mrs. Boothby, causing her to cough again.

 

“Drink some more water, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith insists before going on. “Miss Lettice handed me the helmet from her head when I walked into the entrance hall, and told me to dispose of it as I saw fit, as she and Mrs. Lanchenbury had no further need of it. Then they both giggled and stumbled away into Miss Lettice’s bedroom, where I found them a few hours later, fast asleep, still fully dressed, lying across her bed!” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what other mischiefs they had been up to, but Miss Lettice’s grey crêpe romain**************** frock was covered in marks and stains, some of which I can’t get out.”

 

“Well, if she flings it out, you can salvage some bits off it, I’m sure, Edith dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says comfortingly.

 

“Oh, I intend to, if she does.” Edith agrees with a shallow but emphatic nod. “Which I think she will do.”

 

“You’ll make me and your mum proud, dearie!”

 

“Waste not, want not.”

 

“Exactly! And the bobby’s ‘at?” Mrs. Boothby croaks. “Whatchoo do wiv that then?”

 

“Well, I decided I couldn’t put it in our dustbins, in case anyone found it there! I didn’t want the household involved, and I certainly didn’t want to be incriminated,”

 

“So?”

 

“So I put it in Mrs. Clifford’s dustbin downstairs instead. Myra was fit to be tied when she found it. I heard her scream all the way up the tradesman’s stairwell. Next thing I knew, she was on my threshold, helmet in hand, thumping on the door, causing quite a scene!”

 

“I ‘ope you gave ‘er what for!”

 

“I opened the door, and when she accused Miss Lettice of putting it in her mistress’ dustbin, I told her that Miss Lettice was sleeping and had been since she came home from the party, so she couldn’t have put it in there, and could she please be quiet so Miss Lettice and Mrs. Lanchenbury could sleep undisturbed.” Edith then adds with a smug smile, “And I wasn’t lying. Miss Lettice didn’t put it in her dustbin.”

 

The two women chuckle heartily together over the incident.

 

“That Myra’s a toffee-nosed snob of a maid, anyway,” Mrs. Boothby smiles.

 

“Just like Mrs. Clifford.” Edith opines.

 

“It couldn’t ‘ve ‘appened to a nicer person. She’s no…”

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

The telephone in the drawing room starts ringing, stopping Mrs. Boothby mid sentence.

 

Edith looks through the double doors into the adjoining drawing room. “That infernal contraption!” she mutters.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“They ain’t goin’ away, you know, Edith dearie.” Mrs. Boothby remarks sagely. “Miss Lettice ain’t the only one wiv one of them fings in their ‘omes. They’s even turnin’ up on the streets nah, in red booths*****************, you know?”

 

Edith gets up from the table, and leaving Mrs. Boothby where she sits with her half emptied tumbler of water, walks into the drawing room and up to the black japanned occasional table upon which the silver and Bakelite telephone continues to trill loudly.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“I should knock you over, next time I’m dusting. Let’s hear you ring then, infernal contraption!”

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“I can answer it for you, Edith dearie.” Mrs. Boothby offers, knowing that Edith will never accept her offer. “If you like.”

 

Edith hates answering the telephone. It’s one of the few jobs in her position as Lettice’s maid that she wishes she didn’t have to do. Whenever she has to answer it, which is quite often considering how frequently her mistress is out and about, there is usually some uppity caller at the other end of the phone, whose uppity accent only seems to intensify when they realise they are speaking to ‘the hired help’ as they abruptly demand Lettice’s whereabouts.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“Come on now Edith!” she tells herself, smoothing her suddenly clammy hands down the apron covering her print morning dress. “It’s only a machine, and the person at the other end can’t hurt you, even if they are angry that you aren’t her.”

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“Mayfair 432, the Honourable Miss Lettice Chetwynd’s residence.” Edith answers with a slight quiver to her voice. Her whole body clenches and she closes her eyes as she waits for the barrage of anger from some duchess or other titled lady, affronted at having to address the maid. A female voice speaks down the line. “Oh Mrs. Hatchett, how do you do. What a pleasant surprise! Yes, this is Edith, Miss Chetwynd’s maid.” She smiles and her anxiety dissipates.

 

Lettice decorated some of the principal rooms of Mrs. Hatchett’s house, ‘The Gables’ in Rotherfield and Mark Cross in Sussex, in 1921. Even though Mrs. Hatchett is a little overbearing, it is only because she is enthusiastic. Edith likes her because Mrs. Hatchett, being a banker cum Labour politician’s wife, and formerly a London West End actress, has not been born with a pedigree that finds talking to the staff offensive, like so many other callers on Lettice’s telephone.

 

Edith listens. “No. No, I’m afraid that Miss Chetwynd isn’t at home, Mrs. Hatchett.” She listens to the disappointed response. “She’s still with her family in Wiltshire.” She listens. “Yes, I can have her telephone you in Sussex. I’m quite sure Miss Chetwynd still has…” Mrs. Hatchett cuts Edith short and she listens again. “Queen Anne’s Gate******************? Really? Oh congratulations, Mrs. Hatchett.” Edith listens again. “Oh! Oh well I’m quite sure she would delighted to do that for you, but not being privy to her diary, I shall have to get her to telephone you.” She listens again. “Yes, I’d just take it down. One moment whilst I fetch a pencil and paper, Mrs. Hatchett.” Edith puts the receiver down on the table next to the telephone base and brushes her clammy palms down her apron for a second time. The then picks up the pencil atop the pad of paper that Lettice left for her to jot any messages on from the lower tier of the table. Picking up the receiver in her left hand she stands poised with pencil in hand to write and says, “I’m ready for your message now Mrs. Hatchett. Please go ahead. She writes a message based on Mrs. Hatchett’s response. “Yes. Yes, I’ll make sure Miss Chetwynd receives your message when she returns from the country. Very good. Good day Mrs. Hatchett.”

 

Edith hangs up the receiver and sighs with relief. “Damn infernal contraption!” she mutters as she glares at the telephone shining brightly under the light of the electrified chandelier above.

 

“See!” Mrs. Boothby says from her place at the dining room table. “That weren’t so bad, were it, Edith dearie?”

 

“That’s only because it was Mrs. Hatchett, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith sighs. “She’s lovely in comparison to some of those toffee-nosed ladies and duchesses who telephone here.”

 

“Ain’t she the wife of Charlie Hatchett the politician?”

 

“That’s right, Mrs. Boothby. Mr. Hatchett is a Labour MP, and was part of Mr. MacDonald’s government last year.”

 

“E’s the MP for Tower ‘Amlets*******************, and that includes me!” Mrs. Boothby says excitedly. “Fancy that! Cor! What a small world. Eh?”

 

“Mr. and Mrs. Hatchett have just taken possession of a townhouse in Queen Anne’s Gate,” Edith says, perusing the note she has written down on the pad for Lettice. “And she wants Miss Lettice to redecorate the drawing room for her.”

 

“Queen Anne’s Gate, you say?” Mrs. Boothby says. When Edith nods in confirmation, the old Cockney woman eyes her sharply before going on, “It ain’t right that.” She mutters as she shakes her head.

 

“What’s not right, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks.

 

“That ain’t!” the old Cockney woman protests. “That fancy new ‘ouse in Queen Anne’s Gate!”

 

“Well, I suppose Mr. Hatchett needs to be close to the Houses of Parliament.”

 

“Nah, e’s supposed to be a Labour MP, ain’t ‘e?”

 

“He is. Mrs. Boothby. I just said so. Didn’t you hear me?”

 

“And that’s the workers’ party, ain’t it?”

 

“Yes, Mrs. Boothby, or so Frank tells me.”

 

“Well, Mr. ‘Atchett ain’t no lord like some of them uvver politicians.” Mrs. Boothby opines before taking another sip of water. “‘E says e’s just an ordinary man, like us, Edith dearie.”

 

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d say Mr. Hatchett was quite like us, Mrs. Boothby, even if he does.” Edith scoffs lightly as she replaces the pad and pencil back on the lower shelf of the table on which the telephone stands. “He’s a banker, or rather he was before he became a politician. That doesn’t make him a lord, but it puts him a rung or two above you and I, Mrs. Boothby.”

 

“Well ‘e said ‘e was just an ‘ard workin’ man, like anyone else.” Mr. Boothby crumples up her nose in disgust. “But I don’t fink it’s right for ‘im to say that if ‘e’s goin’ to live in Queen Anne’s Gate in a fancy big ‘ouse like them lawds, even if it is decorated by Miss Lettice, and yet some of ‘is constituents is the poorest people in the land!”

 

Edith laughs loudly. “Are you suggesting he and Mrs. Hatchett should live in an ordinary two-up two-down******************** like my parents?”

 

“That’d be a step up for me!” Mrs. Boothby retorts. “I only got two rooms for Ken ‘n’ me, and the privvy’s a shared one dahwn the end of the rookery*********************.”

 

“Somehow, no matter how egalitarian she is, I don’t think Mrs. Hatchett would like to live in a semi-detached********************** villa in Metroland*********************** like Frank and I hope to someday.” Edith shakes her head. “And I think Mr. Hatchett is a man of pretensions, so I’m sure he won’t want to live in even the best rooms available in Poplar. Queen Anne’s Gate is so close to the Palace of Westminster that it will be very handy for Mr. Hatchett to get to the House easily, and I’m sure Mrs. Hatchett will be entertaining dignitaries quite a lot as an MP’s wife.”

 

“Well,” Mrs. Boothby mutters. “I’ll be ‘avin words wiv Mr. I’m-just-the-same-as-you-‘Atchett, next time I sees ‘im out there campaignin’! I shall give ‘im a good piece of mind! Lyin’ like that to poor folk like me who can’t even ‘ave their own private privy! It’s a scandal, that is!”

 

“Yes,” Edith giggles. “Almost as scandalous as Mrs. Carter’s scavenger hunt.”

 

*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 Parade of the Tin Soldiers’, also known as ‘The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers’, is an instrumental musical character piece, in the form of a popular jaunty march, written by German composer Leon Jessel, in 1897. In 1922, the instrumental version of ‘The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers’ was a hit single performed by Carl Fenton's Orchestra. Hit versions were also recorded by the Vincent Lopez Orchestra in 1922 and by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra in 1923.

 

***Metroland is a name given to the suburban areas that were built to the north-west of London in the counties of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex in the early part of the Twentieth Century that were served by the Metropolitan Railway. The railway company was in the privileged position of being allowed to retain surplus land; from 1919 this was developed for housing by the nominally independent Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited (MRCE). The term "Metroland" was coined by the Met's marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro-land guide. It promoted a dream of a modern home in beautiful countryside with a fast railway service to central London until the Met was absorbed into the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933.

 

****The hanging crystals on a chandelier are called pendeloques, sometimes spelled pendalogues. They can also be referred to simply as prisms.

 

*****The clusters of crystal trimmings which hang down from the chandelier in a basket are known as a festoon. These can be a few strands or many clusters. Another name for them is a garland.

 

******Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.

 

*******Park Lane is a dual carriageway road in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is part of the London Inner Ring Road and runs from Hyde Park Corner in the south to Marble Arch in the north. It separates Hyde Park to the west from Mayfair to the east. The road was originally a simple country lane on the boundary of Hyde Park, separated by a brick wall. Aristocratic properties appeared during the late 18th century, including Breadalbane House, Somerset House, and Londonderry House. The road grew in popularity during the 19th century after improvements to Hyde Park Corner and more affordable views of the park, which attracted the nouveau riche to the street and led to it becoming one of the most fashionable roads to live on in London. Notable residents included the 1st Duke of Westminster's residence at Grosvenor House, the Dukes of Somerset at Somerset House, and the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli at No. 93. Other historic properties include Dorchester House, Brook House and Dudley House. In the 20th century, Park Lane became well known for its luxury hotels, particularly The Dorchester, completed in 1931, which became closely associated with eminent writers and international film stars. Flats and shops began appearing on the road, including penthouse flats. Several buildings suffered damage during World War II, yet the road still attracted significant development, including the Park Lane Hotel and the London Hilton on Park Lane, and several sports car garages. A number of properties on the road today are owned by some of the wealthiest businessmen from the Middle East and Asia.

 

********The full phrase Berkeley (or Berkshire) hunt has been shortened to "berk," which has become a milder slang word of its own, but was originally used by Cockneys. Berk means idiot, as in "you're being a berk."

 

*********This term to be richer to Croesus, implies great wealth, and alludes to Croesus, the legendary King of Lydia and supposedly the richest man on earth. The simile was first recorded in English in 1577.

 

**********The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.

 

***********The idiom "to be drunk as a lord" is a somewhat humorous and old-fashioned expression that is used to describe someone who is extremely drunk. The origin of this phrase likely dates back to a time when the British aristocracy, often referred to as "lords," were known for their heavy drinking habits and lavish banquets.

 

************Originally built in St James Royal Park in 1665 on the site of a duck decoy, the island is both a sanctuary and a breeding ground for the collection of wildfowl and other birds. There are approximately seventeen species of bird regularly breed in the park, including mute swans and a resident colony of pelicans. Duck Island also houses the water treatment facilities and pumps for the lake and fountain.

 

*************The term Wellington boot comes from Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who instructed his shoemaker to create the boot by modifying the design of the Hessian boot. The terms gumboot and rubber boot are both derived from the rubber modern Wellington boots are made from, with the term "gum" coming from gum rubber.

 

**************Tallulah Bankhead was an American actress. Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead also appeared in several films including an award-winning performance in Alfred Hitchcock's ‘Lifeboat’. In 1923, she made her debut on the London stage at Wyndham's Theatre. She appeared in over a dozen plays in London over the next eight years, most famously in ‘The Dancers’ and at the Lyric as Jerry Lamar in Avery Hopwood's ‘The Gold Diggers’. Her fame as an actress was ensured in 1924 when she played Amy in Sidney Howard's ‘They Knew What They Wanted’. The show won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize. Whilst living in London, Bankhead became one of the members of Cecil Beaton’s coterie of hedonistic Bright Young Things. She also had a brief but successful career on radio later in life and made appearances on television.

 

***************The term “bobby” is not now widely used in Britain to describe the police (except by the police, who still commonly use it to refer to themselves), though it can occur with a mixture of affection and slight irony in the phrase "village bobby", referring to the local community police officer. However, it was very common in mid 1920s London. It is derived from Robert Peel (Bobby being the usual nickname for Robert), the founder of the Metropolitan Police.

 

****************Crêpe romain is a lightweight semi-sheer luxury fabric, originally of silk with a dull lustre and a wrinkled texture.

 

*****************The first standard public telephone kiosk introduced by the United Kingdom Post Office was produced in concrete in 1921 and was designated K1 (Kiosk No.1). The Post Office had taken over almost all of the country's telephone network in 1912. The red telephone box K1 (Kiosk No.2), was the result of a competition in 1924 to design a kiosk that would be acceptable to the London Metropolitan Boroughs which had hitherto resisted the Post Office's effort to erect K1 kiosks on their streets.

 

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

 

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

 

********************Two-up two-down is a type of small house with two rooms on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs. There are many types of terraced houses in the United Kingdom, and these are among the most modest. The first two-up two-down terraces were built in the 1870s, but the concept of them made up the backbone of the Metroland suburban expansions of the 1920s with streets lined with rows of two-up two-down semi-detached houses in Mock Tudor, Jacobethan, Arts and Crafts and inter-war Art Deco styles bastardised from the aesthetic styles created by the likes of English Arts and Crafts Movement designers like William Morris and Charles Voysey.

 

*********************A rookery is a dense collection of housing, especially in a slum area. The rookeries created in Victorian times in London’s East End were notorious for their cheapness, filth and for being overcrowded.

 

**********************A semi-detached house (known more commonly simply as a semi) is a house joined to another house on one side only by a common wall.

 

***********************Metroland is a name given to the suburban areas that were built to the north-west of London in the counties of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex in the early part of the Twentieth Century that were served by the Metropolitan Railway. The railway company was in the privileged position of being allowed to retain surplus land; from 1919 this was developed for housing by the nominally independent Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited (MRCE). The term "Metroland" was coined by the Met's marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro-land guide. It promoted a dream of a modern home in beautiful countryside with a fast railway service to central London until the Met was absorbed into the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933.

 

This 1920s upper-class drawing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures including items from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature of a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling chord does stretch out.

 

Edith’s feather duster, lying on the table, I made myself using fledgling feathers (very spring) which I picked up off the lawn one day thinking they would come in handy in my miniatures collection sometime. I bound them with thread to the handle which is made from a fancy ended toothpick!

 

The vase of red roses on the Art Deco occasional table is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium.

 

Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chair upholstered in white embossed fabric is made of black japanned wood and has a removable cushion, just like its life sized equivalent.

 

The Chinese folding screen in the background I bought at an antiques and junk market when I was about ten. I was with my grandparents and a friend of the family and their three children, who were around my age. They all bought toys to bring home and play with, and I bought a Chinese folding screen to add to my miniatures collection in my curio cabinet at home! It shows you what a unique child I was.

 

In front of the screen on a pedestal table stands a miniature cloisonné vase from the early Twentieth Century which I also bought when I was a child. It came from a curios shop. Cloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects. In recent centuries, vitreous enamel has been used, and inlays of cut gemstones, glass and other materials were also used during older periods. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné. The decoration is formed by first adding compartments (cloisons in French) to the metal object by soldering or affixing silver or gold wires or thin strips placed on their edges. These remain visible in the finished piece, separating the different compartments of the enamel or inlays, which are often of several colours. Cloisonné enamel objects are worked on with enamel powder made into a paste, which then needs to be fired in a kiln. The Japanese produced large quantities from the mid Nineteenth Century, of very high technical quality cloisonné. In Japan cloisonné enamels are known as shippō-yaki (七宝焼). Early centres of cloisonné were Nagoya during the Owari Domain. Companies of renown were the Ando Cloisonné Company. Later centres of renown were Edo and Kyoto. In Kyoto Namikawa became one of the leading companies of Japanese cloisonné.

This figure of Edmund Burke was made by J.H. Foley. Electro-casting or electro-typing is a casting method invented by Moritz Von Jacobi in 1838, involving the use of chemical processes to create a perfect metal coating, and was quickly adopted by many contemporary sculptors. Foley is best known for his ability to capture the individuality of his subjects by their stance, and composed three statues for College Square, Grattan (set on the traffic island to the west of Trinity College) and Goldsmith to the south, as well as this one of Edmund Burke. Burke appears defiant, yet contemplative in this composition, a fitting portrayal of a man who campaigned for Catholic emancipation in the eighteenth century, as well as elucidating complex theories on integration, social order and free trade. Burke, born in Dublin in 1729, graduated from Trinity College in 1748, having founded the precursor to the current College Historical Society. He became known as the ‘Father of British Conservatism’. This statue, along with its corresponding piece to the south, form part of an appropriate entrance ensemble, with two prominent alumni flanking the main arch. The detail and skill apparent in its execution is of considerable artistic merit, while the granite plinth serves to connect the statue with the surrounding buildings

Maker: Alfred Des Cloizeau (1817-1897)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: photogravure - Garnier et Salmon process

Size: 7 1/2 in x 11 in

Location: France

 

Object No. 2020.085b

Shelf: PER-1855

 

Publication: Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 3e Series, Tome 45, G. Masson, Paris, 1855

David Hanson, Checklist of Photomechanical Processes and Printing 1825-1910, 2017, pg 56

 

Other Collections:

 

Notes: First edition of a pioneer work in crystallography, in which Des Cloizeaux was able, in part through optical methods, to elucidate the interior structure of minerals. This issue contains a very early example of Garnier’s photogravure process from photographs of crystals. Duc de Luynes participants Garnier et Salmon from Chartres sought to express how their versatile brass-plate reproductive process could be used to make prints from all three printmaking idioms: relief, intaglio, and planographic. In the summer of 1859, they submitted to the jury a few published examples made by their process including a multi-image plate showing quartz cross-sections. As an example of intaglio printing, the crystalline forms on the page seem to belie the flatness of the original specimens, invoking instead the pools of ink filling the valleys and crevices of the etched photogravure plate. The heightened attention to surface, texture, and materiality in the work of Lafollye and Garnier et Salmon signal a desire among participants for their printed images to serve as both examples of their process and signs of the process itself. - This info from JWL citing in “Mémoire sur la cristallisation et la scructure intérieure du quartz,” Annales de chimie et de physique 45 (October 1855) pp.129-315.

 

To view our archive organized by Collections, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS

 

For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE

Calluna vulgaris, common heather, ling, or simply heather, is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the flowering plant family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing evergreen shrub growing to 20 to 50 centimetres (8 to 20 in) tall, or rarely to 1 metre (40 in) and taller, and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade.

 

It is the dominant plant in most heathland and moorland in Europe, and in some bog vegetation and acidic pine and oak woodland. It is tolerant of grazing and regenerates following occasional burning, and is often managed in nature reserves and grouse moors by sheep or cattle grazing, and also by light burning.

 

Calluna has small-scale leaves (less than 2–3 mm long) borne in opposite and decussate pairs, whereas those of Erica are generally larger and in whorls of 3–4, sometimes 5. It flowers from July to September.  In wild plants these are normally mauve, but white-flowered plants also occur occasionally. They are terminal in racemes with sepal-like bracts at the base with a superior ovary, the fruit a capsule. Unlike Erica, Calluna sometimes sports double flowers. Calluna is sometimes referred to as Summer (or Autumn) heather to distinguish it from winter or spring flowering species of Erica.

 

Phenolic compounds in the shoots of Calluna vulgaris include chlorogenic acid and a novel phenolic glycoside, most of which are found in greater number during the summer.

 

The nectar of Calluna vulgaris contains a megastigmane, callunene, that is inhibitory at naturally occurring concentrations to a common trypanosome parasite of bumble bees, Crithidia bombi. Koch et al. elucidate the mechanism of activity that results in the loss of the parasite's flagellum, leading to reduced infectivity, because the flagellum is crucial to anchoring in the insect gut.

 

Calluna was separated from the closely related genus Erica by Richard Anthony Salisbury, who devised the generic name Calluna probably from the Ancient Greek Kallyno (καλλύνω), "beautify, sweep clean", in reference to its traditional use in besoms. The specific epithet vulgaris is Latin for 'common'. Calluna is differentiated from Erica by its corolla and calyx each being in four parts instead of five.

 

Calluna vulgaris is native to Europe, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Azores. It has been introduced into many other places worldwide with suitable climates, including North America, Australia, New Zealand and the Falkland Islands. It is extremely cold-hardy, surviving severe exposure and freezing conditions well below −20 °C (−4 °F).

 

The plant was introduced to New Zealand and has become an invasive weed in some areas, notably the Tongariro National Park and Mount Ruapehu in the North Island, as well as the Wilderness Reserve (Te Anau) in the South Island, overgrowing native plants. Heather beetles have been released to stop the heather, with preliminary trials successful to date.

 

There are many named cultivars, selected for variation in flower colour and for different foliage colour and growing habits.

 

Different cultivars have flower colours ranging from white, through pink and a wide range of purples, and including reds. The flowering season with different cultivars extends from late July to November in the northern hemisphere. The flowers may turn brown but still remain on the plants over winter, and this can lead to interesting decorative effects. Cultivars with ornamental foliage are usually selected for reddish and golden leaf colour. A few forms can be silvery grey. Many of the ornamental foliage forms change colour with the onset of winter weather, usually increasing in intensity of colour. Some forms are grown for distinctive young spring foliage.

 

The following cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:

 

'Alicia' (Garden Girls series)

'Annemarie'

'Beoley Gold'

'County Wicklow'

'Dark Beauty'

'Dark Star'

'Darkness'

'Elsie Purnell'

'Firefly'

'Kerstin'

'Kinlochruel'

'Peter Sparkes'

'Robert Chapman'

'Silver Queen'

'Sister Anne'

'Spring Cream'

'Tib'

'Velvet Fascination'

'Wickwar Flame'

'White Coral'

 

Heather is an important food source for various sheep and deer which can graze the tips of the plants when snow covers low-growing vegetation. Willow grouse and red grouse feed on the young shoots and seeds of this plant. Both adult and larva of the heather beetle (Lochmaea suturalis) feed on it, and can cause extensive mortality in some instances. The larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species also feed on the plant, notably the small emperor moth Saturnia pavonia.

 

Formerly heather was used to dye wool yellow and to tan leather. With malt, heather is an ingredient in gruit, a mixture of flavourings used in the brewing of heather-beer during the Middle Ages before the use of hops. Thomas Pennant wrote in A Tour in Scotland (1769) that on the Scottish island of Islay "ale is frequently made of the young tops of heath, mixing two thirds of that plant with one of malt, sometimes adding hops". "Heath Beer" is mentioned in the recipe book of Lady Ann Fanshawe (compiled from 1651).

 

From time immemorial heather has been used for making besoms, a practice recorded in "Buy Broom Buzzems" a song probably written by William Purvis (Blind Willie) (1752–1832) from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

 

Heather honey is a highly valued product in moorland and heathland areas, with many beehives being moved there in late summer. Not always as valued as it is today, it was dismissed as mel improbum, "unwholesome honey" by Dioscurides. Heather honey has a characteristic strong taste, and an unusual texture, for it is thixotropic, being a jelly until stirred, when it becomes a syrup like other honey, but then sets again to a jelly. This makes the extraction of the honey from the comb difficult, and it is therefore often sold as comb honey.

 

White heather is regarded in Scotland as being lucky, a tradition brought from Balmoral to England by Queen Victoria and sprigs of it are often sold as a charm and worked into bridal bouquets.

 

Heather stalks are used by a small industry in Scotland as a raw material for sentimental jewellery. The stalks are stripped of bark, dyed in bright colours and then compressed with resin.

 

Calluna vulgaris herb has been used in the traditional Austrian medicine internally as tea for treatment of disorders of the kidneys and urinary tract.

 

Heather is seen as iconic of Scotland, where the plant grows widely. When poems like Bonnie Auld Scotland speak of "fragrant hills of purple heather', when the hero of Kidnapped flees through the heather, when heather and Scotland are linked in the same sentence, the heather talked about is Calluna vulgaris.

 

Purple heather is one of the two national flowers of Norway, the other being Saxifraga cotyledon. It was chosen as a national flower on the basis of a vote of popularity in a Norwegian radio show in 1976.

 

Calluna vulgaris is the province flower of the Swedish province of Västergötland.

The train is the returning Torbay Express from Kingswear. From memory the story was as follows. The steam locomotive on the run had failed at the Torbay end, so a replacement was called for. The nearest 'available' loco was 37402 Bont y Bermo in Cardiff. Given that, it was quite surprising that it wasn't a lot later running back, photographed at Cockwood 1819, 10Th August 2003. Any elucidation welcome of course. (t391-09f)

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 very far from Cavendish Mews, and in fact far from London. Taking advantage of their employers’ attendance of an amusing Friday to Monday country house party in Scotland, Lettice’s maid, Edith, and her best friend Hilda, the maid of Lettice’s married Embassy Club coterie friends Dickie and Margot Channon, with permission, have arranged to take a weekend trip of their own to Manchester where they are staying for Friday and Saturday nights, before returning to London on Sunday so that they are ready to receive their employers upon their return on Monday. Both maids landed upon the idea to visit their friend Queenie on the Saturday. She lives in the village of Alderley Edge, just outside of Manchester, which is easily accessible via the railway, allowing them to take tea with her at a small tearoom in the pretty Cheshire village.

 

Queenie, Edith and Hilda all used to work together for Mrs. Plaistow, the rather mean wife of a manufacturing magnate who has a Regency terrace in Pimlico. Queenie was the cheerful head parlour maid, so both Edith and Hilda as younger and less experienced lower housemaids, fell under her instruction. Queenie chucked her position at Mrs. Plaistow’s a few years ago and took a new position as a maid for two elderly spinster sisters in Cheshire to be closer to her mother, who lives in Manchester. Still in touch with Edith, Queenie writes regularly, sharing stories of her life in the big old Victorian villa she now calls home, half of which is shut up because one of the two sisters is an invalid whilst the other is in frail condition and finds it hard to access the upper floors.

 

We find the three maids in Mrs. Chase’s Tearooms, a pleasant establishment decorated tastefully with pretty furnishings and shelves around the walls lined with the proprietress’ collection of blue and white china. Dressed in their home made best, which thanks to Edith and her skill with a needle and thread makes them look very smart and more middle-class than the humble domestics they are, Edith and Hilda alighted at Alderley Edge railway station and were quickly swept into an all-embracing hug by the jolly Mancunian maid. Gossiping and laughing all the way, the three ladies strolled the short distance from the railway station to the quaint Victorian cottage in the high street that now serves as Mrs. Chase’s tearooms. Smiling broadly upon their arrival and admiring Lettice’s plum ensemble and black straw cloche and Hilda’s smart green frock, Mrs. Chase was about to show them to the sunny prized position in the window overlooking the street when the smile suddenly faded from her face, and she showed them instead to a discreet table towards the back of her establishment. Edith and Hilda eagerly discussed Mrs. Chase’s self-proclaimed ‘famous cream teas’ and all three ladies settled upon ordering them.

 

“I’d appreciate payment up-front, ladies.” Mrs. Chase says pointedly with a small sniff as her nose turns up almost imperceptibly.

 

“That’s a bit unusual,” Edith begins.

 

“That’s fine, Mrs. Chase.” Queenie interrupts her brightly, fetching out her reticule* hurriedly and passing the correct money for all three cream teas to the proprietress. Mrs. Chase looks suspiciously at the coins in the palm of her hand, flipping them over with her bony thumb and index finger before pocketing them in her apron. “My treat, girls!” Queenie adds with a forced sense of gaiety when her two friends attempt to protest her handing over her hard-earned wages to pay for their afternoon tea. “After all,” she follows up with a kind smile. “It’s not every day that two of my best friends come visiting all the way from London.”

 

“Well,” Hilda explains. “My employers, the Channons, are friends of Edith’s Miss Chetwynd, and all three of them have gone away for a weekend in Scotland together, so that enabled us both to be free to come and visit.”

 

“Well, it’s awfully good of you to come all this way, just for me.” Queenie says gratefully. “I’ve been looking forward to this ever since Edith wrote to me.”

 

“I’ve never been outside of London before,” Edith says excitedly. “So, it was a real adventure to travel by railway to get to Manchester, and to stay overnight no less.” She smiles and blushes prettily as she mentions her naivety. “Of course, Hilda’s travelled much more than me. She went with Mr. and Mrs. Channon recently to Lord and Lady Lancraven’s country house in Shropshire.”

 

“Really Hilda?” Queenie remarks in an impressed tone. “You must tell me more. The Miss Bradleys never go anywhere, what with one being an invalid and the other quite infirm, as I think I wrote to you, Edith.” Edith nods in agreement. “And where are you two world travelling ladies staying overnight in Manchester?”

 

“I found us reasonably priced lodgings with a most respectable lady who runs an establishment for travelling ladies just a short walking distance from Manchester Central railway station**.” Hilda says proudly. “We’re sharing a room there.”

 

“Ahh, just like the old days in your attic room at Mrs. Plaistow’s, then.” Queenie remarks, making Hilda and Edith giggle as they nod. “Only far more comfortable.”

 

“And better heated.” giggles Edith.

 

“Well I’m sure it’s every bit as fine as the Crown Plaza***.” Queenie opines.

 

“At a fraction of the cost.” Hilda smiles smugly.

 

“Three cream teas, then.” Mrs. Chase announces imperiously as she appears at the table carrying a wooden tray laden with their orders and tea making paraphernalia. She lowers the tray to the lace decorated tabletop and somewhat brusquely serves the three maids their cream teas before making an abrupt turn and sweeping away.

 

Hilda looks at the small pin dish of cream and the pin dish of jam critically. “Mrs. Chase seem to be a bit mean with her servings of jam and cream to make up our cream tea. I’ll get her to fetch us some more.”

 

As Hilda goes to stand, Queenie puts out her hand to stop her. “Oh, don’t bother, Hilda.” she says quickly, a look of anxiety in her bright blue eyes as she catches her friend’s gaze. “There’s enough for two.”

 

“Two?” Edith queries. “But there are three of us, Queenie.”

 

“Oh,” Queenie blusters with a casual wave of her hand over the jam and cream. “Life here in Cheshire is far too rich for my waistline.” She pats her stomach. “I’ll just have butter on my scone. I don’t want to trouble Mrs. Chase when she’s busy.”

 

Edith looks up from their table to the room about them, which is empty except for two other occupied tables with two ladies at each: hardly a bustling establishment. As she glances at them, Edith realises that the women have been looking in their direction with openly hostile glances. At being caught out staring, the other female patrons quickly glance away and focus on their plates, their heads bowed conspiratorially together where they whisper in critical tones.

 

“Is everything alright, Queenie?” Edith asks, glancing across the lace tablecloth covered table, first to Hilda, who has obviously noticed what she has judging by the concerned look on her face, and then to Queenie, who seems more focussed on breaking her scone on two.

 

“Of course!” she replies brightly, yet with an edge of awkwardness to her statement. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

 

“I just get this feeling,” Edith lowers her voice and leans in towards her friends. “This feeling that perhaps we are not so welcome here.”

 

“I’m sure that’s just your imagination, Edith.” Queenie says dismissively with a chuckle. “You always did have such an overactive imagination.”

 

Edith and Hilda exchange doubtful glances with one another.

 

With their afternoon tea served, the girls chat about how their lives have been since leaving Mrs. Plaistow’s as they enjoy their scones.

 

“I’ve been following your new employers in the society pages of the London papers the Miss Bradleys get.” Queenie remarks as she picks up her buttered scone and takes a bite. “Mr. and Mrs. Channon seem to be such a glamourous couple, Hilda. He’s so handsome and she’s so beautiful with her dark hair and eyes.” She sighs. “She’s always dressed to the nines**** and dripping in jewels! It must be so wonderful to work for the son of a marquis.”

 

“’Hilda, have you got sixpence for the driver?’ ‘Hilda, have you washed my best set of stockings – the ones that don’t have a ladder in them?’ ‘Hilda, will you help me dress – I’m in rather a hurry.’ ‘Hilda, this is Jonty Billingsworth: he slept on the sofa last night and hopes we might have some kippers for breakfast.’ ‘Hilda, can you lend me five pounds?’ I hate to disappoint you, Queenie, but working for the aristocracy is not all it’s cracked up to be.” Hilda states matter-of-factly after washing a mouthful of scone down with a gulp of tea, before quickly adding as an apology to Edith, “Not that I’m complaining. The Channons’ household may be a little disorganised and somewhat unconventional, but it’s still a hundred times better than old Mrs. Plaistow’s was, and I’m so grateful to you for getting me the position, Edith!” She reaches out her fat fingers to her best friend who stretches out her own hand, allowing it to be embraced. “They may not be the wealthiest of employers, but they are very decent to me. My bedroom has central heating, and they weren’t averse to letting me come up here for the weekend whilst they are away. A lot of other employers wouldn’t be so kind.”

 

“I thought all aristocrats were rich, Hilda. What about all those diamonds Mrs. Channon wea…”

 

“Paste.” Hilda hisses conspiratorially, cutting Queenie off. “The family may have a title, but they are… now how did Mrs. Channon phrase it?” She ponders for a few moments as she takes another gulp of tea. “The Channons are ‘property rich, but cash poor’.”

 

“That sounds rather odd.” opines Queenie.

 

“Well, it gets more so, Queenie. It’s as I said to Edith not long ago. When we went to stay with the Lancravens for New Year, I had to pretend all Mrs. Channon’s paste jewellery was real, and hand it over to the butler of the house to be locked up in a safe, asking him to fetch her jewellery box out when I needed to get something for Mrs. Channon to wear.”

 

“But they treat you well, Hilda?”

 

“They certainly treat me well, Queenie. I’d rather be the Channon’s maid than the old Marquis and Marchioness any day! He yells and barks out orders, frightening everyone: I don’t think he actually speaks in a normal tone of voice to anyone, including his wife, and she’s just a mean, cold and odd fish.”

 

“And they pay you promptly?”

 

“Well, the pay was a bit haphazard for a while. Mrs. Channon has no head for figures, and her father, who manufactured boots before the war, and made even more of a fortune during it, is rich, so she doesn’t know how to manage a household budget. As I said before, she’s always asking me for a shilling for the taxi driver, or a few pounds to settle her dressmaker’s bill: not that I even have that kind of money!” Hilda pauses. “Or worse, hiding and telling me to answer the door to the wine merchant with whom they have accrued an overdue debt, and lie baldly to his face and tell him that they aren’t home! However, just lately Lord de Virre, Mrs. Channon’s father, has stepped in to help out a bit financially, since the Marquis and Marchioness can’t, and it seems as if Mr. and Mrs. Channon can’t live within a budget to save themselves. So, he pays my wages now, and he pays them promptly.”

 

“Goodness!” Queenie gasps. “You never write saying that you have that problem, Edith. Does your Miss Chetwynd borrow from you too?”

 

“No,” Edith laughs, picking up her cup to take a sip of tea. “Luckily for me, not all children of aristocratic families are cash poor like Mr. Channon. Miss Lettice’s family is very wealthy, and she earns extra money designing rooms on top of her allowance, so I’m never left short.”

 

Just then, the door to Mrs. Chase’s opens, the bell above the door announcing brightly the arrival of two rather doughy and well dressed matrons in matching hats and coats with creamy white pearls cascading about their necks and down their fronts. As Mrs. Chase walks across the floor of her tearooms to greet them, they spy Queenie and her friends at their table, mutter something intelligible about the three friends to Mrs. Chase, turn their backs on her and walk out again.

 

“How peculiar.” notes Edith as she picks up her scone and takes a bite, allowing the luxury of the light and fluffy baked good to fill her senses.

 

“Yes, I’ve seen some of Miss Chetwynd’s interiors in the papers too.” Queenie says quickly, distracting her friends.

 

“She was even in ‘Country Life’***** in April last year!” Edith says proudly. “It was so thrilling to see her name and her interior designs in print! Miss Lettice even gave me my own copy of the magazine, so that I could cut out the article and stick it in my scrap book.”

 

“That was nice of her.” Queenie says cheerfully.

 

“For shame!” a haughty voice in clipped tones slices through the three friends’ conversation.

 

The trio look up to see one of the two women formerly sitting closest to them now standing up at their table, her face white and contorted in revulsion as she stares at them momentarily. “The effrontery!” she mutters as she and her friend gather up their coats and bags and walk towards Mrs. Chase to settle their bill.

 

“Queenie.” Hilda says firmly. “Enough of the jolly pretence. We’re obviously not welcome here. What on earth is going on?”

 

Queenie blushes at having been caught out, her pretty peaches and cream complexion flushing red with embarrassment. “Can we just finish up our cream tea and go, please? I’ll tell you everything then.”

 

“I think I should like to know now, rather than wait,” Hilda spits hotly, raising her voice as she does so. ‘Wouldn’t you Edith?”

 

“Well, I…” stammers Edith awkwardly.

 

“Please Hilda!” Queenie pleads. “Don’t make a scene. It will just make things worse. I promise that once we get outside, I’ll tell you everything. Honest I will!”

 

“Are you… are you?” Edith’s pale blue eyes grow wide, and she blushes as she glances at Queenie’s belly, enshrouded in a pretty cotton print frock.

 

“Goodness no, Edith!” Queenie hisses quietly. “It’s nothing sordid like that.” Her face colours even more at the insinuation made by her friend. “Just hurry up and finish and we’ll go, and then I’ll tell you all about it.”

 

A short while later, after having stuffed down the remains of their cream tea in less than ladylike gulps, the three friends find themselves outside Mrs. Chase’s establishment where the late winter air around them feels warmer than the atmosphere of the tearooms. Following Queenie as she walks down the high street towards the Victorian villa she shares with the Miss Bradleys, Hilda and Edith remain in awkward silence as they wait for their friend to start explaining. The wide street is lined with neat Victorian and Edwardian double story shops, many built of red brick with slate roofs and Mock Tudor gabling. A smattering of automobiles and lorries trundle past them in either direction, their chugging more noticeable in a village than in the busy streets of London where such noises are constant. Finally, Queenie stops walking and sinks down onto a public bench near the kerbside.

 

“I’m sorry Hilda and Edith.” She sighs. “I should have insisted that I come to Manchester and meet you there. It’s just that when I received your postcard******, Edith, you and Hilda had arranged everything so nicely. You’d obviously worked out the railway schedules so you knew what time you would arrive and which train to take to get back to Manchester at a reasonable hour, so I just thought I’d take you to the only tearooms I know of in Alderley Edge. I didn’t want to spoil your plans.”

 

“So instead, you allow our visit to be spoiled!” Hilda snaps.

 

“Hilda!” Edith chides her friend, sinking onto the bench beside her other friend and putting an arm around her comfortingly. “You didn’t spoil our visit, Queenie. It’s been lovely to see you. They spoiled it.” She glances back up the road at Mrs. Chase’s tearooms.

 

“No, Hilda is right.” Queenie says, emotions choking her voice. “I spoiled it. I’m sorry. I should have thought of somewhere else for us to go.”

 

“But why?” Edith asks. “You live here. We wanted to see where you live, since you paint it so well.”

 

“Well, I suppose I painted it a little too brightly.” Queenie manages to say as she withdraws a small white handkerchief trimmed with lace from her sleeve and dabs at her eyes as she lowers her head. “Like you Hilda, my experience in Cheshire hasn’t been all that I had hoped or portrayed it to be.” She sniffs. “But then again, you don’t want to look a fool, do you?”

 

“You don’t look a fool, Queenie!” Edith insists, rubbing her friend’s shoulders and pulling her more closely towards her.

 

“So, tell us the truth then.” Hilda insists, sinking down on the other side of her friend to Edith. “You know we won’t judge you.”

 

“Well, you know how I told you I had had enough of the big city lights of London?” When both girls agree, Queenie continues, “Well, it is true that I wanted to be nearer to Mum in Manchester, but I’ve never lived in a village in my life before. It was Manchester where I was born, and then London, where I met you two.”

 

“I’ve never lived in a village before, either.” Edith says.

 

“Nor have I, Queenie.” Hilda admits. “What’s wrong with village life. I thought it would be all fresh air.” She inhales deeply. “And rambling the country lanes on your afternoons off.”

 

“And you wrote to me, telling me how happy you were, working for the Miss Bradleys: you’ve said that the old ladies don’t go out much as one of them is an invalid, and they seldom entertain. You wrote that half the house is shut up because it’s too hard for them to use it, that you have a cook, a gardener cum odd job man, and a char******* to do the hard jobs.”

 

“And it’s easy enough to get to Manchester on your afternoons off to go shopping and see your old mum.” adds Hilda.

 

“And you’re right, and it’s true.” Queenie agrees. “However, I didn’t realise that in a village, everyone knows everyone else’s business.”

 

“So?” Hilda asks.

 

“So, in London or Manchester I’m Queenie Clarke, just one of any number of young working women. But here I’m Queenie, the Bradley’s maid. All the local women know who I am, who I work for and what I do.”

 

“Well, what difference does that make?” Edith asks kindly in concern.

 

“Are the Miss Bradleys unpleasant people? Are they despised by the other locals?” Hilda queries.

 

“Oh no!” Queenie insists. “Quite the opposite. They are cherished members of the community. All the local ladies come and visit them. And that’s the problem. That’s how they all know I’m their maid.”

 

“I still don’t see what’s wrong with that, Queenie.” Hilda says.

 

“Well, this village with its tree lined avenues and grand houses is very genteel, and with gentility, comes snobbery.” Queenie elucidates. “When you both walked into Mrs. Chases’, she was so happy to see you wasn’t she?” When both her friends nod their ascent, she continues. “That’s because you are both dressed so smartly in your frocks and hats. She assumed you were something you aren’t. But then she saw me with you, and her face fell, and she showed us to the very back of her tearooms, because then she realised that in spite of your looks, you were humble domestics, just like me. Why else would you want to know me?”

 

“Is that why she wanted our money up front?” Edith asks. “Because we are maids, and she doesn’t think we could afford to eat her cream teas?”

 

Queenie looks guiltily at both of her friends before nodding shallowly.

 

“The very cheek of her!” Edith gasps.

 

“And she was ashamed to have three domestics in her tearooms?” Hilda asks aghast.

 

Queenie nods shallowly again. “You see the other ladies in there are all local ladies of gentility: Mrs. Pleavin of ‘The Oaks’ was the one who said we were shameful to be sitting there with our social betters, and Mrs. Coppenhall of ‘The Willows’ was with her.”

 

“And at the other table?” Edith asks.

 

“Mrs. Pimblott of… well I’m not quite sure which house she lives in, and Mrs. Blethyn the Minister’s wife.”

 

“Fie on the minister’s wife for judging us as lesser than she!” remarks Hilda in hot and angry outrage. “She should be demonstrating compassion, not… not…”

 

“Snobbery?” Edith says helpfully.

 

“Not snobbery! Exactly, Edith.”

 

“Not if she wants her tombola for the returned war veterans of the village to be successful. She needs Mrs. Pimblott’s, Mrs. Pleavin’s and Mrs. Coppenhall’s support, more than she needs mine, or that of my two friends who are only visiting for the day.”

 

“And Mrs. Chase thinks her establishment only suitable for those ladies and not us, even though your money is every bit as good as theirs, and buys the same?”

 

“I knew you’d be cross, Hilda. You’ve always had a temper.”

 

“Only when I feel I, or my friends, have been wronged. I’ve a right mind to go back in there and give her what for!”

 

“Oh please, don’t do that, Hilda.” Edith placates. “You’ll just make it worse for poor Queenie. She’ll be known as the maid with belligerent friends.”

 

“I didn’t say I was going to be belligerent.” Hilda defends.

 

“No, but your voice and body language give it away.” Edith counters.

 

“Well, I think it’s awful that the local ladies are happy to be waited upon by the likes of us, but can’t bear to be in the same establishment. It’s appalling!”

 

“It’s no different in London.” Edith soothes her friend. “We just don’t see it, because London is so much bigger, and we are afforded the joy of being able to go about being just one of the crowd, and we can go to a tearooms where no-one knows whether we are domestics or duchesses.”

 

Edith’s comment breaks Hilda’s frustration, and she laughs.

 

“What is it?” Edith asks. “What did I say?”

 

Hilda manages to suppress her mirth enough to reply, “No-one will ever mistake me for a duchess, Edith!”

 

The three of them burst out laughing, not caring for a moment who they are, or what anyone else passing by may think of them. They are just three good friends laughing together.

 

*A reticule is the predecessor to a modern day purse and is a woman's small bag or purse, usually in the form of a pouch with a drawstring and made of net, beading, brocade or leather. They date back to the Eighteenth Century. Where did the word reticule come from? The term “reticule” comes from French and Latin terms meaning “net.” At the time, the word “purse” referred to small leather pouches used for carrying money.

 

**Manchester Central railway station is a former railway station in Manchester city centre. One of Manchester's main railway terminals between 1880 and 1969, it has been converted into an exhibition and conference centre. The station was built between 1875 and 1880 by the Cheshire Lines Committee, and was officially opened on the first of July 1880. The architect was Sir John Fowler. The station's roof is a single span wrought iron truss structure 550 feet long with a span of 210 feet, and was 90 feet high at its apex above the railway tracks. Glass covered the middle section, timber (inside) and slate (outside) covered the outer quarters. The end screens were glazed with timber boarding surrounding the outer edges.

 

***Once known as the Crown Plaza Hotel, the Midland Hotel is a grand hotel in Manchester. Opened in 1903, it was built by the Midland Railway to serve Manchester Central railway station, its northern terminus for its rail services to London St Pancras. It faces onto St Peter's Square. The hotel was designed by Charles Trubshaw in Edwardian Baroque style. The Midland has a steel structure clad in red brick, brown terracotta, and several varieties of polished granite and Burmantofts terracotta to withstand the polluted environment of Manchester. This includes some fine modelled panels by the sculptor Edward Caldwell Spruce.

 

****”Dressed to the nines” is a phrase some say descends from the Old English saying “dressed to the eyes,” which, because Old English is very different to today’s language, the phrase was written as “dressed to then eyne.” The thinking goes that someone at some point heard “then eyne” and mistook it for “the nine” or “the nines.” Others say the phrase is Scottish in origin. The earliest written example of the phrase is from the 1719 Epistle to Ramsay by the Scottish poet William Hamilton: “The bonny Lines therein thou sent me, How to the nines they did content me.”

 

*****Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.

 

******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, 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.

 

*******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.

 

This delightful scene in Mrs. Chase’s tea rooms may look real to you, but in truth, all that you see comes from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The scones on the table have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The tea set on the table come from various online miniature stockists through E-Bay. The cutlery comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The tablecloth is in reality a very dainty hand made doily with detailed lace inserts.

 

The Queen Anne dining table, chairs and sideboard were all given to me as birthday and Christmas presents when I was a child.

 

The Welsh dresser and the French provincial sideboard both come from Babette’s Miniatures, who have been making miniature dolls’ furnishings since the late eighteenth century. The dresser has plate grooves in it, just like a real dresser would. It contains a mixture of blue and white china, sourced from a number of miniature stockists through E-Bay, but mostly from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. The plates and charger on the wall also come from her.

 

The wallpaper is an Edwardian design of leaves and berries that I have printed to use.

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.

 

It's a quarter past eight and Lettice is still happily asleep in her bed, buried beneath a thick and soft counterpane of embroidered oriental satin brocade, whilst the rest of Mayfair is slowly awakening in the houses and flats around her. Her peaceful slumbers are rudely interrupted by a peremptory knock on her boudoir door.

 

“Morning Miss.” Edith, Lettice’s maid, says brightly as she pops her head around the white painted panelled door as she opens it.

 

Lettice groans – a most unladylike reaction – as she starts to wake up, disorientated, wondering for just a moment where she is before realising that she is in her own bed in Cavendish Mews. Raising her head she groans and winces as Edith draws the curtains back along their railing, flooding the room with a light, which whilst anaemic, is still painful to her eyes as the adjust.

 

“It’s looking a little overcast this morning, Miss.” the maid says brightly. “But this is England, the home of changeable weather,” She walks back across her mistress’ boudoir, lifts the upholstered lid on a wicker laundry basket just inside the bathroom door and deposits Lettice’s lacy undergarments and stockings, swept expertly by her from the floor, into it. “So, who knows what today’s mixed bag may hold.” She emerges and goes to one of Lettice’s polished wardrobes where she withdraws a pale pink bed jacket trimmed in marabou feathers from its wooden hanger.

 

Lettice groans again as she stretches and leans forward, whilst Edith hangs the bed jacket over her shoulders and fluffs up Lettice’s pillows. “How can you be so cheerful at this ungodly time of the morning, Edith?”

 

“Practice.” Edith replies matter-of-factly, rolling her eyes to the white plaster ceiling above. “Up you come, Miss.” she says encouragingly. “That’s it.”

 

As Lettice arranges herself in a sitting position, leaning against the pillows, Edith goes back to the open bedroom door and disappears momentarily into the hallway before returning with Lettice’s breakfast tray.

 

Prodding and plucking her pillows behind her to her satisfaction, Lettice nestles into her nest as she sits up properly in bed and allows her maid to place the tray across her lap. She looks down approvingly at the slice of golden toast in the middle of the pretty floral plate, the egg in the matching egg cup and the pot of tea with steam rising from the spout. She goes to lift the lid of the silver preserve pot.

 

“Damson preserve from Glynes, Miss.” Edith elucidates.

 

“Jolly good, Edith.” Lettice takes up a spoon and begins to dollop the rich gelatinous dark damson preserve onto her slice of toast. “I’m glad I pinched a few jars from Mater and Pater last time I went back to Wiltshire in spite of Mrs. Casterton’s protestations. I’m still His Lordship’s daughter, even if I don’t live at Glynes any more.”

 

“I imagine you upset her housekeeping records with your pinching, Miss.”

 

“Oh fie Mrs. Casterton’s records!” Lettice admonishes her parent’s long time housekeeper. She takes the knife and spreads the thick layer across the toast before cutting the slice in half with crunching strokes. Picking up a slice, she takes a dainty mouthful, closing her eyes in delight as she allows the rich fruity flavour of the damsons to reach her tastebuds. “Oh! Sheer bliss!” Depositing the bitten slice black on her plate, she rubs her index and middle fingers against her thumb to get rid of any cloying crumbs. “Any post yet, Edith?”

 

“Well, there is something which came via a delivery boy from Southwark Street* this morning, which I think might take your interest, Miss.”

 

“Southwark Street?” Lettice ponders as Edith walks the length of her mistress’ bedroom back to the open door. “I know that name. Why? Southwark Street… Southwark Street…” And then she realises why.

 

Lettice looks down the length of the room with suddenly wide and alert eyes, expectantly, to where Edith holds up a copy of Country Life** in the doorway. She gasps. “Oh hoorah! Bring it here this instant, Edith!” She holds out her arms, twiddling her fingers anxiously.

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith bobs a curtsey and brings the crisp magazine to her mistress’ bedside.

 

“Have you read it yet, Edith?”

 

“Miss!” Edith gasps, colour filling her cheeks at Lettice’s suggestion. “As if I would.”

 

Lettice gives her a doubtful stare making her maid blush even more. “So, you did then.” She shakes out the magazine which elicits the crisp crumple of fresh paper.

 

“Page eighteen, Miss.” Edith confirms with a smirk.

 

“Well, this changes my plans for the day then, Edith.” Lettice opines brightly as she takes up her bitten triangle of toast.

 

“Miss?” Edith queries.

 

“I was going to stay at home today, but I’ll have to pay a call on Gerald, and darling Margot en route back from Grosvenor Square.” She opens up the copy of Country life and hurriedly flips to page eighteen. “Can you pick me out something seasonably suitable.”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith says, dropping a quick bob curtsey and walking into Lettice’s adjoining dressing room.

 

“What’s the weather like out there today?” Lettice asks before taking a bite of toast with a sigh and settling back into her fluffed pillow, preparing to read.

 

“As I said before, cloudy, I’m afraid, Miss. The forecast in the papers*** this morning say that it might rain this afternoon.”

 

“Typical,” Lettice sighs as she looks at the photos of the newly decorated Pagoda Room at Arkwright Bury captured in the Country Life photographer’s lens. “The day I have to go out, it decides to rain.

 

“Your Burberry****, then Miss?” Edith asks, popping her head around the door.

 

“Hhhmmm” Lettice purrs approvingly. “Very wise, Perhaps something neutral, say eau-de-nil, to go underneath, to suit it then.”

 

“Yes Miss!” Edith disappears into the dressing room again.

 

“Now, let’s see what my dear Mr. Tipping***** has to say about me this time.”

 

As Lettice glances towards the columns of elegant typeface her mind is carried back to the day she was let into Arkwright Bury by Mr. and Mrs. Gifford’s housekeeper, Mrs. Beaven to await the return of the owners of the Wiltshire house after their seaside holiday to Bournemouth.

 

Mr. Gifford’s uncle, Sir John Nettleford-Hughes was the one who set the wheels in motion for Lettice to visit Arkwright Bury and his nephew, Mr. Alisdair Gifford. Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a time when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Luckily Selwyn Spencely, the handsome eldest son of the Duke of Walmsford, rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. As she was leaving to return to London on the Monday, Sir John approached her and asked if she might meet with his nephew, Mr. Gifford, as he wished to have a room in his Wiltshire house, Arkwright Bury, redecorated as a surprise for his Australian wife Adelina, who collects blue and white porcelain but as of that time had no place identified to display it at Arkwright Bury. Lettice arranged a discreet meeting with Mr. Gifford at Cavendish Mews to discuss matters with him, and was then invited to luncheon with the Giffords at Arkwright Bury under the ruse that she, as an acquaintance of the Giffords with her interest in interior design, had come for a tour of the partially redecorated house. She agreed to take on the job of redecorating the room using a facsimile print of the original papers hanging in what was then called the ‘Pagoda Room’ before an 1870s fire, reproduced by Jeffrey and Company******. In spite of her concerns that Mrs. Gifford might not appreciate Lettice decorating a room in the home she herself was decorating, Mr. Gifford persuaded her to take the commission with the sweetener that his godfather, the Architectural Editor of Country Life, Henry Tipping, would write a favourable review of her interior decoration, thus promoting her work and capabilities as a society interior designer.

 

Lettice took advantage of a window of opportunity provided with the Giffords taking a short seaside holiday in Bournemouth, arranging for her professional paper hangers from London to visit Arkwright Bury and hang the small quantity of wallpaper produced from a sketch done by Lettice. She then hired several of her father’s agricultural labourers from the Glynes estate for the day, to carefully move furniture intended for use in the room into place and unpack the many boxes of Mrs. Gifford’s collection, carefully laying the pieces out so that Lettice could then arrange them all in what she hoped would be a pleasing manner to Mrs. Gifford’s own aesthetic eye.

 

Lettice remembers sitting in the light filled drawing room of Arkwright Bury, decorated in traditional country house style with lots of chintz coverings, much to Lettice’s displeasure with her preference for more modern patterns. Sitting in a pool of light cast through the large bay window of the drawing room she heard the clunk and splutter of the Giffords’ motor long before she saw it perambulate up the gravel driveway, and her heart began race. She worried that Mrs. Gifford, with her own very definite taste in interior design, would dislike what she had been commissioned to do, and her heartrate increased as the car pulled up before the front doors, and beat still faster as the pair walked through the drawing room door.

 

“Why Miss Chetwynd!” Mrs. Gifford exclaimed awkwardly. “We weren’t expecting you.”

 

As she flew into a fluster, half apologising for missing an engagement she forgot that she even had with Lettice, and half making sure that Mrs. Beavan had taken care of her in she and her husband’s absence, Mr. Gifford tried to calm her.

 

“There, there, Adelina.” he soothed. “You weren’t expecting Miss Chetwynd. However, I was.”

 

“Oh Alisdair!” she chided him. “That’s just as bad!” She turned to Lettice, standing uncomfortably in front of one of Mrs. Gifford’s pink chintz sofas, trying not to watch the drama unfolding before her. “Miss Chetwynd, I must apologise for my husband’s forgetfulness. If he’s told me, I would have made sure we left Bournemouth earlier than we did.” She turned back to her husband. “And you were the one who told me that I had plenty of time to shop in Burton’s***** in The Square******, when all this time you knew Miss Chetwynd would be here, awaiting us, Alisdair! Really! You must really think me an uncouth little colonial, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“It’s quite alright, Mrs. Gifford.” Lettice assured her with an anxious chuckle, putting out her arms, clad in the mulberry knit of her cardigan, to calm the excitable antipodean.

 

“Calm yourself Adelina.” her husband purred. “Miss Chetwynd is here on my bidding, my dear. She is part of your surprise that I told you about on the motor home from Dorset.”

 

“What?” Mrs. Gifford asked, her anxious gesticulating suddenly ceasing.

 

“I asked Miss Chetwynd here today because she has helped create the wonderful surprise for you.” Mr. Gifford explained. “It’s capital to have you here, Miss Chetwynd. Capital!”

 

“Mr. Gifford.” Lettice acknowledged the young man with a curt nod.

 

“I think, since it was your doing, you should lead the way.” Mr. Gifford went on.

 

“Miss Chetwynd’s work?” Mrs. Gifford asked anxiously, her eyes suddenly growing dark as she eyed Lettice. “What has she done, Alisdair?”

 

“Your husband commissioned me to do some work for you, Mrs. Gifford.” Lettice explained hurriedly, her stomach already starting to curdle, as she tried to shift any potential blame from herself and onto Mr. Gifford.

 

“Alisdair?” Mrs. Gifford snapped, thrusting her husband’s cloying hands away irritably as she turned her steely gaze to him. “Is this true? What have you commissioned Miss Chetwynd to do?”

 

“Just a little something for you as a treat, my dear.” he assured her with his usual, genial smile. “A way of saying thank you for all the hard work you’ve put into redecorating our new home since we inherited it.”

 

“Work that obviously is not up to standard, if you felt it necessary to go and engage the services of Miss Chetwynd, Alisdair!” Mrs. Gifford snapped.

 

“Nonsense, Adelina!” Mr. Gifford assured her.

 

“I did express my concerns about taking on this commission, Mrs. Gifford,” Lettice defended. “I was worried that you wouldn’t appreciate me interloping into your interior designs. But your husband was quite insistent.”

 

“Oh yes,” she replied, her mouth a narrow and bloodless line across her face. “Alisdair always wears people down when he wants his way, Miss Chetwynd. It’s quite alright. I shall lay the blame for whatever has transpired directly at your feet, Alisdair.”

 

“If you dislike it, my dear.” Mr. Gifford countered, a gentle and patient smile on his face, as he accepted any bitterness directed to him by his wife, as though a seasoned expert in how to manage her tirades. “You don’t even know what Miss Chetwynd has done yet.”

 

“Well,” she replied begrudgingly. “Perhaps you’d better show me.”

 

“Yes, do lead the way, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Gifford said blithely, waving his hand in a flourishing way toward the door leading out of the Arkwright Bury drawing room and into the hallway.

 

With her anxiety growing, souring her stomach, Lettice did as she was bid, and led the disgruntled Mrs. Gifford, face black as thunder, up the main central staircase of the house, with Mr. Gifford dancing with excitement and delight around the pair of them, like a little boy on Christmas Day about to open his presents, stating over and over “Capital, Miss Chetwynd! Capital!”, until finally they arrived before the door of what had been the sad and neglected study of Mr. Gifford’s deceased older brother, Cuthbert.

 

Reluctantly Lettice stopped before the door of the study and took a deep breath before opening it and ushering Mr. and Mrs. Gifford in with a sweeping gesture. She held her breath and closed her eyes tightly, awaiting Mrs. Gifford’s angry or acerbic remarks about the room she had so lovingly designed and pieced together with all good intentions behind her back. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and followed the Giffords into the newly created and reimagined Pagoda Room.

 

Lettice glanced lovingly around the small room, which was now completely transformed from what had been Cuthbert’s neglected former study. With the old, heavy curtains removed from the large sash windows and replaced with lighter and less obtrusive ones, the room was flooded with sunshine. The light bounced off the stylised Eighteenth Century orientally inspired wallpaper designs she had so lovingly recreated in green and blue, the antique Wiltshire made ladderback chairs Lettice selected from those stored in one of Arkwright Bury’s outbuildings, Mrs. Gifford’s beautiful marquetry loo table in the centre of the room, and of course, her wonderful collection of blue and white china.

 

“I’m sorry Mrs. Gifford,” Lettice began as the woman gasped, but she was silenced by Mrs. Gifford who held up her hand to stop Lettice’s protestations.

 

“Miss Chetwynd! What you have created,” Mrs. Gifford began “It’s… it’s wonderful!” she enthused. “It’s far more than I had ever envisaged for this room. I… I was going to put up a few shelves because I simply no longer had the energy, or the vision for this room after redecorating the house.”

 

“See,” Mr. Gifford said tenderly. “I told you that you deserved a gift of thanks after all that you have done here, Adelina.”

 

“Well, I can’t thank you enough, both of you.” Mrs. Gifford replied. “Now I see what a poor home for my collection a few shelves would have been. Miss Chetwynd, you have turned this neglected and forgotten room into a showcase for my collection. How can I ever thank you?”

 

“Oh, I shouldn’t worry too much about that, Adelina my dear!” Mr. Gifford piped up with a smile. “Miss Chetwynd’s reward will be a favourable review written by my godfather in Country Life.”

 

Sitting in her bed, Lettice now skims the article, delighted by Henry Tipping’s enthusiastic review of The Pagoda Room, calling it a ‘tasteful and sympathetic remodelling and reimagination of what might have been’ and ‘an elegant restoration of a forgotten corner of Arkwright Bury, transforming it into a stylish showpiece of interior design’. She sighs as she glances at the photographs filling the page, highlighting the paper hangings and the pieces Lettice carefully arranges about the room.

 

“Oh, I almost forgot, Miss.” Edith interrupts Lettice’s silent reveries abruptly.

 

“Forgot what, Edith?” Lettice queries.

 

“This, Miss.” Edith withdraws an envelope of creamy white with Lettice’s name and Cavendish Mews address written on the front in elegant copperplate.

 

Lettice accepts the correspondence from her apologetic maid. She turns the envelope over in her hands with interest, admiring the thickness and quality.

 

“It looks rather posh********, Miss.” Edith remarks. “Perhaps it’s from the palace: an Invitation from The King.”

 

Lettice laughs lightly. “Oh Edith! If an invitation came from the palace, it would have been hand delivered. No.” She puzzles over the envelope. “There is no return address. I wonder what it could be.” She holds it up to the morning light futilely, since the envelope is too think to give away an secrets inside.

 

“Best you open it then, Miss.” Edith suggests hopefully.

 

“You’re quite right, Edith.” Lettice laughs.

 

Lettice slips a finger beneath the lip of the envelope which has only been sealed at its apex, so the glue affixing it gives way easily. Lifting the flap of the envelope, she withdraws a gilt edged card, and suddenly all the happiness and joy she had felt a moment before dissipated, just as the colour drained from her face. Her smile fades from her lips as she reads.

 

“Bad news, Miss?” Edith asks, noticing how sad Lettice suddenly is. “Is it a funeral?”

 

“No – worse. It’s an invitation to afternoon tea.” Lettice replies glumly, her dainty fingers squeezing the edges of the card.

 

“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, Miss. An invitation to tea is lovely!”

 

“You don’t know who it’s from.” Lettice remarks as she hands the card to her maid.

 

Edith looks down upon the card which has an address in Park Lane********* and reads aloud what is written in the same elegant copperplate as appears on the front of the envelope, “Dear Miss Chetwynd, I request your attendance for afternoon tea at four o’clock next Thursday at the above address, when I shall be at home.” Her voice trails off as she sees the signatory. She looks up at her mistress, who now has tears in her eyes and is as white as the pillows at her back. “Lady Zinnia!”

 

*Southwark Street is a major street in Bankside in the London Borough of Southwark, in London, just south of the River Thames. It runs between Blackfriars Road to the west and Borough High Street to the east. It also connects the access routes for London Bridge, Southwark Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge. At the eastern end to the north is Borough Market. The magazine Country Life was based at 110 Southwark Street from its inception in 1897 until March 2016, when moved to Farnborough, Hampshire, before returning to Paddington in 2022.

 

**Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.

 

***Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy, founder of the UK Met Office, started collating measurements on pressure, temperature, and rainfall from across Great Britain, Ireland, and Europe in 1860. These observations were sent by telegraph cable to London every day where they were used to make a ‘weather forecast’ – a term invented by Fitzroy for this endeavour. After the Royal Charter ship sank in a violent storm in 1859, Fitzroy resolved to collect real-time weather measurements from stations across Britain's telegraph network to make storm warnings. Starting in 1860, observers telegraphed readings to Fitzroy in London who handwrote them onto Daily Weather Report sheets, enabling the first-ever public weather forecasts starting on 1st August 1861 and published daily in The Times newspaper. Fitzroy died by suicide in 1865 shortly after founding the UK Met Office, leaving his life's work trapped undiscovered in archives.

 

***The quintessential British coat, and now a global fashion icon, the Burberry trench coat was created during the Great War. Burberry trench coats were designed with durability in mind. Post-war, the Burberry became a trench coat that was worn by men and women. It became fashionable in the 1920s when the Burberry check became a registered trademark and was introduced as a lining to all rainwear.

 

****Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.

 

*****Jeffrey and Company was an English producer of fine wallpapers that operated between 1836 and the mid 1930s. Based at 64 Essex Road in London, the firm worked with a variety of designers who were active in the aesthetic and arts and crafts movements, such as E.W. Godwin, William Morris, and Walter Crane. Jeffrey and Company’s success is often credited to Metford Warner, who became the company’s chief proprietor in 1871. Under his direction the firm became one of the most lucrative and influential wallpaper manufacturers in Europe. The company clarified that wallpaper should not be reserved for use solely in mansions, but should be available for rooms in the homes of the emerging upper-middle class.

 

******Burton is a British online clothing retailer, former high street retailer and clothing manufacturer, specialising in men's clothing and footwear. The company was founded by Sir Montague Maurice Burton in Chesterfield in 1903 under the name of The Cross-Tailoring Company. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1929 by which time it had 400 stores, factories and mills.

 

*******The Square is where seven roads leading to and from all parts of the borough converge. Although not geographically at the centre of town it is at the heart of what is known as the Town Centre. The seven roads are.....Old Christchurch Rd ,Gervis Place, Exeter Rd, Commercial Rd, Avenue Rd, Bourne Ave and Richmond Hill.

 

********Over time the slang term posh morphed to mean someone with a lot of money or something that cost a lot of money. Adapted by the British, it came from the Romany language used by the gypsies in which “posh-houri” meant “half-pence.” It became used to denote either a dandy or a coin of small value. There is no evidence to support the folk etymology that posh is formed from the initials of port out starboard home (referring to the more comfortable accommodation, out of the heat of the sun, on ships between England and India).

 

*********Park Lane is a dual carriageway road in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is part of the London Inner Ring Road and runs from Hyde Park Corner in the south to Marble Arch in the north. It separates Hyde Park to the west from Mayfair to the east. The road was originally a simple country lane on the boundary of Hyde Park, separated by a brick wall. Aristocratic properties appeared during the late 18th century, including Breadalbane House, Somerset House, and Londonderry House. The road grew in popularity during the 19th century after improvements to Hyde Park Corner and more affordable views of the park, which attracted the nouveau riche to the street and led to it becoming one of the most fashionable roads to live on in London. Notable residents included the 1st Duke of Westminster's residence at Grosvenor House, the Dukes of Somerset at Somerset House, and the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli at No. 93. Other historic properties include Dorchester House, Brook House and Dudley House. In the 20th century, Park Lane became well known for its luxury hotels, particularly The Dorchester, completed in 1931, which became closely associated with eminent writers and international film stars. Flats and shops began appearing on the road, including penthouse flats. Several buildings suffered damage during World War II, yet the road still attracted significant development, including the Park Lane Hotel and the London Hilton on Park Lane, and several sports car garages. A number of properties on the road today are owned by some of the wealthiest businessmen from the Middle East and Asia.

 

This beautifully decorated room may not be quite what you think it is. Whilst I know you feel sure you could pick up a teapot or plate, you may need to consider using tweezers, for this whole scene is made up entirely of 1:12 miniatures from my collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The blue and white china you see throughout the room, sitting on shelves and tables, are sourced from a number of miniature stockists through E-Bay, but mostly from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. The gild edged Willow Pattern teapot is a hand painted example of miniature artisan, Rachel Munday’s work. Her pieces are highly valued by miniature collectors for their fine details.

 

The round loo table, which can be tilted like a real loo table, is an artisan miniature from an unknown maker with a marquetry inlaid top, and also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. So too did the Georgian corner cabinet with its delicate fretwork and glass shelves.

 

The ladderback chair on the left of the photo is a 1:12 miniature piece I have had since I was a child. The ladderback chair on the right came from a deceased estate of a miniatures collector in Sydney.

 

The wallpaper is an Eighteenth Century chinoiserie design of pagodas and would have been hand painted in its original form.

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 is nursing a broken heart. Her beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, has been sent to Durban for a year by his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wants to end so that she can marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lettice returned home to Glynes to lick her wounds, however it 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 and wait patiently for Selwyn’s eventual 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. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and on New Year’s Eve, her sister, Lally, suggested that she spend a few extra weeks resting and recuperating with her in Buckinghamshire before returning to London and trying to get on with her life. Lettice happily agreed, however her rest cure ended abruptly with a letter from her Aunt Egg in London, summoned Lettice back to the capital and into society in general. Through her social connections, Aunt Egg has contrived an invitation for Lettice and her married Embassy Club coterie friends Dickie and Margot Channon, to an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party of Sir John and Lady Caxton, who are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their amusing weekend parties at their Scottish country estate and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John, so they attract a mixture of witty writers and artists mostly.

 

Tonight, we are at Gossington, the Scottish Baronial style English Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland, which is the country seat of Sir John and Lady Gladys. After arriving belatedly, owing to engine trouble with Dickie’s Lea Francis* four seater, which forced them to stop in York along the way before completing their journey, Lettice, Dickie and Margot spent a pleasant, albeit rainy, afternoon in Sir John and Lady Gladys’ drawing room with other stragglers invited to the weekend. Sir John and Lady Gladys always have an interesting mixture of guests. This is mostly due to the number of witty writers and artists drawn to Lady Gladys, and the smattering of the younger generation of Britain’s aristocracy who find the Caxton’s relaxed and slightly eccentric characters refreshingly different and amusing. Lady Gladys dispenses with all formalities of titles during their gatherings, and are “simply John and Gladys” to their guests. Playing board games or chess, the company amused their hosts with regaled tales of nightclubs, parties and the life of the young in busy London whilst waiting for the majority of Bright Young Things** headed by Pheobe - Sir John and Lady Gladys’ ward and Lady Gladys’ niece - to return from a ramble over the Scottish countryside.

 

Now it is time for dinner, and guests, suitably dressed for the occasion in a mixture of smart formal wear and bohemian artistic chic, wend their way from the Gossington drawing room into the adjoining cluttered late Victorian Arts and Crafts dining room with its William Morris ‘Poppies’ wallpaper, gilt framed paintings and heavy, ornate furnishings, where the long dining table has been fully extended and set for a splendid eight course dinner.

 

“Now, for those of you here present,” Lady Gladys announces as she stands, arrayed in a beautiful silver Delphos gown*** with pearls cascading down her front and a diamond tiara woven through her white Marcelle waved**** hair, at her place at the head of the table. “As this is our first dinner together at Gossington tonight, and we are all still getting to know one another, I have taken the liberty of seating you all according to my own design. However tomorrow and Sunday nights we will dispense with the formalities, as you know I am apt to do, and you may sit wherever you like at the table, except for the foot and the head, which are the preserves of John and I.”

 

Her announcement is acknowledged by excited chatter and a smattering of appreciative applause from the assembled guests as they all seek out their places. Lettice finds herself near the head of the table, between Pheobe, and next to a woman called Nettie according to the card, who as of yet has not left her room for pre-dinner cocktails. Lettice knows that she has been deliberately seated next to Pheobe so that she may talk to Sir John and Lady Glady’s ward about her wishes for the redecoration of the pied-à-terre***** in Bloomsbury that she has recently moved into after being been accepted to a garden design school in Regent’s Park associated to the Royal Academy.

 

Pheobe, it turns out as Lettice takes her seat at the table alongside her, is as far removed from her outgoing and spontaneous aunt as you could imagine. A rather pale creature with translucent alabaster skin and wispy blonde curls that cascade around her pretty face, framing it beautifully, Pheobe sits demurely at her place, her eyes cast downward to the magenta and gilt edged Royal Doulton dinner service, not engaging with the other guests and their loud, raucous conversations. As Gladys laughs loudly at some bawdy remark from a young male writer before ordering him jovially to take his seat at the table, Lettice contemplates the differences between the two women. Unlike her hostess, who obviously thrives on being surrounded by people and in the limelight, Pheobe is delicate, elfin and almost fey in not only her looks but her actions and way of speaking. Lettice considers her choice of garden design as a career to be most apt, for she can easily picture Pheobe working quietly alone, planting and nurturing beautiful plants whose whispers of leaves and blooms are the only companionship she needs.

 

“So, Pheobe,” Lettice addresses the younger girl informally as per the relaxed style established by Sir John and Lady Gladys. “I’m Lettice Chetwynd. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of me before.”

 

“Yes, oh yes.” Pheobe replies a little distractedly as she continues to look down at her plate and doesn’t engage Lettice’s gaze.

 

“I’m an interior designer.” Lettice goes on. “I decorated the home of my friends Dickie and Margot Channon,” she indicates to her friends sitting at the table through a gap between an Art Nouveau vase full of cascading red roses and a silver Arts and Crafts water pitcher.

 

“Indeed yes.” Pheobe replies, still not looking up from her place setting.

 

“And your aunt thought that since you’ve moved into your parent’s flat in Bloomsbury, that I might help you redecorate it.”

 

“What?” Pheobe suddenly looks up at Lettice, a startled look in her dazzling sea blue eyes.

 

“Yes,” Lady Gladys pipes up from beside her niece at the head of the table. “As I was saying earlier, Lettice, there isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with the furnishings as such, but, well…” She sighs. “It is a little old fashioned, especially for a young girl like you, Pheobe darling.”

 

“But it was Mummy and Daddy’s flat.” Pheobe replies meekly, looking to her aunt.

 

“Yes, I know dear” Lady Gladys sighs. “But they left it to you when they died, and now that you’re of age, well, I thought it was high time that you put your own stamp on it, as it were – make it your own, so to speak.”

 

“But it was Mummy and Daddy’s.” Pheobe repeats in her willowy voice that is almost drowned out by a burst of laughter coming from where Dickie and Margot are sitting as he finishes telling a funny story.

 

“Yes, we know that dear,” Lady Gladys confirms, a hint of frustration tainting her voice. “But now, it is yours. It can’t stay the same forever, can it?” She forces a laugh. “We don’t want you living in a mausoleum to your parents, now do we?”

 

When Pheobe doesn’t reply and returns to staring down at her plate, Lettice gingerly suggests to Lady Gladys, “Perhaps Pheobe doesn’t want change for change’s sake, Gladys.”

 

“What nonsense, Lettice!” Lady Gladys retorts preposterously. “Pheobe just doesn’t quite know what it will look like. She doesn’t have the… the vision, that you do, my dear. That’s why John and I wanted to engage you. We want you to help Pheobe envision what it could look like.”

 

“I have vision.” Pheobe mutters quietly.

 

“What was that, Pheobe dear?” Lady Gladys frowns at her niece and cups her hand around her left ear. “Do speak up. I’ve told you about muttering. No-one will hear you if you mutter.”

 

“I said, I have vision.” Pheobe says a little more loudly, sitting up more straightly in her tall backed Arts and Crafts dining chair as she speaks and glares at her aunt.

 

“Of course you do, my dear, for gardens and flowers. The gardens here at Gossington are a tribute to your vision when it comes to landscaping, Pheobe dear. But landscaping a garden and decorating a room, well, those are very different things.” She glances up at Lettice. “Aren’t they, Lettice?”

 

“They aren’t entirely different, Gladys, if you don’t mind me saying.” Lettice counters politely.

 

Her statement elicits a disgruntled look from her hostess and an almost imperceptible perk to the corners of Pheobe’s pale pink lips.

 

“Well, the place certainly needs a lick of paint!” Lady Gladys opines. “Years of my brother’s pipe smoking, and the fumes of London traffic have left their mark. I mean, I tried to air it whenever I was in London, but you know how decay can set in when a house isn’t lived in, Lettice.”

 

“Perhaps you have a favourite colour, Pheobe?” Lettice asks in an effort to gently coax the young girl into the conversation, but only silence follows. “We could paint it your favourite colour.”

 

“You like green, don’t you Pheobe dear?” Lady Gladys asks her niece encouragingly. “Like the plants you love so much.” When no reply is forthcoming, the older woman huffs in frustration. “Can’t you express an opinion for once, child?”

 

“Green.” Pheobe mumbles in assent as she looks as a vol-la-vent, golden brown and oozing glazed mushrooms with a sprig of greenery sticking from it is carefully and expertly slipped on to her place setting by the Caxton’s tall first footman.

 

“Sorry I’m late, dear Gladys!” comes a well enunciated male voice that, as it rings in her ears, strikes a familiar tone for Lettice. “I had terrible car trouble this afternoon coming up from Fontengil Park.”

 

Lettice looks up to the head of the table to see the tall and elegant figure of Sir John Nettleford-Hughes standing at Lady Gladys’ shoulder.

 

Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a time when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Luckily Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Now, as he stands before Lady Gladys, Sir John oozes the confidence of male privilege that his sex, class and enormous wealth bestows, and he wears it every bit as well as the smart and well-cut tweed suit he is dressed in as he takes up his hostess’ hand and kisses it chivalrously.

 

“Please forgive me, dear lady.” he says sleekly as he lets his hostess’ hand go.

 

“Oh Nettie!” Gladys chortles. “There is nothing to forgive! Dickie Channon,” She indicates to Dickie sitting half way down the table. “Had car troubles today too. You’re here now, and that’s the important thing, and just in time for our first course.”

 

“Do I have time to change?” Sir John asks, eyeing the steaming vol-au-vents being set out before the gathered ensemble of diners. “I think your third footman is arranging for my valise to be taken up to my room.”

 

“Nonsense, Nettie! This is us!” laughs Lady Gladys. “You know we don’t stand on ceremony here.”

 

“Says the woman in a diamond tiara.”

 

“Your tweeds will be fine under the circumstances, Nettie.” Lady Gladys assures him. “Now, I’ve put you just three seats down from me,” She stands and indicates with a sweeping gesture over her niece’s halo of blonde ringlets to the still empty seat next to Lettice. “Next to Lettice Chetwynd, Eglantine Chetwynd the artist’s niece. Her family comes from Wiltshire, not far from your Fontengil Park. Perhaps you’ve come across the Chetwynds before?”

 

The rather leering smile Sir John gives Lettice as he looks over to her elicits a shudder from her.

 

“Why yes. I know the Chetwynds of Glynes quite well. In fact, I’ve even had the pleasure of Miss Chetwynd’s company before on several occasions.”

 

“Oh! What a splendid stroke of luck it was then, that I decided to put you two next to one another.” Lady Gladys beams as she claps her bejewelled hands in delight.

 

Slipping into his seat next to her, Sir John takes up Lettice’s glove clad right hand in his and draws it to his lips where he kisses it. “Miss Chetwynd.” he greets her. “Such a pleasure to see you again.”

 

“Sir John.” she replies, withdrawing her hand and discreetly rubbing the place where he kissed it with her napkin, out of sight, beneath the edge of the table.

 

As a mushroom vol-au-vent is expertly placed before Sir John, the pair start to eat their first course.

 

“I… I wasn’t aware that you were acquainted with Lady… err I mean, Gladys, Sir John.” Lettice remarks.

 

“What! Nettie?” Gladys says, obviously overhearing the commencement of their conversation. “Course I know Nettie! We’ve known each other for…” She releases a huff as she contemplates the decades. “Well for…”

 

“Shall we say, for ‘many a long summer’, Gladys.” Sir John says helpfully.

 

“Oh you flatterer you,” Lady Gladys waves one of her glittering diamond clad hands at Sir John in a kittenish fashion, giving her the ridiculous air of a pathetically youthy woman. “Quoting my own words back to me.”

 

When Lettice looks quizzically at Sir John, he smiles magnanimously at her. “It’s a quote from her first romance novel, ‘The Woodland Glade’.” he elucidates.

 

“Oh.” Lettice acknowledges him, her blue eyes widening a little.

 

“That’s how I know Gladys. A chance encounter at a mutual friend’s musical soirée in London started a…” Sir John pauses for a moment whilst he contemplates the right word. “A friendship, shall we say, that gave me access to her first manuscript.”

 

“Oh, don’t be coy, Nettie! Let’s be frank, since we are amongst friends and young people who aren’t hung up on sexual relations: we were in bed together and I read you an excerpt of it lying naked on my stomach whilst you used the small of my back for a fruit bowl, from which you ate grapes and a banana, as I recall.”

 

Lettice feels the hotness of a flush rise up her neck and filling her cheeks at the frank honesty of Gladys and her past relationship with Sir John. Quickly glancing around the dinner table, she doesn’t see anyone else particularly shocked by the admission, including Lady Gladys’ husband. A queasiness blooms in her stomach as she imagines the oily Sir John in a state of some disarray with their hostess and she shudders with repugnance.

 

“Please pardon Gladys’ honesty, Miss Chetwynd.” Sir John says kindly in a low voice, so as not to be overheard by their hostess again, reaching out and patting Lettice’s small hand comfortingly with his larger hand before politely withdrawing it. “She makes assumptions that everyone here is as liberal as she is, which is a terrible habit to have, I know. However, Gladys’ world revolves around Gladys, her experiences, and her ideas about life. She’s always been like that. No, let me assure you that whilst what she says is true, err… for the most part,” A blush reddens his own cheeks momentarily. “This all happened before she married her John. I’d hate for you to get the wrong impression of me, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“And what impression might that be, Sir John?” Lettice whispers stiffly in reply.

 

“I know you judge me, based upon what you’ve heard about me,”

 

“That implies that I think of you.”

 

“Touché, my dear Miss Chetwynd. Regardless of whether I am at the front of your mind or not, you judge me, as you do others who drift in and out of your social sphere, based upon the idle gossip you’ve heard about me,”

 

“And what I’ve seen, Sir John, with my own two eyes. Don’t forget that I saw you leave my mother’s Hunt Ball in the company of Phylis Moncrief.”

 

“Well, possibly that too.” he acknowledges. “I can’t deny that I am a womaniser, so I won’t.”

 

“I suspect you rather revel in that reputation, Sir John.”

 

“Perhaps, Miss Chetwynd. I must confess that I do rather enjoy pursuing ladies younger than me, although I was younger when I met Gladys, and for my sins, we are similar in age. However, whatever presumptions you may make about me based upon my reputation, I won’t have you think that I carry on with married women, because I make it a rule not to do so. There are enough feckless young men out there only too happy to throw caution and convention to the wind and an equal number of foolish young women, bored with the confines and sanctity of marriage, to threaten and ruin a perfectly good one, all for a night of passion.” He shakes his head. “I won’t add to their number.”

 

“You surprise me, Sir John.” Lettice remarks, lowing her knife and fork to the edges of her plate as she takes up her glass of freshly poured sparkling champagne.

 

“Because I have moral scruples. Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“Yes.” Lettice admits frankly, taking a sip of her beverage.

 

“Well, I may not have many when it comes to relationships, but that is one of them.” Sir John looks down and cuts into the pastry casing of his vol-au-vent, scattering golden brown shards of pastry across the pristine edge of his plate.

 

“Is this why you are called, Nettie, Sir John? A nickname from those heady days of romance with our hostess?” Lettice nods to the place card in front of Sir John’s dinner setting upon which Nettie is written in Gladys’ romantic, looping copperplate. “I was expecting to be sitting next to a woman – Antoinette – not you, Sir John.”

 

“Yes.” Sir John laughs. “I suppose it must have been somewhat of a surprise when I arrived. It’s an easy assumption to make. Yes, Nettie is the nickname Gladys came up with for me, and since both her husband and I have the same given name, it makes things easier at these social gatherings of theirs to be known as Nettie. Gladys was living in Bloomsbury in her brother’s pied-à-terre when we met. Her brother was out living in India with his family.”

 

Lettice glances at Pheobe, but the fey girl seems withdrawn into her own thoughts as she nibbles at her vol-au-vent and doesn’t appear to have heard the mention of the father or the flat.

 

“She did know John at the time,” Sir John continues. “But had only just become his secretary, and there was no whiff of romance between the two. I helped fund her first novel after reading some of it. I’m a bit of a gambling man, as you may be aware, Miss Chetwynd, but only when I’m sure I’m onto a winning thing.”

 

“Most gamblers, whether skilled or hopeless at their art, would say the same, Sir John.”

 

“True,” Sir John chuckles a little awkwardly. “However, the passion that exuded from her words on the page told me that her novel would be a great success, and it was.” He takes a mouthful of vol-au-vent and then dabs the corners of his mouth as he chews. “And the rest, as they say, is history.”

 

“And her husband?”

 

“Well, I knew that Gladys’ and my relationship would only be a short lived one: a bright firework blazing in the night sky, but all too ephemeral. When I heard about the way she spoke of him, and saw the look on her face when she did, I knew our star was fading, so I finished it, leaving the path clear for the other Sir John, and Gladys and Nettie became good friends, and for her first two novels at least, good business partners.”

 

“I see.” Lettice remarks, chewing a mouthful of her vol-au-vent thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t think I can quite come at calling you Nettie, Sir John.”

 

“Try it.” Sir John says with a cheeky smirk. “You’ll never know until you try, Miss Chetwynd. Besides, whether you like it or not, you will have to call me, Nettie throughout this weekend.”

 

“And you don’t mind, Sir John?”

 

“Not at all, Miss Chetwynd. It’s a friendly nickname, with pleasant connotations, used amongst friends.”

 

“Are we friends, Sir John?”

 

“We could be, if you like, Miss Chetwynd.” he says suggestively, making Lettice shudder again.

 

“You said that I loathed and detested you, Sir John – hardly terms of friendship, wouldn’t you agree?”

 

“Ahh well.” Sir John clears his throat awkwardly. “Yes, well, ever since I knew you were coming to this weekend at Gossington, I’ve been thinking about the way we parted at Priscilla’s wedding.” He takes a sip of champagne. “I was angry with you, Miss Chetwynd, because you’d had your head turned by young Spencely.” He pauses for a moment. “I’m not proud to say this, but in the spirit of Gladys’ frank honesty, I’ll admit I was jealous.”

 

“Of me, Sir John?”

 

“Of Spencely and you, Miss Chetwynd. They say that a woman scorned in love is dangerous and should not be crossed. Well, I can say that the same can sometimes apply to men. I’m not used to being refused by young ladies the way you refused me, but then again you aren’t a money-grubbing chorus girl or a parvenu with social climbing pretentions, as seems to be my predilection when it comes to romantic encounters, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“I’m pleased to say that I’m not, Sir John.”

 

“And I was a man scorned. I was spitting poison at you at Priscilla and George’s wedding. I’d blame the champagne I’d drunk, but there must be a seed planted and germinating for me to say to you the things I did that day, so I won’t pretend and try and hide behind a feeble excuse.”

 

“Well,” Lettice releases a sad sigh. “I thank you for your honesty and contriteness, Sir John.”

 

“Look, I really am sorry for what has happened to you and Spencley at the hands of Zinnia, Miss Chetwynd. No-one deserves a forced separation imposed upon them like that.”

 

“Well,” Lettice replies, focusing upon her plate and not engaging with Sir John. “You have every reason to gloat, Sir John. After all, you did try to warn me that Lady Zinnia is no-one to trifle with, and you were right. Look at Selwyn and I now.”

 

“I didn’t come to gloat, Miss Chetwynd. I genuinely am sorry for your plight, for plight it is, as there can be no other words to describe your situation at the hands of Zinnia’s perverseness.”

 

“Really, Sir John?” Lettice asks. “Not even an ounce of self-righteousness?”

 

“No, Miss Chetwynd. I genuinely mean what I say.”

 

“Well, thank you.” Lettice says, looking up into Sir John’s bright blue eyes and seeing a kindness in them that she has never seen before. She smiles at him. “I certainly wasn’t expecting that from you. You are full of surprises tonight… Nettie.”

 

“You’ll usually find John and Gladys’ weekend country house parties are full of surprises… Lettice.” Sir John says before taking a sip of his champagne and smiling back at her.

 

*Lea and G. I. Francis started the business in Coventry in 1895. They branched out into car manufacturing in 1903 and motorcycles in 1911. Lea-Francis built cars under licence for the Singer company. In 1919, they started to build their own cars from bought-in components. From 1922, Lea-Francis formed a business relationship with Vulcan of Southport sharing manufacturing and dealers. Vulcan supplied bodies to Lea-Francis and in return received gearboxes and steering gear. Two six-cylinder Vulcan-designed and manufactured cars were marketed as Lea-Francis 14/40 and 16/60 as well as Vulcans. The association ended in 1928 when Vulcan stopped making cars. The company had a chequered history with some notable motorcycles and cars, but financial difficulties surfaced on a regular basis. The Hillfields site was abandoned in 1937 when it was sold by the receiver and a new company, under a slightly different name, moved to Much Park Street in Coventry. It survived there until 1962 when the company finally closed.

 

** The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.

 

*** The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. It was championed by more artistic women who did not wish to conform to society’s constraints and wear a tightly fitting corset.

 

****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.

 

*****A pied-à-terre is a small flat, house, or room kept for occasional use.

 

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, this upper-class country house dinner party scene is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The table is set for a lavish Edwardian dinner party of four courses when we are just witnessing the first course, as it is served, using cutlery, from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. The delicious and very realistic looking mushroom vol-au-vents on the plates also come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The russet and gilt edged china on the table and the sideboard against the far wall were made by the Dolls’ House Emporium. The red wine glasses, I bought them from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The white wine glasses and water glasses I have had since I was a teenager. Also spun from real glass, I acquired them from a high street stockist of doll house and miniature pieces. The central stylised Art Nouveau bowl containing Lady Glady’s red roses I acquired from an online stockist through E-Bay, whilst the roses also came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The silver Arts and Crafts water jugs and their silver trays, I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The central doily is made from very fine lace, which I have also had since I was a teenager, was acquired from the same high street stockist of doll house and miniature pieces as the wine and water glasses.

 

The walnut sideboard on the right-hand side of the fireplace is made by Babette’s Miniatures, who have been making miniature dolls’ furnishings since the late Eighteenth Century. The sideboard features ornate carvings, finials and a mirrored back. On it stand two hand painted oriental ginger jars which I acquired through Melody Jane’s Dolls House Suppliers in the United Kingdom. There is also ab small vase of primroses and an ornamental arrangement of fruit, both of which are delicate 1:12 artisan porcelain miniature ornaments made and painted by hand by ceramicist Ann Dalton. The tureen and gravy boat that matches the dinner service was made by the Dolls’ House Emporium. The water carafe is made of real spun glass. I have also had this piece since I was a teenager. It was acquired from the same high street stockist of doll house and miniature pieces at the same time as the wine and water glasses and the lace doily. The silver wine cooler has been made with great attention to detail, and comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The De Rochegré champagne bottle in the wine cooler is an artisan miniatures and made of glass with a real foil wrapper around its neck. It and the various bottles of wine in the background are made with great attention to their readable labels by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

The silver plates stuck up on the far wall and the silver vase on the demilune table came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The tall Art Nouveau vase on the demilune table comes from the same online stockist as the squat bowl containing roses on the dining room table. The daffodils in the tall vase are very realistic looking. Made of polymer clay they are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. They are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany.

 

The Art Nouveau statue of the woman standing in front of the painting of cows fording a river was made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland. Based upon the statue ‘Leila’ by Hippolyte Francois Moreau, the French sculptor famous for his bronze statuettes of young women, it is very detailed. It was hand painted by me.

 

The oblong dining table I have had since I was a teenager, and it was acquired from the same high street stockist of doll house and miniature pieces as the wine and water glasses, carafe and lace doily. The Queen Anne dining chairs were all given to me as birthday and Christmas presents when I was a child.

 

The paintings hanging on the walls are all 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States. The wallpaper is William Morris’ ‘Poppies’ pattern, featuring stylised Art Nouveau poppies. William Morris papers and fabrics were popular in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period before the Great War.

 

The miniature Arts and Crafts rug on the floor is made by hand by Mackay and Gerrish in Sydney.

Candy: “How’d it go?”

 

Charley: “Fine.”

 

Candy: “Did he like the outfit we picked out?”

 

Charley: “Yeah.”

 

Candy: “How was the food?”

 

Charley (reverently): “Orgasmic.”

 

Candy: “You two discuss anything interesting?”

 

Charley: “Understatement.”

 

Candy: *slams her mug down on the table, nearly sloshing coffee over its sides* “Charley! Are you going to spend the rest of this visit answering everything I ask with one word?!”

 

Charley: *affects an innocent expression* “No?”

 

Candy: *growls* “I want details. I want details about the details. God’s in ‘em. The devil’s in ‘em. All the important stuff’s in ‘em! I’ve been very patient, so I want ‘em, and I want ‘em now. Now-now-now!”

 

Charley: “Uh, when did you want ‘em again?”

 

Candy: *glares at Charley, lips curling back into a near snarl*

 

Charley: “You’re not going to descend into embarrassing girly cliché and pull my hair, are you?”

 

Candy: “Thinking ‘bout it. Thinking ‘bout it real serious-like.”

 

Charley: *snickers* “Okay, okay. Charley’s had her fun time at the expense of Candy’s good humor. The date went well, all things considered. It was certainly, um…informative.”

 

Candy: *leans forward, eyes alight with eagerness* “Informative. Informative, you say? How so? Expound. Elucidate. Explicate.”

 

Charley: “Well, I always assumed I’d be the most screwed up one in any relationship, but I think Dane and I may have to call it a draw.”

 

Candy: *face loses some of its eagerness* “Oh, this isn’t going to be a happy story, is it?”

 

Charley: “Not particularly.”

 

Candy: “Well, that blows! So, he’s not a secret prince from some tiny principality or something?”

 

Fashion Credits

**Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes) were done by me unless otherwise stated.**

 

Candy

Dress: Mattel – Playline – Cali Girl Fashion Pack

Military Jacket: Trico

Sneakers: Momoko – After School Dash

Belt: Cangaway (etsy.com)

Necklace: me

 

Doll is a Making a Scene Erin transplanted to a Misaki body.

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.

 

This evening, we have not strayed far from Cavendish Mews and are still in Mayfair, but due to a constant barrage of rain, Lettice has chosen to take a taxi, hailed for her by her maid Edith from the nearby square, to Bond Street where the premises of the Portland Gallery stand. Tonight, Lettice has been invited to the exclusive opening night of the Portland Gallery’s autumn show: a very special occasion indeed, with attendance only offered to an exclusive group of artists, patrons of the arts and special customers, like Lettice to view the very latest finds by the gallery owner, Mr. Chilvers. The gallery has been closed for the last fortnight with its thick velvet curtains drawn, excluding the inquisitive eyes and goggling glances of the foot traffic walking up and down Bond Street. As the taxi pulls up to the kerb, Lettice peers through the partially fogged up and raindrop spattered window at the impressive three storey Victorian building with Portland stone facings, which is where the gallery takes its name from. The ground floor part of the façade has been modernised in more recent times, and its magnificent plate glass windows are illuminated by brilliant light from within as guests wander about, admiring the objets d’art artfully presented in them.

 

“That’ll be four and six, mum.” the taxi driver says through the glass divider between the driver’s compartment and the passenger carriage as he leans back in his seat. Stretching his arm across the seat he tips his cap in deference to the well dressed lady swathed in arctic fox furs wearing a beaded bandeau across her stylishly coiffured blonde hair in the black leather back seat.

 

After paying the taxi fare, Lettice opens the door and unfurls a rather lovely Nile green umbrella that closely matches the fabric of her frock beneath her fur coat and alights onto the wet pavement outside. She elegantly walks the few paces over to the full-length plate-glass doors on which the Portland Gallery’s name is written in elegant gilt font along with the words ‘by appointment only’ printed underneath in the same hand. The door is opened by a liveried footman who welcomes her by name to the gallery, accepting her invitation as she steps across the threshold. “Good evening. Welcome to the Portland Gallery’s autumn show, Miss Chetwynd.” He bows as he indicates for her to step inside the crowded gallery.

 

“May I take your fur, madam?” a second liveried footman asks politely, holding up his white glove clad hands at her shoulder height, ready to accept her fox as she shucks out of it elegantly, revealing the gold sequin spangled panels running down the front of her drop waisted frock. He then takes her umbrella and carefully hangs both inside a discreet coat cupboard nearby.

 

As the door closes behind her, the quiet London street outside is forgotten as Lettice is swept up into the electrifying atmosphere of the Portland Gallery’s latest show of new and avant-garde art. The burble of vociferous, excited chatter fills her ears. Her eyes flit around the red painted gallery hung with paintings and populated with tables, cabinets and pillars upon which stand different sculptures and other artistic pieces. Everywhere the cream of London’s artistic and bohemian set and wealthy members of the upper classes mill about in small clutches remarking on the works around her. As she smiles and waves a black elbow length glove clan hand at an acquaintance from the Embassy Club, she knows it won’t be long before she sees her Aunt Eglantyne, an artist of some note in her own right, amid the bright and colourful crowd of guests, no doubt arrayed in a Delphos gown* of a dazzling shade with a cascade of precious jewels tumbling down her front and a turban adorned with a spray of jewels and an aigrette** enveloping her red hennaed hair. She sniffs the air, which is filled with a fug of different perfumes and cigarette smoke to see if she can catch a whiff of the exotic scent of her aunt’s Balkan Black Russian Sobranies***. Grasping a coupe of glittering champagne from a silver tray carried around by a maid dressed in typical black moiré with an ornamental lace apron with matching cuffs and headdress, Lettice takes a deep breath and steps into the fray.

 

She smiles and pauses to chat with friends and acquaintances she knows through her well-connected aunt or her own associations as she slowly works her way around the room, admiring the artworks. She wends her way through the assembled guests, smiling occasionally to some and waving to others. She stops to speak to art critic P. G. Konody****, laughing lightly as he dismisses a Post-Impressionist painting they stand before as “unintelligible” before she excuses herself and moves on. She sees her aunt, dressed just as she imagined, in animated conversation with a diminutive woman with bobbed hair and waves to her, her indication acknowledged by a smile of recognition and a gaze that implies that she will catch up with Lettice once she extricates herself from her current conversation. Moving on, Lettice brushes against artist Frank Brangwyn*****. When he turns, she stops and asks with interest about his latest biblical etchings and how he feels they will be received by critics such as Mr. Konody. Wending her way still further through the meandering gathering of guests, she stops again and converses with New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins****** about her explorations into painting fabric designs. “My Aunt Eglantyne is also looking at creating in fabric, Miss Hodkins, but she is looking more at weaving after being inspired by the native carpets she saw on a trip to South America.” Lettice remarks. “She has even bought herself a large loom that she has had installed at her studio.”

 

“Ahh, Miss Chetwynd! There you are!” comes a male voice, cutting through the hubbub of chatter with its well enunciated syllables.

 

“Mr. Chilvers!” Lettice greets a smartly dressed man with a warm smile and the familiarity of the regular client that she is. “How do you do.”

 

Born Grand Duke Pytor Chikvilazde in the Russian seaside resort town of Odessa, the patrician gallery owner with his beautifully manicured and curled handlebar moustache fled Russia after the Revolution, escaping aboard the battleship HMS Marlborough******* from Yalta in 1919 along with the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and other members of the former, deposed Russian Imperial Family. Arriving in London later that year after going via Constantinople and Genoa, the Russian emigree was far more fortunate than others around him on the London docks, possessing valuable jewels smuggled out of Russia in the lining of his coat. Changing his name to the more palatable Peter Chilvers, he sold most of the jewels he had, shunned his Russian heritage, and honed his English accent and manners, to reinvent himself as the very British owner of an art gallery in Bond Street, thus enabling him to continue what he enjoyed most about being Grand Duke Pytor Chikvilazde and participate in the thriving arts scene in his new homeland.

 

“How do you do, Miss Chetwynd. What a pleasure to have you at my little gallery’s autumn showing, even if autumn is yet to arrive.” He takes up her hand and kisses it, perhaps one of the few Russian – and definitely not British – traits he still has.

 

“Well, I think with the rain outside and the cooling temperatures, it feels much more autumnal to me out there, so I think your autumn showing is well timed, Mr. Chilvers.”

 

“I hope then, Miss Chetwynd, that you are enjoying the sparkling champagne, the glittering company.” He nods in Miss Hodgkins’ direction, acknowledging her. “And the art, of course.”

 

“Of course, Mr. Chilvers.” Lettice replies with a smile, flattered by his attentions.

 

“Now, if I can extract you from the charms of Miss Hodgkins’ company, Miss Chetwynd, there is something in particular in my latest show that I should like to draw you attention to.”

 

Lettice and Mr. Chilvers excuse themselves from Miss Hodgkins’ presence and slowly wend their way through the milling clusters of party attendees, many turning heads, craning their necks or glancing surreptitiously and with a little jealousy at Mr. Chilvers to see which guest in particular has his undivided attention. The pair stop on the black and white marble floor before one if the gallery’s fireplaces,

 

“Is that?” Lettice begins as she stares up at the striking painting hanging above the mantle lined with pottery and glass.

 

“A Picasso?” Mr. Chilvers chortles with smug delight, rather like a child who has just won a game, completing Lettice’s unfinished question. “Yes, it is.”

 

Lettice admires the bold colours and energetic strokes of thickly layered paint on the canvas. Angular lines pick out the faces and torsos of two figures. Eyes, noses, hands, two thin lines making up a mouth. Fragmented, distorted and distracted the image radiates intimacy as much as it does boldness: a hand resting on a shoulder, the pair of figures’ heads drawn closely together, both with eyes downcast.

 

“It’s called, ‘Lovers’.” Mr. Chilvers goes on. “It’s part of his latest Cubist******** pieces.”

 

“It’s remarkable!” Lettice breathes with awe.

 

“I knew you’d like it, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Chilvers purrs. “Well, I’ll just leave you to contemplate Mr. Picasso’s new work, Miss Chetwynd. Come and find me if you’d like ‘Lovers’.” He smiles at Lettice’s transfixed face before silently gilding away and rejoining a nearby group of his guests where he begins chatting animatedly.

 

Lettice is still staring up at the intricacies of the brushwork in the painting when she hears her name being called by another male voice. “Lettice!” Turning her head away from the artwork she finds Sir John Nettleford-Hughes at her right shoulder.

 

Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a time when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Luckily Selwyn Spencely, the handsome eldest son of the Duke of Walmsford, rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable.

 

“Sir John!” Lettice gasps.

 

“Now, now!” he chides her. “Come Lettice. We are friends now, are we not?”

 

“Indeed we are.”

 

“Then enough of this ‘Sir John’ business. John will be quite satisfactory.”

 

Lettice laughs with embarrassment. “Oh, I’m sorry, John, but old habits and all that, don’t you know?” He smiles indulgently at her. Lettice blushes under his gaze as she goes on, “I… I wasn’t expecting to see you here this evening.”

 

“No?” he toys.

 

“No, I didn’t think a modernist exhibition like this would appeal to you, John. I’ve always assumed you to be more of a classical art appreciator.”

 

Sir John sighs a little tiredly. “Well, it’s true, I am a more classically inclined when it comes to art appreciation. I’ve just been taking to Ethel Walker********* over there about a portrait she has exhibited here, and I can’t say I particularly like it, much less abstractions like this.” He indicates to the Picasso above the fireplace. “Which looks unintelligible to me.”

 

Lettice laughs. “You sound like dear Mr. Konody over there.” She indicates to the art critic, now in conversation with two society matrons dripping in diamond and pearls over a clutch of pottery pieces by Bernard Leach**********. Turning back to the painting above the fireplace, Lettice continues, “So if you don’t like this style of art, then it begs the question, what are you doing here, John?”

 

“That’s easy, Lettice: Carter money.”

 

“Carter money?” Lettice queries.

 

This time it is Sir John who chuckles as he looks upon Lettice’s non comprehension with amusement. “I’m here with Priscilla.” he elucidates.

 

“Cilla?” Lettice queries again, at the mention of her Embassy Club coterie friend, now married to wealthy American Georgie Carter.

 

“Yes. Her husband’s department store money has opened the doors of the Portland Gallery to her, but whilst he is happy to foot the bill for anything that takes her fancy this evening, Georgie has cried off accompanying Priscila this evening after conveniently coming down with a sudden head cold, which I am no doubt sure will evaporate by breakfast tomorrow. So, as the honourary token uncle, I’m stepping in as chaperone for the evening.”

 

“Oh poor John.” Lettice puts a hand up to her mouth to obscure her smile and muffle the mirth in her voice.

 

“Oh I wouldn’t say it’s all that bad.” Sir John replies. “Whilst the art brings me little enjoyment, I do have the pleasure of your company as a result of Mr. Chilver’s little show. And,” He lifts his coupe of bubbling champagne. “The man does have fine taste in champagne.”

 

“Indeed.” Lettice agrees, raising her glass to Sir John’s where they clink together.

 

The pair walk together away from the Picasso painting and move towards the clutch of pieces by Bernard Leech. Lettice glances back over her shoulder at the painting one final time.

 

“Now, whilst this pottery isn’t my cup of tea either,” Sir John remarks, indicating to the brown glazed pottery jugs decorated with naïve images of animals and plants. ‘At least I know what they are.”

 

Lettice laughs. “Well, that’s a start, John. Cilla and I will make a modern art appreciator of you yet.”

 

“Don’t even try, Lettice.” he scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “Now, thinking of pottery, I am sure you will do a splendid job at Arkwright Bury. Adelina will adore the room you redecorate for her, and I know how excited Alisdair is about it. he’s told me that it will look quite marvellous! Thank you for taking it on.”

 

“Oh no, thank you for suggesting it to me at Gossington. Your nephew and Mrs. Grifford are delightful people.”

 

“I knew you’d like them, Lettice. And I believe Alisdair’s godfather, Henry Tipping************ will write another favourable article about you in Country Life************.”

 

“Apparently so, so long as Mrs. Gifford likes the room and keeps it.”

 

“I’m sure she will, Lettice. I just hope theis little job of decorating Adelina’s blue and white china room will be a good distraction for you.”

 

Lettice sighs heavily. “It will be, John. I’ve been throwing myself into my interior design work, so as not to think about Selwyn’s absence.”

 

“So, have you heard anything from young Spencely since he’s been banished to Durban, Lettice?” Sir John asks.

 

“No, I haven’t.” Lettice sighs heavily again.

 

“That’s a pity, but I’m hardly surprised. Based upon what you told me about the bargain he struck with his mother, I wouldn’t imagine he’d dare.”

 

“Have you heard anything from him at all, John?”

 

“Me? Why should I have heard anything?”

 

“Well, it’s just,” Lettice tries to keep the hopeful lilt out of her voice as she speaks. “You mentioned him, is all. I thought that perhaps you might have heard from him.”

 

“We don’t really move in the same circles, Lettice. Don’t forget that I’m a bit older than you two. I’m more inclined to be a contemporary of Zinnia,” Sir John continues, referencing Selwyn’s mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, by name. Seeing Lettice’s eyes suddenly grow wide he quickly adds, “Not that I am friends with her, I assure you Lettice. She’s a venomous viper, as you know, and I’ve every wish to avoid being in her orbit. And,” he adds. “I’m certainly not one of her spies, if you are at all concerned, Lettice.”

 

Lettice releases a pent up breath caught in her throat in a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad to hear it, John. After the revelation that Lady Zinnia knew about Selwyn and I, long before we even attempted to draw attention to our relationship, I’m not sure who to trust.”

 

“Well, I did try to warn you at Priscilla’s wedding, Lettice.”

 

“I know you did, John.” Lettice concedes, glancing down into her half empty glass. “I just didn’t want to listen.”

 

“Who ever wants to listen to advice they don’t want to hear, my dear?”

 

“No-one, I suppose.”

 

“Have patience, Lettice. I may not be friends with Zinnia, but I know enough about her, not to cross her, so don’t be too hard on young Spencely for doing the same, and keep your faith. If I know anything about Zinnia, it’s that she will have spies keeping an eye on everything her son does, even in far away Durban, and no doubt she is paying someone to steam open every letter he sends, and another person to read every scrap of correspondence he writes or reads, to make sure he isn’t trying to sneak a message to you, or you him.”

 

“Do you really think so, John? I’ve been hoping against hope, and I know my friends have too, that Selwyn would get a message to me somehow. However, to date I’ve had nothing, and I’m starting to lose hope. I do worry that a year apart may lead him to think less of me, or not at all.”

 

“Don’t, Lettice. Zinnia separated the two of you to try and break your bond, but if you can stay strong, you’ll win out over her scheming. She’d like nothing better than to catch Spencley sneaking you a letter, because then by way of her agreement with him, she could legitimately force him to marry someone else. He’s playing the long game, with you as the prize, I’m sure.”

 

“Do you really think so, John?”

 

“I do, Lettice.”

 

“Well, I must confess, you’re probably one of the last people I would have expected to hear that from.”

 

“As I said to you at Gossington, I was jealous that you’d had your head turned by Spencely, but I’m over that now. Jealousy in a single older man is equally as abhorrent in an older eligible bachelor as it is in a younger unmarried lady.” He gulps the last of his champagne. “However, in saying that, if anything should happen to cause your romance to Spencely fall through, don’t forget that I’m still here as an interested party.”

 

“Is there something you know that I don’t, John?”

 

“No.” Sir John replies breezily. “I’m only saying that if anything happens.”

 

Lettice pauses, straightens and stiffens as her eyes grow wide. For a moment she doesn’t say anything. “Is that a proposal, John?”

 

Sir John’s eyes flit about the crowded gallery as he considers his response before replying. “Hhhmmm… of sorts, I suppose.” He smiles enigmatically. “I’m not suggesting that I am trying to vie for your affections, Lettice. You are obviously in love with young Spencely, and I don’t wish to come between you two, or try to dissuade you from pursuing a relationship with him.”

 

“Then what are you proposing?”

 

“All I’m offering is an alternate choice, should your plans fall through for any reason. Just keep me in mind.”

 

Lettice lowers her gaze to the image of an owl etched into the side of a pottery jug with a long spout as she contemplates what Sir John has said. “But you’re,” She lowers her voice. “You’re a philanderer, John.”

 

“I’d never propose a conventional marriage, my dear Lettice, however let’s just say that if you married me, I’d pay for and let you hang a daub like that,” he indicates with a dismissive wave to the Picasso painting. “Wherever you like in any of our houses, if you let me take my enjoyment where I like it and not complain.”

 

He squeezes her glove clad upper arm discreetly. His touch makes the champagne in her mouth taste bitter.

 

“However,” he continues. “Don’t consider it now, consider it, only if the time should ever come - and I do mean, if.”

 

“Consider what, Uncle John?” Priscilla’s voice rings out as, dressed in a striking red frock with pearls cascading down her front she sidles up next to Sir John and Lettice. Wealth suits Priscilla, Lettice decides as she takes in the transformed figure of her friend who was once so poor that she discreetly took a typing course so as to take in secretarial work to help keep debt collectors at bay from she and her widowed mother’s door.

 

“I was just telling Miss Chetwynd to,” He pauses for a moment, unable to think of something to say to Priscilla instead of the truth..

 

“Sir John,” Lettice quickly fills in the awkward gap, reverting to formal terms like Sir John did in front of her friend to avoid any unnecessary gossip spread by Priscilla. “Was just telling me to think carefully and consider before making a decision as to whether I buy that Picasso.” She points to the painting above the fireplace.

 

Priscilla looks at the Picasso. “Oh Uncle John!” she exclaims in exasperation. Turning back to Lettice she continues, “I shouldn’t listen to him, Lettice, if I were you. He’s frightfully conservative when it comes to art: a real old stick-in-the-mud. I think it’s thrilling and so avant-garde, just like you. If you like it, buy it, that’s what I say, before someone else does! What is money for, if not to spend?” She giggles girlishly.

 

“I’ll consider all my options.” Lettice says with a smile.

 

“You’ll never guess what I’ve just gone and done!” Priscilla says, bursting with excitement as she changes the subject.

 

“I’m sure I’d never guess, Cilla.” Lettice replies. “Tell us.”

 

“Well, you see that woman in the brown dress over there.” She points to a woman with brown hair tied in a loose chignon at the base of her neck in a chocolate velvet dress.

 

“Ethel Walker, do you mean?” Lettice asks.

 

“Oh, you know her then.” Priscilla says, crestfallen.

 

“She’s quite a well known artist, Cilla darling.” Lettice soothes her friend’s ego. “That’s one of the reasons why she is at this soirée this evening.”

 

“What about her?” asks Sir John, his interest piqued.

 

“Well,” Priscilla pipes up again. “I’ve just agreed to sit for her. She walked right up to me and said she thought I had an interesting face, and she wants to paint me, even though we’d not even been introduced. It was all awfully thrilling.” She pauses for a moment before going on, “Although she told me I had to come bare faced*************,” She bites her lipstick coated lower lip, coloured almost the same shade of striking red as her frock. “As she wants to paint a portrait of who I really am.”

 

“Well, that’s a great honour, Cilla darling.” Lettice says. “Ethel Walker doesn’t paint anyone she doesn’t want to. Come let’s celebrate this wonderful announcement with some fresh champagne, shall we?”

 

As Lettice walks away arm in arm with Priscilla, she glances back over her shoulder at the Picasso painting of ‘Lovers’, and Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, smiling mysteriously and saluting her with his own empty glass: two potential male influences in her future life to consider.

 

*The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. It was championed by more artistic women who did not wish to conform to society’s constraints and wear a tightly fitting corset.

 

**The term aigrette refers to the tufted crest or head-plumes of the egret, used for adorning a headdress – most popular in the Edwardian eras between the turn on the Twentieth Century and the Second World War. The word may also identify any similar ornament, in gems.

 

***The Balkan Sobranie tobacco business was established in London in 1879 by Albert Weinberg (born in Romania in 1849), whose naturalisation papers dated 1886 confirm his nationality and show that he had emigrated to England in the 1870s at a time when hand-made cigarettes in the eastern European and Russian tradition were becoming fashionable in Europe. Sobranie is one of the oldest cigarette brands in the world. Throughout its existence, Sobranie was marketed as the definition of luxury in the tobacco industry, being adopted as the official provider of many European royal houses and elites around the world including the Imperial Court of Russia and the royal courts of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Greece. Premium brands include the multi-coloured Sobranie Cocktail and the black and gold Sobranie Black Russian.

 

****Paul George Konody was a Hungarian-born, London-based art critic and historian, who wrote for several London newspapers, as well as writing numerous books and articles on noted artists and collections, with a focus on the Renaissance.

 

*****Sir Frank Brangwyn was born in Bruges, Belgium and was a self taught artist, save for some instruction from his architect father. He is best known for his murals and large easel paintings on heroic and biblical themes. His first prints were wood engravings and he later trained as a commercial wood engraver. Around 1900 he began etching, producing over three hundred works by 1926. His larger etchings attracted some criticism for their deeply bitten and liberally inked plates. His smaller works were considered more successful, particularly those set figures against an architectural background. He was knighted in 1941.

 

******Frances Mary Hodgkins was a New Zealand painter chiefly of landscape and still life, and for a short period was a designer of textiles. She was born and raised in New Zealand, but spent most of her working life in England.

 

*******In 1919, King George V sent the HMS Marlborough to rescue his Aunt the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna after the urging of his mother Queen Dowager Alexandra. On the 5th of April 1919, the HMS Marlborough arrived in Sevastopol before proceeding to Yalta the following day. The ship took Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and other members of the former, deposed Russian Imperial Family including Grand Duke Nicholas and Prince Felix Yusupov aboard in Yalta on the evening of the 7th. The Empress refused to leave unless the British also evacuated wounded and sick soldiers, along with any civilians that also wanted to escape the advancing Bolsheviks. The Russian entourage aboard Marlborough numbered some eighty people, including forty four members of the Royal Family and nobility, with a number of governesses, nurses, maids and manservants, plus several hundred cases of luggage.

 

********Cubism was a revolutionary new approach to representing reality invented in around 1907–08 by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They brought different views of subjects (usually objects or figures) together in the same picture, resulting in paintings that appear fragmented and abstracted.

 

*********Dame Ethel Walker was a Scottish painter of portraits, flower-pieces, sea-pieces and decorative compositions. From 1936, Walker was a member of The London Group. Her work displays the influence of Impressionism, Puvis de Chavannes, Gauguin and Asian art.

 

**********Bernard Howell Leach was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery".

 

***********Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.

 

************Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.

 

*************Ethel Walker was disapproving of cosmetics, and was known to rebuke women in public on account of their makeup. She required her models to remove lipstick and nail polish before entering her studio in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. A friend of hers recollected of her, “She executed commissions when she liked the look of the would-be sitters but before painting her women she would say ‘Take that filthy stuff off your lips’ for, always faithful to the motif, she could not tolerate the sudden assault of red upon an eye so sensitive to tone”.

 

Whilst this up-market London gallery interior complete with artisan pieces may appear real to you, it is in fact made up completely with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection. This tableau is particularly special because almost everything you can see is a handmade artisan miniature piece.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Central to our story, the “Lovers” painting by Picasso is a 1:12 miniature painted by hand in the style of Picasso by miniature artist Mandy Dawkins of Miniature Dreams in Thrapston. The frame was handmade by her husband John Dawkins.

 

The painting hanging to the left of the photograph is also a hand painted artisan picture. Created by miniature artist Ann Hall, it is a copy of “Place du Théâtre Francois, Paris” by Pissarro. The two pen and watercolour images hanging to the right of the photograph are by miniature artist R. Humphreys. I acquired these through Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The jug and bowl on the fireplace mantle had been hand fashioned and painted by an unknown miniature artisan ceramicist, whilst the four bottles are hand blown by another unknown miniature artisan, as is the ship in the glass bottle on the stand to the left of the fireplace. The bottles came from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdon, whilst the jug and bowl I acquired from a private collector of miniatures selling their collection on E-Bay.

 

The rather lovely soapstone container on the pedestal to the right of the fireplace is Eighteenth Century Chinese, and was rescued from a wreck in the South China Sea.

 

The painted and glazed jugs and vases on the black japanned table in the foreground are all handmade miniature artisan pieces made by an unknown potter. They were acquired from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The glass vases in unusual shapes on the black japanned table are in reality some beautiful glass bugle beads. Between 1923 and 1939, these beads and millions like them were produced from a very successful workshop on the outskirts of Toruń in northern Poland (then Pomerania) and sent to fashion houses both locally and in cities like Prague, Vienna and Paris. Then, with the coming of Hitler's invasion of Poland and the Second World War, the owners of the workshop closed their doors. They took the beads they had in the workshop and buried them in boxes in the ground beneath the floor of the workshop and then fled, hoping to return to reclaim them some day. And so the beads remained buried beneath the flagstones throughout the Second World War when the workshop was razed, and beyond during the re-building of post-war Poland. Although still in possession of the land on which the workshop had stood, the owners and their descendants never returned to Toruń to claim them, and the beads became a thing of legend. Nearly seventy years later, descendants of the original owners returned to Toruń to live, and decided to see if there was any truth to the stories of 'buried treasure'. Much to their astonishment and delight, what they uncovered beneath the flagstones were thirty great boxes, still well preserved in the earth, of 1920s and 1930s glass bugle beads! A selection of these beads came into my possession through the mother of my goddaughters and her mother, who are extremely close friends of mine and who are artists of Polish decent directly related to the owners of the Toruń workshop.

 

The two pedestals either side of the fireplace were made by the high end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

The black ladderback chairs and the table in the foreground were made by Town Hall Miniatures.

Another picture taken into the puddle in my driveway. That puddle is the source of much inspiration. I have always seen puddles as a dimension to another world...all reflective surfaces, but especially puddles. There's something about the muted tones of the reflections and the fluidity of the water that is extra intruiging.

 

Once I got this diptych assembled, I was insantly like AAAHH because I saw a demon goat and a butterfly and an Aztec mask and a lion creature and a large paternal toad and a cat mother and an alien looking back at me and was like AAHHH. Diptyches made like this look very much like Rorsach blots, especially ones of flora. Which makes me wonder about the weirdness of the universe. Because this is....just a picture of trees, but with one minor alteration (mirroring the image) it can turn into something totally mathematically mystical looking. And I feel like that is an elucidation of something about the universe, but I'm not sure what. Any ideas? I'm drawing a blank. Too distracted by my awe, lol.

 

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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 is far from Cavendish Mews, back in Wiltshire where she is staying at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Today she is at Arkwright Bury, a Regency style country house, partially overgrown with creepers, set amidst a simple English park style garden belonging to a neighbour, of sorts, of her parents: Mr. Alisdair Gifford, nephew of Sir John Nettleford-Hughes and his Australian wife Adelina. Belonging to the Giffords for a few generations, Arkwright Bury was destroyed to some degree in a fire in the 1870s, but was then restored. During the ensuing years, when the house passed from Mr. Gifford’s father to Mr. Gifford’s older brother, Cuthbert, the house fell into disrepair. When he committed suicide after the war, the house was inherited by Alisdair Gifford, as Cuthbert had no spouse or offspring. The present Mr. and Mrs. Gifford have spent the better part of the last five years trying to save and restore Arkwright Bury from the ravages of neglect.

 

Mr. Gifford’s uncle, Sir John Nettleford-Hughes was the one who set the wheels in motion for Lettice to visit Arkwright Bury and his nephew, Mr. Gifford. Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a time when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Luckily Selwyn Spencely, the handsome eldest son of the Duke of Walmsford, rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice recently reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. As she was leaving to return to London on the Monday, Sir John approached her and asked if she might meet with his nephew, Mr. Gifford, as he wishes to have a room in his Wiltshire house redecorated as a surprise for Adelina, who collects blue and white porcelain but as of yet has no place to display it at Arkwright Bury. Lettice arranged a discreet meeting with Mr. Gifford at Cavendish Mews to discuss matters with him, and was then invited to luncheon with the Giffords at Arkwright Bury under the ruse that she, as an acquaintance of the Giffords with her interest in interior design, had come for a tour of the house. She agreed to take on the job of redecorating the room using a facsimile print of the original papers hanging in what was then called the ‘Pagoda Room’ before the 1870s fire, reproduced by Jeffrey and Company*.

 

Lettice is taking advantage of a window of opportunity provided with the Giffords taking a short seaside holiday in Bournemouth, arranging for her professional paper hangers from London to come to Arkwright Bury and hang the small quantity of wallpaper produced from a sketch done by Lettice. Now with the smell of wallpaper glue still fresh, Lettice takes a satisfied breath as she admires the hangers’ skill as she runs her hands across the smooth paper covered in stylised pagodas, trees and oriental patterns. Around her the burble of gentle male Wiltshire accents and the sound of crockery against crockery fill her ears as agricultural labourers she has hired for the day from the Glynes estate carefully move furniture intended for use in the room into place and unpack the many boxes of Mrs. Gifford’s collection, carefully laying the pieces out so that Lettice can arrange them all in a pleasing manner.

 

“My Mrs. has got a dresser full of blue and white china like this.” one worker remarks as he unwraps some Eighteenth Century plates featuring a leaf decoration from a Sunlight Soap** crate and hands it carefully to Lettice who places it facing upwards on the shelf of the little Georgian corner cabinet, the only original feature of the old room to survive the conflagration of the 1870s.

 

“Get away with you, Bill!” chortles his friend, one of the other workers who busies himself removing a Blue Willow Pattern vase from a much smaller box, where it is nestled next to a similarly patterned teapot. “Your Mrs. wouldn’t have china as fancy as this stuff. Good quality is this.”

 

“Oh,” Bill exclaims, swiping his tweed flat cap off his head in a sweeping gesture and bowing to his friend. “An expert in china are you, now Len?”

 

“I know a bit.” Len replies proudly. “Enough to know that what your Mrs. has on her dresser shelves aren’t these.”

 

“I must remember your expertise, Mr. Musslewhite.” Lettice remarks with a cheeky smirk as she takes another plate from Bill and slips it on top of several others, beneath a blue and white floral teapot. “I could use a man with a little knowledge and a keen eye to peruse the country house auctions down here for me.”

 

“Oh!” Len clears his throat awkwardly and bows his head over the box. “Begging your pardon, Miss Chetwynd. I didn’t mean to speak out of turn. I meant no disrespect.”

 

Lettice smiles and chuckles quietly to herself as she looks at the triumphant gleam in Bill Berrett’s eyes as it brightens their vivid blue as he looks down on Len Musslewhite. “That’s alright, Mr. Musslewhite.” she acknowledges.

 

The room falls into a quiet, comfortable silence as the two labourers and Lettice continue to unpack, the rustling whispers of tissue paper and newspaper and the clunk of pottery being stacked and placed the only sounds to break it aside from a robin somewhere in the nearby grounds outside.

 

Lettice sighs again as she reflects upon the fine detailing of a large oriental teapot with a wicker handle. She considers it to be one of the finer examples in Mrs. Gifford’s collection thus far and sets it aside along with the early Willow Ware teapot and vase that Len Musslewhite has now unpacked. Her plan is to place three or four of the highlights from the collection in the middle of the room on the beautiful marquetry surface of a loo table*** which currently stands, surface facing outwards in a vertical position against the wall. As she glances at a large footed tazza, which last time she saw on top of Cuthbert Gifford’s old rolltop desk when this room was still a disused study and storeroom, an efficient rapping on the door breaks her consideration of whether the tazza should sit on a small wine table***** on a taller carved wooden pillar.

 

“Miss Chetwynd?” a polite female voice calls deferentially as a friendly middle-aged face framed by salt and pepper hair set in neat finger waves****** appears from behind the door as it opens.

 

“Yes Mrs. Beaven?” Lettice addresses the Gifford’s housekeeper.

 

“Beg pardon, Miss, but there’s a telephone call for you.” the housekeeper replies.

 

“For me?” Lettice queries. The only people aside from Mr. Gifford who know she is at Arkwright Bury are her parents, and unless they have rung through to the switchboard operator at the Glynes post office, they don’t know the telephone number.

 

“It’s Mr. Gifford, telephoning from Bournemouth, Miss.” Mrs. Beaven elucidates. “You may take the call in Mr. Gifford’s library downstairs.” The housekeeper eyes the mess of crumpled newspaper, tissue paper and quickly emptying crates littering the clean, dark stained floor.

 

“Thank you, Mrs. Beaven.” Lettice replies as she carefully works her way through the sea of boxes spewing forth paper and contents, so as not to break any of the china. As she reaches the housekeeper’s side, she sees Mrs. Beaven’s disgruntled look and follows her eyes. “Oh, don’t worry, Mrs. Beaven, Mr. Berrett, Mr. Musselwhite, and I will tidy all this up before we leave.”

 

“I certainly hope you will, Miss Chetwynd.” the older lady replies with a sniff as she hoists her pert nose in the air. “Your London wallpaper hangers certainly didn’t! They left me with paper scraps to sweep up and glue marks to take off the floor. I’ve only just had Joyce clean this floor, again.” She pauses and emphasises the last word in her sentence as she speaks.

 

“Ahh, well, I’ll be sure to pass your complaints on, Mrs. Beaven and address your concerns with my paperers.” Lettice replies lightly, not wishing to be reprimanded like a naughty schoolgirl when the issue is not of her making, especially not in front of her father’s labourers, and sweeping that particular topic blithely away. “Now, the library, you said?”

 

Mrs. Beaven’s face crumples in concern as she looks at their print smudged fingers. “I hope your men don’t expect luncheon in the dining room with you, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“Oh no, mum!” pipes up Mr. Berrett as he manoeuvres the now empty Sunlight Soap crate off the top of a second lidded crate yet to be unpacked. “A slice of your finest pork pie and some blackcurrant wine in your lovely kitchen will suit Len and me perfectly.”

 

“What cheek!” scoffs the housekeeper.

 

“The library, Mrs. Beaven?” Lettice persists, reminding the woman that she came to deliver a message, and now needed to take Lettice to the telephone, for even though Lettice has had a tour of Arkwright Bury, she would be hard pressed to remember behind which closed door sist the library and the waiting Mr. Gifford at the other end of the telephone line.

 

“Right this way, Miss.” Mrs. Beaven says, walking away with measured steps in her sensible black court shoes.

 

The housekeeper shows Lettice into Arkwright Bury’s library on the ground floor. Although nowhere near as large or palatial as her father’s library, Mr. Gifford’s gives off the same comforting feeling of being cocooned by books, and has the same smell of old books and woodfire smoke. The library, like most renovated rooms in the house, has a classical country house appearance, with comfortable armchairs unholstered in gold satin, a selection of curios and collections reflecting Mr. Gifford’s country pastimes and pursuits and a smattering of antiques. The walls are lined with floor to ceiling shelves full of books, and the large plate glass window gives the room a light and airy feel whilst affording views of the curving gravel driveway and anyone who approaches the house from the front. In the centre of the room stands Mr. Gifford’s large partner desk******* upon which sits his green Bakelite******** telephone.

 

“Mr. Gifford,” Lettice says cheerfully down the telephone. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you whilst you are away. How is Bournemouth?”

 

“Capital, Miss Chetwynd! Capital!” Mr. Gifford replies with equal cheer. “Adelina has just gone for a stroll along the promenade, so I thought I’d quickly telephone whilst she is out of the house and see how you were getting on.” He pauses. “Not that I’m checking up on you at all. I have total faith in you, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“Not at all, Mr. Gifford.” Lettice assures him. “No, things are going splendidly. My paperers have done an excellent job, and the room looks so much fresher and brighter now. Oh,” she adds. “I’m afraid my London hangers have rather upset your housekeeper. She was complaining to me about the paper they left and the glue marks on the floor.”

 

“Pshaw!” Mr. Gifford dismisses Lettice’s summary of Mrs. Beavan’s complaint. “Don’t give it a thought, Miss Chetwynd. Mrs. Beaven is always complaining about how untidy we are. I think she does it to make sure that we know how much work she does about the place, not that she does most of the hard graft, which is done by her underling, the all suffering but sweet tempered Joyce.” Lettice can hear Mr. Gifford chuckle in an amused fashion distantly down the slightly crackling line. “Let Mrs. Beaven complain. It makes her happy. Now, thinking of happy, you are happy with the paper on the walls, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“Oh yes, quite, Mr, Gifford.” Lettice assures him. “My men did a lovely, smooth job, and you can barely see the joins. They also cut it expertly around the uneven edges of the old Georgian corner cabinet. I’m sure after a few years, you will be able to tell visitors to Arkwright Bury that this was the original paper from the Pagoda Room.”

 

“Capital, Miss Chetwynd! Capital!” Mr. Gifford enthuses down the line. “And you found all of Adelina’s collection easily enough from my instructions.”

 

“Yes thank you, Mr. Gifford. I have two of my father’s men unpacking even as we speak. I’ll spend some time this afternoon arranging and rearranging, and review what I’ve done tomorrow and the day after, just to make sure I’m happy with the arrangement.”

 

“So, everything will be in place for when Adelina and I arrive home, then, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“Of course, Mr. Gifford!”

 

“Capital, Miss Chetwynd! Capital!” Mr. Gifford chortles.

 

“I just hope Mrs. Gifford likes how I arrange it, Mr. Gifford.”

 

“You’ve met Adelina, Miss Chetwynd. You know how delightfully aimable she is.”

 

Lettice silently considers Mr. Gifford’s choice of words. Whilst she enjoyed Mrs. Gifford’s company, and found her to be a very pleasant luncheon companion, aimable would not be a word Lettice would have used to describe Mrs. Gifford, who is very particular and, also very independent and proud of her own abilities in interior design. However this is a conversation she and Mr. Gifford have already had. Mr. Gifford gave her his assurance that if his wife doesn’t like the design, he will take full responsibility.

 

“Well,” Mr. Gifford goes on unabated in his positiveness. “I have no doubt that how you set things up will not only delight Adelina, but also my Godfather too. I popped into Southwark Street last week and told him that you were going down this week to decorate. He’s most anxious to receive a progress report.”

 

“I do hope Mr. Tipping********* isn’t going to pay me a surprise visit, Mr. Gifford.” Lettice says, airing her concerns. “Especially when the room is all at sixes and sevens.”

 

“Don’t worry, Miss Chetwynd. My Godfather won’t organise to photograph the room for Country Life********** or consider writing the article before Adelina gives the room her approval.”

 

“Well, that’s a relief, Mr. Gifford.” Lettice sighs.

 

“Well, I’d best pop off the line now, Miss Chetwynd. I’m not sure how soon Adelina will be back, and I’d hate to be caught as it were, and have to give the surprise up too soon. Goodbye then, Miss Chetwynd. See you very soon.”

 

“Goodbye Mr. Gifford. Enjoy the remainder of your stay in Bournemouth.”

 

As Lettice hangs up the receiver of the telephone in the cradle it utters a small strangulated final ting. She sighs and leans against Mr. Gifford’s partner desk. Quietly, Lettice hopes that Mrs. Gifford will like the room as she has it arranged. A second article in Country Life under the favourable penmanship of Henry Tipping would only add to her already increasing reputation as one of the best young and upcoming interior designers. The story may also eventually reach far flung Durban, where she quietly hopes against hope that Selwyn is still thinking fondly of her in spite of their enforced separation at the hands of his mother.

 

*Jeffrey and Company was an English producer of fine wallpapers that operated between 1836 and the mid 1930s. Based at 64 Essex Road in London, the firm worked with a variety of designers who were active in the aesthetic and arts and crafts movements, such as E.W. Godwin, William Morris, and Walter Crane. Jeffrey and Company’s success is often credited to Metford Warner, who became the company’s chief proprietor in 1871. Under his direction the firm became one of the most lucrative and influential wallpaper manufacturers in Europe. The company clarified that wallpaper should not be reserved for use solely in mansions, but should be available for rooms in the homes of the emerging upper-middle class.

 

** Sunlight Soap was first introduced in 1884. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.

 

***A loo table, also known as a tip-top table, is a folding table with the tabletop hinged so it can be placed into a vertical position when not used to save space. It is also called a tip table and a snap table with some variations known as tea table or pie crust tilt-top table. These multi-purpose tables were historically used for playing games, drinking tea or spirits, reading and writing, and sewing. The tables were popular among both elite and middle-class households in Britain and America in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. They became collector's items in the early in the Twentieth Century.

 

****A tazza is a shallow cup or vase on a pedestal. First used in Britain in 1824, it comes from the Italian for cup, as well as derivations in Arabic and Persian dialects.

 

*****A wine table is a late Fifteenth Century device for facilitating after dinner drinking, the cabinetmakers called it a "Gentleman's Social Table." It was always narrow and of semicircular or horseshoe form, and the guests sat round the outer circumference. The wine table might be drawn up to the fire in cold weather without inconvenience from the heat.

 

******A finger wave is a method of setting hair into waves that was popular in the 1920s and early 1930s. Silver screen actresses such as Josephine Baker and Esther Phillips are credited with the original popularity of finger waves. The process involved pinching the hair between the fingers and combing the hair in alternating directions to make an "S" shape wave. A waving lotion was applied to the hair to help it retain its shape. The lotion was traditionally made using karaya gum. Over the years, the use of clips (and later tape) also became popular to hold the heavy damp waves until the gel dried. According to ‘Techniques of the 1920s and 1930s’: “Finger waves were developed in the 1920s to add style to, and soften the hard appearance of, the bobbed hairstyles that became very popular during the flapper period.”

 

*******A partner desk is a large desk with an open kneehole which allows use of the desk by two people seated opposite each other.

 

********Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, teapot handles, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

*********Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.

 

**********Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.

 

This rather untidy space, all at sixes and sevens, may not be quite what you think it is. Whilst I know you feel sure you could pick up a teapot or plate, you may need to consider using tweezers, for this whole scene is made up entirely of 1:12 miniatures from my collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The blue and white china you see on the floor, spilling forth from boxes and sitting on shelves, are sourced from a number of miniature stockists through E-Bay, but mostly from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. The gild edged Willow Pattern teapot is a hand painted example of miniature artisan, Rachel Munday’s work. Her pieces are highly valued by miniature collectors for their fine details.

 

The round loo, which is tilted like a real loo table can be tilted, is an artisan miniature from an unknown maker with a marquetry inlaid top, and also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. So too did the Georgian corner cabinet with its delicate fretwork and glass shelves.

 

The boxes you see around the room came from a specialist stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

 

The ladderback chair on the right of the photo is a 1:12 miniature piece I have had since I was a child. The ladderback chair on the left came from a deceased estate of a miniatures collector in Sydney.

 

The wallpaper is an Eighteenth Century chinoiserie design of pagodas and would have been hand painted in its original form.

Lostinsound.org coverage of CoSM Vernal Equinox 3-22-2014

 

Photos by Kyle Rober

Kylerober7@gmail.com

www.fractaltribe.net

 

www.lostinsound.org

www.facebook.com/lostinsoundorg

 

secure.cosm.org/np/clients/cosm/event.jsp?event=1373

www.facebook.com/SacredMirrors

www.facebook.com/events/1413009142275722

  

Andy Reed @ CoSM 3-22-14 www.mixcloud.com/infinitegeometry/live-cosm-the-chapel-of...

____________________

 

Event Schedule:

 

7:30 - Doors Open

8pm - Opening Ceremony with Alex & Allyson

9:30 - Ceremony Ends - Celebration begins

10pm - Dance Music, Live Painters, Fire Performers, etc.

3am - End of the 2014 Vernal Equinox Celebration

  

With your hosts Alex Grey & Allyson Grey:

  

Music Lineup

 

Random Rab

 

Emerging from his own distinct corner of the West Coast electronic music scene, Random Rab offers a powerful and unique contribution to sonic exploration. Often referred to as “The Master of Emotion” his music is patently beautiful and melodic. With diverse influences ranging from trip-hop, classical and Arabic to bass driven compositions, his songs are considered anthemic and timeless. As a multi-instrumentalist and singer, his tracks are organic, uplifting and stand on their own as a distinct genre. Listeners of all types of music can find something they can relate to in this sound. He has toured extensively across North America, including tours with Bassnectar, Shpongle, Beats Antique and headlined several festivals across the country.

 

There is no doubt that Rab understands a multitude of musical styles. He has been the front man of a heavy metal band, toured as a classical trumpet player, played bass in a country music band, was a scratch DJ for a jazz fusion project, was the singer for a rock band in Mexico and has collaborated with countless musicians of all styles. From acoustic performances in the Himalayas to rocking packed clubs in New York, Random Rab has found a way to connect with people of all kinds.

 

With a dedicated fanbase born from the San Francisco underground, Random Rab has become a Burning Man legend known for his sunrise sets that have now become one of his most sought after performances. His current popularity can often be traced to his breakout album, The Elucidation of Sorrow.. This album firmly established him as a recognizable force in the electronic music scene. His 4th album aRose, catapulted him into the state of momentum that is now taking hold internationally. His latest studio effort, Visurreal debuted in the iTunes Top 10 Electronic Charts as well as in the CMJ RPM Top 5 with several #1′s on radio stations across the country.

 

Sometimes performing solo and at other times featuring collaborative musicians, the live experience is focused on a high quality translation of sound that is simultaneously sexy and psychedelic.

 

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: randomrab.com/

SOUNDCLOUD: soundcloud.com/random-rab

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/randomrabofficial

  

Govinda

  

Govinda is the alter-ego of Austin based producer/composer Shane Madden. He began studying violin and composition at the age of eight and went on to study classical violin at the University of Texas where he fell in love with electronic music production. It was in Madden’s pursuit of his gypsy roots that he opened his ears to music from around the world. From experiences learning violin with mysterious masters on his journeys across the globe and his passion for modern design and technology, the current sound of Govinda was born.

 

Govinda has played with Thievery Corporation, Tipper, Bassnectar, Shpongle, Cheb I Sabbah, STS9 and many more and been featured on over 25 compilations such as Buddha Bar II, Asian Travels II, and Nirvana Lounge selling a combined 400,000 copies. Govinda has played at numerous festivals throughout North America including Coachella, Lightning in a Bottle, Sea of Dreams, SXSW and more.

 

Govinda's music has been licensed on shows like WB's “Roswell," MTV's “Road Rules,” and Bravo's “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” as well as many independent films.The Govinda live show immerses the audience with a textured atmosphere of exotic, dubby vibrations interwoven with cosmic visual projections, world class dancers and mesmerizing vocals- all to the magic of his live electronics and violin.

 

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: govindamusic.com/

soundcloud.com/govindamusic

www.facebook.com/govindamusic

twitter.com/govindamusic

________________________

 

Kalya Scintilla

 

Traversing the cosmos, gliding across dimensions beyond time and space, Kalya Scintilla brings universal shamanic journeys through his music to planet earth straight from his heart. His music paints sacred soundscapes with world fusion beats from ancient futures hidden amongst our forgotten memories to bring forth lush healing vibrations to activate the dormant codes within us. Infusing his love for nature, tribal healing, sacred geometry, and Hathor wisdom; Kalya is able to birth heart opening crescendos that open doorways into our personal and collective awakening. Audiences across the world have successfully received his musical transmissions enabling his ability to travel and play at festivals across continents. His vision for the future holds his devotional intention to plant more seeds of galactic sound alchemy to be felt and experienced by all.

 

soundcloud.com/kalyascintilla

www.facebook.com/pages/Kalya-Scintilla/121242094567692

kalyascintilla.bandcamp.com/

_____________________

 

Supersillyus

 

Supersillyus (aka Rob Uslan) is a musician and producer based in Allston, MA. He has been tickling minds with his brand of psychedelic electronic music since 2008. His extensively layered soundscapes feature instrumentation ranging from tribal drums, swirling synths, to the occasional marimba solo.

 

Supersillyus' most recent EP Interabang has been downloaded over 5,000 times since it's release October 31, 2013. Over the last several years, Supersillyus has performed his unique brand of psychedelic music with luminaries like Tipper, Hallucinogen, and Ott and showcased at festivals throughout the US and Canada.

  

supersillyus.com/

soundcloud.com/supersillyus

www.ektoplazm.com/free-music/supersillyus-interabang

_____________________

 

Infinite Geometry

 

Infinite Geometry (Andy Reed) has been an audio alchemist for the past 10 years. His main focus has been his visionary art for the past few years (www.facebook.com/infinitegeometryart), but another passion of his has been electronic music.

He is currently based out of Asheville, NC and plays shows occasionally around the southeast US, as well as doing special timeslots in the Vision Lab multi-sensory art dome or early sunrise sets at renegade stages at music festivals.

 

He first began attending electronic events and raves in NYC at age 14, when living in northern NJ. He quickly drew very fond of the subculture that revolves around these highly intelligent and somewhat alien soundscapes. At age 17, he bought belt-drive Numark turntables and a 6 channel mixer from Radioshack. Everyone needs to start somewhere, right? His gear has been updated a lot since those days, having Technic 1210 M5G turntables and a vast collection of vinyl. Most of his recent music is in digital/mp3 format, but he is known from breaking the mold and dropping those warm vibrant analog sounding beats and bass.

 

Over time, he grew a deeply fond love of liquid jazzy drum and bass, in which he still plays regularly at shows now and again. As time progressed, so did his love of different genres. Currently, his sets include multi-genres including psybient downtempo, psydub, templestep, IDM, dreambass, post-dubstep, 2step & future garage, minimal atmospheric dnb, funky tribal house, and many others.

 

soundcloud.com/infinitegeometry

____________________

 

Jon Ohia

CoSM, NYC

 

Psylander

CoSM

 

Space Demon

CoSM

__________________

 

Live Painting

 

Alex Grey & Allyson Grey

 

Joness Jones

www.facebook.com/joness.jones

 

Martin Bridge & Carl Bridge

thebridgebrothers.com

 

Olga Klimova

www.facebook.com/olga.vici.art

 

Paul Crisafi

pcrisafi.pcrisafi.com/

 

Seth Leibowitz

www.facebook.com/sethleibowitz77

 

Adam Psybe

www.facebook.com/Psybe.Visual

  

Visuals

 

Deciduous Pupils

 

As a way to further explore the world of visual arts, Keith Tokarski(Takyon) and Benjamin Cooke(Silent Stream) teamed together in 2012. After performing separately for many years, Takyon and Silent Stream solidified a 2-man visual performance group, Deciduous Pupils. Deciduous Pupils has had the opportunity to perform for a multitude of different talented artists and bands such as Ott , LTJ Bukem , Immortal Technique, Jumbie Art, Abakus, Phutureprimitive, Space Jesus and Lazy Rich…just to name a few. They have performed the visuals for the Disco Biscuits New Year’s run after party, the Silent Disco at Camp Bisco 2013 as well as several other festivals throughout the east coast. With the utmost experience and mastery of their craft, and a focus on creating all original artwork with live improvised performance, Deciduous Pupils is continuing to shock the minds of those around them as they bring the viewers visual perception to a new dimension throughout the East Coast.

 

vimeo:

vimeo.com/70990368

  

Fabric Installation:

WizArt Visions - Olga Klimova

  

Fire Performance:

-Fayzah-Fire

 

Fayzah Fire is a multidisciplinary international performer. Her own “World + Street Styles Dance Method©” blends elements of World Dance styles, Popping, Waving, Hip Hop, & Groove theory. She is an accredited Tribal-Fusion dancer, Fire performer, Argentine Tango dancer, innovator of Tango-Bellydance Fusion, and DJ. She also works with healing arts & trance dance, & is influenced by ocean creatures, (both real and fantasy).

More info: DanceSpiral.com

  

Matalvin's Firewerks

 

Www.facebook.com/matalvin youtu.be/6K995kVyi94

 

Freyja

 

Phantomime

  

Bellydance:

Sarah Jezebel

  

CoSM, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, 46 Deer Hill Road, Wappingers Falls, NY 12590

Hair ice is a rare and fascinating phenomenon that occurs under specific biological, physical, and environmental conditions.

 

It forms exclusively on the exposed surface of dead, decaying hardwoods, such as beech, oak, or alder, that have been colonized by the fungus Exidiopsis effusa. This fungus plays a vital role in the process by breaking down lignin and tannin in the wood, creating a porous structure that facilitates the movement of water. The environmental conditions must be just right, with temperatures slightly below freezing (~0°C to -5°C), high humidity to prevent sublimation, and still air to protect the fragile ice strands from mechanical disturbance.

 

The process begins with water stored in the porous, decaying wood being drawn to the surface through capillary action. The decomposed structure of the wood, influenced by the fungus, provides pathways for water to travel along wood rays and vessels. Inside the wood, water remains in a liquid state below its normal freezing point due to a phenomenon known as premelting, where molecular interactions between the wood and water lower the freezing temperature. As the water reaches the surface, it freezes into fine, hair-like strands, typically 0.02 mm in diameter, forming through a process known as ice segregation. The freezing front remains at the wood surface, allowing the ice strands to elongate as long as water continues to be supplied.

 

The remarkable stability of hair ice, with its delicate and thread-like appearance, is a result of the fungal activity. The fungus Exidiopsis effusa releases organic compounds, such as fulvic acids and tannins, into the water. These compounds act as recrystallization inhibitors, binding to the ice crystals' surface and preventing them from merging into larger, less defined structures. This allows the ice strands to maintain their fine, silky texture and grow to lengths of up to 20 cm. In experiments where the fungus was killed using heat or fungicides, hair ice either did not form or appeared as a crusty, irregular layer, confirming the fungus’s essential role in stabilizing the ice; a remarkable interplay between biological and physical processes.

 

Alfred Wegener, best known for his groundbreaking theory of continental drift, was also among the first to study hair ice scientifically. In 1918, Wegener observed hair ice in German and French forests and proposed that its formation was related to fungal activity. He hypothesized that mycelium within the wood played a role in the phenomenon, although he lacked the tools to identify the exact species or mechanism. Nearly a century later, modern research confirmed Wegener's hypothesis, identifying Exidiopsis effusa as the key fungal species and elucidating its role in shaping and stabilizing hair ice.

 

bg.copernicus.org/articles/12/4261/2015/bg-12-4261-2015.html

 

Time Lapse of growing hair ice:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cRngAm8uqA

Liz by Andy Warhol. Ken C. Arnold Art Collection Andy Warhol

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to:navigation, search

For the song by David Bowie, see Andy Warhol (song)

Andy Warhol

 

Warhol in 1977

Birth name Andrew Warhola

Born August 6, 1928(1928-08-06)

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Died February 22, 1987 (aged 58)

New York City, U.S.

Nationality American

Field Painting, Cinema

Training Carnegie Mellon University

Movement Pop art

Works Chelsea Girls (1966 film)

Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966 event)

Campbell's Soup Cans (1962 painting)

 

Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and public figure known for his membership in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons.

 

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." In his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Andy Warhol Museum exists in memory of his life and artwork.

 

The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is $100 million for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in The Economist, which described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market." $100 million is a benchmark price that only Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Gustav Klimt and Willem de Kooning have achieved.[1]

 

Contents [hide]

1 Childhood

2 Early career

3 1960s

4 Attempted assassination

5 1970s

6 1980s

7 Sexuality

8 Religious beliefs

9 Death

10 Works

10.1 Paintings

10.2 Films

10.3 Factory in New York

10.4 Filmography

10.5 Music

10.6 Books and print

10.7 Other media

10.8 Producer and product

11 Dedicated museums

12 Movies about Warhol

12.1 Dramatic portrayals

12.2 Documentaries

13 See also

14 References

15 Further reading

16 External links

 

Childhood

 

Warhol's childhood home at 3252 Dawson Street in the South Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaAndy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[2] He was the fourth child of Ondrej Warhola (died 1942)[3] and Julia (nee Zavacka, 1892-1972),[4] whose first child was born in their homeland and died before their migration to the U.S. His parents were working-class immigrants from Mikó (now called Miková), in northeastern Slovakia, then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire. Warhol's father immigrated to the US in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Andy Warhol's grandparents. Warhol's father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.[5] The family was Byzantine Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Andy Warhol had two older brothers, Ján and Pavol, who were born in today's Slovakia. Pavol's son, James Warhola, became a successful children's book illustrator.

 

In third grade, Warhol had chorea, the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever and causes skin pigmentation blotchiness.[6] He became a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and doctors. Often bed-ridden as a child, he became an outcast among his school-mates and bonded strongly with his mother.[7] At times when he was confined to bed, he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences. When Warhol was 13, his father died in an accident.[8]

 

Early career

Warhol showed early artistic talent and studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (now Carnegie Mellon University).[9] In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. During the 1950s, he gained fame for his whimsical ink drawings of shoe advertisements. These were done in a loose, blotted-ink style, and figured in some of his earliest showings at the Bodley Gallery in New York. With the concurrent rapid expansion of the record industry and the introduction of the vinyl record, Hi-Fi, and stereophonic recordings, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.[10]

  

Campbell's Soup I (1968)1960s

His first one-man art-gallery exhibition as a fine artist[11][12] was on July 9, 1962, in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles. The exhibition marked the West Coast debut of pop art.[13] Andy Warhol's first New York solo Pop exhibit was hosted at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery November 6–24, 1962. The exhibit included the works Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles and 100 Dollar Bills. At the Stable Gallery exhibit, the artist met for the first time John Giorno who would star in Warhol's first film, Sleep, in 1963.[citation needed]

 

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's Soup Cans and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Troy Donahue, Muhammad Ali and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory", his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He began producing prints using the silkscreen method. His work became popular and controversial.

 

Among the imagery tackled by Warhol were dollar bills, celebrities and brand name products. He also used as imagery for his paintings newspaper headlines or photographs of mushroom clouds, electric chairs, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters. Warhol also used Coca Cola bottles as subject matter for paintings. He had this to say about Coca Cola:

 

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.[14]

New York's Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962 during which artists like Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol's open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol's reception. Throughout the decade it became more and more clear that there had been a profound change in the culture of the art world, and that Warhol was at the center of that shift.[citation needed]

  

Campbell's Tomato Juice Box (1964)A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit The American Supermarket, a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical U.S. small supermarket environment, except that everything in it – from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc. – was created by six prominent pop artists of the time, among them the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is (or of what is art and what is not).[citation needed]

 

As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; in the 1960s, however, this was particularly true. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with producing silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape-record his phone conversations).[15]

 

During the '60s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "Superstars", including Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, and Candy Darling. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some – like Berlin – remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time.

 

Attempted assassination

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya at Warhol's studio.[16] Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She founded a "group" called S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) and authored the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a separatist feminist attack on patriarchy. Over the years, Solanas' manifesto has found a following.[17] Solanas appears in the 1968 Warhol film I, A Man. Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script, apparently, had been misplaced.[18]

 

Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol however, was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived (surgeons opened his chest and massaged his heart to help stimulate its movement again). He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.[19][20]

 

Solanas was arrested the day after the assault. By way of explanation, she said that Warhol "had too much control over my life." She was eventually sentenced to three years under the control of the Department of Corrections. After the shooting, the Factory scene became much more tightly controlled, and for many this event brought the "Factory 60s" to an end.[20] The shooting was mostly overshadowed in the media due to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy two days later.

 

Warhol had this to say about the attack: "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television." [21]

 

1970s

 

Andy Warhol and Jimmy Carter in 1977Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s proved a much quieter decade, as Warhol became more entrepreneurial. According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions– including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, Brigitte Bardot, and Michael Jackson.[22][citation needed] Warhol's famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. He also founded, with Gerard Malanga, Interview magazine, and published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). An idea expressed in the book: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."[cite this quote]

 

Warhol used to socialize at various nightspots in New York City, including Max's Kansas City; and, later in the '70s, Studio 54.[23] He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square."[24]

 

1980s

Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of '80s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi.

 

By this period, Warhol was being criticized for becoming merely a "business artist".[25] In 1979, unfavorable reviews met his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. This criticism was echoed for his 1980 exhibit of ten portraits at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled Jewish Geniuses, which Warhol – who exhibited no interest in Judaism or matters of interest to Jews – had described in his diary as "They're going to sell."[25] In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times," contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."[25]

 

Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."[26]

 

Sexuality

Warhol never married or had children.[27] Many people think of him as asexual and merely a "voyeur"; however, it is now well-established that he was homosexual (see biographers such as Victor Bockris, Bob Colacello,[28] and art historian Richard Meyer[29]). The question of his sexuality aside, Warhol stated in a 1980 interview that he was still a virgin.[30] The question of how Warhol's sexuality influenced his work and shaped his relationship to the art world is a major subject of scholarship on the artist, and is an issue that Warhol himself addressed in interviews, in conversation with his contemporaries, and in his publications (e.g. Popism: The Warhol Sixties).

 

Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor, and films like Blow Job, My Hustler, and Lonesome Cowboys) draw from gay underground culture and/or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. Many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters. That said, some stories about Warhol's development as an artist revolved around the obstacle his sexuality initially presented as he tried to launch his career. The first works that he submitted to a gallery in the pursuit of a career as an artist were homoerotic drawings of male nudes. They were rejected for being too openly gay.[31] In Popism, furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the film maker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then more famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them." In response to this, Warhol writes, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change... Other people could change their attitudes but not me".[32][33] In exploring Warhol's biography, many turn to this period – the late 1950s and early 1960s – as a key moment in the development of his persona. Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like "Um, No" and "Um, Yes", and often allowing others to speak for him) – and even the evolution of his Pop style – can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world.[34]

 

Religious beliefs

 

Images of Jesus from The Last Supper cycle (1986). Warhol made almost 100 variations on the theme, which the Guggenheim felt "indicates an almost obsessive investment in the subject matter."[35]Warhol was a practicing Byzantine Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person.[36] Several of Warhol's later works depicted religious subjects, including two series, Details of Renaissance Paintings (1984) and The Last Supper (1986). In addition, a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate.[36]

 

During his life, Warhol regularly attended Mass, and the priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent's, said that the artist went there almost daily,[36] although he never took communion or made confession and sat or knelt in the pews at the back.".[30] The priest thought he was afraid of being recognized; Warhol said he was self-conscious about being seen in a Roman Catholic church crossing himself "in the Orthodox way" (right to left instead of the reverse).[30]

 

His art is noticeably influenced by the eastern Christian iconographic tradition which was so evident in his places of worship.[36]

 

Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private." Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood".[36]

 

Death

Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative cardiac arrhythmia.[37] Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors. His family sued the hospital for inadequate care, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication.[38]

  

Warhol's grave at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic CemeteryWarhol's body was taken back to Pittsburgh by his brothers for burial. The wake was at Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home and was an open-coffin ceremony. The coffin was a solid bronze casket with gold plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was posed holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Yoko Ono also made an appearance. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns. After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh. At the grave, the priest said a brief prayer and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Paige Powell dropped a copy of Interview magazine, an Interview t-shirt, and a bottle of the Estee Lauder perfume "Beautiful" into the grave. Warhol was buried next to his mother and father. Weeks later a memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol on April 1, 1987, at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.

 

Warhol's will dictated that his entire estate – with the exception of a few modest legacies to family members – would go to create a foundation dedicated to the "advancement of the visual arts". Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than US$20 million. His total estate was worth considerably more, due in no small part to shrewd investments over the years.[citation needed]

 

In 1987, in accordance with Warhol's will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was founded. The Foundation not only serves as the official Estate of Andy Warhol, but also has a mission "to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process" and is "focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature."[39]

 

The Artists Rights Society is the U.S. copyright representative for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for all Warhol works with the exception of Warhol film stills.[40] The U.S. copyright representative for Warhol film stills is the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.[41] Additionally, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreements in place for its image archive. All digital images of Warhol are exclusively managed by Corbis, while all transparency images of Warhol are managed by Art Resource.[42]

 

The Andy Warhol Foundation released its 20th Anniversary Annual Report as a three-volume set in 2007: Vol. I, 1987–2007; Vol. II, Grants & Exhibitions; and Vol. III, Legacy Program.[43] The Foundation remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the U.S.[44]

 

Works

Paintings

This section needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources. (February 2009)

 

By the beginning of the 1960s, Warhol was a very successful commercial illustrator. His detailed and elegant drawings for I. Miller shoes were particularly popular. These illustrations consisted mainly of "blotted ink" drawings (or monoprints), a technique which he applied in much of his early art. Although many artists of this period worked in commercial art, most did so discreetly. Warhol was so successful, however, that his profile as an illustrator seemed to undermine his efforts to be taken seriously as an artist.

 

Pop Art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists (such as Willem de Kooning). Warhol's first Pop Art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bronwit Teller's window display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg had also once graced.[45] Eventually, Warhol pared his image vocabulary down to the icon itself – to brand names, celebrities, dollar signs – and removed all traces of the artist's "hand" in the production of his paintings.

 

To him, part of defining a niche was defining his subject matter. Cartoons were already being used by Lichtenstein, typography by Jasper Johns, and so on; Warhol wanted a distinguishing subject. His friends suggested he should paint the things he loved the most. It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the soup cans and Warhol's dollar paintings. On 23 November 1961 Warhol wrote Latow a check for $50 which, according to the 2009 Warhol biography, Pop, The Genius of Warhol, was payment for coming up with the idea of the soup cans as subject matter.[46] For his first major exhibition Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's Soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life. The work sold for $10,000 at an auction on November 17, 1971, at Sotheby's New York – a minimal amount for the artist whose paintings sell for over $6 million more recently.[47]

 

He loved celebrities, so he painted them as well. From these beginnings he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the hand-made from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screening; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.[48]

 

In 1979, Warhol was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 4 race version of the then elite supercar BMW M1 for the fourth installment in the BMW Art Car Project. Unlike the three artists before him, Warhol declined the use of a small scale practice model, instead opting to immediately paint directly onto the full scale automobile. It was indicated that Warhol spent only a total of 23 minutes to paint the entire car.[49]

 

Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques– silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors – whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters, as in the 1962–63 Death and Disaster series. The Death and Disaster paintings (such as Red Car Crash, Purple Jumping Man, and Orange Disaster) transform personal tragedies into public spectacles, and signal the use of images of disaster in the then evolving mass media.

 

The unifying element in Warhol's work is his deadpan Keatonesque style – artistically and personally affectless. This was mirrored by Warhol's own demeanor, as he often played "dumb" to the media, and refused to explain his work. The artist was famous for having said that all you need to know about him and his works is already there, "Just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it." [50]

 

His Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works – and their means of production – mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory". Biographer Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's "piss paintings":

 

Victor... was Andy's ghost pisser on the Oxidations. He would come to the Factory to urinate on canvases that had already been primed with copper-based paint by Andy or Ronnie Cutrone, a second ghost pisser much appreciated by Andy, who said that the vitamin B that Ronnie took made a prettier color when the acid in the urine turned the copper green. Did Andy ever use his own urine? My diary shows that when he first began the series, in December 1977, he did, and there were many others: boys who'd come to lunch and drink too much wine, and find it funny or even flattering to be asked to help Andy 'paint.' Andy always had a little extra bounce in his walk as he led them to his studio...[51]

Warhol's first portrait of Basquiat (1982) is a black photosilkscreen over an oxidized copper "piss painting".

 

After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand in a series of over 50 large collaborative works done with Jean-Michel Basquiat between 1984 and 1986.[52][53] Despite negative criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces," and they were influential for his later work.[54]

 

The influence of the large collaborations with Basquiat can be seen in Warhol's The Last Supper cycle, his last and possibly his largest series, seen by some as "arguably his greatest,"[55] but by others as “wishy-washy, religiose” and “spiritless."[56] It is also the largest series of religious-themed works by any U.S. artist.[55]

 

At the time of his death, Warhol was working on Cars, a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz. [57]

 

Films

Warhol worked across a wide range of media – painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture. In addition, he was a highly prolific filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than 60 films [58], plus some 500 short black-and-white "screen test" portraits of Factory visitors.[59] One of his most famous films, Sleep, monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. The 35-minute film Blow Job is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from filmmaker Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this. Another, Empire (1964), consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. The film Eat consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes. Warhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by LaMonte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films including Kiss, Eat, and Sleep (for which Young initially was commissioned to provide music). Uwe Husslein cites filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere, and who claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance.[60]

 

Batman Dracula is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman series, Warhol's movie was an "homage" to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.

 

Warhol's 1965 film Vinyl is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Others record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico, and Jackie Curtis. Legendary underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film Camp.

 

His most popular and critically successful film was Chelsea Girls (1966). The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm-films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silk-screen works of the early 1960s.

 

Other important films include Bike Boy, My Hustler, and Lonesome Cowboys, a raunchy pseudo-western. These and other titles document gay underground and camp culture, and continue to feature prominently in scholarship about sexuality and art.[61][62] Blue Movie – a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love and fools around in bed with a man for 33 minutes of the film's playing-time – was Warhol's last film as director. The film was at the time scandalous for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. For many years Viva refused to allow it to be screened. It was publicly screened in New York in 2005 for the first time in over thirty years.

 

After his June 3, 1968, shooting, a reclusive Warhol relinquished his personal involvement in filmmaking. His acolyte and assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation fare with Flesh, Trash, and Heat. All of these films, including the later Andy Warhol's Dracula and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. These latter "Warhol" films starred Joe Dallesandro – more of a Morrissey star than a true Warhol superstar.

 

In the early '70s, most of the films directed by Warhol were pulled out of circulation by Warhol and the people around him who ran his business. After Warhol's death, the films were slowly restored by the Whitney Museum and are occasionally projected at museums and film festivals. Few of the Warhol-directed films are available on video or DVD.

 

Factory in New York

Factory: 1342 Lexington Avenue (the first Factory)

The Factory: 231 East 47th street 1963-1967 (the building no longer exists)

Factory: 33 Union Square 1967-1973 (Decker Building)

Factory: 860 Broadway (near 33 Union Square) 1973-1984 (the building has now been completely remodeled and was for a time (2000–2001) the headquarters of the dot-com consultancy Scient)

Factory: 22 East 33rd Street 1984-1987 (the building no longer exists)

Home: 1342 Lexington Avenue

Home: 57 East 66th street (Warhol's last home)

Last personal studio: 158 Madison Avenue

Filmography

Main article: Andy Warhol filmography

Music

In the mid 1960s, Warhol adopted the band the Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performance art show. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico (who would perform with the band at Warhol's request). In 1966 he "produced" their first album The Velvet Underground & Nico, as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time. After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader Lou Reed started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and their artistic friendship ended.[citation needed]

 

Warhol designed many album covers for various artists starting with the photographic cover of John Wallowitch's debut album, This Is John Wallowitch!!! (1964). He designed the cover art for the Rolling Stones albums Sticky Fingers (1971) and Love You Live (1977), and the John Cale albums The Academy In Peril (1972) and Honi Soit in 1981. In 1975, Warhol was commissioned to do several portraits of Mick Jagger, and in 1982 he designed the album cover for the Diana Ross album Silk Electric.[citation needed] One of his last works was a portrait of Aretha Franklin for the cover of her 1986 gold album Aretha, which was done in the style of the Reigning Queens series he had completed the year before.[63]

 

Warhol was also friendly with many recording artists, including Deborah Harry, Grace Jones, Diana Ross and John Lennon (with whom he posed for an infamous photograph[64]) - he designed the cover to Lennon's 1986 posthumously released Menlove Ave. Warhol also appeared as a bartender in The Cars' music video for their single "Hello Again", and Curiosity Killed The Cat's video for their "Misfit" single (both videos, and others, were produced by Warhol's video production company).[citation needed] Warhol featured in Grace Jones' music video for "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect for You)".

 

Warhol strongly influenced the New Wave/punk rock band Devo, as well as David Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called "Andy Warhol" for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. Lou Reed wrote the song "Andy's Chest", about Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Warhol, in 1968. He recorded it with the Velvet Underground, but this version wasn't officially released until the VU album appeared in 1985. He recorded a new version for his 1972 solo album Transformer, produced by Bowie and Mick Ronson.[citation needed]

  

Cover of copy no. 18 of 25 Cats Name [sic] Sam and One Blue Pussy by Andy Warhol given in 1954 to Edgar de Evia and Robert Denning when the author was a guest in their home in the Rhinelander Mansion.[citation needed]Books and print

Beginning in the early 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work.

 

The first of several bound self-published books by Warhol was 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, printed in 1954 by Seymour Berlin on Arches brand watermarked paper using his blotted line technique for the lithographs. The original edition was limited to 190 numbered, hand colored copies, using Dr. Martin's ink washes. Most of these were given by Warhol as gifts to clients and friends. Copy #4, inscribed "Jerry" on the front cover and given to Geraldine Stutz, was used for a facsimile printing in 1987[65] and the original was auctioned in May 2006 for US $35,000 by Doyle New York.[66]

 

Other self-published books by Warhol include:

 

A Gold Book

Wild Raspberries

Holy Cats

After gaining fame, Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially published:

 

a, A Novel (1968, ISBN 0-8021-3553-6) is a literal transcription– containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling– of audio recordings of Ondine and several of Andy Warhol's friends hanging out at the Factory, talking, going out.[citation needed]

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) (1975, ISBN 0-15-671720-4)– according to Pat Hackett's introduction to The Andy Warhol Diaries, Pat Hackett did the transcriptions and text for the book based on daily phone conversations, sometimes (when Warhol was traveling) using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. Said cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin (also known as Brigid Polk) and former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello.[citation needed]

Popism: The Warhol Sixties (1980, ISBN 0-15-672960-1), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett is a retrospective view of the sixties and the role of Pop Art.

The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989, ISBN 0-446-39138-7), edited by Pat Hackett, is a diary dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations. Warhol started the diary to keep track of his expenses after being audited, although it soon evolved to include his personal and cultural observations.[67]

Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still published today. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.[68]

 

Other media

As stated, although Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he has authored works in many different media.

 

Drawing: Warhol started his career as a commercial illustrator, producing drawings in "blotted-ink" style for advertisements and magazine articles. Best known of these early works are his drawings of shoes. Some of his personal drawings were self-published in small booklets, such as Yum, Yum, Yum (about food), Ho, Ho, Ho (about Christmas) and (of course) Shoes, Shoes, Shoes. His most artistically acclaimed book of drawings is probably A Gold Book, compiled of sensitive drawings of young men. A Gold Book is so named because of the gold leaf that decorates its pages.[69]

Sculpture: Warhol's most famous sculpture is probably his Brillo Boxes, silkscreened ink on wood replicas of Brillo soap pad boxes (designed by James Harvey), part of a series of "grocery carton" sculptures that also included Heinz ketchup and Campbell's tomato juice cases.[70] Other famous works include the Silver Clouds– helium filled, silver mylar, pillow-shaped balloons. A Silver Cloud was included in the traveling exhibition Air Art (1968–69) curated by Willoughby Sharp. Clouds was also adapted by Warhol for avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham's dance piece RainForest (1968).[71]

Audio: At one point Warhol carried a portable recorder with him wherever he went, taping everything everybody said and did. He referred to this device as his "wife". Some of these tapes were the basis for his literary work. Another audio-work of Warhol's was his "Invisible Sculpture", a presentation in which burglar alarms would go off when entering the room. Warhol's cooperation with the musicians of The Velvet Underground was driven by an expressed desire to become a music producer.[citation needed]

Time Capsules: In 1973, Warhol began saving ephemera from his daily life– correspondence, newspapers, souvenirs, childhood objects, even used plane tickets and food– which was sealed in plain cardboard boxes dubbed Time Capsules. By the time of his death, the collection grew to include 600, individually dated "capsules". The boxes are now housed at the Andy Warhol Museum.[72]

Television: Andy Warhol dreamed of a television show that he wanted to call The Nothing Special, a special about his favorite subject: Nothing. Later in his career he did create two cable television shows, Andy Warhol's TV in 1982 and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (based on his famous "fifteen minutes of fame" quotation) for MTV in 1986. Besides his own shows he regularly made guest appearances on other programs, including The Love Boat wherein a Midwestern wife (Marion Ross) fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband (Tom Bosley, who starred alongside Ross in sitcom Happy Days) her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey. Warhol also produced a TV commercial for Schrafft's Restaurants in New York City, for an ice cream dessert appropriately titled the "Underground Sundae".[73]

Fashion: Warhol is quoted for having said: "I'd rather buy a dress and put it up on the wall, than put a painting, wouldn't you?"[cite this quote] One of his most well-known Superstars, Edie Sedgwick, aspired to be a fashion designer, and his good friend Halston was a famous one. Warhol's work in fashion includes silkscreened dresses, a short sub-career as a catwalk-model and books on fashion as well as paintings with fashion (shoes) as a subject.[citation needed]

Performance Art: Warhol and his friends staged theatrical multimedia happenings at parties and public venues, combining music, film, slide projections and even Gerard Malanga in an S&M outfit cracking a whip. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable in 1966 was the culmination of this area of his work.[74]

Theater: Andy Warhol's PORK opened on May 5, 1971 at LaMama theater in New York for a two week run and was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a longer run in August, 1971. Pork was based on tape-recorded conversations between Brigin Berlin and Andy during which Brigid would play for Andy tapes she had made of phone conversations between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin. The play featured Jayne County as "Vulva" and Cherry Vanilla as "Amanda Pork".[citation needed] In 1974, Andy Warhol also produced the stage musical Man On The Moon, which was written by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas.

Photography: To produce his silkscreens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of Polaroid camera that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. Warhol was an accomplished photographer, and took an enormous amount of photographs of Factory visitors, friends.[citation needed]

Computer: Warhol used Amiga computers to generate digital art, which he helped design and build with Amiga, Inc. He also displayed the difference between slow fill and fast fill on live TV with Debbie Harry as a model.[75] (video)

Producer and product

Warhol had assistance in producing his paintings. This is also true of his film-making and commercial enterprises.[citation needed]

 

He founded the gossip magazine Interview, a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and a business staffed by his friends. He collaborated with others on all of his books (some of which were written with Pat Hackett.) He adopted the young painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the band The Velvet Underground, presenting them to the public as his latest interest, and collaborating with them. One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian "Superstar" and the Warholian portrait). He endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and in films (he appeared in everything from Love Boat to Saturday Night Live and the Richard Pryor movie, Dynamite Chicken).[citation needed]

 

In this respect Warhol was a fan of "Art Business" and "Business Art"– he, in fact, wrote about his interest in thinking about art as business in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again.[citation needed]

 

Dedicated museums

Two museums are dedicated to Andy Warhol. The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is located at 117 Sandusky Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist, holding more than 12,000 works by the artist.[citation needed]

 

The other museum is the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art, established in 1991 by Andy's brother John Warhola, the Slovak Ministry of Culture, and the Warhol Foundation in New York. It is located in the small town of Medzilaborce, Slovakia. Andy's parents and his two brothers were born 15 kilometres away in the village of Miková. The museum houses several originals donated mainly by the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York and also personal items donated by Warhol's relatives.[citation needed]

 

Movies about Warhol

Dramatic portrayals

 

Warhol (right) with director Ulli Lommel on the set of 1979's Cocaine Cowboys, in which Warhol appeared as himselfIn 1979, Warhol appeared as himself in the film Cocaine Cowboys.[76]

 

After his passing, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's film The Doors (1991), by David Bowie in Basquiat, a film by Julian Schnabel, and by Jared Harris in the film I Shot Andy Warhol directed by Mary Harron (1996). Warhol appears as a character in Michael Daugherty's 1997 opera Jackie O. Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Many films by avant-garde cineast Jonas Mekas have caught the moments of Andy's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the 1998 film 54. Guy Pearce portrayed Warhol in the 2007 film, Factory Girl, about Edie Sedgwick's life.[77] Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the 2009 film Watchmen.

 

Gus Van Sant was planning a version of Warhol's life with River Phoenix in the lead role just before Phoenix's death in 1993.[78]

 

Documentaries

The 2001 documentary, Absolut Warhola was produced by Polish director Stanislaw Mucha, featuring Warhol's parents' family and hometown in Slovakia.[79]

Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film is a reverential four-hour 2006 movie by Ric Burns.[80]

Andy Warhol: Double Denied is a 52 minute movie by lan Yentob about the difficulties in authenticating Warhol's work.[81]

 

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 following Edith, Lettice’s maid, as she heads east of Mayfair, to a place far removed from the elegance and gentility of Lettice’s flat, in London’s East End. As a young woman, Edith is very interested in fashion, particularly now that she is stepping out with Mr. Willison the grocer’s delivery boy, Frank Leadbetter. Luckily like most young girls of her class, her mother has taught Edith how to sew her own clothes and she has become an accomplished dressmaker, having successfully made frocks from scratch for herself, or altered cheaper existing second-hand pieces to make them more fashionable by letting out waistlines and taking up hems. Thanks to Lettice’s Cockney charwoman*, Mrs. Boothby, who lives in nearby Poplar, Edith now has her own hand treadle Singer** sewing machine courtesy of her son Ken who works for a rag-and-bone man*** and found her one. Mrs. Boothby also assisted Edith by recommending her to a wonderful haberdasher in Whitechapel, where she now goes to on occasion on her days off when she needs something for one of her many sewing projects as she slowly adds to and updates her wardrobe. It is at Mrs. Minkin’s Haberdashery, just a short walk from Petticoat Lane**** where Edith often picks up bargains from one of the many second-hand clothes stalls, that we find ourselves today. She is visiting Mrs. Minkin with her best friend and fellow maid, Hilda, who works for Lettice’s friends, Dickie and Margot Channon. The two maids have been busy collecting a few items to purchase: Edith some trims for her latest frock alteration, and Hilda some wool for her new passion for knitting which she developed after joining Mrs. Minkin’s knitting circle a few months ago, which meets in a nearby local benevolent society’s hall in Whitechapel once a fortnight.

 

“Ahh!” sighs Mrs. Minkin in satisfaction as she admires the straw hat decorated with ornamental flowers and ribbons atop Edith’s head. “How well my hat suits you, Edit my dear! I’m glad I twisted your finger to buy it.”

 

A refugee from Odessa as a result of a pogrom***** in 1905, Mrs. Minkin’s Russian accent, still thick after nearly twenty years of living in London’s East End, muffles the h at the end of Edith’s name, making the young girl smile, for it is an endearing quality of the older Jewess. Edith likes the proprietress with her old fashioned upswept hairdo and frilly Edwardian lace jabot running down the front of her blouse, held in place today by a circlet of dark red winking garnets – a gift from her equally beloved and irritating husband, Mr. Minkin. She always has a smile and a kind word for Edith and Hilda, and her generosity towards them has found Edith discover extra spools of coloured cottons or curls of pretty ribbons and other notions****** in the lining of her parcels when she unpacks them at Cavendish Mews, whilst Hilda comes away with some extra wool that Mrs. Minkin claims she was just about to throw away. Mrs. Minkin always insists when the girls mention it, that she wished all her life that she had had a daughter, but all she ever had were sons, so Edith and Hilda are like a surrogate daughters to her, and as a result they get to reap the small benefits of her largess, at least until one of her sons finally makes her happy and brings home a girl she approves of.

 

“I think you’ll find that the saying is twisting one’s arm, Mrs. Minkin.” Edith corrects her politely. “And it was quite an extravagance, even on sale.”

 

“Well, it was worth it, Edit my dear!” Mrs. Minkin enthuses. “It was made for you. I said that from the first time I saw you try it on, didn’t I?”

 

“You did, Mrs. Minkin.” Edith admits with a shy smile.

 

Edith sighs and takes in a deep breath of air. Mrs. Minkin’s establishment is a comforting haven from the busy East End world outside her door. The bolts and rolls of fabrics lining the walls muffle the sound, whilst the smell of fresh linen, and lavender and clove sachets uses to keep insects at bay, also keep out the unpleasant odours of the East End. The shop is organised and cosy, and she always feels welcome when she crosses the threshold.

 

“Anyway, you can afford it now, Edith.” Hilda pipes up.

 

“What’s this you say, dear Hilde?” Mrs. Minkin queries, using the slightly altered variation of Hilda’s name, which she has now gotten used to after months of being part of Mrs. Minkin’s knitting circle. She cocks an expertly plucked eyebrow over her right eye as she looks towards the young maid standing behind her gleaming brass cash register.

 

“Well, Edith’s gone and landed herself an extra four shillings a month in wages, Mrs. Minkin.” Hilda replies.

 

“Really Edit?” the old Russian Jewess exclaims, clasping her worn bejewelled fingers together in delight. “This is marvellous news indeed, my dear!”

 

“You make it sound like I arranged for it to happen, Hilda.” Edith admonishes her friend as she flushes red with embarrassment. “And I didn’t. It was all Miss Lettice’s idea, and well you know it. I didn’t do anything to receive it.”

 

“I never said you did.” Hilda replies with a cheeky smile.

 

“Except be your beautiful self, Edit my dear!” Mrs. Minkin adds, her eyes sparkling with delight for her young customer’s good news as she grasps the strands of tape measure draped around her neck as they dangle down her tightly corseted front. “I’m sure your work is worth every one of those four shillings, my dear. Mazel tov*******!”

 

“Thank you Mrs. Minkin.” Edith replies shyly.

 

“So, you come to spend some of that good fortune at my shop, bringing me hatz’lachah********. Thank you Edit, my dear.”

 

“Well, I would have come anyway, Mrs. Minkin. You always have the best notions at the most affordable prices.”

 

“Well of course I do, Edit my dear! I haven’t been in business for nearly twenty years without getting some things right!” Mrs. Minkin laughs good naturedly. Turning her attention to Hilda, she asks, “And do you have an increase in wages too, dear Hilde?”

 

“Chance would be a fine thing!” Hilda scoffs.

 

“No?” Mrs. Minkin queries, her jolly round face falling in disappointment for your young customer as she does.

 

“I wish, Mrs. Minkin! I dream of getting a wage increase like that, but there is no way Mr. and Mrs. Channon, my employers, can afford it.”

 

“That’s too bad, dear Hilde!” the old Jewess opines.

 

“I still think it’s worth asking Mrs. Channon, Hilda.” Edith insists. “She might cry poor, but we all know that her idea of being poor, and ours, are quite different.”

 

“I can’t do that, Edith!” Hilda exclaims. “I can’t just go to Mrs. Channon and say, ‘Edith got an extra four shillings a month, so I want four shillings too.’ can I?”

 

“Well, I think you should just casually let it slip into the conversation with Mrs. Channon that Miss Lettice gave me an extra four shillings a month. You know Mrs. Channon thinks the world of Miss Lettice, and if Miss Lettice does a thing, Mrs. Channon usually follows suit. It’s why we both have the same days off.”

 

“Well, I don’t know.” Hilda says doubtfully. “Days off are one thing, but an extra four shillings a month is quite another.”

 

“If you don’t ask, you don’t know, Hilda,” Edith replies with a firm nod. “And if you don’t ask, you don’t receive either: and that’s a fact!”

 

“We’ll see.” Hilda concedes, but the hesitation in her voice implies to Edith that she probably won’t do as she suggests.

 

“Now, let’s see what you girls have selected from my little establishment.” Mrs. Minkin remarks, glancing down at Edith’s purchases sitting on the glass topped counter. “Oh yes, some lovely Bakelite********* buttons,” she comments as she picks up the card with several fine rectangular gleaming brown buttons on it. “These are very fashionable: very…. what’s the word…” She raises the knuckle of her right index finger to her chin and together with her thumb she rubs her jowly flesh whilst she ruminates over the correct word to use. “Very… chic**********. Yes! That’s it! very chic! And, some pretty ribbon too.” She picks up the spool of pale blue grosgrain satin and contemplates it for a moment. “The hue will bring out the colour in your eyes, Edit my dear.” She says, making Edith’s cheeks colour again.

 

“It’s to brighten up one of her old dance frocks for when we next go to the Hammersmith Palais*********** with Frank, Mrs, Minkin.”

 

“Hhhmmm.” Mrs. Minkin sounds her approval. “It’s good not to waste money on new clothes, when you can make do by re-modelling existing ones.”

 

“You’ll soon go out of business talking like that, Mrs. Minkin.” Edith laughs.

 

“I only say this to my good customers, Edit my dear. You spend your precious pennies and shillings on good quality bits and pieces in my shop, and allow me to make my kesef************ from those loud goyim************* that sweep in here like the Queen of Sheba with their painted faces and gawdy clothes, thinking that just because Mr. Minkin and I are Jews that they can get a bargain out of us.” She scoffs bitterly as she concludes her sentence. “No, you are a smart girl: much smarter than they are. You shop for bargains, and you look for gifts all year round. This is the last of the roll, so only about nine inches. You pay me for six.”

 

“Oh but Mrs. Minkin…”

 

“Mrs. Minkin silences Edith’s protestations with a raised hand. “Now, oh yes, a packet of sewing needles, and the latest copy of Weldon’s************* and,” She pauses. “And Weldon’s special spring fashion catalogue? But it’s almost autumn now. Anyway, don’t you have this already, Edit my dear?”

 

“I do, Mrs. Minkin, but I want to buy a copy for Mum. She likes the embroidery patterns in Weldon’s, but she won’t let me give her new copies. I usually give her my old ones, but I quite fancied some of the embroidery in this edition, so I’m keeping it. I don’t want her to miss out.”

 

“That’s very good of you, Edit my dear. I bet your mother keeps an eye on the latest wedding frocks too.” the old Jewess says with a wink. “Just so she knows what’s in fashion when you and Frank get married.”

 

“Well, I suppose we both do, Mrs. Minkin.” Edith replies a little awkwardly.

 

“Your mother is a lucky woman to have a daughter like you who is so kind and caring. I wish I was so lucky.”

 

“What about Emmi?” Hilda asks, referring to Mrs. Minkin’s daughter-in-law who is married to her eldest son, Samuel.

 

“Who?” Mrs. Minkin asks distractedly as she starts to add up Edith’s purchases in her head.

 

“Emmi, Samuel’s wife.” Hilda elucidates.

 

“Oy vey***************!” the old Jewess cries, throwing her bejewelled hands in the air. “Emmi is nothing like my dear Edit!”

 

“What’s wrong with Emmi?” Hilda asks in defence of the polite, friendly and chatty young girl with fiery red hair who always shows up to Mrs. Minkin’s knitting circle looking fashionably smart and select and who happily natters away to Hilda like they have been friends for years.

 

“It’s all Mr. Minkin’s fault! He let Samuel marry Emmi because Samuel had his heart set on her. He wanted to marry for love. For love!” She spits out the last two words with disappointment. “Who ever heard such a thing?”

 

“Well, I love Frank, Mrs. Minkin, and we will get married eventually, when we have enough money behind us.”

 

“You young people today are so tiresome,” Mrs. Minkin retorts. “Too wound up in this idea of love that you pick up from those moving pictures you all watch.”

 

“You don’t believe in love, Mrs. Minkin?” Edith asks in surprise.

 

“Of course I do, but love will come in time, Edit my dear. First comes marriage and then comes love.” Mrs. Minkin insists kindly, reaching out and patting her hand.

 

“Not the other way around, Mrs. Minkin?” Hilda asks.

 

“Oy vey, no, dear Hilde! When I first met Mr. Minkin, it was on our wedding day when we said our vows beneath the chuppah****************, and look at us today, thirty-five years later, we are still husband and wife and proud parents to three sons too!” She smiles proudly. She ponders for a moment before going on, “Marriage is like… like a… a cake. Yes! Like a cake!”

 

“A cake, Mrs. Minkin?” Edith splutters in disbelief. “How can a marriage be like a cake?”

 

“You may doubt me,” Mrs, Minkin wags her right index finger first at Edith and then at Hilda, the emerald in the gold ring on it winking merrily in the light of the haberdashery. “But believe me, after thirty-five years of marriage, I know.” She settles back contentedly behind her counter. “Marriage is like a cake. You need to work hard at it, with the right ingredients, to make it work.”

 

“And love?” Hilda asks.

 

“Well, you don’t know you love a cake until you taste it, and sometimes you need more than one slice before you realise that you love it.”

 

Edith and Hilda chuckle light heartedly at the old Jewess’ rather peculiar sounding idea.

 

“My words no doubt seem strange to you, but believe me, when I say to you both I am right, my dears. Mrs. Minkin knows.” She taps the side of her nose with her right index finger.

 

“Well, I still don’t see what cakes have to do with Emmi and Samuel.” Hilda adds.

 

“Well, sometimes cakes aren’t always what they appear to be. You think you are going to eat a lovely, sweet medovik*****************… a.. err… a cake made from honey, and you end up with a muraveynik******************… err… an anthill cake, instead!”

 

“Are you saying that Samuel loved Emmi, but now that they are married, she is different person,” Hilda gasps. “And that now he doesn’t love her?”

 

“No Hilde!” Mrs. Minkin exclaims in exasperation. “He’s as in love with her as much now as when he first laid eyes on her, if not more so! My son the schlemiel*******************!” She raises her gaze to the white painted plaster ceiling overhead in vexation. “And that silly Emmi is no better, mooning after Samuel when he goes out to work every day at Mr. Cohen the mechant’s.”

 

“I’ve found Emmi to always be lovely when she comes to our knitting circle, Mrs. Minkin.” Hilda comments.

 

“I must confess, if Samuel loves Emmi, and she loves him, I don’t see what the problem is, Mrs. Minkin.” Edith remarks.

 

“The problem is that I don’t love her!” Mrs. Minkin wails. “I tell you; I wanted daughters like you, and what do I get? I get Emmi Katz! I would never have picked Emmi Katz for my Samuel if I knew what I know now, and what any decent matchmaker in Whitechapel would know! Oy vey! She is the opposite to you! She dreams of a better life living in Hampstead Garden Suburb******************** with Samuel, far away from me and Mr. Minkin, and the squalor, as she calls it, of the East End. Yet she never lifts a finger to achieve it!”

 

“Well, it’s good to have dreams and aspirations, Mrs. Minkin.” Edith defends.

 

“That lazy Emmy just sits around our house looking decorous all day and does nothing!” Mrs. Minkin says derisively. “The other week, I asked her for the first time to bake the challah********************* for the Sabbath and what did she do?”

 

“What?” Edith and Hilda ask together, both holding their breath.

 

“She burned it! The foy meydl********************** burned the challah!” Mrs. Minkin bemoans. “Oy vey!”

 

“Oh dear!” Edith exclaims, glancing at Hilda as she does.

 

“It’s not like she had a parlour maid at home before she married my Samuel,” Mrs. Minkin cries. “Sarah can’t afford one any more than I can! Then again, it’s her mother I blame for indulging her, just as I blame Mr. Minkin for indulging Samuel’s wish to marry for love. My marriage to Mr. Minkin was arranged, and we make a successful partnership. We didn’t need love. We needed patience and understanding, and then like a flower, love bloomed.”

 

“Well we don’t have arranged marriages in our family, Mrs. Minkin,” Edith says kindly. “Or matchmakers. So, I shall have to rely on my feelings of love for Frank, however flawed they may be, to make the right decision about marrying him.”

 

“Has he proposed to you yet, Edit my dear?”

 

“Not in as many words, Mrs. Minkin, but he is committed to the idea of us getting married, and he will.” Edith assures her.

 

“He just has to work up the courage to officially ask her.” Hilda interjects cheekily.

 

“We are both just saving up a little bit more money before we think about marriage, and then he will go to my father and ask for my hand.” Edith says, ignoring her friend’s impudent remark.

 

“Well, he’s a good man if he is doing the correct thing and asking your father for your hand, before he proposes to you.” Mrs. Minkin replies with a comforted sigh. “I approve of that. Just do me one more favour, Edit my dear.”

 

“And what’s that, Mrs. Minkin.”

 

“Just make sure that Frank is good to your parents, as you are to them,” The old Jewess’ eyebrows arch over her dark eyes. “And be kind to your future mother-in-law, as you would your own mother. Eh? Don’t be the sow’s purse made out of a silk ear, like Emmi is.”

 

Edith laughs. “Alright Mrs. Minkin, I will. I promise.”

 

“Good girl!” Mrs. Minkin says with a satisfied sigh and a smile as she begins to wrap up Edith’s purchases. “You can have that copy of Weldon’s for your mother for nothing, just because you are a dear girl. So, that will be two shillings and ninepence.”

 

“Mrs. Minkin!” Edith protests. “I… I can’t…”

 

“Of course you can!” the older woman insists, patting Edith’s hand comfortingly again. “As I said, if I had a daughter, or daughter-in-law like you, I’d spoil her no end!”

 

“Well, I think you are a bit too hard on poor Emmi.” Hilda remarks defensively of Mrs. Minkin’s daughter-in-law as Edith hands her money to Mrs. Minkin. “I think she is charming. Perhaps she’s not the best cook in the whole world, but I wasn’t either, until Edith taught me a thing or two. I also couldn’t knit, and I was afraid to even pick up a pair of needles until,” She looks meaningfully at the older woman behind the counter. “I had a good, kind and patient teacher like you. Perhaps Emmi needs the same to help her stop burning the bread.”

 

“Pshaw!” Mrs. Minkin scoffs as she takes up the two balls of wool and new knitting needles that make up Hilda’s purchase, her face colouring in shame at being called out by her young customer. “You’re a wise girl, dear Hilde – wiser than your years. You won’t get married for love.” she pronounces.

 

“How do you know I won’t, Mrs. Minkin?” Hilda retorts.

 

“Because you are too smart, and your head rules your heart, not the other way around like my foolish Samuel.” Mrs. Minkin replies. “You’ll marry a young scholar and your minds will meet. Then love will follow, as it should.”

 

Just as she speaks, the door to Mrs. Minkin’s storeroom opens and a man in a grey flat cap with a dark beard that is starting to slowly grey steps out. He wears a beautiful silk cravat of crimson and gold at his throat – an expensive and stylish piece rather at odds with the rest of his outfit of a thick apron over a collarless shirt, dark woollen vest and worn work trousers. He has thick bushy eyebrows over soft, dark brown eyes, and a gentle and friendly smile graces his aging face.

 

“Rachel.” he calls in a soft, rumbling voice that is deep and comforting.

 

“Well Soloman,” Mrs. Minkin replies, spinning to her right, away from Edith and Hilda to face her husband, placing her hands firmly on her hips in a stance she is obviously well versed in striking after thirty-five years of marriage and raising three sons. “We were just talking about you!”

 

“Oh dear!” Mr. Minkin exclaims. “What have I done now?” He glances anxiously at the two girls on the customer side of the glass topped shop counter, although he notes that neither of them look particularly upset by some article they want being unattainable or out of stock.

 

“You only let our Samuel marry that useless Emmi Levi for love!” Mrs. Minkin elucidates bitterly as she sweeps from behind the counter towards her hapless husband.

 

As Mrs. Minkin’s accusation charged tones ring around her haberdashery as she nags her husband, Hilda turns to Edith and asks, “Are you sure you want to get married, Edith?” She nods in the general direction of the Minkins. “It might be more trouble than it’s worth.”

 

Edith looks at Mr. and Mrs. Minkin. Although Mrs. Minkin’s voice is raised in protest, Edith can tell that she isn’t really cross with her husband, at least not as much as she proclaims. And catching the slight smile on Mr. Minkin’s lips and the sparkle in his eye, she can see that he isn’t worried by anything she is saying, and in fact he might be silently admiring the pluck and determination of the woman whom he met for the first time as a quiet and shy bride beneath the wedding chuppah in Odessa thirty-five years ago.

 

“For better or worse!” Edith sighs.

 

*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 Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing machines, it was renamed Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865, then the Singer Company in 1963. In 1867, the Singer Company decided that the demand for their sewing machines in the United Kingdom was sufficiently high to open a local factory in Glasgow on John Street. The Vice President of Singer, George Ross McKenzie selected Glasgow because of its iron making industries, cheap labour, and shipping capabilities. Demand for sewing machines outstripped production at the new plant and by 1873, a new larger factory was completed on James Street, Bridgeton. By that point, Singer employed over two thousand people in Scotland, but they still could not produce enough machines. In 1882 the company purchased forty-six acres of farmland in Clydebank and built an even bigger factory. With nearly a million square feet of space and almost seven thousand employees, it was possible to produce on average 13,000 machines a week, making it the largest sewing machine factory in the world. The Clydebank factory was so productive that in 1905, the U.S. Singer Company set up and registered the Singer Manufacturing Company Ltd. in the United Kingdom.

 

***A rag-and-bone man is a person who goes from street to street in a vehicle or with a horse and cart buying things such as old clothes and furniture. He would then sell these items on to someone else for a small profit.

 

****Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.

 

*****Pogroms in the Russian Empire were large-scale, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish rioting that began in the Nineteenth Century. Pogroms began to occur after Imperial Russia, which previously had very few Jews, acquired territories with large Jewish populations from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire from 1772 to 1815. The 1905 pogrom against Jews in Odessa was the most serious pogrom of the period, with reports of up to 2,500 Jews killed. Jews fled Russia, some ending up in London’s east end, which had a reasonably large Jewish community, particularly associated with clothing manufacturing.

 

******In sewing and haberdashery, notions are small objects or accessories, including items that are sewn or otherwise attached to a finished article, such as buttons, snaps, and collar stays. Notions also include the small tools used in sewing, such as needles, thread, pins, marking pens, elastic, and seam rippers.

  

*******"Mazel tov" (romanized: mázl tov) or "mazal tov" is a Jewish phrase used to express congratulations for a happy and significant occasion or event and translates as “good luck” or “good fortune”.

 

********Hatz’lachah is the Hebrew way to say “success”.

 

*********Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

**********Borrowed from French chic (“elegant”), which in turn is probably derived from German Schick (“elegant appearance; tasteful presentation”), the word “chic” came into the British lexicon and became common parlance thanks to Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, a leading British fashion designer in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries who worked under the professional name Lucile. The first British-based designer to achieve international acclaim, Lucy Duff-Gordon was a widely acknowledged innovator in couture styles as well as in fashion industry public relations. In addition to originating the "mannequin parade", a precursor to the modern fashion show, and training the first professional models, she launched slit skirts and low necklines, popularized less restrictive corsets, and promoted alluring and pared-down lingerie.

 

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

 

************Kesef is the Biblical Hebrew word for both "silver" and "money." It is easy to understand the relationship between the two words, as one of the earliest forms of "money" was weighed bags of silver.

 

*************In Hebrew and Yiddish, “goy” is a term for a gentile: a non-Jew. Through Yiddish, the word has been adopted into English also to mean "gentile", sometimes in a pejorative sense. Goyim is the plural variation of the word.

 

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

 

***************Oy vey is a commonly used Jewish exclamation indicating dismay or grief.

 

****************A traditional Jewish wedding ceremony takes place under a chuppah (wedding canopy), symbolizing the new home being built by the couple when they become husband and wife. The chuppah used in Ashkenazi ceremonies includes a cloth canopy held up by four beams.

 

*****************A medovic (medovik is from “med” – honey) is a sweet honey cake made in Russia. The history of the cake begins in the early Nineteenth Century in the kitchen of Emperor Alexander I. His wife, Empress Elizabeth, couldn’t stand honey - any dish made with it drove her mad. One day, however, a young new confectioner in the Imperial kitchen wasn’t aware of this, so he baked a new cake with honey and thick sour cream. Surprisingly, and oblivious to the honey content, Empress Elizabeth immediately fell in love with the delicious pudding.

 

******************Meaning anthill in Russian, a muraveynik cake is so named because of its shape. A simple muraveynik consists of crumbled sweet biscuits mixed with cream and piled into a hill shape. Most Russian families have their own recipe and it is a simple cake made from ingredients readily available in any Russian kitchen.

 

*******************Schlemiel is a Yiddish term meaning "inept/incompetent person" or "fool". It is a common archetype in Jewish humour, and so-called "schlemiel jokes" depict the schlemiel falling into unfortunate situations.

 

********************Hampstead Garden Suburb is an elevated suburb of London, north of Hampstead, west of Highgate and east of Golders Green. It is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations. It is an example of early Twentieth Century domestic architecture and town planning in the London Borough of Barnet, northwest London. The master plan was prepared by Barry Parker and Sir Raymond Unwin. Comprising just over five thousand properties, and home to around sixteen thousand people, undivided houses with individual gardens are a key feature. The area enjoys landscaped garden squares, several communal parks and Hampstead Heath Extension. Hampstead Garden Suburb was founded by Henrietta Barnett, who, with her husband Samuel, had started the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Toynbee Hall. In 1906, Barnett set up the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust Ltd, which purchased 243 acres of land from Eton College for the scheme and appointed Raymond Unwin as its architect. Among the scheme's aims were that it should cater for all classes of people and all income groups, that here should be a low housing density, that roads should be wide and tree-lined, that houses should be separated by hedges, not walls, that woods and public gardens should be free to all and it should be quiet, with no church bells. Interestingly, Hampstead Garden Suburb, like Golders Green ended up with a high Jewish population of residents.

 

*********************Challah is an enriched white yeasted bread served on Fridays. More specifically, it's eaten on the Jewish sabbath (which starts on Friday at sunset and ends after dark on Saturday). The term “challah” is applied more widely to mean any bread used in Jewish rituals. On the eve of Shabbat, two loaves are placed on the table to reference the Jewish teaching that a double portion of manna fell from heaven on Friday to last through the Saturday Shabbat.

 

**********************“Foy meydl” is Yiddish for “lazy girl”.

 

Mrs. Minkin’s cluttered haberdashers counter covered in an assortment of notions 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 Weldon’s Dressmaker Spring Fashions edition and the edition behind it on the counter are 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 magazine is 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.

 

The spools of ribbon, the packet of Victoria brand egg eyed sharps in the foreground on the counter and the brown buttons at the rear of the counter I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House in the United Kingdom.

 

The balls of wool and the knitting needles I acquired from an online miniature specialist stockist in the United Kingdom via eBay. The Superior Quality buttons on cards in the foreground to the left, along with the spools of bright cottons on the right come from various online shops who sell dollhouse miniatures.

 

Edith’s green leather handbag and Hilda’s brown one I acquired from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel as part of a larger collection of 1:12 artisan miniature hats, gloves, accessories and haberdashery goods.

Asteroid Explorer “Hayabusa2” is a successor of “Hayabusa” (MUSES-C), which revealed several new technologies and returned to Earth in June 2010.

While establishing a new navigation method using ion engines, Hayabusa brought back samples from the asteroid “Itokawa” to help elucidate the origin of the solar system. Hayabusa2 will target a C-type asteroid “1999 JU3” to study the origin and evolution of the solar system as well as materials for life by leveraging the experience acquired from the Hayabusa mission.

 

JAXA : global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/hayabusa2/index.html

 

HAYABUSA2 is scheduled launch on November 30, 2014.

Illustration for a comparative ecophylogenetic analysis of local myrmecofaunas, based on r/K selection theory and intra / interspecific parabiosis / lestobiosis, particularly focused on allochthonous and invasive species.

 

[Adiantum Linnæus 1753: 234 (IT: 1) spp]

 

There has been some challenge to recent molecular studies, claiming that these provide a skewed view of the phylogenetic order because they do not take into account fossil representatives. However, the molecular studies have clarified relations among families that had already been thought to be polyphyletic before the advent of molecular information but that were left in their polyphyletic ranks because there was not enough information to do otherwise. The classification of ferns using these molecular studies, which have generally supported one another, reflects the best information available at present, because traditional morphological characters are not always informative in elucidating evolutionary relationships among ferns.

 

REFERENCES

 

A. Pignatti & al. 2019: Flora IT, v.4, p. 247.

The Quran (English pronunciation: /kɔrˈɑːn/ kor-AHN , Arabic: القرآن‎ al-qur'ān, IPA: [qurˈʔaːn], literally meaning "the recitation", also romanised Qur'an or Koran) is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (Arabic: الله‎, Allah). Its scriptural status among a world-spanning religious community, and its major place within world literature generally, has led to a great deal of secondary literature on the Quran. Quranic chapters are called suras and verses are called ayahs.

 

Muslims believe that the Quran was verbally revealed by God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel (Jibril), gradually over a period of approximately 23 years, beginning on 22 December 609 CE, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632 CE, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as the most important miracle of Muhammad, a proof of his prophethood, and the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with the messages revealed to Adam and ended with Muhammad. They consider the Quran to be the only revealed book that has been protected by God from distortion or corruption.

 

According to the traditional narrative, several companions of Muhammad served as scribes and were responsible for writing down the revelations. Shortly after Muhammad's death, the Quran was compiled by his companions who wrote down and memorized parts of it. These codices had differences that motivated the Caliph Uthman to establish a standard version now known as Uthman's codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran we have today. However, the existence of variant readings, with mostly minor and some significant variations, and the early unvocalized Arabic script mean the relationship between Uthman's codex to both the text of today's Quran and to the revelations of Muhammad's time is still unclear.

 

The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. It summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance. It sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. The Quran is used along with the hadith to interpret sharia law. During prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic.

 

Someone who has memorized the entire Quran is called a hafiz. Some Muslims read Quranic ayahs (verses) with elocution, which is often called tajwīd. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims typically complete the recitation of the whole Quran during tarawih prayers. In order to extrapolate the meaning of a particular Quranic verse, most Muslims rely on the tafsir.

 

ETYMOLOGY & MEANING

The word qurʼān appears about 70 times in the Quran itself, assuming various meanings. It is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of the Arabic verb qaraʼa (قرأ), meaning "he read" or "he recited". The Syriac equivalent is (ܩܪܝܢܐ) qeryānā, which refers to "scripture reading" or "lesson". While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, the majority of Muslim authorities hold the origin of the word is qaraʼa itself. Regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammad's lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the "act of reciting", as reflected in an early Quranic passage: "It is for Us to collect it and to recite it (qurʼānahu)."

 

In other verses, the word refers to "an individual passage recited [by Muhammad]". Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example: "So when al-qurʼān is recited, listen to it and keep silent." The word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel.

 

The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran. Each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of qurʼān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb (book); āyah (sign); and sūrah (scripture). The latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with a definite article (al-), the word is referred to as the "revelation" (waḥy), that which has been "sent down" (tanzīl) at intervals. Other related words are: dhikr (remembrance), used to refer to the Quran in the sense of a reminder and warning, and ḥikmah (wisdom), sometimes referring to the revelation or part of it.

 

The Quran describes itself as "the discernment or the criterion between truth and falsehood" (al-furqān), "the mother book" (umm al-kitāb), "the guide" (huda), "the wisdom" (hikmah), "the remembrance" (dhikr) and "the revelation" (tanzīl; something sent down, signifying the descent of an object from a higher place to lower place). Another term is al-kitāb (the book), though it is also used in the Arabic language for other scriptures, such as the Torah and the Gospels. The adjective of "Quran" has multiple transliterations including "quranic," "koranic" and "qur'anic," or capitalised as "Qur'anic," "Koranic" and "Quranic." The term muṣḥaf ('written work') is often used to refer to particular Quranic manuscripts but is also used in the Quran to identify earlier revealed books. Other transliterations of "Quran" include "al-Coran", "Coran", "Kuran" and "al-Qurʼan".

 

HISTORY

PROPHETIC ERA

Islamic tradition relates that Muhammad received his first revelation in the Cave of Hira during one of his isolated retreats to the mountains. Thereafter, he received revelations over a period of 23 years. According to hadith and Muslim history, after Muhammad emigrated to Medina and formed an independent Muslim community, he ordered many of his companions to recite the Quran and to learn and teach the laws, which were revealed daily. It is related that some of the Quraish who were taken prisoners at the battle of Badr regained their freedom after they had taught some of the Muslims the simple writing of the time. Thus a group of Muslims gradually became literate. As it was initially spoken, the Quran was recorded on tablets, bones, and the wide, flat ends of date palm fronds. Most suras were in use amongst early Muslims since they are mentioned in numerous sayings by both Sunni and Shia sources, relating Muhammad's use of the Quran as a call to Islam, the making of prayer and the manner of recitation. However, the Quran did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad's death in 632 CE. There is agreement among scholars that Muhammad himself did not write down the revelation.

 

Sahih al-Bukhari narrates Muhammad describing the revelations as, "Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of a bell" and Aisha reported, "I saw the Prophet being inspired Divinely on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dropping from his forehead (as the Inspiration was over)." Muhammad's first revelation, according to the Quran, was accompanied with a vision. The agent of revelation is mentioned as the "one mighty in power", the one who "grew clear to view when he was on the uppermost horizon. Then he drew nigh and came down till he was (distant) two bows' length or even nearer." The Islamic studies scholar Welch states in the Encyclopaedia of Islam that he believes the graphic descriptions of Muhammad's condition at these moments may be regarded as genuine, because he was severely disturbed after these revelations. According to Welch, these seizures would have been seen by those around him as convincing evidence for the superhuman origin of Muhammad's inspirations. However, Muhammad's critics accused him of being a possessed man, a soothsayer or a magician since his experiences were similar to those claimed by such figures well known in ancient Arabia. Welch additionally states that it remains uncertain whether these experiences occurred before or after Muhammad's initial claim of prophethood. The Quran describes Muhammad as "ummi", which is traditionally interpreted as "illiterate," but the meaning is rather more complex. The medieval commentators such as Al-Tabari maintained that the term induced two meanings: first, the inability to read or write in general; second, the inexperience or ignorance of the previous books or scriptures (but they gave priority to the first meaning). Besides, Muhammad's illiteracy was taken as a sign of the genuineness of his prophethood. For example, according to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, if Muhammad had mastered writing and reading he possibly would have been suspected of having studied the books of the ancestors. Some scholars such as Watt prefer the second meaning.

 

COMPILATION

Based on earlier transmitted reports, in the year 632 CE, after Muhammad died and a number of his companions who knew the Quran by heart were killed in a battle by Musaylimah, the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 634CE) decided to collect the book in one volume so that it could be preserved. Zayd ibn Thabit (d. 655CE) was the person to collect the Quran since "he used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle". Thus, a group of scribes, most importantly Zayd, collected the verses and produced a hand-written manuscript of the complete book. The manuscript according to Zayd remained with Abu Bakr until he died. Zayd's reaction to the task and the difficulties in collecting the Quranic material from parchments, palm-leaf stalks, thin stones and from men who knew it by heart is recorded in earlier narratives. After Abu Bakr, Hafsa bint Umar, Muhammad's widow, was entrusted with the manuscript. In about 650 CE, the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656CE) began noticing slight differences in pronunciation of the Quran as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian peninsula into Persia, the Levant, and North Africa. In order to preserve the sanctity of the text, he ordered a committee headed by Zayd to use Abu Bakr's copy and prepare a standard copy of the Quran. Thus, within 20 years of Muhammad's death, the Quran was committed to written form. That text became the model from which copies were made and promulgated throughout the urban centers of the Muslim world, and other versions are believed to have been destroyed. The present form of the Quran text is accepted by Muslim scholars to be the original version compiled by Abu Bakr.

 

According to Shia and some Sunni scholars, Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661CE) compiled a complete version of the Quran shortly after Muhammad's death. The order of this text differed from that gathered later during Uthman's era in that this version had been collected in chronological order. Despite this, he made no objection against the standardized Quran and accepted the Quran in circulation. Other personal copies of the Quran might have existed including Ibn Mas'ud's and Ubayy ibn Kab's codex, none of which exist today.

 

The Quran most likely existed in scattered written form during Muhammad's lifetime. Several sources indicate that during Muhammad's lifetime a large number of his companions had memorized the revelations. Early commentaries and Islamic historical sources support the above-mentioned understanding of the Quran's early development. The Quran in its present form is generally considered by academic scholars to record the words spoken by Muhammad because the search for variants has not yielded any differences of great significance. Although most variant readings of the text of the Quran have ceased to be transmitted, some still are. There has been no critical text produced on which a scholarly reconstruction of the Quranic text could be based. Historically, controversy over the Quran's content has rarely become an issue, although debates continue on the subject.

 

In 1972, in a mosque in the city of Sana'a, Yemen, manuscripts were discovered that were later proved to be the most ancient Quranic text known to exist. The Sana'a manuscripts contain palimpsests, a manuscript page from which the text has been washed off to make the parchment reusable again - a practice which was common in ancient times due to scarcity of writing material. However, the faint washed-off underlying text (scriptio inferior) is still barely visible and believed to be "pre-Uthmanic" Quranic content, while the text written on top (scriptio superior) is believed to belong to Uthmanic time. Studies using radiocarbon dating indicate that the parchments are dated to the period before 671 AD with a 99 percent probability.

 

SIGNIFICANCE IN ISLAM

WORSHIP

Muslims believe the Quran to be the book of divine guidance revealed from God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years and view the Quran as God's final revelation to humanity. They also believe that the Quran has solutions to all the problems of humanity irrespective of how complex they may be and in what age they occur.

 

Revelation in Islamic and Quranic concept means the act of God addressing an individual, conveying a message for a greater number of recipients. The process by which the divine message comes to the heart of a messenger of God is tanzil (to send down) or nuzūl (to come down). As the Quran says, "With the truth we (God) have sent it down and with the truth it has come down."

 

The Quran frequently asserts in its text that it is divinely ordained. Some verses in the Quran seem to imply that even those who do not speak Arabic would understand the Quran if it were recited to them. The Quran refers to a written pre-text, "the preserved tablet", that records God's speech even before it was sent down.

 

The issue of whether the Quran is eternal or created became a theological debate (Quran's createdness) in the ninth century. Mu'tazilas, an Islamic school of theology based on reason and rational thought, held that the Quran was created while the most widespread varieties of Muslim theologians considered the Quran to be co-eternal with God and therefore uncreated. Sufi philosophers view the question as artificial or wrongly framed.

 

Muslims believe that the present wording of the Quran corresponds to that revealed to Muhammad, and according to their interpretation of Quran 15:9, it is protected from corruption ("Indeed, it is We who sent down the Quran and indeed, We will be its guardian."). Muslims consider the Quran to be a guide, a sign of the prophethood of Muhammad and the truth of the religion. They argue it is not possible for a human to produce a book like the Quran, as the Quran itself maintains.

 

Muslims commemorate annually the beginning of Quran's revelation on the Night of Destiny (Laylat al-Qadr), during the last 10 days of Ramadan, the month during which they fast from sunrise until sunset.

 

The first sura of the Quran is repeated in daily prayers and in other occasions. This sura, which consists of seven verses, is the most often recited sura of the Quran:

 

"All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Universe, the Beneficent, the Merciful and Master of the Day of Judgment, You alone We do worship and from You alone we do seek assistance, guide us to the right path, the path of those to whom You have granted blessings, those who are neither subject to Your anger nor have gone astray."

 

Respect for the written text of the Quran is an important element of religious faith by many Muslims, and the Quran is treated with reverence. Based on tradition and a literal interpretation of Quran 56:79 ("none shall touch but those who are clean"), some Muslims believe that they must perform a ritual cleansing with water before touching a copy of the Quran, although this view is not universal. Worn-out copies of the Quran are wrapped in a cloth and stored indefinitely in a safe place, buried in a mosque or a Muslim cemetery, or burned and the ashes buried or scattered over water.

 

In Islam, most intellectual disciplines, including Islamic theology, philosophy, mysticism and Jurisprudence, have been concerned with the Quran or have their foundation in its teachings. Muslims believe that the preaching or reading of the Quran is rewarded with divine rewards variously called ajr, thawab or hasanat.

 

IN ISLAMIC ART

The Quran also inspired Islamic arts and specifically the so-called Quranic arts of calligraphy and illumination.[1] The Quran is never decorated with figurative images, but many Qurans have been highly decorated with decorative patterns in the margins of the page, or between the lines or at the start of suras. Islamic verses appear in many other media, on buildings and on objects of all sizes, such as mosque lamps, metal work, pottery and single pages of calligraphy for muraqqas or albums.

 

INIMITABILITY

Inimitability of the Quran (or "I'jaz") is the belief that no human speech can match the Quran in its content and form. The Quran is considered an inimitable miracle by Muslims, effective until the Day of Resurrection - and, thereby, the central proof granted to Muhammad in authentication of his prophetic status. The concept of inimitability originates in the Quran where in five different verses opponents are challenged to produce something like the Quran: "If men and sprites banded together to produce the like of this Quran they would never produce its like not though they backed one another."[61] So the suggestion is that if there are doubts concerning the divine authorship of the Quran, come forward and create something like it. From the ninth century, numerous works appeared which studied the Quran and examined its style and content. Medieval Muslim scholars including al-Jurjani (d. 1078CE) and al-Baqillani (d. 1013CE) have written treatises on the subject, discussed its various aspects, and used linguistic approaches to study the Quran. Others argue that the Quran contains noble ideas, has inner meanings, maintained its freshness through the ages and has caused great transformations in individual level and in the history. Some scholars state that the Quran contains scientific information that agrees with modern science. The doctrine of miraculousness of the Quran is further emphasized by Muhammad's illiteracy since the unlettered prophet could not have been suspected of composing the Quran.

 

TEXT & ARRANGEMENT

The Quran consists of 114 chapters of varying lengths, each known as a sura. Suras are classified as Meccan or Medinan, depending on whether the verses were revealed before or after the migration of Muhammad to the city of Medina. However, a sura classified as Medinan may contain Meccan verses in it and vice versa. Sura titles are derived from a name or quality discussed in the text, or from the first letters or words of the surah. Suras are arranged roughly in order of decreasing size. The sura arrangement is thus not connected to the sequence of revelation. Each sura except the ninth starts with the Bismillah (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم) an Arabic phrase meaning 'In the name of God.' There are, however, still 114 occurrences of the Bismillah in the Quran, due to its presence in Quran 27:30 as the opening of Solomon's letter to the Queen of Sheba.

 

Each sura consists of several verses, known as ayat, which originally means a 'sign' or 'evidence' sent by God. The number of verses differs from sura to sura. An individual verse may be just a few letters or several lines. The total number of verses in the Quran is 6236, however, the number varies if the bismillahs are counted separately.

 

In addition to and independent of the division into suras, there are various ways of dividing the Quran into parts of approximately equal length for convenience in reading. The 30 juz' (plural ajzāʼ) can be used to read through the entire Quran in a month. Some of these parts are known by names - which are the first few words by which the juzʼ starts. A juz' is sometimes further divided into two ḥizb (plural aḥzāb), and each hizb subdivided into four rubʻ al-ahzab. The Quran is also divided into seven approximately equal parts, manzil (plural manāzil), for it to be recited in a week.

 

Muqatta'at, or the Quranic initials, are 14 different letter combinations of 14 Arabic letters that appear in the beginning of 29 suras of the Quran. The meanings of these initials remain unclear.

 

According to one estimate the Quran consists of 77,430 words, 18,994 unique words, 12,183 stems, 3,382 lemmas and 1,685 roots.

 

CONTENTS

The Quranic content is concerned with the basic beliefs of Islam which include the existence of God and the resurrection. Narratives of the early prophets, ethical and legal subjects, historical events of Muhammad's time, charity and prayer also appear in the Quran. The Quranic verses contain general exhortations regarding right and wrong and the historical events are related to outline general moral lessons. Verses pertaining to natural phenomena have been interpreted by Muslims as an indication of the authenticity of the Quranic message.

 

MONOTHEISM

The central theme of the Quran is monotheism. God is depicted as living, eternal, omniscient and omnipotent (see, e.g., Quran 2:20, 2:29, 2:255). God's omnipotence appears above all in his power to create. He is the creator of everything, of the heavens and the earth and what is between them (see, e.g., Quran 13:16, 50:38, etc.). All human beings are equal in their utter dependence upon God, and their well-being depends upon their acknowledging that fact and living accordingly.

 

The Quran uses cosmological and contingency arguments in various verses without referring to the terms to prove the existence of God. Therefore, the universe is originated and needs an originator, and whatever exists must have a sufficient cause for its existence. Besides, the design of the universe, is frequently referred to as a point of contemplation: "It is He who has created seven heavens in harmony. You cannot see any fault in God's creation; then look again: Can you see any flaw?"

 

ESCHATOLOGY

The doctrine of the last day and eschatology (the final fate of the universe) may be reckoned as the second great doctrine of the Quran. It is estimated that around a full one-third of the Quran is eschatological, dealing with the afterlife in the next world and with the day of judgment at the end of time. There is a reference of the afterlife on most pages of the Quran and the belief in the afterlife is often referred to in conjunction with belief in God as in the common expression: "Believe in God and the last day". A number of suras such as 44, 56, 75, 78, 81 and 101 are directly related to the afterlife and its preparations. Some of the suras indicate the closeness of the event and warn people to be prepared for the imminent day. For instance, the first verses of Sura 22, which deal with the mighty earthquake and the situations of people on that day, represent this style of divine address: "O People! Be respectful to your Lord. The earthquake of the Hour is a mighty thing."

 

The Quran is often vivid in its depiction of what will happen at the end time. Watt describes the Quranic view of End Time:

 

"The climax of history, when the present world comes to an end, is referred to in various ways. It is 'the Day of Judgment,' 'the Last Day,' 'the Day of Resurrection,' or simply 'the Hour.' Less frequently it is 'the Day of Distinction' (when the good are separated from the evil), 'the Day of the Gathering' (of men to the presence of God) or 'the Day of the Meeting' (of men with God). The Hour comes suddenly. It is heralded by a shout, by a thunderclap, or by the blast of a trumpet. A cosmic upheaval then takes place. The mountains dissolve into dust, the seas boil up, the sun is darkened, the stars fall and the sky is rolled up. God appears as Judge, but his presence is hinted at rather than described. [...] The central interest, of course, is in the gathering of all mankind before the Judge. Human beings of all ages, restored to life, join the throng. To the scoffing objection of the unbelievers that former generations had been dead a long time and were now dust and mouldering bones, the reply is that God is nevertheless able to restore them to life."

 

The Quran does not assert a natural immortality of the human soul, since man's existence is dependent on the will of God: when he wills, he causes man to die; and when he wills, he raises him to life again in a bodily resurrection.[68]

 

PROPHETS

According to the Quran, God communicated with man and made his will known through signs and revelations. Prophets, or 'Messengers of God', received revelations and delivered them to humanity. The message has been identical and for all humankind. "Nothing is said to you that was not said to the messengers before you, that your lord has at his Command forgiveness as well as a most Grievous Penalty." The revelation does not come directly from God to the prophets. Angels acting as God's messengers deliver the divine revelation to them. This comes out in Quran 42:51, in which it is stated: "It is not for any mortal that God should speak to them, except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal by his permission whatsoever He will."

 

ETHICO-RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS

Belief is the center of the sphere of positive moral properties in the Quran. A number of scholars have tried to determine the semantic contents of the words meaning 'belief' and 'believer' in the Quran [70] The Ethico-legal concepts and exhortations dealing with righteous conduct are linked to a profound awareness of God, thereby emphasizing the importance of faith, accountability and the belief in each human's ultimate encounter with God. People are invited to perform acts of charity, especially for the needy. Believers who "spend of their wealth by night and by day, in secret and in public" are promised that they "shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve" It also affirms family life by legislating on matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance. A number of practices such as usury and gambling are prohibited. The Quran is one of the fundamental sources of the Islamic law, or sharia. Some formal religious practices receive significant attention in the Quran including the formal prayers and fasting in the month of Ramadan. As for the manner in which the prayer is to be conducted, the Quran refers to prostration. The term used for charity, Zakat, actually means purification. Charity, according to the Quran, is a means of self-purification.

 

LITERARY STYLE

The Quran's message is conveyed with various literary structures and devices. In the original Arabic, the suras and verses employ phonetic and thematic structures that assist the audience's efforts to recall the message of the text. Muslims[who?] assert (according to the Quran itself) that the Quranic content and style is inimitable.

 

The language of the Quran has been described as "rhymed prose" as it partakes of both poetry and prose, however, this description runs the risk of compromising the rhythmic quality of Quranic language, which is certainly more poetic in some parts and more prose-like in others. Rhyme, while found throughout the Quran, is conspicuous in many of the earlier Meccan suras, in which relatively short verses throw the rhyming words into prominence. The effectiveness of such a form is evident for instance in Sura 81, and there can be no doubt that these passages impressed the conscience of the hearers. Frequently a change of rhyme from one set of verses to another signals a change in the subject of discussion. Later sections also preserve this form but the style is more expository.

 

The Quranic text seems to have no beginning, middle, or end, its nonlinear structure being akin to a web or net. The textual arrangement is sometimes considered to have lack of continuity, absence of any chronological or thematic order and presence of repetition. Michael Sells, citing the work of the critic Norman O. Brown, acknowledges Brown's observation that the seeming disorganization of Quranic literary expression – its scattered or fragmented mode of composition in Sells's phrase – is in fact a literary device capable of delivering profound effects as if the intensity of the prophetic message were shattering the vehicle of human language in which it was being communicated. Sells also addresses the much-discussed repetitiveness of the Quran, seeing this, too, as a literary device.

 

A text is self-referential when it speaks about itself and makes reference to itself. According to Stefan Wild the Quran demonstrates this meta-textuality by explaining, classifying, interpreting and justifying the words to be transmitted. Self-referentiality is evident in those passages when the Quran refers to itself as revelation (tanzil), remembrance (dhikr), news (naba'), criterion (furqan) in a self-designating manner (explicitly asserting its Divinity, "And this is a blessed Remembrance that We have sent down; so are you now denying it?"), or in the frequent appearance of the 'Say' tags, when Muhammad is commanded to speak (e.g. "Say: 'God's guidance is the true guidance' ", "Say: 'Would you then dispute with us concerning God?' "). According to Wild the Quran is highly self-referential. The feature is more evident in early Meccan suras.

 

INTERPRETATION

The Quran has sparked a huge body of commentary and explication (tafsīr), aimed at explaining the "meanings of the Quranic verses, clarifying their import and finding out their significance".

 

Tafsir is one of the earliest academic activities of Muslims. According to the Quran, Muhammad was the first person who described the meanings of verses for early Muslims. Other early exegetes included a few Companions of Muhammad, like ʻAli ibn Abi Talib, ʻAbdullah ibn Abbas, ʻAbdullah ibn Umar and Ubayy ibn Kaʻb. Exegesis in those days was confined to the explanation of literary aspects of the verse, the background of its revelation and, occasionally, interpretation of one verse with the help of the other. If the verse was about a historical event, then sometimes a few traditions (hadith) of Muhammad were narrated to make its meaning clear.

 

Because the Quran is spoken in classical Arabic, many of the later converts to Islam (mostly non-Arabs) did not always understand the Quranic Arabic, they did not catch allusions that were clear to early Muslims fluent in Arabic and they were concerned with reconciling apparent conflict of themes in the Quran. Commentators erudite in Arabic explained the allusions, and perhaps most importantly, explained which Quranic verses had been revealed early in Muhammad's prophetic career, as being appropriate to the very earliest Muslim community, and which had been revealed later, canceling out or "abrogating" (nāsikh) the earlier text (mansūkh). Other scholars, however, maintain that no abrogation has taken place in the Quran. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has published a 10-volume Urdu commentary on the Quran, with the name Tafseer e Kabir.

 

ESOTERIC INTERPRETATION

Esoteric or Sufi interpretation attempts to unveil the inner meanings of the Quran. Sufism moves beyond the apparent (zahir) point of the verses and instead relates Quranic verses to the inner or esoteric (batin) and metaphysical dimensions of consciousness and existence. According to Sands, esoteric interpretations are more suggestive than declarative, they are 'allusions' (isharat) rather than explanations (tafsir). They indicate possibilities as much as they demonstrate the insights of each writer.

 

Sufi interpretation, according to Annabel Keeler, also exemplifies the use of the theme of love, as for instance can seen in Qushayri's interpretation of the Quran. Quran 7:143 says:

 

"when Moses came at the time we appointed, and his Lord spoke to him, he said, 'My Lord, show yourself to me! Let me see you!' He said, 'you shall not see me but look at that mountain, if it remains standing firm you will see me.' When his Lord revealed Himself to the mountain, He made it crumble. Moses fell down unconscious. When he recovered, he said, 'Glory be to you! I repent to you! I am the first to believe!'"

 

Moses, in 7:143, comes the way of those who are in love, he asks for a vision but his desire is denied, he is made to suffer by being commanded to look at other than the Beloved while the mountain is able to see God. The mountain crumbles and Moses faints at the sight of God's manifestation upon the mountain. In Qushayri's words, Moses came like thousands of men who traveled great distances, and there was nothing left to Moses of Moses. In that state of annihilation from himself, Moses was granted the unveiling of the realities. From the Sufi point of view, God is the always the beloved and the wayfarer's longing and suffering lead to realization of the truths.[90]

 

Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei says that according to the popular explanation among the later exegetes, ta'wil indicates the particular meaning a verse is directed towards. The meaning of revelation (tanzil), as opposed to ta'wil, is clear in its accordance to the obvious meaning of the words as they were revealed. But this explanation has become so widespread that, at present, it has become the primary meaning of ta'wil, which originally meant "to return" or "the returning place". In Tabatabaei's view, what has been rightly called ta'wil, or hermeneutic interpretation of the Quran, is not concerned simply with the denotation of words. Rather, it is concerned with certain truths and realities that transcend the comprehension of the common run of men; yet it is from these truths and realities that the principles of doctrine and the practical injunctions of the Quran issue forth. Interpretation is not the meaning of the verse - rather it transpires through that meaning, in a special sort of transpiration. There is a spiritual reality - which is the main objective of ordaining a law, or the basic aim in describing a divine attribute - and then there is an actual significance that a Quranic story refers to.

 

According to Shia beliefs, those who are firmly rooted in knowledge like Muhammad and the imams know the secrets of the Quran. According to Tabatabaei, the statement "none knows its interpretation except God" remains valid, without any opposing or qualifying clause. Therefore, so far as this verse is concerned, the knowledge of the Quran's interpretation is reserved for God. But Tabatabaei uses other verses and concludes that those who are purified by God know the interpretation of the Quran to a certain extent.

 

According to Tabatabaei, there are acceptable and unacceptable esoteric interpretations. Acceptable ta'wil refers to the meaning of a verse beyond its literal meaning; rather the implicit meaning, which ultimately is known only to God and can't be comprehended directly through human thought alone. The verses in question here refer to the human qualities of coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sorrow, which are apparently attributed to God. Unacceptable ta'wil is where one "transfers" the apparent meaning of a verse to a different meaning by means of a proof; this method is not without obvious inconsistencies. Although this unacceptable ta'wil has gained considerable acceptance, it is incorrect and cannot be applied to the Quranic verses. The correct interpretation is that reality a verse refers to. It is found in all verses, the decisive and the ambiguous alike; it is not a sort of a meaning of the word; it is a fact that is too sublime for words. God has dressed them with words to bring them a bit nearer to our minds; in this respect they are like proverbs that are used to create a picture in the mind, and thus help the hearer to clearly grasp the intended idea.

 

HISTORY OF SUFI COMMENTARIES

One of the notable authors of esoteric interpretation prior to the 12th century is Sulami (d. 1021 CE) without whose work the majority of very early Sufi commentaries would not have been preserved. Sulami's major commentary is a book named haqaiq al-tafsir ("Truths of Exegesis") which is a compilation of commentaries of earlier Sufis. From the 11th century onwards several other works appear, including commentaries by Qushayri (d. 1074), Daylami (d. 1193), Shirazi (d. 1209) and Suhrawardi (d. 1234). These works include material from Sulami's books plus the author's contributions. Many works are written in Persian such as the works of Maybudi (d. 1135) kash al-asrar ("the unveiling of the secrets"). Rumi (d. 1273) wrote a vast amount of mystical poetry in his book Mathnawi. Rumi makes heavy use of the Quran in his poetry, a feature that is sometimes omitted in translations of Rumi's work. A large number of Quranic passages can be found in Mathnawi, which some consider a kind of Sufi interpretation of the Quran. Rumi's book is not exceptional for containing citations from and elaboration on the Quran, however, Rumi does mention Quran more frequently. Simnani (d. 1336) wrote two influential works of esoteric exegesis on the Quran. He reconciled notions of God's manifestation through and in the physical world with the sentiments of Sunni Islam. Comprehensive Sufi commentaries appears in the 18th century such as the work of Ismail Hakki Bursevi (d. 1725). His work ruh al-Bayan (the Spirit of Elucidation) is a voluminous exegesis. Written in Arabic, it combines the author's own ideas with those of his predecessors (notably Ibn Arabi and Ghazali), all woven together in Hafiz, a Persian poetry form.

 

LEVELS OF MEANING

Unlike the Salafis and Zahiri, Shias and Sufis as well as some other Muslim philosophers believe the meaning of the Quran is not restricted to the literal aspect. For them, it is an essential idea that the Quran also has inward aspects. Henry Corbin narrates a hadith that goes back to Muhammad:

 

"The Quran possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning (this depth possesses a depth, after the image of the celestial Spheres, which are enclosed within each other). So it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth)."

 

According to this view, it has also become evident that the inner meaning of the Quran does not eradicate or invalidate its outward meaning. Rather, it is like the soul, which gives life to the body. Corbin considers the Quran to play a part in Islamic philosophy, because gnosiology itself goes hand in hand with prophetology.

 

Commentaries dealing with the zahir (outward aspects) of the text are called tafsir, and hermeneutic and esoteric commentaries dealing with the batin are called ta'wil ("interpretation" or "explanation"), which involves taking the text back to its beginning. Commentators with an esoteric slant believe that the ultimate meaning of the Quran is known only to God. In contrast, Quranic literalism, followed by Salafis and Zahiris, is the belief that the Quran should only be taken at its apparent meaning.

 

TRANSLATIONS

Translation of the Quran has always been a problematic and difficult issue. Many argue that the Quranic text cannot be reproduced in another language or form. Furthermore, an Arabic word may have a range of meanings depending on the context, making an accurate translation even more difficult.

 

Nevertheless, the Quran has been translated into most African, Asian and European languages. The first translator of the Quran was Salman the Persian, who translated surat al-Fatiha into Persian during the seventh century. Another translation of the Quran was completed in 884 CE in Alwar (Sindh, India now Pakistan) by the orders of Abdullah bin Umar bin Abdul Aziz on the request of the Hindu Raja Mehruk.

 

The first fully attested complete translations of the Quran were done between the 10th and 12th centuries in Persian language. The Samanid king, Mansur I (961-976), ordered a group of scholars from Khorasan to translate the Tafsir al-Tabari, originally in Arabic, into Persian. Later in the 11th century, one of the students of Abu Mansur Abdullah al-Ansari wrote a complete tafsir of the Quran in Persian. In the 12th century, Najm al-Din Abu Hafs al-Nasafi translated the Quran into Persian. The manuscripts of all three books have survived and have been published several times.

 

Islamic tradition also holds that translations were made for Emperor Negus of Abyssinia and Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, as both received letters by Muhammad containing verses from the Quran. In early centuries, the permissibility of translations was not an issue, but whether one could use translations in prayer.

 

In 1936, translations in 102 languages were known. In 2010, the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review reported that the Quran was presented in 112 languages at the 18th International Quran Exhibition in Tehran.

   

historical Hermetism : religio mentis The influence of Ancient Egypt on Greek philosophy as well as the history of the rise of Hermetism have been discussed elsewhere. These studies showed the presence of three fundamental phases :native Hermopolitan theology : as early as the Old Kingdom (ca. 2670 - 2198 BCE), the perennial worship of the native Egyptian Thoth, "the mightiest of the gods", was centered in Hermopolis ("Hermoupolis Magna"). Although the contents of this theology is only know from Ptolemaic sources, "Khnum Khemenu", "the Eight town" (also called "Per-Djehuty", the "house of Thoth") existed in the Vth Dynasty (ca. 2487 - 2348 BCE) and was associated with the Ogdoad or company of eight precreational gods (frog heads) & goddesses (serpent-headed). A few of them were mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, but the complete list is first mentioned in the Middle Kingdom (ca. 1938 - 1759 BCE). These deities emerged from Nun (the primordial, undifferentiated ocean) and constituted the soul of Thoth. They may also be understood as further characterizations of this dark, unlimited pre-creational realm : Amun and Amaunet (hiddenness), Heh and Heket or Huh and Hauhet (eternity), Kek and Keket or Kuk and Kauket (darkness), Nun and Nunet or Nun and Naunet (primordial chaos). Hermopolitan theology will provide the framework for Ptolemaic Hermetism. Other textual traces of this worship are found in the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead and the Books of the Netherworld, whereas in the Late Period (ca. 664 - 30 BCE), its theology was written down on the walls of more than one Ptolemaic temple (ca. 332 - 30 BCE). Because Thoth was Lord of Time, he was associated with astrology, in particular when the astral science of Chaldea entered Egypt (at the end of the Third Intermediate Period, ca. 1075 - 664 BCE) ;

historical Hermetism : or the identification of Thoth, "Thrice Greatest", with Hermes Trismegistus, who, in his philosophical teachings, is Greek and human (although Egyptian elements persist), but who assumed, in the technical Hermetica, the cosmicity of the native Egyptian Thoth. The technical Hermetica are attested under the Ptolemies, and the existence, in the first century BCE, of an Alexandrian multi-cultural Hermetic Lodge is likely. The philosophical sources are the 17 treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum, the Latin Asclepius, the Armenian Hermetic Definitions and the Coptic Hermetica found at Nag Hammadi, in particular The Eighth and the Ninth Sphere (Codex VI.6), which all date from the first centuries CE. It is possible to see Hermetism as a "gnosticism" (for "gnosis", i.e. direct spiritual insight, is all-important). But Hermetic gnosticism is particular to imperial Alexandrian culture, for the notion of an evil demiurge (as in Christian Gnosticism) is not present. Constituted by Egyptian, Greek and Jewish elements, Hermetism will influence Judaism (the Merkabah mystics of the Jewish gnostics of Alexandria), Christianity (Clement of Alexandria, the Greek Fathers, the "Orientale Lumen") and the Islam (the Hermetic star worshippers of Harran and Sufism) ;literary Hermeticism : Renaissance Hermeticism produced a fictional Trismegistus as the Godhead of its esoteric concept of the world as an organic whole, with an intimate sympathy between its material (natural) and spiritual (supernatural) components. This view was consistent with the humanistic phase of modernism, which was followed by a mechanization of the world and the "enlightenment" of the 18th century. These new forces ousted all formative & final causes from their physical inquiries, and reduced the four Aristotelian categories of determination (material, efficient, formal and final cause) to material & efficient causes only. Astrology, magic and alchemy were deemed scientifically backward & religiously suspect. "Actio-in-distans" was deemed impossible, and Paganism was Satanical. In 1666, Colbert evicts astrology from the Academy of Sciences (the court-astrologer Morin de Villefranche, 1583 - 1656, was concealed behind a curtain in the royal apartment at the time when the future Grand Monarque was born). In the nineteenth century, under the influence of the morbid but exotical fancies of the Romantics, Hermeticism became part of Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Theosophy and generalized egyptomania (cf. Golden Dawn, Thelemism, Pyramidology, etc.). Today it returns as the ideological core of the expanding New Age religion.Before the first, steady interactions between Greek & Egyptian culture emerged (ca. 670 BCE), the "Hermetic" particularities of Late New Kingdom henotheist theology were inscribed on the Shabaka Stone and elucidated in its Memphite theology. This XXVth Dynasty (ca. 716 - 702 BCE) stone copy of an important Ramesside papyrus scroll, contained thoughts which look remarkably like those developed in the contexts of the Platonic, Philonic and Christian "logos". More than a century ago, Breasted wrote regarding the Memphite theology :"The above conception of the world forms quite a sufficient basis for suggesting that the later notions of nous and logos, hitherto supposed to have been introduced into Egypt from abroad at a much later date, were present at this early period. Thus the Greek tradition of the origin of their philosophy in Egypt undoubtedly contains more of the truth than has in recent years been conceded. The habit, later so prevalent among the Greeks, of interpreting philosophically the function and relations of the Egyptian gods (...) had already begun in Egypt before the earliest Greek philosophers were born ..."

Breasted, 1901, p.54.Indeed, the Greek words "nous" ("mind, thinking, perceiving") and "noés" ("perceive, observe, recognize, understand"), could be derived from the Egyptian "nu" ("nw"), "to see, look, perceive, observe" :On the one hand, according to Stricker (1949), the Corpus Hermeticum is a codification of the Egyptian religion. Ptolemy I Soter (304 - 282 BCE) and his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282 - 246 BCE) promised to publish the secret literature of the three groups of citizens of Egypt : native Egyptians, Greeks and Jews. For him, Hermetism is the Greek version of a redaction of Egyptian literature. Its form is Greek, but its contents is Egyptian (the Septuagint being the equivalent Jewish redaction). On the other hand, father Festugière (1945) claims the CH contains extremely little Egyptian elements, except for the context, the ideas expressed being those of popular Greek thought, a mixture of Platonism, Aristotelism and Stoicism ... Both positions are avoided. Most agree the CH contains no Christian elements (the opposite is true - cf. the influence of Philonic thought in particular and Alexandrian philosophy in general on the apostle Paul - Quispel, 1992).

 

Let us conjecture the emergence, under the first three Ptolemies, of a Greek elitist version of the Egyptian religion, a Graeco-Egyptian religion, and this among the upper native classes (of priest, scribes, administrators & high-skilled workmen). This Graeco-Egyptian religion would be based in Alexandria and Memphis, and (at first) entail a strong emphasis on the native component. It emerged in the priestly scribal class and had its focus on Thoth, who created the world by means of his Divine words, in accord with the verbal tradition founding Egypt. For the Greeks, Thoth was "Hermes, Trismegistos", indicative of both his antiquity and greatness. Because of the important influence of the native intellectual milieu on the genesis of this Alexandro-Egyptian cultural form, "Graeco-Egyptian religion turns out to be based on a profound imbalance, in favour of the autochthonous, between its two constituent elements." (Fowden, 1986, p.19). Zandee (1992, p.161) mentions a Hermetical text going back to the third century BCE and for Petrie (1908) at least some passages of the Corpus Hermeticum had to refer to the Persian period ... This feature proves to be essential in a possible thematical reconstruction.

 

But, the Hellenization entailed by using the Greek language and participating in the syncretic Alexandrian intellectual climate (the Mouseion and Serapeion), should not be underestimated, and makes Stricker's proposals too unlikely. These native Egyptians must have been proud of their Hermopolitan & Memphite theologies (both verbal & scribal), but eventually accepted to incorporate uncompromisingly un-Egyptian elements in their Hermetism (like the popular Greek denial of the physical body, evasive mysteries and an elusive, vague description of the afterlife). The importance of the Netherworld is no longer felt.

 

Many other Greek themes are to be found in the Corpus Hermeticum, showing Festugière was not completely wrong. In a study of Zandee published in 1992, the Egyptian influence was confirmed, although besides the negative view on the body, he also identified the depreciation of the world, the celestial voyage of the soul (or mystical initiation - cf. Mahé, 1992) and reincarnation as Hermetic teachings not to be found in Ancient Egypt. To this list could be added the Hermetic variant of the Greek mysteries and magical techniques aimed to compel the will of the gods (impossible in Ancient Egypt). Indeed, the difference between Egyptian initiation and Greek mysteries is pertinent (the attitude of the worshipper as well as the responsiveness of the deities differ).We may argue that the technical Hermetica are rooted in perennial Egyptian traditions like magic ("heka") and the "books of Thoth". It is probable that, at least insofar as medicine & magic were concerned, this indeed was the case ? The philosophical Hermetica also share certain features with the Egyptian wisdom-discourses or instruction genre.Hermetism is not a "Sammelbecken" (heterogeneous doctrines), nor a single synthesis, but an autonomous mode of discourse, a "way of Hermes" (Iamblichus), more theological than philosophical (like Plotinus, who -compared to Plato- was more religious than political) and foremost (in number) "technical" : astrology, magic & alchemy. This Graeco-Egyptian religion was influenced by three major players : the Greeks, the native Egyptians and the Jews. It could define its own path precisely because of its roots in the Ancient Egyptian Mystery Tradition, to which most of its members adhered. In its mature stage, Hermetism manifested the religion of the mind ("religio mentis") of Mediterranean Antiquity. This Late Hellenistic Hermetism would survive and eventually fire the European Renaissance and humanism. But the "ad fontes" principle of the latter only returned to Late Hellenism. Antiquity would remain unavailable for several centuries. Not unlike Spinoza's "amor intellectualis Dei", philosophical Hermetism gave body to an intellectual love for the One, albeit in modo antiquo, and never without magic & alchemy. In the 17th century, this technical side was left behind by the European academia, whereas the philosophical Hermetica became part of Hermeticism and its various branches.The "gnosis" of Hermetism (the secret it shared through initiation) was an ecstasy born out of cognitive activities, involving trance, contemplation, ritual, music and astrology. In Hermetism, astrology served as the bridge between the purely technical Hermetica -magic, medicine- and the theological & philosophical Hermetica. Astrology was concerned with the timing of events, both festive, initiatory or individual."It is certain that the Hermetics had no cult, with priests, sacrifices, processions and the like. But the texts suggest the existence of (small) Hermetic 'communities', conventicles, groups or lodges, in which individual experiences and insights were collectively celebrated with rituals, hymns and prayers."Quispel, 1992/1994, p.15.

 

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 north-east of Cavendish Mews, past Marylebone and the British Museum at the grand Victorian Gothic red brick edifice of St Pancras railway station with its high pitched roofs, many arched windows and magnificent clock tower dominating the corner between Euston and Pancras Roads. Taking advantage of their employers’ attendance of an amusing Friday to Monday country house party in Scotland, Lettice’s maid, Edith, and her best friend Hilda, the maid of Lettice’s married Embassy Club coterie friends Dickie and Margot Channon, with permission, arranged a weekend trip to Manchester. They stayed Friday and Saturday nights at a small and respectable hotel for single travelling ladies run by a lovely Mancunian woman not far from Manchester Central railway station*, before returning to London. Today is Sunday and the two travelling friends are returning so that they are ready to receive their employers upon their return on Monday. Both maids landed upon the idea to visit their friend Queenie on the Saturday of their brief sojourn to Manchester. Queenie lives in the village of Alderley Edge, just outside of Manchester, which is easily accessible via the railway, allowing them to take tea with her at a small tearoom in the pretty Cheshire village.

 

Queenie, Edith and Hilda all used to work together for Mrs. Plaistow, the rather mean wife of a manufacturer who has a Regency terrace in Pimlico. Queenie was the cheerful head parlour maid, so both Edith and Hilda as younger and less experienced lower housemaids, fell under her instruction. Queenie chucked her position at Mrs. Plaistow’s a few years ago and took a new position as a maid for two elderly spinster sisters in Cheshire to be closer to her mother, who lives in Manchester. Still in touch with Edith, Queenie writes regularly, sharing stories of her life in the big old Victorian villa she now calls home, half of which is shut up because one of the two sisters is an invalid whilst the other is in frail condition and finds it hard to access the upper floors.

 

Now it is lunchtime, and we find Frank Leadbetter, Edith’s beau, keenly awaiting the arrival of his sweetheart and her best friend as the Midland Railway express train from Manchester pulls into the platform, the chug of the slowing engine and squeal of its breaks echoing with the cacophony of other railway engines, the shrill cry of whistles and hundreds of voices raised in greetings and departures beneath the vast single span cast iron and glass dome of St Pancras overhead. As the steam from the engine billows, tumbles and dissipates around the third-class carriages as the train comes to a halt, the doors start flying open: sharp staccato thumps echoing around Frank as he looks up and down the platform for a sign of the familiar black straw cloche decorated with purple satin roses that belongs to Edith. People of all ages and looks stream past him, dressed in their Sundy best, all intent to get to their destination in the capital, not paying the slightest attention to the young man in the bottle green and russet knitted vest beneath his black jacket, with cap on his head.

 

“Frank! Frank!” he hears the strain of a familiar voice above the general hubbub of chatter and looking to his left he sees Edith hurrying down the platform in her plum coloured frock and coat, wearing her cloche, smiling broadly at him as she swings her brown leather Gladstone bag and familiar green handbag in her right hand and her battered black umbrella in her left.

 

“Edith!” Frank exclaims with relief as Edith reaches him and launches herself into his arms, dropping her bag and umbrella on the tarmacadam at her feet as she throws her arms around his neck, her handbag lightly hitting his upper back as he winds his right arm around her waist and spins her around three times.

 

“Oh Frank, I missed you!” Edith exclaims in excited breaths in his ear before kissing his cheeks.

 

He looks at his pretty young sweetheart, blue eyes brilliant and blonde wavy hair, smiling at him from beneath the brim of her cloche, and before he can think further, he kisses her passionately on the lips.

 

“I missed you too, Edith.” Frank admits as he breaks their passionate kiss at length.

 

“I can tell.” Edith muses, smiling happily after their loving kiss.

 

“Oh! Careful, love!” He indicates to a small wooden crate in the crook of his left arm as he gently lowers his sweetheart to the ground again.

 

“What’s this then?” Edith asks, looking with curiosity at the small wooden crate.

 

“Supplies!” Frank elucidates, repositioning the box, holding it with both hands in front of him like a gift. “I rode here from Mayfair on the shop bicycle, so I had room in the basket for this.” As Edith looks with eyes wide with delight he continues. “A thermos of hot tea, just how you like it.” he says eyeing the russet coloured thermos flask** featuring an orange band, and a shiny silver top. “And three oranges: one for each of us. I thought after your long journey, with breakfast being hours ago, you could probably do with something to perk you up until you get back to Cavendish Mews.”

 

“Oh Frank! You’re a brick!” Edith exclaims. “We had a lovely breakfast of sausage and eggs, fried up by our Manchester landlady, but that was hours ago.”

 

“Where is Hilda, then, Edith?”

 

“She was right behind me, Frank.” Edith replies, turning around and looking back from where she came.

 

“I’m right here, Frank.” Hilda says cooly with a happy smile as she approaches the couple through the miasma of steam and soot, dressed in her familiar brown overcoat.

 

“Hullo Hilda.” he says with a smile, kissing her proffered cheek.

 

“Hullo Frank. I thought I’d give you two a few moments alone, as it were,” she says with a wry chuckle and a cocked eyebrow as she looks at the throng of people moving past them. “To say hullo to one another.”

 

“That’s good of you, Hilda.” Frank says gratefully. “How are you, then?”

 

“Oh fair to muddling after a three and a half hour journey,” Hilda replies matter-of-factly. “Can’t complain. At least I managed to get a fair bit of knitting done under the tutelage of the expert.” She nods at Edith, whose cheeks flush at the compliment.

 

“And how’s my traversing sweetheart?” Frank asks, looking Edith squarely in the face. “Did you have a good time up in Manchester?”

 

“Did I ever!” Edith enthuses in response. “I can’t believe how big the countryside is, and green!”

 

Frank and Hilda both chuckle, exchanging indulgent glances. Whilst neither of them has travelled a great deal before, for Edith, this trip to Manchester was her first journey outside of London.

 

“Let’s find a bench outside, a bit away from all the noise, and you can tell me all about it over tea and oranges.” Frank suggests, giving the crate a gentle shake.

 

The trio slowly wend their way out of St Pancras railway station, joining the tide of humanity as they make their way outside into the open air, away from the acrid smell of soot. Although London is still busy with chugging motor cars and the familiar red painted double decker motor busses, being out in the open, the noise is less intensified as they walk along the columned portico of the railway station beneath the arches of red and white ‘blood and bandages’*** pointed arches.

 

“Let’s sit here.” Frank nods at an empty wooden bench against a red brick wall plastered with railway travel posters in bright colours, featuring happy travellers enjoying the pleasures of their destinations. He puts the wooden crate on the bricks at his feet and fetches out the thermos, unscrewing the shiny cups that fit snugly over the pyramid cap. “Here you go Hilda.” he says, passing a cup of strong tea to his friend as she sits down next to him.

 

“Thanks ever so.” Hilda says with a grateful groan as she settles onto the well-worn bench seat.

 

“I’m afraid we’ll have to share, Edith.” Frank explains to his sweetheart.

 

“Hhhmmm?” Edith asks distractedly as she looks at the stylised Art Deco image of a group of children joyfully playing ball on what is advertised as being the Yorkshire coast in bold black lettering beneath.

 

“The thermos only has two cups, so we’ll have to share. I forgot to grab a cup from the kitchen on the way out.” he apologises. “Not that Mrs. Chapman would let me take even the most stained and chipped of her teacups.” he adds disparagingly about his mean Holborn landlady.

 

“Oh that’s fine, Frank.” Edith replies with a wave of her hand.

 

“Oh-oh.” Hilda says before sipping her cup of tea gratefully. “You’d better watch out, Frank. Now she’s been to Manchester, your sweetheart obviously has plans on travelling to other places.” She swings awkwardly around to her right on the wooden bench and eyes the posters. “Where are you two going for your honeymoon? Filey?” She nods at a poster of a happy family in modish bathing costumes on the beach. “Or Blackpool perhaps?” She nods towards a poster showing a bird’s eye view of the Blackpool corniche with its famous pier.

 

“We’re not even married yet, Hilda!” Edith scoffs as she stops looking at the posters and takes her place on Frank’s left, happily accepting the proffered shiny handless metal cup of tea into her hands.

 

“I technically haven’t proposed to her yet, Hilda Clerkenwell.” Frank adds.

 

“It’s only a matter of time, Frank Leadbetter.” Hilda responds, sliding back around again and staring Frank squarely in the face. “You know it. I know it. Edith knows it too.” she nods in Edith’s direction and chuckles.

 

Neither Edith nor Frank reply, but the blushes that flood their faces are enough to answer Hilda’s statement about their future nuptials.

 

As people mill around them carrying luggage, walking sticks and umbrellas, Frank asks how their holiday was.

 

“Oh, it was marvellous, Frank!” Edith replies. “We did all kinds of exploring around Manchester. It’s ever such a grand city! We saw the town hall, and we did some window shopping along Piccadilly.”

 

“Do they have a Piccadilly in Manchester too, then?” asks Frank.

 

“They do indeed, Frank, and it’s every bit as grand and busy as our London one!” Edith states.

 

“Edith even bought some nice linen napkins from a shop on Deansgate. For her glory box****.” Hilda adds with a cheeky smirk, her statement making both Edith and Frank blush again.

 

“So that’s why your Gladstone bag is so much heavier after your holiday.” Frank teases his sweetheart.

 

“Oh, stop it, Frank!” Edith replies, flapping her hand kittenishly at her beau. “Market Street is great for window shopping too.”

 

“And your friend, Queenie?” Frank asks. “Did you see her like you planned?”

 

When neither reply straight away, Frank looks first at Edith and then at Hilda and sees the closed looks on their faces. “Did I say something wrong?” he asks. He reaches down into his small crate and withdraws two oranges, offering one to the ladies either side of him as a peace offering.

 

“No Frank.” Edith says with a sigh, placing the metal thermos cup between her knees and accepting the orange, which she is sure has come from Frank’s employer, Mr. Willison the grocer. “It just wasn’t quite as much fun as we’d hoped.”

 

“Has time away from Mrs. Plaistow’s changed Queenie?”

 

“Oh no, Frank!” Edith assures him. “Queenie is still every bit as lovely and laughing and friendly as she always was.”

 

“It’s just things aren’t quite as rosy as she had us believe in her letters.” Hilda says, digging a thumb into the skin of her orange as she starts to peel it.

 

“Or aren’t so much now as they were when she first accepted the position with the Miss Bradleys.” adds Edith.

 

“So what happened then?” Frank asks.

 

“Well, we arrived in Alderley Edge as we’d planned,” Edith begins. ‘And Queenie took us to some lovely tearooms: all fine lace tablecloths and blue and white china.”

 

“You would have liked that, Edith.”

 

“Oh I did, Frank.”

 

“However, it was the attitude of our hostess and the other diners that we didn’t like.” adds Hilda seriously.

 

“What do you mean?” Frank queries blackly. “What were they like?”

 

“They were… well, they were terrible, Frank!” Edith admits.

 

“They were all so snobbish.” Hilda says.

 

“And we were made to feel guilty for dining there, just because we are maids, and aren’t the mistresses who engage them.” Edith adds.

 

“That’s awful! You shouldn’t be made to feel any less of a person, just because you have to earn your living.” Frank says hotly. “You’ve just as much right to eat there as any lady!”

 

“You are sweet, Frank.” Edith wraps an arm though his and squeezes it comfortingly. “I know that. It’s just they didn’t help us to feel that way, did they Hilda?”

 

“Indeed no.” Hilda agrees.

 

“Well,” Frank huffs. “I may not have a fancy tearoom, or a fancy tea to offer you,” He hoists the thermos in his hand. “But at least no matter who you are, ladies, you will always be welcome with me.” He nods at both women with a serious look.

 

“Thank you, Frank.” Edith murmurs with a grateful smile. “You have no idea how nice it is to be called a lady, when you’ve been made to feel like a drudge.”

 

“I agree!” pipes up Hilda. “Thank you, Frank. You’re a true gentleman, and you’ve restored a little of the dignity I’ve been lacking ever since we left those awful women in those tearooms.”

 

“Ladies,” Frank leaps up from his seat, sweeps his cap from his head and bows before them both. “The pleasure is all mine.”

 

Edith and Hilda laugh at his sweet gesture towards them.

 

“I only wish I had a smart motor like your Mr. Channon, Hilda and I’d drive you both home.”

 

“It doesn’t matter, Frank.” Edith assures him. “It’s just good to be home in London amongst friends again.”

 

*Manchester Central railway station is a former railway station in Manchester city centre. One of Manchester\'s main railway terminals between 1880 and 1969, it has been converted into an exhibition and conference centre. The station was built between 1875 and 1880 by the Cheshire Lines Committee, and was officially opened on the first of July 1880. The architect was Sir John Fowler. The station\'s roof is a single span wrought iron truss structure 550 feet long with a span of 210 feet, and was 90 feet high at its apex above the railway tracks. Glass covered the middle section, timber (inside) and slate (outside) covered the outer quarters. The end screens were glazed with timber boarding surrounding the outer edges.

 

**When we think of thermos flasks these days we are often reminded of the plaid and gawdy floral varieties that existed in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Invented in 1892 by Sir James Dewar, a scientist at Oxford University, the "vacuum flask" was not manufactured for commercial use until 1904, when two German glass blowers formed Thermos GmbH. They held a contest to name the "vacuum flask" and a resident of Munich submitted "Thermos", which came from the Greek word "Therme" meaning "hot". In 1907, Thermos GmbH sold the Thermos trademark rights to three independent companies: The American Thermos Bottle Company of Brooklyn, New York; Thermos Limited of Tottenham, England; Canadian Thermos Bottle Co. Ltd. of Montreal, Canada. The three Thermos companies operated independently of each other, yet developed the Thermos vacuum flask into a widely sought after product that was taken on many famous expeditions, including: Schackelton\'s trip to the South Pole; Lieutenant Robert E. Peary\'s trip to the Arctic; Colonel Roosevelt\'s expedition to Mombassa and into the heart of the African Congo with Richard Harding Davis. It even became airborne when the Wright Brothers took it up in their airplane and Count Zepplin carried it up in his air balloon.

 

***”Blood and Bandages” is an architectural style that was popular before the First World War where buildings are constructed of layers of red brick with intervening white stone dressings. Normally Portland Stone is used for the “bandages”, but in some cases white plaster rendering or tiling was popular. The rather macabre description of the late Victorian style came about as a result of people comparing the striped red and white of the buildings to the blood and bandages seen so commonly during the First World War.

 

****A hope chest, also called dowry chest, cedar chest, trousseau chest, or glory box is a piece of furniture once commonly used by unmarried young women to collect items, such as clothing and household linen, in anticipation of married life.

 

This scene may look like one you could just walk into and sit down in, but it is not all that it seems, for it is in fact made up entirely with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun thing to look for in this tableau include:

 

The travel advertisements along the wall are all 1:12 size posters made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken is known mostly for the 1;12 miniature books he created. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but he also produced other items, including posters. All of these are genuine copies of real inter-war Art Deco travel posters put out by the different British railways to promote travelling on them. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make these items 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.

 

The brick wall upon which they are stuck is a very special piece, and one of my more recent additions to my miniatures collection. Made painstakingly by hand, this was made by my very dear Flickr friend and artist Kim Hagar (BKHagar *Kim*), she surprised me with this amazing piece entitled “Wall” as a Christmas gift, with the intention that I use it in my miniatures photos. Each brick has been individually cut and then worn to give texture before being stuck to the backing board and then painted. She has created several floors in the same way for some of her own miniature projects which you can see in her “In Miniature” album here: www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/albums/721777203007....

 

All the luggage you see on the brick walkway are artisan pieces made by different unknown artists. All of them I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the united kingdom. The deer head walking stick, the fawn coloured parasol and Mary Poppins style parrot head umbrella are also artisan miniatures and were acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop as was the knitting which sits at the foot of the brown gladstone bag in the centre of the picture.

 

Edith’s green handbag and Hilda’s brown one are handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.

 

The black umbrella came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

 

The oranges are hand made and came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, as did the small wooden crate. The Thermos flask (which has a screw top lid that works and two cups that fit atop it like a real Thermos flask) came as part of another picnic set I acquired from a miniatures collector through E-Bay.

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 at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is visiting her family home for Christmas and has stayed on to celebrate New Year’s Eve with them as well. Lettice is nursing a broken heart. 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. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and has been welcomed home with open and loving arms by her family for Christmas and the New Year.

 

It is New Year’s Eve 1923 and Lord Wrexham and Lady Sadie are hosting a lavish dinner party in the Georgian Glynes dining room. The grand room is cosy and warm with a roaring fire blazing in the white marble fireplace decorated with garlands of greenery and red satin bows decorated with golden baubles. Lady Sadie has taken some of the best red and white roses from the Glynes hothouses and filled vases with them around the room, giving the entire room a very festive appearance. Their sweet fragrance fills the air, a constant that intermixes with the aromas of each of the eight courses of the New Year dinner prepared in the Glynes kitchen by the Chetwynd’s cook, Mrs, Carsterton and her staff. The Chippendale dining table has been extended by an extra two leaves to allow for additional guests, and under the glow of the crystal chandelier above and candelabras along the table, glassware, gilt edged crockery and silver flatware gleam in the golden light.

 

The room is filled with vociferous conversation and laughter as the guests sit around the table, the formality of Lord Wrexham and Lady Sadie at either end as prescribed in the etiquette required of grander dinners, replaced with the informality of a family dinner, with the guests sitting wherever they please, although the Viscount still presides from his favourite carver at the head of the table. Joining them, in addition to Lettice, are the Chetwynd’s eldest son and heir, Leslie, his wife Arabella, her mother, the now widowed Lady Isobel, and Arabella’s elder brother and best friend to Leslie, Nigel, the newly minted Lord Tyrwhitt. Also, at the table sits Lettice’s elder sister Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally) and her husband Charles Lanchenbury. Joining them at the Glynes dining table are the Brutons, whose estate adjoins the Glynes Estate: Lord Bruton, Lady Gweneth, their eldest son Roland, and Lettice’s best childhood chum, their second son Gerald, who like Lettice has moved to London, and designs gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. Finally to make up the numbers at the table is the Viscount’s younger bohemian artistic sister, Eglantyne (affectionately known as Aunt Egg by her nieces and nephews).

 

Bramley, the Chetwynd’s faithful butler, assisted by Moira, one of the head parlour maids who has taken to assisting wait table at breakfast, luncheon and on informal occasions since the war, serve the third course of the evening: beautifully cooked moist roast beef with roasted potatoes, pumpkin, boiled carrots and peas. They serve the beef course, moving adeptly between the guests, who in spite of it being an informal occasion, are still dressed in full evening wear with the men in dinner jackets and white waistcoats and women a-glitter with jewels over their gowns.

 

“You know, Tice” Lally remarks to Lettice as she accepts the white gilt edged gravy boat of Mrs. Carsterton’s thick dark gravy from Lettice. “I don’t think Pappa and Mamma have thrown a New Year’s Eve dinner party since 1919.”

 

“Oh no, they did Lally,” corrects her sister kindly as she picks up her knife and fork. “It’s just you weren’t here.”

 

“When?” Lally asks, unable to keep the slight tone of offense out of her question as she drizzles gravy over her roast beef and vegetables.

 

“Two years ago,” her sister clarifies. “But you and Charles were at another party on New Year’s Eve 1921. It was much smaller too, with only Lord and Lady Bruton, Gerald and I in attendance.”

 

“Pardon me for overhearing,” Charles, Lally’s husband pipes up from his seat to the right of his wife, leaning in slightly as he speaks, champagne glass in hand. “But that was the year Father opened up Lanchenbury House for New Year for that rather… ahem!” He clears his throat awkwardly as he contemplates the correct word to use. “Artistic ball. Remember Lally?”

 

“Oh that’s right. Lord Lanchenbury threw a party in 1921. One of his rare moments largesse.” Lally remembers.

 

“Indeed yes.” her husband concurs with a scornful scoff. “Very rare.” He then returns his attention to Lettice and Lally’s Aunt Egg to his right.

 

“It was too good an opportunity for Charles and I to miss,” Lally goes on. “With him throwing open the doors of Lanchenbury house.” She muses, “I have to take my hat off to my father-in-law: it really was a rather marvellous party, full of interesting and artistic people. I’m quite sure Aunt Egg would have loved it.”

 

“Lord Lanchenbury never struck me as the artistic type, Lally.” Lettice remarks in surprise, cutting into her slice of roasted beef. “What with his serious nature, those glowering looks of his he gives us at any sign of perceived levity, and those old fashioned Victorian mutton chops of his*.”

 

“Oh he isn’t.” Lally replies assuredly picking up her own cutlery. “I think most of them were the friends of his Gaiety Girl** paramour of the moment, and her hangers-on, and their hangers on again. It really was quite bohemian.” Lally smiles as her sister suddenly blushes over her roast beef course.

 

“Lally!” Lettice gasps, glancing anxiously first at their father sitting next to her at the head of the table and then through the sparkling icicle crystal pendalogues*** of the candelabra in front of her and looks warily at their mother. Fortunately the Viscount is too busy greedily dissecting the slice of roast beef with fervour on the plate before him, and thankfully Lady Sadie seems to be engrossed in conversation with Leslie. “Really!”

 

“What?” queries her sibling with a peal of laughter. “Don’t tell me that I’ve shocked you again, Tice, with talk of my father-in-law’s penchant for a little paid companionship?”

 

“Well no.” lettice gulps. “But,” she adds, lowering her voice. “At the dinner table, Lally? In front of…” She eyes her parents. “Really? I’d hate for Pater or Mater to hear.”

 

“Oh Pater is too deaf, and Mater too self-absorbed in her own conversation.” Lally assures her sister.

 

As if on cue, her father pipes up gruffly, “What’s that Lally?”

 

Always quick with a smooth honeyed reply, Lettice’s elder sister answers, “I was just saying how good it is of you to throw a dinner party for all of us on New Year’s Eve, Pappa.”

 

“Of course it’s good of me.” her father mutters in self-satisfied reply. “Still, what’s the point of having a big, rambling old house like this if I can’t occasionally fill it with noise, laughter and Bright Young People**** according to my whims?” He reaches out his right hand and lovingly wraps it around his youngest daughter’s left hand as she lets go of her silver fork. “Eh?” He smiles beatifically at Lettice.

 

“Thank you, Pappa.” Lettice mutters as he lets go of her hand and she retrieves her fork from where it leans against the ruffled gilt edged rim of her plate. “It’s very kind of you.”

 

“Well, after the year we’ve all had, what with poor Sherbourne being gone, I felt it was important to bring us all together as a family.” He smiles at Lettice meaningfully again before resuming the dissection of his roast beef.

 

Lally looks ponderingly first at her sister, then her father and then back at her sister again. She waits a moment or two before asking in a whisper into her sister’s diamond earring bejewelled ear, “What was that all about, Tice?”

 

“I think Pater has an ulterior motive for hosting tonight, beyond the superficial idea of gathering us all together in the wake of Uncle Sherbourne’s death.” Lettice whispers in reply.

 

“Really?” Lally asks. “Do go on.”

 

“I think he also wanted to throw it for me, you see,” Lettice elucidates quietly. “To cheer me up. He paid me so much attention when I came home to Glynes after finding out what Lady Zinnia did with Selwyn to break our association.”

 

“Ahh.” Lally remarks, placing a morsel of beef and roast potato mixed with gravy on her tongue. She chews for a few moments, contemplating, before swallowing and continuing, “Well that makes sense. It’s very good of him to do it for you. Then again, you always were his favourite.”

 

“Lally!”

 

“It’s true, Tice,” Lally replies with a shrug of her shoulders. “But I bear no grudge. I was Granny Chetwynd’s favourite. We all have our favourites in life, even if it is prescribed that we aren’t supposed to.”

 

“Well, there was never any love lost between Granny Chetwynd and I. She was always so mean to me, whilst she doted on you, Lally. I think you could have spilt the contents of the whole gravy boat into the lap of a dress she bought you, and she would fuss over you.” Lettice declares. “Whereas if I spilt so much as a drop outside the rim of my plate, she’d loudly threaten to send me back to the nursery for the transgression.”

 

“Yes, I remember that, Tice. She could be horribly cutting with that acerbic tongue.”

 

“What do you mean by it being prescribed that we shouldn’t have favourites, Lally?”

 

“Oh well, as a parent, I’m constantly reminded by my friends not to have a favourite child.”

 

“But you do?” Lettice ventures gently.

 

“Of course, my dear! As my first born, and thankfully heir to appease Lord Lanchenbury, Harrold is my favourite.” A peal of joyful laughter erupts from her lips. “Surely you knew that, Tice.”

 

“No, I didn’t suspect that at all.”

 

“Well, it all evens out,” Lally replies, popping another mouthful of roast into her mouth, before continuing after swallowing, “Because Annabelle is her father’s favourite without question. Isn’t that right, my dear?” She addresses the question to her husband as she nudges him in the ribs with her elbow to get his attention.

 

“What’s that, my love?” Charles asks, leaning over to his wife.

 

“I was just telling Tice that Harrold is my favourite and Annabelle is yours, Charles.”

 

He looks almost apologetically across at Lettice. “I’m afraid it’s true, Tice. I can’t help but have a soft spot for her.”

 

Lettice laughs at her brother-in-law’s face as it softens with love for his daughter. “Whatever will you do, now that you have a third child?” She takes a sip of sparkling champagne.

 

“Oh don’t worry,” Lally pipes up. “Whilst he’s a baby, Tarquin is Nanny’s new favourite, so it all works out rather splendidly.”

 

“Quite splendidly.” agrees Charles. “And who knows, perhaps once he has formed into a forthright young man, he may even please my father enough to become his favourite.”

 

“Now let’s not wish that upon the poor baby.” Lally protests with a laugh.

 

Lettice takes a morsel of roasted potato and allows the delicious flavour to fill her mouth as she looks around her.

 

Her father sits happily at the head of the table in his favourite carver chair, enjoying playing host for his family and extended family, the pleasure clear on his face as he takes a mouthful of roast and washes it down with some red wine from his glass. To the Viscount’s left, Lady Sadie sits, dressed in a fine silk chiné gown of pastel pinks, blues and lilacs, a glass of champagne held daintily to her lips, ropes of pearls gracing her throat and tumbling down her front, as she listens to her favourite child, Leslie. Leslie in turn, the golden child, both figuratively and literally with his sandy blonde Chetwynd hair like Lettice’s, glows in the attention of his mother’s thrall as he talks about his plans for the Glynes estate for 1924.

 

To his left, Leslie’s wife, Arabella focusses upon her own mother, Lady Isobel, next to her. The recent death of Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt has left its mark upon Arabella and Lady Isobel. Both seem somewhat diminished as they lean their heads together, Arabella’s raven waves held with diamond clips at odds to her mother’s white ones, pinned up with pearls and gold. Lettice wonders how soon it will be before Arabella announces that she is pregnant. She knows her parents are most anxious that the pair settle down to start creating a family. On the other side of their mother, the new Lord Tyrwhitt, Nigel, sits quietly paying attention to what Lady Isobel is saying, his solicitousness towards his mother creating a pang in Lettice’s heart. She silently wonders what Nigel’s plans are for the Tyrwhitt Estate that borders that of Glynes. She knows that Nigel is trying valiantly to fill his father’s shoes, but she also knows that he is struggling to do so, particularly in light of how much in debt the new young lord finds himself. What will 1924 have in store?

 

Further down the table beyond an arrangement of Lady Sadie’s best red hothouse roses, Gerald sits. He catches Lettice glancing in his general direction, and he blows her a silent kiss as he winks conspiratorially at her. Unlike Arabella, Lady Isobel and Nigel, 1923 has been a good year for her oldest and dearest childhood chum. His small couturier in Grosvenor Street is finally starting to turn a profit, giving him the independence that he has craved since the end of the Great War, freeing him from the noose of his father’s household’s somewhat straitened financial circumstances. Whilst Gerald’s Grosvenor Street premises might still be furnished with the suite from Bruton House’s drawing room, Lettice feels it will only be a matter of time before she will be designing a new interior for him. Gerald has found new purpose in life, helping his young protégée Harriet Milford to build her millinery business in Putney, whilst at the same time pursuing a romantic interlude with one of Harriet’s boarders, the fey young oboist, Cyril. Whilst Gerald and Cyril must keep their love behind closed doors, shared only with the most trusted coterie of friends like Lettice and Harriet, Lettice is still happy that Gerald has found love at last, even if it is in in middle-class Putney.

 

Next to Gerald, at the foot of the table, his father, Lord Bruton sits, gruffly masticating his roast dinner. Even with his usual growliness, Gerald’s father seems to be in a cheerier mood this evening than Lettice has seen him in as of late. Earlier in the evening, Gerald attributed his good mood to a mixture of Lettice’s father’s largesse with his wine cellar and the successful sale of yet another parcel of the Bruton Estate, the funds raised which are finally being invested in much needed repairs to Bruton Hall’s roof. Whilst Lettice cannot not say that the Brutons have shed themselves of their penurious state of financial affairs, at least this time the money has not been frittered away by Gerald’s elder wastrel of a brother Roland, who sits opposite his brother in a state of ennui that he has no wish to hide from anyone. Doubtless he has an assignation planned with a local girl from the village, Lettice surmises.

 

To Roland’s left, his and Gerald’s mother Lady Gwenyth is also in good cheer as she twitters happily away with Aunt Egg. The two women are such opposites in some ways: Ant Egg’s angular features at odds with the soft jowly folds of Lady Gwenyth, Aunt Egg dressed in the bohemian style of one of her uncorseted Delphos dresses**** – much to the distaste of Lady Sadie – in a rich cherry red that almost matches Lady Sadie’s roses, and Lady Gwenyth arrayed in an old fashioned pre-war high necked gown of fading pastel satin. Yet they have in common the shared experience of a similar timeline, and it seems to bond them together strongly.

 

Next to Aunt Egg, Charles sips champagne quietly as he contemplates what 1924 holds for the Lanchenbury Tea business. Ever since Maison Lyonses****** at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue accepted Lord Lanchenbury’s Georgian Afternoon Tea blend to serve as their own on the beverages menu, he can’t seem to supply enough of the stuff for the tea drinking populace of London. He and Charles are looking to expand the tea export business in India, and already Lally has indicated that Charles will be setting sail for Bombay yet again in the early New Year.

 

And then next to Lettice is her elder sister, Lally. The sisters were once bitter enemies, thanks to some mischievous one-upmanship put in place by their mother, injecting poison into their relationship, but luckily for them they worked out what their mother was about and now Lettice feels closer to Lally than she has ever been.

 

“I say, Tice.” Lally says, breaking into Lettice’s deep contemplations. “Look, I know what Mater suggested you do in Selwyn’s absence.”

 

“You mean getting on with things, or trying to at any rate?” Lettice replies a little downheartedly.

 

“Yes.” Lally replies. “And you’ve done a splendid job of it from what I can gather.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“But you must surely be longing for somewhere quiet just be yourself, broken heart and al, for these next few weeks after Christmas, and New Year.”

 

“Well that’s why I’ve come home to Glynes for Christmas and New Year, Lally. I always use Glynes as a place to retreat to, broken heart or not.”

 

“Yes, but you’ll be under Mater’s watchful eye.”

 

“And Pappa’s caring ministrations.” Lettice adds.

 

“Well, Pater isn’t the only one who can provide caring ministrations, Tice.”

 

“What are you trying to ask, Lally?”

 

“Well, with Charles going back to India with Lord Lanchenbury shortly, I wondered if you wouldn’t care to come and stay with me at Dorrington House for a few weeks. We had such a jolly time of it with the children after Uncle Sherbourne’s funeral, don’t you think?”

 

“Oh!” gasps Lettice, her right hand flying to her mouth. “Oh I’d love to, Lally! Thank you!”

 

“Excellent!” Lally claps her bejewelled hands together. “That settles it then. You’ll come stay with us after we leave here in a few days, and you can just be yourself. If that’s happy then all the better, and I hope that the children and I can create a good distraction for you. However, if you just want some quiet time alone with a change in scenery, then that’s perfectly acceptable too.”

 

“Ahem!” the Viscount clears his throat noisily and having finished his own plate of roast beef and vegetables, rises to his feet, the carver chair legs scraping across the parquet dining room floor shrilly. He taps his empty water glass with his marrow scoop******* “Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you all for your attention please,”

 

Everyone at the table pauses their conversation and all heads turn to the head of the table.

 

“After a year full of ups and downs,” the Viscount calls out loudly with his booming orator’s voice, usually reserved for the House of Lords, glancing first at Arabella and Lady Isobel, and then at Lettice, who blushes under her father’s concerned gaze. “I would just like to take this opportunity, whilst we are all seated together, to wish everyone here present, a very happy and prosperous nineteen twenty-four. However, since Sadie’s superstitious ideas,” He glances with mock criticism at his wife before reaching out his hand to her, which she takes lovingly. “Won’t allow me to wish you a happy new year until midnight, may I instead wish everyone good health and fortunes.”

 

“Good health and fortunes!” everyone echoes as they raise their glasses and clink them together happily.

 

*After a modest start in 1828 as a smoking room and soon afterwards as a coffee house, Simpson's-in-the-Strand achieved a dual fame, around 1850, for its traditional English food, particularly roast meats, and also as the most important venue in Britain for chess in the Nineteenth Century. Chess ceased to be a feature after Simpson's was bought by the Savoy Hotel group of companies at the end of the Nineteenth Century, but as a purveyor of traditional English food, Simpson's has remained a celebrated dining venue throughout the Twentieth Century and into the Twenty-First Century. P.G. Wodehouse called it "a restful temple of food"

 

**Nineteenth Century sideburns were often far more extravagant than those seen today, similar to what are now called mutton chops, but considerably more extreme. In period literature, "side whiskers" usually refers to this style, in which the whiskers hang well below the jaw line. The classic mutton chop is a type of beard in which the sideburns are grown out to the cheeks, leaving the moustache, soul patch, and chin clean-shaven. As with beards, sideburns went quickly out of fashion in the early Twentieth Century. In World War I, in order to secure a seal on a gas mask, men had to be clean-shaven; this did not affect moustaches.

 

***Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.

 

****Chandelier and candelabra crystals, which can be cut and polished into various shapes and sizes, are called pendalogues, though sometimes it's spelled pendeloques. Some common cuts of pendalogue include: Octagon: has eight sides and features various shapes of facet in tandem.

 

*****The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.

 

******The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. It was championed by more artistic women who did not wish to conform to society’s constraints and wear a tightly fitting corset.

 

*******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 marrow scoop was one of a number of utensils designed to serve and eat marrow, the jelly from beef bones. The savoury fattiness of marrow was highly prized and with the refinement of table manners in the Seventeenth Century, new implements evolved for eating it more elegantly. Marrow scoops were made in large numbers in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. In Victorian Edinburgh, for example, enthusiasts met at the Marrow Bone Club and each member had a heavy silver scoop ornamented with marrow bones. The marrow scoop was made in two forms. The first was a single-ended scoop with one narrow channel and a handle; this was easier to hold. The second was the double-ended scoop, where the unequal width of the channel enabled marrow to be extracted from large and small bones. Early pieces were broader and smaller than the elegant, elongated scoops of the mid and late Eighteenth Century. In the next century they were often made to match the rest of the cutlery service.

 

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, this festive upper-class country house dinner party scene is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Chippendale dining room table and matching chairs are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.

 

The table is set for a lavish Edwardian dinner party of eight courses when we are just witnessing the fourth course, a meat course, as it is served, using cutlery, from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. The delicious looking roast dinner on the dinner plates, and the boat of gravy on the tabletop have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The red wine glasses bought them from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The white wine glasses I have had since I was a teenager. Also spun from real glass, I acquired them from a high street stockist of doll house and miniature pieces. The three prong candelabra with crystal lustres I acquired from the same shop at the same time. The glasses of champagne are also made from real glass and were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The empty champagne flutes, also made of real glass, I acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The central hand spun glass bowl containing Lady Sadie's red roses also came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures, as did all the roses around the room. The two single candelabras are sterling silver artisan miniatures, and came with their own hand made beeswax candles! The silver gravy boat and the cruet set on the table have been made with great attention to detail, and comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.

 

The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster. The Christmas garland hanging from it was hand made by husband and wife artistic team Margie and Mike Balough who own Serendipity Miniatures in Newcomerstown, Ohio. On the mantlepiece stand two 1950s Limoges vases. Both are stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. These treasures I found in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. A third vase stands on the edge of a bonheur de jour to the left of the photo. Also standing on the mantlepiece are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, hand painted and gilded by me. There is also a dome anniversary clock in the middle of the mantlepiece which I bought the same day that I bought the fireplace.

 

To the left of the photo stands an artisan bonheur de jour (French lady's writing desk). A gift from my Mother when I was in my twenties, she had obtained this beautiful piece from an antique auction. Made in the 1950s of brass it is very heavy. It is set with hand-painted enamel panels featuring Rococo images. Originally part of a larger set featuring a table and chairs, or maybe a settee as well, individual pieces from these hand-painted sets are highly collectable and much sought after. I never knew this until the advent of E-Bay!

 

The Hepplewhite chair with the lemon satin upholstery in the background was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

All the paintings around the Glynes dining room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s.

...Really Good on the fourth plinth, Trafalgar Square.

 

What is being elucidated here? "For it is to this signified that it is given to designate as a whole the effect of there being a signified, insamuch as it conditions any such effect by its presence as signifier" - Jacques Lacan, The Meaning of the Phallus

 

Olympus OM-2, Zuiko 50mm f/1.4, Fuji Superia 400

Installation: Paint, Marker and Spray Paint on Plastic.

 

In the context of capitalism at its best, there has been a tendency to try to compensate for the lack of pleasant places with fragmented nature, devices that respond to the eternal need to contain the natural.

All these places, it is worth mentioning, not in abundance and are concentrated in the areas where people have more money lives.

Very different from the reality of my home where, as we were growing up, it gradually transformed into a space of transience and absence of identity, as result of the lack of space and the need to divide all fairly, not there was never a place for privacy. It may well be called my home as a non-place.

The work presented, although I think as a facility is built using a traditional technique: the drawing. As it allows me illustrate the two poles that I seek to portray the one hand the architectural dimensions and the spatial organization of the elements arranged in my home, where the set of lines, spots and planes make essentially the representation of objects with the intention of provide enough information so that the viewer can get a rough idea of ​​the situation described. And, simultaneously, it gives me the opportunity to compose a picture of the Chilean landscape, consisting of fifteen images corresponding to paintings from different Chilean artists of the nineteenth century, which I joined in a result that simulates a panoramic describing the landscape "of Chileans ".

To elucidate my purposes and enrich the interpretation that can be given to the work I worked on conceptualizing some of its aspects. One is support, polyethylene, although it has more than one use, is recognized for its low price material and its ability to protect and insulate, powers that make it a usable material in constructions poor to be more efficient than effective, more deplorable than noble, more needy than loved.

In addition to its multiple uses polyethylene it is characterized by the transparency (relative to its density or thickness) which allowed me to form a picture of my home composed of several drawings of spaces and objects, overlapping layer after layer while showing what in each (at least not completely), but only adding perspectives. Thus I seek to make an analogy between these layers and the difficulties to slip into the causes and products of overcrowding and segregation. These surfaces also necessary to mention it, aim to gradually cover her each other, as if we were talking about the provision acquires home after handling of the members, being a nice metaphor for the coverage of the personal and identity of each one, replaced by widespread homogeneity of this non-place.

 

The sand also as support for the view of the Chilean landscape to distinguish that this is an appointment to nineteenth-century painters like Valenzuela Llanos, Onofre Jarpa, Smith, Orrego Luco, etc. With a greater purpose than expose their representation, because what is shown is the different relationship we have regarding the landscape, because for them, in most cases it was a matter of painting their land because it only landowners Thus, through the extraction of sand, I express my belief about a kidnapped landscape, which we believe, naively, possess, but which do not get hardly any satisfaction or enjoyment. Then the action of scraping the sand should be understood as a poetic component, evidence of the stolen and longed for.

This action is not only present in the sand but I decided to also use it to resolve household drawings, functioning as materially tool to translate the objects represented and also functioning to give expression to the drawing.

A central axis of the speech in the play is the problem of individual development under certain circumstances, how does this affect in the empirical and why our relationship with nature needs to be consolidated. If this has not happened is definitely product that blindly believe that as individuals we are disconnected from the external to us, the authorities and society in general, as if we were free to express our thoughts and emotions. (Fromm says this is dissipated from small)

In short, one could say that the work seeks to question the fact that we are in the most unjust as capital country and therefore the privileges it generates, the gap between the poor and the rich, in a place where equity is farther than in any other region of the planet. This condition being the origin of this project, which seeks to account for what disturbs me as a person and as artist.

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’s, parents live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street. 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. Whilst far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, the Harlesden terrace has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith and her brother, Bert.

 

Whilst Edith made a wonderful impression when she met Mrs. McTavish, her young beau Frank Leadbetter’s grandmother, less can be said for Frank who whilst pleasing George, rubbed Ada the wrong way at the Sunday roast lunch Edith organised with her parents to meet Frank. Ever since then, Frank has been filled with remorse for speaking his mind a little more freely than he ought to have in front of Edith’s mother. Finally, Edith hit upon a possible solution to their problem, which is to introduce Mrs. McTavish to George and Ada. Being a kind old lady who makes lace, Edith and Frank both hope that Mrs. McTavish will be able to impress upon Ada what a nice young man Frank is, in spite of his more forward-thinking ideas, which jar with Ada’s ways of thinking, and assure her how happy he makes Edith. After careful planning, today is the day that George and Ada will meet Mrs. McTavish, over a Sunday lunch served in the Watsford’s kitchen.

 

The kitchen has always been the heart of Edith’s family home, and today it has an especially comfortable and welcoming feeling about it, just as Edith had hoped for. Ada has once again pulled out one of her best tablecloths which now adorns the round kitchen table, hiding its worn surface and the best blue and white china and gilded dinner service is being used today. At Edith’s request, because Mrs. McTavish’s teeth are too brittle to manage a roast chicken for lunch, Ada has cooked a rich and flavoursome beef stew to which she has added some of her large suet dumplings: a suitably delicious meal that is soft enough for the old Scottish lady to consume even with her weak teeth. Now the main course is over, and everyone has had their fill.

 

“Well, I hope you have all had sufficient to eat.” Ada announces, pushing her Windsor chair back across the flagstones and standing up from at her white linen draped kitchen table.

 

“Och!” exclaims Mrs. McTavish. “I’ve had plenty, thank you Mrs. Watsford.” She rubs her belly contentedly. “Thank you for cooking something I could manage with my old teeth.”

 

“It’s my pleasure, Mrs. McTavish,” Ada says with a warm smile. “My family enjoy my hearty beef stews, so it was no hardship to serve it.”

 

“Well your suet dumplings are lovely and soft, Mrs. Watsford.” the Scotswoman croons in her rolling brogue. “If you’d be willing to share the recipe, I’d like to try and make them for myself at home.”

 

“Yes, of course, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada enthuses, pleased to be able to share one of her many wonderful recipes, as she has done over the years with her daughter as she has grown up.

 

“That was a fine Sunday tea, Ada.” acknowledges her husband as he tops up his and Frank’s glasses with stout from the glazed brown pottery jug on the table.

 

“Why thank you, love.” Ada replies, blushing at the compliment as she runs her clammy hands down the front of her dress, a small outward display of nervousness known only to her family.

 

“Possibly one of your best yet, love.” George adds in an assuring fashion, noticing his wife’s action and recognising its symbolism.

 

“Yes, thank you Mrs. Watsford,” agrees Frank politely. “It was a delicious lunch, and more than enough for me. Thanks ever so!”

 

“Oh I hope you’ll have room for some of my cherry pie, Frank,” Ada says. “Edith told me you liked it so much the first time you had it here, that I made it for you again.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure I can squeeze in a slice, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank assures her.

 

“Thank you Mum.” smiles Edith up at her mother.

 

Edith is so grateful to her mother for all her efforts for the day. Not only was Ada easily convinced of the idea of meeting Frank’s grandmother, Mrs. McTavish, but that she readily agreed to hosting a Sunday lunch for her and produced a fine repast. Edith had helped her mother polish the silver cutlery on her Wednesday off, so it was sparkling as it sat alongside Ada’s best plates and glasses. To top it all off, Frank has bought a bunch of beautifully bright flowers on route from collecting his grandmother from her home in Upton Park to the Watsford’s home in Harlesden. Now they stood in the middle of the table in a glass bottle that serves as a good vase, a perfect centrepiece for Ada’s Sunday best table setting.

 

“Well!” Ada remarks in reply to her company’s satisfied commentary, picking up the now warm enough to touch deep pottery dish containing what little remains of her stew. “I think we might let tea settle down first and then we’ll have some pudding. What do you all say?”

 

Everyone readily agrees.

 

“Alright gentleman,” Ada addresses her husband and Frank, seated next to one another. “You have enough time for a smoke then, before I serve cherry pie. I’ll just pop it in the oven to warm.”

 

“Thanks awfully, Mrs. Watsford, but I don’t smoke.” Frank quickly explains.

 

“Ahh, but I do, Frank my lad.” pipes up George. He stands up and walks behind his wife and reaches up to the high shelf running along the top of the kitchen range and fetches down a small tin of tobacco and a pipe. “Come on, let’s you and I step out into the courtyard for a chat, man-to-man.”

 

“Dad!” Edith exclaims, looking aghast at her father. “Don’t!”

 

“Don’t worry Edith love, I don’t need to ask young Frank here’s intentions.” George chortles, his eyes glittering mischievously beneath his bushy eyebrows. “It’s quite clear he’s mad about you.”

 

“Dad!” Edith gasps again as both she and Frank blush deeply.

 

“That he is,” Mrs. McTavish agrees, reaching across to her grandson and pinching his left cheek as he sinks his head down in embarrassment. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face, my bonny bairn: no mistake.” She smiles indulgently. “Get along with you now Francis!”

 

“Oh Gran!” murmurs Frank self-consciously. “How many timed must I say, I’m Frank now, not Francis.”

 

“Och! Nonsense!” the old Scottish woman says sharply, slapping her grandson’s forearm lightly. “You’ll always be Francis to me, my little bairn!”

 

“Come on Frank my lad,” George encourages the younger man, patting him gently on the back in a friendly way. He picks up his glass of stout. “Let’s leave our womenfolk to chat, and they call you what they like and we’ll be none the wiser for it.”

 

As George, followed by a somewhat reluctant Frank casting doleful looks at Edith, walk out the back door into the rear garden, Ada says, “Edith love, would you mind clearing the table, whilst I set the table for pudding.”

 

“Yes of course, Mum!” Edith replies, leaping into action by pushing back her ladderback chair.

 

“I’m pleased to see you make your husband go outside to smoke, Mrs. Watsford.” the old Scottish woman remarks with a satisfied smile. “I don’t approve of men smoking indoors.” she adds crisply.

 

“No, something told me that I didn’t think you would, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada replies with a bemused smile, not admitting that George usually smokes his pipe in the kitchen after every meal. She and her husband had agreed the night before as they both sat by the kitchen range warming their feet, Ada darning one of George’s socks and George puffing on his pipe pleasantly, that perhaps to give the very best first impression, George should smoke outside in the back garden whilst Mrs. McTavish was visiting.

 

“ ’Nyree’, my husband used to say to me. ‘Nyree, why don’t you let me smoke indoors like other wives let their husbands do?’ I’d always say that Mither* never let Faither** smoke his pipe in the house, so why should I let him?” She nods emphatically.

 

“Nyree,” Ada remarks, turning around from the oven where she has just put her cherry pie, stacked with ripe, juicy berries to warm. “That’s a pretty Scottish name.”

 

“Och,” chuckles Mrs. McTavish. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Watsford, but it’s quite literally as far removed from Scottish as you can get.”

 

“Where does it come from then, Mrs. McTavish?” Ada puts her hands on her hips. “It sounds so lovely.”

 

“Well, my family were fishing people going back many generations, and Faither was a seaman, and he sailed to places far further than the Hebrides*** that took him from home for months at a time when I was a wee bairn. Just before I was born, he came back from what was then the newly formed Colony of New Zealand****. He met some of the local islanders who were struck by his blonde hair. Apparently, they were all dark skinned and had dark hair, so they found him rather fascinating to look at.” She chuckles. “The story he told me years later was that they called him ‘Ngaire’, which he was told by some of his shipmates, who knew more about the natives of the colony, on the return voyage that it meant ‘flaxen’. Some of them told him that they named their own blonde daughters Nyree after the name ‘Ngaire’. So, when I was born, I had blonde hair, if you can believe that now.” She gently pats her carefully set white hair that sweeps out from underneath her old fashioned lace embroidered cap in the style of her youth. “So Faither told Mither that I should be called Nyree. So, Nyree I was.”

 

“What a lovely story, Mrs. McTavish.” Edith remarks, gathering the lunch plates together.

 

“Thank you, Edith dearie. Now, what can I do to help, besides telling old stories?” asks Mrs. McTavish with a groan as she leans her wrists on the edge of the table and starts to push herself somewhat awkwardly out of her chair.

 

“You don’t have to do anything, Mrs. McTavish,” Ada assures her, encouraging the older Scottish woman to resume her seat with a settling gesture. “You are our guest. Edith and I are very used to working together around this old kitchen of ours, aren’t we love?”

 

“Yes Mum.” Edith agrees, gathering up the dinner plates into a stack, scraping any remnants of stew and dumplings onto the top plate using the cutlery as she gathers it.

 

“You’re a good lass, dearie, helping your mam like that.” Mrs. McTavish opines as she settles back comfortably into the well-worn chair usually sat in by George and Ada’s son, Bert.

 

“Oh not really, Mrs. McTavish.” Edith replies dismissively. “Any daughter would help her mum.”

 

“Och, not just any lass, bairn. There are plenty I know of, up round my way, especially those who are domestics like you, who won’t lift a finger unless they have to on their days off. Slovenly creatures!”

 

“Well, I agree with you, Mrs. McTavish. I think that’s very lazy of them, not to mention thoughtless. We all ought to do our bit. Mum made a lovely lunch for us, so it’s only right that I should help tidy up. I’ll help wash the dishes properly later, Mum,” Edith addresses her mother. “I’ll just rinse them and stack them by sink for now.”

 

“Thanks Edith love.” Ada replies gratefully. As she puts out some of her best blue and white floral china cups she addresses Mrs. McTavish. “Yes, Edith’s a good girl, even if she does use fancy words now.” She glances at her daughter. “Lunch rather than tea.” She shakes her head but smiles lovingly. “What next I ask you?” she snorts derisively.

 

“Mum!” Edith utters with an exasperated sigh but is then silenced by her mother’s raised careworn hand.

 

“And her dad and I are very proud of her, Mrs. McTavish.”

 

“Now, thinking of Edith and being proud of your bairns,” Mrs. McTavish starts. “When Edith and Francis came to visit me at Upton Park the other week to suggest this lovely gathering of our two clans, such as they are,” She clears her throat with a growl and speaks a little louder and more strongly. “They told me, Mrs. Watsford, that you and your husband were a bit concerned about some of Francis’ more,” She pauses whilst she tries to think of the right word to use. “Radical, ideas.”

 

“Mrs. McTavish!” Edith exclaims, spinning around from the trough where she is rinsing the dishes, her eyes wide with fear as to what the old Scottish woman is about to say.

 

“Now, now, my lass!” The old Scottish woman holds up her gnarled hands with their elongated fingers in defence before reaching about herself and adjusting the beautiful lace shawl draped over her shoulders that she made herself when she was younger. “I won’t have any secrets between your mam and me if we’re to be friends, which I do hope we will be.” She turns in her seat and addresses Ada as the younger woman puts out the glazed teapot in the shape of a cottage with a thatched roof with the chimney as the lid that Edith bought for her from the Caledonian Markets*****. “When your Edith and my Francis came to visit me at home, and broached the subject of me coming here for tea, they suggested that I might be a calming voice that would soothe your disquiet about my Francis and his more unusual ideas.”

 

“Did they indeed?” Ada asks with pursed lips and a cocked eyebrow, looking at her daughter’s back as she stands at the trough, dutifully rinsing dishes with such diligence that she doesn’t have to turn around and face her mother.

 

“Now, don’t be cross with them, Mrs. Watsford.” Mrs. McTavish reaches out her left hand and grasps Ada’s right in it, starting the younger woman as much by the intimate gesture she wasn’t expecting as by how cold the older woman’s hand is. “You mustn’t blame them.” She turns and looks with affection at Edith’s back. “They are young, and in love after all. When your bràmair***** is perceived less than favourably by the other’s mam or da, you can hardly blame them for wanting to smooth the waves of concern, can you?”

 

“Well, I don’t know if I approve of them telling you what my feelings are about your grandson behind my back.” Ada folds her arms akimbo.

 

“Ahh, now Mrs. Watsford,” Mrs. McTavish says soothingly. “You were young and in love once too. Don’t deny it!” She wags her finger at Ada. “I believe you met Mr. Watsford at a parish picnic.”

 

“Yes, we both worship at All Souls****** and met at a picnic in Roundwood Park*******.” Ada smiles fondly at the memory of her in her flouncy Sunday best dress and George in a smart suit and derby sitting on the lush green lawns of the park.

 

“And no doubt if your mam or da was set against Mr. Watsford, you would have done anything to convince them otherwise.” Mrs. McTavish continues.

 

“Well, I didn’t have to. George was, and still is, a model of a husband.” Ada counters quickly.

 

“That may well be true, Mrs. Watsford, and I’m happy for you.” The old Scotswoman pauses. “But you would have, if he had been less that the perfect specimen of husband that he is.” She cocks a white eyebrow as she looks earnestly at Edith’s mother.

 

“Yes, I suppose I would have, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada concedes with a sigh.

 

“So, I have come today to plead my grandson’s case with you.” Mrs. McTavish announces plainly.

 

“I’d hardly call your son’s attitudes a case that requires pleading before me, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada scoffs in surprise at the old woman’s words.

 

“Well, you’ll forgive me for seeing things from a different perspective, Mrs. Watsford.” the Scotswoman elucidates. “For you see, from where I am sitting, it seems to me that Mr. Watsford quite likes Francis. They both have a common enjoyment of reading books, even if my Francis likes reading more serious books than the murder mysteries your husband prefers. You on the other hand are judge and jury, sitting in judgement of my Francis’ ideas because they are at odds to your own.”

 

“I think I see where he gets some of his outspokenness, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada remarks before turning away from her guest at picking up a blue and white floral milk jug from the great Welsh dresser behind her.

 

“Aye. I’ll not deny it, Mrs. Watsford. His parents, my husband and I all taught Francis to speak his mind and not be afraid to do so. I suppose we all come across a little bit abrasively as a clan to some, but we all have,” She pauses and smiles sadly. “Or rather, had, quite strong personalities and opinions about things. We all believed in free speech, so long as it is respectful. Now, Francis’ faither was the one who really encouraged him to look beyond his place in life though. He was a costermonger******** down in Covent Garden, but he always wanted to provide a better life for his wife and son. If ever he was sick, just like if his wife, my daughter, Mairi,” she clarifies. “Or I were sick, we couldn’t earn a shilling. I taught Mairi to sew lace like me, but all we ever got was piecemeal work, and it’s still the same for me today. Anyway, Francis’ faither taught his son to look for more stable work with someone else and then to save his pennies and perhaps one day own his own shop, rather than be a costermonger with a cart on the streets like him. And that is why Francis is always looking to improve himself. He’s looking for an opportunity to provide a good and steady income and a good life for your Edith.”

 

Edith turns back from rinsing the dishes and holding her breath watches the two other women in the kitchen: Mrs. McTavish, pale and wrinkled wrapped up in a froth of handmade lace and her mother standing over her, a thoughtful look on her face as she listens.

 

“Well,” Ada remarks after a few moments of deliberation. “I do find your grandson’s desire to improve himself admirable, even if my own aspirations don’t stretch to such lofty heights as his own. George and I are quite comfortable and happy with our lot.”

 

“But…” Mrs. McTavish prompts.

 

“But I find some of his ideas… disconcerting.”

 

“Such as?”

 

“Such as his talking of our class being on their way up, and the upper classes coming down. Forgive me for saying it, Mrs. McTavish, but he does sound a little bit like one of those revolutionaries that we read about in the newspapers who overthrew the king of Russia back in 1918.”

 

“Och!” chortles the old Scotswoman. “My Francis is no revolutionary, I assure you. He may have his opinion, but he’s not a radical and angry young man who feels badly done by, by his social betters. He may lack some refinement when explaining what he believes, especially when he is excited and passionate about something, which he usually is.” She sighs. “But he just wants things to be bit better for him and your Edith, and for their bairns if God chooses to bless them with wee little ones.” She looks earnestly at Ada again. “Don’t tell me you didn’t want the same thing for your bairns, Mrs. Watsford, when you were younger and full of dreams?”

 

“Well of course George and I want the very best for Edith and Bert.” Ada admits. “I just have a different way of explaining it, and going about it, Mrs. McTavish.”

 

“These are different times, Mrs. Watsford.” Mrs. McTavish says matter-of-factly. “The world has just gone through the most terrible war we have ever known. Those who are left and didn’t pay the ultimate sacrifice expect, no deserve, better for fighting for King and country. We cannot deny them that wish, nor condemn them for having it. They deserve a better world in which to live, surely? If not, why did they fight?”

 

“Well, I cannot deny that.” Ada admits with a sniff. “All those poor young men we sent off, bright faced and excited, never to return.”

 

“Well then.” smiles Mrs. McTavish. “Although my grandson was too young to enlist, he, like you, Edith and I, is a survivor of the war on the home front, and it shaped our lives. Who can blame Francis for not wanting better in the aftermath of war?” She looks into Ada’s thought filled face. “Tell me, Mrs. Watsford. Do you think Edith has good sense?”

 

“Of course I do, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada retorts. “My Edith has a good head on her shoulders.”

 

“I’m glad you think so, Mrs. Watsford.” Mrs. McTavish replies. She turns her attentions to Edith, who still stands silently, leaning against the trough sink observing the interaction between her mother and Frank’s grandmother. “What do you think, Edith dearie?”

 

“Me?” Edith asks.

 

“Yes, you.” Mrs. McTavish says strongly. “Don’t you want and strive for more? Don’t you want a better life for you and my grandson?”

 

“Oh yes, Mrs. McTavish. I worked hard to get the position with Miss Lettice. She’s a much nicer mistress than wither old Widow Hounslow or Mrs. Plaistow were. I get better pay, and better working conditions. I think Frank is right. There are more possibilities in the world now, although we do have to work hard for them.”

 

“Well said, Edith dearie.” Mrs. McTavish agrees, turning back to Ada. “So you see Mrs. Watsford. I think that your Edith and my Francis are well matched. They both want a better life for themselves. They’ll do better working together than making valiant efforts separately. Francis may be a little headstrong sometimes, but Edith will keep him grounded.”

 

Ada remains silent, deep in thought at her companion’s argument.

 

“Well, have a pleaded my grandson’s case, Mrs. Watsford?” the old Scottish woman asks.

 

Just then, the kitchen door opens and George and Frank walk noisily back into the kitchen, chuckling amiably over a shared joke, comfortable in one another’s company.

 

“I say Ada!” George exclaims. “That cherry pie of yours smells delicious, love. Is it about ready for eating, do you suppose?”

 

“Yes, I think it’s just about ready.” Ada agrees. “Edith love, will you fetch the jug of cream from the pantry for me, please?”

 

“Yes Mum!” Edith replies as she goes to the narrow pantry door and peers inside for her mother’s garland trimmed jug.

 

“So, who is going to have the biggest slice of my cherry pie?” Ada asks as she places the pie on the table amidst her best china.

 

“I think that right goes to me, as head of the Watsford household.” pipes up George with confidence.

 

“I say, Mr. Watsford,” retorts Frank. “That isn’t very fair. Just because you’re head of the house, doesn’t mean you are automatically entitled to the biggest share of the pie.”

 

“That’s a rather radical thought, young Frank.” laughs George good-naturedly. “I’m not sure if I approve of it, though.”

 

“Who should get the biggest slice then, my bairn?” his grandmother asks.

 

“Oh you know my answer, Gran.” Frank replies. “I shouldn’t need to tell you.”

 

“Yes, but tell the others, dearie. They don’t know you quite as well as I. State your case as to who should get the biggest portion.”

 

“Yes,” encourages Ada. “Tell us, Frank. Who do you think should get the biggest slice of the pie?”

 

Frank looks at Ada as she stands, poised with the kitchen knife in her hand, ready to cut through the magnificent cherry pie full of ripe and colourful berries, edged with a golden crust of pastry. “Why you of course, Mrs. Watsford.” he says matter-of-factly. “You’re the one who made it for all of us. You deserve the biggest share for all your hard work.”

 

Ada considers the bright eyed young man sitting at her table. “I like your thinking, Frank.” she says at length with a smile as she cuts into the steaming pie before her.

 

*Mither is an old fashioned Scottish word for mother.

 

**Faither is an old fashioned Scottish word for father.

 

***The Hebrides is an archipelago comprising hundreds of islands off the northwest coast of Scotland. Divided into the Inner and Outer Hebrides groups, they are home to rugged landscapes, fishing villages and remote Gaelic-speaking communities.

 

****What we know today as New Zealand was once the Colony of New Zealand. It was a Crown colony of the British Empire that encompassed the islands of New Zealand from 1841 to 1907. The power of the British Government was vested in the governor of New Zealand. The colony had three successive capitals: Okiato (or Old Russell) in 1841; Auckland from 1841 to 1865; and Wellington, which became the capital during the colony's reorganisation into a Dominion, and continues as the capital of New Zealand today. During the early years of British settlement, the governor had wide-ranging powers. The colony was granted self-government with the passage of the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852. The first parliament was elected in 1853, and responsible government was established in 1856. The governor was required to act on the advice of his ministers, who were responsible to the parliament. In 1907, the colony became the Dominion of New Zealand, which heralded a more explicit recognition of self-government within the British Empire.

 

*****The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.

 

*****Bràmair in Gaelic is commonly used as a term for girlfriend, boyfriend or sweetheart.

 

******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.

 

*******Roundwood Park takes its name from Roundwood House, an Elizabethan-style mansion built in Harlesden for Lord Decies in around 1836. In 1892 Willesden Local Board, conscious of a need for a recreation ground in expanding Harlesden, started the process of buying the land for what is now Roundwood Park. Roundwood Park was built in 1893, designed by Oliver Claude Robson. He was allocated nine thousand pounds to lay out the park. He put in five miles of drains, and planted an additional fourteen and a half thousand trees and shrubs. This took quite a long time as he used local unemployed labour for this work in preference to contractors. Mr. Robson had been the Surveyor of the Willesden Local Board since 1875. As an engineer, he was responsible for many major works in Willesden including sewerage and roads. The fine main gates and railings were made in 1895 by Messrs. Tickner & Partington at theVulcan Works, Harrow Road, Kensal Rise. An elegant lodge house was built to house the gardener; greenhouses erected to supply new flowers, and paths constructed, running upward to the focal point-an elegant bandstand on the top of the hill. The redbrick lodge was in the Victorian Elizabethan style, with ornamented chimney-breasts. It is currently occupied by council employees although the green houses have been demolished. For many years Roundwood Park was home to the Willesden Show. Owners of pets of many types, flowers and vegetables, and even 'bonny babies' would compete for prizes in large canvas tents. Art and crafts were shown, and demonstrations of dog-handling, sheep-shearing, parachuting and trick motorcycling given.

 

********A costermonger is a person who traditionally sells fruit and vegetables outside from a cart rather than in a shop.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic 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. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

On the table the is a cherry tart made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The blue and white crockery on the table I have bought as individual from several online sellers on E-Bay. I imagine that whole sets were once sold, but now I can only find them piecemeal. The cutlery I bought as a teenager from a high street dollhouse suppliers. The pottery ale jug comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in England. The glass of ale comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The cottage ware teapot in the foreground was made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson, it has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched roof and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics. The vase of flowers came from a 1:12 miniatures stockist on E-Bay. The tablecloth is actually a piece of an old worn sheet that was destined for the dustbin.

 

In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table, the Windsor chair and the ladderback chair to the left of the photo, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. There are also some rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and a bread tin in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces I recently acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a tin of Macfie’s Finest Black Treacle, two jars of P.C. Flett and Company jam, a tin of Heinz marinated apricots, a jar of Marmite, some Bisto gravy powder, some Ty-Phoo tea and a jar of S.P.C. peaches. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, except the jar of S.P.C. peaches which comes from Shepherds Miniatures in the United Kingdom. All of them have great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.

 

Robert Andrew Macfie sugar refiner was the first person to use the term term Golden Syrup in 1840, a product made by his factory, the Macfie sugar refinery, in Liverpool. He also produced black treacle.

 

P.C. Flett and Company was established in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands by Peter Copeland Flett. He had inherited a small family owned ironmongers in Albert Street Kirkwall, which he inherited from his maternal family. He had a shed in the back of the shop where he made ginger ale, lemonade, jams and preserves from local produce. By the 1920s they had an office in Liverpool, and travelling representatives selling jams and preserves around Great Britain. I am not sure when the business ceased trading.

 

The American based Heinz food processing company, famous for its Baked Beans, 57 varieties of soups and tinend spaghetti opened a factory in Harlesden in 1919, providing a great deal of employment for the locals who were not already employed at McVitie and Price.

 

Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.

 

In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.

 

S.P.C. is an Australian brand that still exists to this day. In 1917 a group of fruit growers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley decided to form a cooperative which they named the Shepperton Fruit Preserving Company. The company began operations in February 1918, canning pears, peaches and nectarines under the brand name of S.P.C. On the 31st of January 1918 the manager of the Shepparton Fruit Preserving Company announced that canning would begin on the following Tuesday and that the operation would require one hundred and fifty girls or women and thirty men. In the wake of the Great War, it was hoped that “the launch of this new industry must revive drooping energies” and improve the economic circumstances of the region. The company began to pay annual bonuses to grower-shareholders by 1929, and the plant was updated and expanded. The success of S.P.C. was inextricably linked with the progress of the town and the wider Goulburn Valley region. In 1936 the company packed twelve million cans and was the largest fruit cannery in the British empire. Through the Second World War the company boomed. The product range was expanded to include additional fruits, jam, baked beans and tinned spaghetti and production reached more than forty-three million cans a year in the 1970s. From financial difficulties caused by the 1980s recession, SPC returned once more to profitability, merging with Ardmona and buying rival company Henry Jones IXL. S.P.C. was acquired by Coca Cola Amatil in 2005 and in 2019 sold to a private equity group known as Shepparton Partners Collective.

 

The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).

Tools:

-ReShade 4.5.4 + Custom Shaders

-CE Table By Phokz + Extra Tweaks by Elucidater

-4K DSR

 

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 is nursing a broken heart. 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. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and was welcomed home with open and loving arms by her family for Christmas and the New Year. On New Year’s Eve, Lally, sitting next to Lettice, suggested that she spend a few extra weeks resting and recuperating with her in Buckinghamshire before returning to London and trying to get on with her life. Lettice happily agreed, and at Dorrington House with her sister and brother-in-law, she enjoyed quiet pursuits, spending quality time with her niece and nephews in the nursery, strolling the gardens with her sister or simply curling up in a window seat and reading.

 

However all this changed with a letter from her Aunt Egg in London, summoning Lettice back to the capital and into society in general. Through her social connections, Aunt Egg has contrived an invitation for Lettice and her married Embassy Club coterie friends Dickie and Margot Channon, to an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend parties at Gossington in Scotland: the country residence of Sir John and Lady Caxton, who are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their amusing weekend parties at their Scottish country estate and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John, so they attract a mixture of witty writers and artists mostly.

 

Tonight we are in Lettice’s Mayfair drawing room where she is joined by Dickie and Margot so they can make plans together to drive up to Gossington for the weekend. As they settle down around Lettice’s black japanned coffee table in her Art Deco barrel tub armchairs and the Hepplewhite chair from her desk, the clatter of dishes echoes from the adjoining dining room as Edith, Lettice’s maid, clears away the plates from the light four course mid-week dinner she has just finished serving them.

 

“Now!” Dickie says matter-of-factly as he withdraws a canvas folder and places it on the table. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

 

“Autocar Map for Motorists, England and Wales on card sections.**” Lettice reads aloud from the folder’s label.

 

“Oh not yet, Dickie darling!” Margot pleads. “Not until after Edith has served us tea and coffee. Then you can bore us with your new toy.”

 

“New toy?” Lettice queries.

 

“From Daddy.” Margot elucidates as she snuggles back into the white figures fabric of the tub chair she has commandeered, cradling a highball glass containing the remnants of her favourite tipple, a gin and tonic.

 

“Yes!” Dickie exclaims with a satisfied sigh as he sits back in the Hepplewhite chair. “Thank god for Daddy de Virre!”

 

“How so?” Lettice asks.

 

“Well, not only did Daddy organise for a monthly allowance for Dickie to be able to fill the motor as a Christmas gift,” Margot begins.

 

“But he also gave me this fantastic set of maps on card sections so that Margot and I can go on motor tours with the petrol he affords us.” Dickie interrupts his wife excitedly.

 

“Thus the new toy,” Margot says with a languid wave towards the folder on the table. “Dickie has done nothing but badger me about taking a motoring tour through the Cotswolds since we saw Mummy and Daddy at Hans Cresent on Christmas Eve.”

 

“What’s wrong with that, my love?” Dickie asks with a gormless grin as he looks lovingly towards his wife.

 

“What’s right about it, my love?” she retorts. “The Cotswolds are so… so…”

 

“Beautiful? Picturesque?” Dickie prompts her hopefully. “Charming?”

 

“So country, Dickie!” Margot responds with an irritated sigh.

 

“Well of course it’s the country, Margot my darling.” Dickie laughs. “That’s the point of a motor tour around the countryside.”

 

“But Dickie, you know I hate the country.” Margot replies. “It’s all dirt and mud,” she adds in disgust. “You can’t wear anything but sensible shoes and country tweeds or hard wearing fabrics in the most unflattering shades of brown or moss green at best.” She cringes in horror. “And it’s full cattle and bovine women with ploughman’s lunches, all with rosy cheeks and freckled faces brough on by too much country air and clean living.”

 

Lettice and Dickie both burst out laughing at Margot’s wry observation of the English countryside.

 

“But you like Penzance, Margot darling.” Dickie pipes up.

 

“That’s the seaside, Dickie,” Margot counters. “Besides, at least Penzance has shops, a picture theatre tearooms and other distractions.”

 

“The villages of the Cotswolds aren’t without the occasional tearoom, Margot darling.” Dickie assures his wife. “It’s how some country folk make their livings.”

 

“You didn’t just say that, did you Dickie?” Margot decries.

 

“What? There are tearooms in the Cotswolds. They aren’t without couth. I’m sure they have indoor plumbing too!”

 

“Not that, Dickie!” Margot hisses, flapping her hand at her husband. “I can’t believe you called them ‘country folk’.”

 

“Well, what’s wrong with that? They are country folk.”

 

“Are you completely feudal, like your father, Dickie darling?” Margot laughs mildly, shaking her head.

 

A clearing of a throat breaks into the conversation momentarily, causing all three friends to look away from each other to where Edith stands, patiently waiting to intrude. “Shall I serve tea now, Miss?”

 

“Oh,” Lettice says, contemplating for a moment. “Oh yes please, Edith.”

 

“And coffee too, if you can manage it, old girl.” Dickie adds.

 

“Since when did you develop a preference for coffee, Dickie?” Lettice asks with a quizzical look.

 

“Ever since he started spending time with Georgie Carter, the American dry goods heir.” Margot explains.

 

Silently Edith remembers the Sunday she and Frank went to collect her friend Hilda, who works as the Channons’ live-in maid, to take her to the Hammersmith Palias de Danse*** on their shared afternoon off. Hilda couldn’t leave until she had ground some coffee beans for Georgie Carter, the wealthy American married to Lettice and the Channons’ friend Priscilla. The Channons had been invited to dine at the Café Royal**** at the expense of Georgie, since the Channons seem perpetually to have financial difficulties, and as a result, the Channons invited the Carters back to their Hill Street flat for after supper coffee. This meant that Hilda had to do one of her most hated jobs: grind coffee beans to make real coffee for Georgie Carter, who is particular about his American style coffee. In the end, Frank helped her make the coffee grinds.

 

“It isn’t usual.” Lettice says seriously as she ponders the situation. She turns to her maid. “Do we have any coffee, Edith?”

 

“Of course, Miss.” Edith replies, having purposely ground some coffee beans earlier in the day, knowing that Mr. Channon had a penchant for coffee.

 

“Not that Camp Coffee*****, muck I hope, Edith!”

 

“Dickie!” Margot chides, giving him a glare. She looks apologetically up at Edith. “Please excuse my husband’s boorish manners, Edith. He’ll have whatever coffee you have at hand.”

 

“It’s quite alright, Mrs. Channon. I have coffee beans freshly ground especially for Mr. Channon.” Edith responds with a polite smile.

 

“Oh, you are a brick, Edith!” Lettice exclaims, clasping her jewel clad fingers, her bangles clanging together as they tumble down along her forearm. She beams her a sheepish smile as she adds, “What would we do without you.”

 

“I couldn’t say, Miss.” Edith replies, looking down, feeling the warmth of a blush fill her cheeks. “Will that be all, Miss?”

 

“Yes, thank you, Edith.” Lettice replies.

 

The maid bobs a quick curtsey, turns on her heel and walks back through the dining room to the green baize door that leads to the service area of the cavendish Mews flat.

 

“Really Dickie!” Margot hisses after Edith disappears through the door.

 

“Really what?” Dickie asks. “I was only asking for coffee.”

 

“Dickie!” Margot utters his name again. “This is Lettice’s flat we’re in. She would never serve you Camp Coffee!” She looks apologetically at Lettice for her husband’s inadvertent slight. “Would you Lettice darling?”

 

“I didn’t know whether we even had any coffee, Margot darling.” replies Lettice. “That’s more Edith’s domain as housekeeper, than me.”

 

“Ahh!” Margot sighs. “And of course, our Hilda is your Edith’s friend, so of course she must have told her of your penchant for freshly ground coffee, American style, Dickie!”

 

“Oh, off course!” Dickie exclaims. “Anyway, back to this country touring.”

 

“Oh not that ghastly business again!” Margot drains her glass before dropping it rather noisily onto the black japanned surface of the coffee table as an extension of her irritation.

 

“Yes that ‘ghastly business’ again, my love.”

 

“Dickie darling,” Lettice giggles as she shakes her head at her friend. “I think you are fighting a losing battle. Margot was born and bred in this city, as were her parents. You should know that the bright lights of London are always going to be more appealing than the meandering country lanes of the counties.”

 

“That’s exactly right! Thank you Lettice darling!” Margot exhales. “I hadn’t ever been to Cornwall before I married you, Dickie darling, so I’m hardly likely to want to go to the Cotswolds, am I?”

 

“You don’t know what you’re missing out on, my love.”

 

“Mud and… and what did you say, Margot darling?” Lettice begins. “Oh yes, bovine women!”

 

The three friends burst into laughter.

 

“Well,” Dickie says as he recovers from his joviality. “Margot darling you’re going to have to force yourself to like a country drive if we are going to go to Gossington for the Caxton’s Friday to Monday.”

 

“Oh well!” Margot enthuses. “That’s different, Dickie darling! An amusing weekend party with Sir John and Lady Caxton in Scotland will be worth driving through mud and seeing cattle…”

 

“And bovine country women.” adds Lettice cheekily.

 

“And bovine country women!” Margot agrees with a guilty smile. “Invitations to Gossington are few and far between. We can’t pass up this wonderful opportunity to enjoy the glittering company, and the generosity, of Sir John and Lady Gladys.”

 

“Which of course we have you to thank for, dear Lettice.” adds Dickie.

 

“Oh not so much me, as my Aunt Eglantyne.” Lettice clarifies.

 

“God bless Aunt Egg for managing to obtain the three of us invitations to one of the most exclusive of events. It’s harder to get to visit the Caxtons at Gossington than it is to meet the King and Queen at Buck House******!” exclaims Margot. “My question is, how did she arrange it, Lettice darling?”

 

“Well, that’s a good question. Having only arrived home this afternoon, I haven’t had a chance to ask her yet. I suppose the artistic connection is how Aunt Egg knows the Caxtons, although, I didn’t actually know that they were acquainted at all.”

 

“Well she must be more than acquainted with them if Aunt Egg could arrange for all of us to go.” Margot says.

 

“Yes, much to Lally’s disappointment.” Lettice adds.

 

“Lally?” Dickie queries.

 

“Yes, she had her nose put quite out of joint after Aunt Egg’s letter arrived at Dorrington House. She had all these plans for us.”

 

“Beastly boring country plans, no doubt.” Margot states.

 

“Hhhmmm… more pleasant, relaxing country pursuits,” Lettice corrects her friend politely with an arched eyebrow. “Which had to be curtailed because of this invitation. I think, even though she has no idea who Sir John and Lady Caxton are, Lally would have enjoyed being included in the party to Gossington.”

 

“I didn’t know Lally was particularly literary, or artistic, Lettice.” Margot notes.

 

“Oh she isn’t particularly.” Lettice admits. “I mean, she does enjoy painting, and Dorington House has a wonderful library that she and Charles have built up, however I wouldn’t say she is literary, nor artistic, not like Aunt Egg is.”

 

“That’s more you, Lettice darling.” Dickie remarks.

 

“Well, I was lucky. As the second daughter, and I think somewhat of a surprise child, my presence caught Mater somewhat off guard, so Pater was far more involved with arranging my education. He made sure I had governesses and tutors to teach me classic literature, and Aunt Egg appraised him of my artist talents early on to ensure that she could help cultivate them. Whereas Mater controlled every part of Lally’s education to ensure that she could arrange flowers, embroider, engage staff and run a household. In short she made her perfect to do just what Mater thinks all women should do: marry well. I think one of the few academic things Lally ever learned was to speak French.”

 

“Poor Lally.” Dickie opines.

 

“Oh I think all in all, Lally is quite happy with her lot in life, Dickie. Charles is a good husband, even if Lord Lanchenbury is a bit of a ghastly old lecher, what with his Gaiety Girls*******. Charles provides a beautiful home for Lally and the children, and she seems to enjoy playing the role of the local squire’s wife, opening fetes, chairing charities and attending the local Women’s Institute****** meetings. She’s doing exactly what she was brought up to do, and she doesn’t know a great deal beyond that.”

 

“Whereas you, our darling Lettice,” Margot reaches her hand across the table, encouraging Lettice to extend her own, grasping it tightly when she does. “You are one of London’s Bright Young Things********, and are destined to be more than the local squire’s wife.”

 

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Margot realises what she has said, and its implications in Lettice’s current circumstances. The broad smile falls from her expertly painted lips as she feels Lettice’s hand withdraw from her own as though she had been burn by the flames of the fire cracking in the grate.

 

“Oh I’m so sorry, Lettice!” Margot raises her elegant painted hand to her mouth. “I didn’t… err, I mean, I…”

 

“Its quite alright, Margot darling!” Lettice replies brightly with false joviality. “Perhaps Lady Zinnia is right. A love match between Selwyn and I wouldn’t work.”

 

“What tosh!” Dickie bristles awkwardly, looking accusingly at his wife. “Of course it will work.”

 

“You just have to stay the course, like Lady Sadie said.” Margot adds, hoping to cover her social gaffe with genuine care and concern for her best friend.

 

“I’ll never be like Lally and play the role of the happy squire’s wife.” Lettice admits.

 

“Selwyn wouldn’t love you the way he does, if you were, Lettice darling.” Margot assures her friend. “And he does love you. We’ve seen it, haven’t we Dickie.” She looks to her husband, who nods his ascent. “And we should know what a love match is, darling.” She pauses momentarily and licks her lips. “That was rather clumsy of me, Lettice. Please forgive me.”

 

Lettice stretches out her hand to Margot again. “There is nothing to forgive, Margot darling. It was an accident, and I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

 

Just at that moment, Edith arrives with a silver tray laden with Lettice’s best Art Deco Royal Doulton tea set featuring geometric falling leaves in green and gold and a silver coffee pot. “Tea, and coffee, Miss.” she says as she starts to set the tray down.

 

The trio of friends fall silent whilst Edith stoops and unpacks all the cups, saucers and panoply of tea and coffee serving pieces. Standing up again, she bobs a curtsey and then retreats.

 

“Right!” Dickie says. “Now that we have tea and coffee, can I unpack my new toy, my love?”

 

“Only if you must.” Replies Margot as she takes up an empty cup and moves it closer towards her on the coffee table. “And so long as you promise not to talk about the bucolic charms of the Cotswolds ad nauseum to me.”

 

“I promise.” Dickie agrees hurriedly as he opens the canvas folder and starts to pull out the rectangular numbered cards which slap the surface of the coffee table. “Now. Let’s see…” he mutters as he begins sorting. “Now if…”

 

The two ladies watch with interest as Dickie compares the numbers printed in a black circle on the top right-hand corner of the reverse side of each square with the master map printed below it.

 

“Dickie,” Lettice says, gently interrupting his muttering. “Dickie.”

 

“Hhhmmm?” Dickie murmurs distractedly in reply.

 

“Dickie, this won’t work.” Lettice replies.

 

Dickie glances up from the jumble of cards, letting the one in his fingers fall as he says, “Now don’t you start, Lettice darling. Don’t tell me as one of London’s Bright Young Things, you’ve suddenly developed an aversion to a country drive like my wife.” He glares at Margot, who merely shrugs lazily as her kohl********* encircled eyes close slightly.

 

“No, I mean these maps won’t help get us to Gossington, Dickie.” Lettice replies, her voice calm and well modulated.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous! What do you mean, Lettice darling?” he queries. “Of course they will! The roads and topography of England and Wales haven’t changed since this was printed earlier in the year!”

 

“But that’s my point exactly, Dickie.” Lettice replies. “These maps are for England and Wales. Gossington is in Scotland.”

 

“Scotland?” Dickie asks before looking down at his jumble of map squares. “Scotland!” he says, registering what Lettice has just said.

 

“Yes, the maps will get us to the Scottish border, but what do you propose we do after that?” Lettice asks.

 

“Oh blast!” Dickie exclaims.

 

Lettice and Margot start laughing, and Dickie joins in, reluctantly at first, and then more wholeheartedly as the girls’ peals lift his suddenly deflated spirits again.

 

*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.

 

**Produced in the early 1920s, The Autocar map for motorists of England and Wales (plus some of Scotland and the Isle of Man) was printed on twenty card sections – featuring contour colouring and mileage intervals, boasted – at a scale of eight miles to an inch. It could be bought from “leading bookshops” or by post in 1921 for fifteen shillings and sixpence (about £54.00 by today’s standards), plus a “stout and attractive” leather envelope could be had for six and six (about £23.00).

 

***The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.

 

****Camp Coffee is a concentrated syrup which is flavoured with coffee and chicory, first produced in 1876 by Paterson & Sons Ltd, in Glasgow. In 1974, Dennis Jenks merged his business with Paterson to form Paterson Jenks plc. In 1984, Paterson Jenks plc was bought by McCormick & Company. Legend has it (mainly due to the picture on the label) that Camp Coffee was originally developed as an instant coffee for military use. The label is classical in tone, drawing on the romance of the British Raj. It includes a drawing of a seated Gordon Highlander (supposedly Major General Sir Hector MacDonald) being served by a Sikh soldier holding a tray with a bottle of essence and jug of hot water. They are in front of a tent, at the apex of which flies a flag bearing the drink's slogan, "Ready Aye Ready". A later version of the label, introduced in the mid-20th century, removed the tray from the picture, thus removing the infinite bottles element and was seen as an attempt to avoid the connotation that the Sikh was a servant, although he was still shown waiting while the kilted Scottish soldier sipped his coffee. The current version, introduced in 2006, depicts the Sikh as a soldier, now sitting beside the Scottish soldier, and with a cup and saucer of his own. Camp Coffee is an item of British nostalgia, because many remember it from their childhood. It is still a popular ingredient for home bakers making coffee-flavoured cake and coffee-flavoured buttercream. In late 1975, Camp Coffee temporarily became a popular alternative to instant coffee in the UK, after the price of coffee doubled due to shortages caused by heavy frosts in Brazil.

 

*****”Buck House” is the diminutive name for Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace is a royal residence in London and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms. These include 19 State rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms. In measurements, the building is 108 metres long across the front, 120 metres deep (including the central quadrangle) and 24 metres high.

 

******Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.

 

*******The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organization for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being the first speaker in 1897. It was based on the British concept of Women's Guilds, created by Rev Archibald Charteris in 1887 and originally confined to the Church of Scotland. From Canada the organization spread back to the motherland, throughout the British Empire and Commonwealth, and thence to other countries. Many WIs belong to the Associated Country Women of the World organization. Each individual WI is a separate charitable organisation, run by and for its own members with a constitution agreed at national level but the possibility of local bye-laws. WIs are grouped into Federations, roughly corresponding to counties or islands, which each have a local office and one or more paid staff.

 

********The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.

 

*********Cosmetics in the 1920s were characterized by their use to create a specific look: lips painted in the shape of a Cupid's bow, kohl-rimmed eyes, and bright cheeks brushed with bright red blush. The heavily made-up look of the 1920s was a reaction to the demure, feminine Gibson Girl of the pre-war period. In the 1920s, an international beauty culture was forged, and society increasingly focused on novelty and change. Fashion trends influenced theatre, films, literature, and art. With the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt, the fashion of kohl-rimmed eyes like Egyptian pharaohs was very popular in the early 1920s.

 

This 1920s upper-class drawing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures including items from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Central to our story is The Autocar map for motorists of England and Wales on card sections which is spread out across Lettice’s low black japanned coffee table. It is a 1:12 size artisan miniature made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. However, he did not make books exclusively. He also made other small pieces like amazing set of maps. What might amaze you, looking at these maps is that they are all numbered on the back and piece together to show a topographical map of England Wales, just like its real life equivalent! To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a real 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 and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature of a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling chord does stretch out.

 

Lettice’s “falling leaves” tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era.

 

The Vogue magazine from 1920s sitting on the side table beneath lettice’s teacup was made by hand by Petite Gite Miniatures in the United States.

 

Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chair upholstered in white embossed fabric is made of black japanned wood and has a removable cushion, just like its life-sized equivalent. The Hepplewhite chair to the right of the photo features a hand woven rattan seat and has been hand painted with floral designs across its back and along its arms.

 

The Chinese folding screen in the background I bought at an antiques and junk market when I was about ten. I was with my grandparents and a friend of the family and their three children, who were around my age. They all bought toys to bring home and play with, and I bought a Chinese folding screen to add to my miniatures collection in my curio cabinet at home! It shows you what a unique child I was.

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 just a short distance from Cavendish Mews, in front of Mr. Willison’s grocers’ shop. Willison’s Grocers in Mayfair is where Lettice has an account, and it is from here that Edith, Lettice's maid, orders her groceries for the Cavendish Mews flat, except on special occasions, when professional London caterers are used. Mr. Willison prides himself in having a genteel, upper-class clientele including the households of many titled aristocrats who have houses and flats in the neighbourhood, and he makes sure that his shop is always tidy, his shelves well stocked with anything the cook of a duke or duchess may want, and staff who are polite and mannerly to all his important customers. The latter is not too difficult, for aside from himself, Mrs. Willison does his books, his daughter Henrietta helps on Saturdays and sometimes after she has finished school, which means Mr. Willison technically only employs one member of staff: Frank Leadbetter his delivery boy who carries orders about Mayfair on the bicycle provided for him by Mr. Willison. He also collects payments for accounts which are not settled in his Binney Street shop whilst on his rounds.

 

Edith, is stepping out with Frank, so as she nears the shop, she hopes that the errand she has to run for today will allow her to have a few stolen minutes with Frank under the guise of ordering a few provisions required immediately. As she crosses Binney Street, Edith is delighted to see Frank busily decorating the front window. Mr. Willison always has a splendid window display of tinned and canned goods, but as she approaches the window she can see that it is especially festive, draped with patriotic bunting of Union Jacks and blue and red flags. As Frank, crouched in the window, carefully places a jar of Golden Shred marmalade next to a box of Ty-Phoo tea and in front of a jar of Marmite where it glows in the light pouring through the plate glass, Edith taps gently, so as not to startle her beau.

 

Frank smiles broadly and waves enthusiastically as he looks up and sees his sweetheart on the other side of the glass and he beckons her in as he slips back into the shadowy confines of the grocer’s.

 

“Please come in, milady!” he says cheekily as he opens the plate glass shop door for her, bows and doffs an invisible cap as the bell tinkles prettily overhead. “Pray what may we get to you? Let Willison’s the Grocer’s satisfy your every whim.”

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith giggles as she steps across the threshold. “Get along with you!”

 

Stepping into the shop she immediately smells the mixture of comforting aromas of fresh fruits, vegetables and flour, permeated by the delicious scent of the brightly coloured boiled sweets coming from the large cork stoppered jars on the shop counter. The sounds of the busy street outside die away, muffled by shelves lined with any number of tinned goods and signs advertising everything from Lyon’s Tea* to Bovril**.

 

“Where is Mrs. Willison?” Edith continues warily, her eyes darting to the spot behind the end of the return counter near the door where the proprietor’s wife usually sits doing her husband’s accounts, looking imperiously down her nose at Edith through her gold framed pince-nez***.

 

“Luckily the old trout is out with Mr. Willison attending Miss Henrietta’s school.” Frank explains.

 

“Don’t tell me that impudent little minx is in trouble?” Edith asks with a cheeky spark of hope in her voice. She knows that it’s uncharitable, and unchristian of her to wish the young girl ill, but she is still riled over the last time Edith met Frank near the rear door of Mr. Willison’s grocers, where, as he stole a kiss from her, Henrietta spied upon them. Henrietta, who had seen the young couple from a lace framed upstairs window where she was often seen spying on the comings and goings of the neighbourhood, called out loudly to her disapproving mother downstairs in the shop that Edith and Frank were loitering in the back lane, which caused the woman with her old fashioned upswept hairstyle and her high necked starched shirtwaister**** blouse to come hurrying to the back door as fast as her equally old fashioned whale bone S-bend corset***** and button up boots would allow her, where she promptly berated both Edith and Frank with her acerbic tongue, accusing them of lowering the tone of Mr. Willison’s establishment by loitering with intent and fraternising shamelessly. Edith’s cheeks flush at the mere memory of that embarrassing moment with Mrs. Willison.

 

“No,” Frank goes on. “Miss Henrietta is receiving an award at school today for an essay she penned.”

 

“With poison, no doubt.” mutters Edith. She sighs heavily before continuing, “I hate how you call her ‘Miss Henrietta’. She’s no better than you, Frank. In fact she’s a darn sight lesser if you ask me.”

 

“Now, now, Edith. Calm down.” Frank places his slender hands on her forearms and wraps his long and elegant fingers around them comfortingly. “You may well be right, but she is my employer’s daughter.”

 

“And full of her own self-importance.” Edith interrupts.

 

Frank politely ignores her outburst as he continues, “So I must address her as such.”

 

“Well, it’s not right, Frank.” Edith sulks.

 

“That much is true too,” Frank agrees with a sad nod. “And you know I am a man who wants to right the wrongs dealt to hardworking fold like you and I, but this is one fight I can’t have yet, Edith. This bit of deference I need to keep up if I want to keep my job.”

 

“All the same, Frank. I don’t think it’s right.” Edith opines again.

 

“Anyway, let’s not let Henrietta Willison spoil this wonderfully rare moment where we find each other alone together, Edith.” Frank says, pulling her into an embrace. Quickly looking around the quiet shop interior filled with groceries to make sure no-one will see them, Frank gently kisses Edith lovingly on the lips.

 

After a few stolen moments, Frank reluctantly breaks their kiss.

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith exclaims, her head giddy with pleasure and voice heady with love.

 

“Now, Miss Watsford,” Frank asks in a mock businesslike tone. “What can I do for the maid of the Honourable Miss Chetwynd today?”

 

“Well, it’s a funny coincidence, but you happened to be putting what I need in your window display, just as I arrived, Frank.” Edith elucidates. “I need a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade urgently.”

 

“Urgently?” Frank queries. “Gosh, that does sound extreme.”

 

“But I do, Frank. Miss Lettice has a potential new client coming up from Wiltshire today, and being a somewhat impromptu visit, I haven’t any cake to serve them. I was just about to make my Mum’s pantry chocolate cake when I realised that I’m out of orange marmalade.”

 

“Well that does sound like a serious situation.” Frank agrees.

 

“Don’t tease me Frank! I’m serious.” Edith’s pretty pale blue eyes grow wide. “If I don’t provide something nice to eat for Miss Lettice’s potential new client, everything could go awry, and then I’d get into such trouble.”

 

“Well, I can’t have my best girl getting into trouble because she is missing the essential ingredient to her mum’s delicious chocolate cake, can I?” Frank says. “However I don’t understand why you have marmalade in a cake. It sounds a bit odd to me.”

 

“That’s because you aren’t a baker, Frank. Mum taught me this recipe for chocolate cake which is based on cheap everyday staples you have in the pantry, and that’s why she calls it a pantry chocolate cake.”

 

“Go on,” Frank says, placing his elbows on the counter and resting his smiling face in his hands. “You have my full attention.”

 

“Well, I use the marmalade to give the cake a nice citrus flavour in addition to the chocolate, and it keeps it moist, so it doesn’t dry out when baking. This way, I don’t have to worry about peeling or squeezing oranges either.”

 

“Fascinating!” Frank breathes, smiling broadly as he listens to Edith.

 

“And that’s why I need the marmalade, Frank.” Edith says nervously. “I’ll be lost without it.”

 

“Well, that is a problem, but it’s one I think I can remedy easily.” He smiles as he fossicks behind the counter and withdraws a jar of orange marmalade from somewhere unseen beneath it. Smiling proudly, as though he is a magician who has just conjured his best magic trick, he places it on the surface of counter.

 

“Oh you’re a brick, Frank!” Edith exclaims with eyes sparkling at the sight of the jar as she reaches out and takes it, placing it carefully into her basket.

 

“I’ll add that to Miss Lettice’s account, shall I?”

 

“If you would, Frank.”

 

As Frank writes the purchase on a scrap of lined paper to give to Mrs. Willison to enter into Mr. Willison’s ledger in her fine looping copperplate when she returns, he asks, “So do you like my window display then, Edith?”

 

“Oh yes!” gushes Edith. “Very much so, Frank. It’s wonderfully gay and patriotic.”

 

“I should hope it would be!” Frank replies, as he finishes scrawling Edith’s purchase on the paper with a slightly blunt pencil.

 

“Why, what’s it in aid of, Frank?”

 

“Edith!” Frank gasps. “I must have failed abysmally if you can’t tell.” He frowns, lines of concern furrowing his young brow. “Mr. Willison will never let me arrange the window again if you’re anything to go by.”

 

“Oh, get on with you, Frank!” Edith laughs.

 

However, Frank doesn’t join in her light hearted laughter and continues to look dourly at the back of the window display he has set up. “I’m serious, Edith. Mr. Willison finally let me arrange a window on my own because I implored him that I wanted to do it, and you can’t even identify what it’s promoting.”

 

“Well,” Edith defends, blushing as she does so. “To be fair, I was more concentrating on you, Frank.” When the worried look still doesn’t vanish from his face she adds. “Now that you aren’t standing in it, distracting me, I’ll go and take another look.”

 

She turns around and walks over to the window and peers through the side over the tops of a pyramid of Sunlight soap and a stack of Twinings tea varieties. An equally high pyramid of biscuit varieties, all in bright and colourful tins stands on the other side, whilst several more tins of biscuits appear at the back of the wide window ledge used for advertising. In front of them stand tins of golden syrup and black treacle, jars of marmalade, packets of tea and jelly crystals, containers of baking powder and cocoa, and at the very front of the window, almost flush against the glass, a cardboard cut out of a gollywog advertising Robertson’s marmalade and a little boy smiling as he promotes Rowntree’s clear gums, which Edith knows Mr. Willison keeps safely out of reach behind the shop counter and away from sticky little fingers. Edith gasps as she realises why Frank had hung bunting in the window, for at the back of the display, where usually there would be an advertisement for Lyon’s Tea or Bisto Gravy******, there is a poster promoting the British Empire Exhibition******* at Wembly********. A crowd of figures from British history and the nations of the British Empire crowd for space along several rows, many proudly waving the flags of Empire, whilst the exhibition name and dates are flanked by two very proud stylised Art Deco lions.

 

“The British Empire Exhibition!” Edith gasps, as Frank’s head appears next to a Huntley and Palmer********* biscuit tin on the opposite side of the display to her. “Now that you aren’t crouched in the window, I can see it clearly, Frank.”

 

“Mr. Willison gave me strict instructions to fill the window with only British made products.”

 

“And you’ve done a splendid job, Frank.” Edith replies, causing her beau to smile with pride and blush with embarrassment at her effusive compliment. As she looks at all the products again, she adds, “And I’m glad to see McVite and Price********** at the top of the pyramid of biscuits.

 

“Well, I couldn’t very well step out with the daughter of a McVitie and Price Line Manager and not have it on the top, could I, Edith?”

 

“Indeed no, Frank.” Edith smiles. “Dad will be pleased as punch when I tell him.”

 

“Well, I’m glad to hear that, Edith.” Franks says with a sigh.

 

“I think it will be quite a spectacle,” Edith muses, as she stares at the poster. “I’ve read in the newspapers that there will be fifty-six displays and pavilions from around the Empire! Imagine that! There will be palaces for industry, and art.”

 

“And housing and transport too***********, don’t forget.” adds Frank. “Each colony will be assigned its own distinctive pavilion to reflect local culture and architecture.”

 

“I would like to see the Queen’s Dolls’ House************.” Edith sighs. “I hear it is a whole world in miniature, and it even has electric lights.”

 

“Well, isn’t that fortunate?”

 

Edith pauses mid thought and looks quizzically at Frank. “I suppose it would be,” she considers. “If you were a doll living in the Queen’s Doll House.”

 

Frank starts laughing, quietly at first before growing into louder and louder guffaws.

 

“What, Frank?” Edith asks, blushing. “What have I said? What’s so funny?”

 

After a few moments, Frank manages to recover himself. “You do make me laugh, dear Edith.” He wipes the tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes. “Thank you.” He sighs. “I was really saying it’s fortunate because, I was going to ask you whether you would like to go and see the British Empire Exhibition. I’m just as keen to see all the marvellous wonders of Empire as you are.”

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith gasps, any discomfort and displeasure at her beau laughing at her forgotten as she runs around to his side of the window and throws her arms around his neck. “Frank, you’re such a brick! I’d love to!” And without another word, she places her lips against his and kisses him deeply.

 

*Lyons Tea was first produced by J. Lyons and Co., a catering empire created and built by the Salmons and Glucksteins, a German-Jewish immigrant family based in London. Starting in 1904, J. Lyons began selling packaged tea through its network of teashops. Soon after, they began selling their own brand Lyons Tea through retailers in Britain, Ireland and around the world. In 1918, Lyons purchased Hornimans and in 1921 they moved their tea factory to J. Lyons and Co., Greenford at that time, the largest tea factory in Europe. In 1962, J. Lyons and Company (Ireland) became Lyons Irish Holdings. After a merger with Allied Breweries in 1978, Lyons Irish Holdings became part of Allied Lyons (later Allied Domecq) who then sold the company to Unilever in 1996. Today, Lyons Tea is produced in England.

 

**Bovril is owned and distributed by Unilever UK. Its appearance is similar to Marmite and Vegemite. Bovril can be made into a drink ("beef tea") by diluting with hot water or, less commonly, with milk. It can be used as a flavouring for soups, broth, stews or porridge, or as a spread, especially on toast in a similar fashion to Marmite and Vegemite.

 

***Pince-nez is a style of glasses, popular in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, "to pinch", and nez, "nose".

 

****A shirtwaister is a woman's dress with a seam at the waist, its bodice incorporating a collar and button fastening in the style of a shirt which gained popularity with women entering the workforce to do clerical work in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.

 

*****Created by a specific style of corset popular between the turn of the Twentieth Century and the outbreak of the Great War, the S-bend is characterized by a rounded, forward leaning torso with hips pushed back. This shape earned the silhouette its name; in profile, it looks similar to a tilted letter S.

 

******The first Bisto product, in 1908, was a meat-flavoured gravy powder, which rapidly became a bestseller in Britain. It was added to gravies to give a richer taste and aroma. Invented by Messrs Roberts and Patterson, it was named "Bisto" because it "Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One". Bisto Gravy is still a household name in Britain and Ireland today, and the brand is currently owned by Premier Foods.

 

*******The British Empire Exhibition was a colonial exhibition held at Wembley Park, London England from 23 April to 1 November 1924 and from 9 May to 31 October 1925. In 1920 the British Government decided to site the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park, on the site of the pleasure gardens created by Edward Watkin in the 1890s. A British Empire Exhibition had first been proposed in 1902, by the British Empire League, and again in 1913. The Russo-Japanese War had prevented the first plan from being developed and World War I put an end to the second, though there had been a Festival of Empire in 1911, held in part at Crystal Palace. One of the reasons for the suggestion was a sense that other powers, like America and Japan, were challenging Britain on the world stage. Despite victory in Great War, this was in some ways even truer in 1919. The country had economic problems and its naval supremacy was being challenged by two of its former allies, the United States and Japan. In 1917 Britain had committed itself eventually to leave India, which effectively signalled the end of the British Empire to anyone who thought about the consequences, while the Dominions had shown little interest in following British foreign policy since the war. It was hoped that the Exhibition would strengthen the bonds within the Empire, stimulate trade and demonstrate British greatness both abroad and at home, where the public was believed to be increasingly uninterested in Empire, preferring other distractions, such as the cinema.

 

********A purpose-built "great national sports ground", called the Empire Stadium, was built for the Exhibition at Wembley. This became Wembley Stadium. Wembley Urban District Council was opposed to the idea, as was The Times, which considered Wembley too far from Central London. The first turf for this stadium was cut, on the site of the old tower, on the 10th of January 1922. 250,000 tons of earth were then removed, and the new structure constructed within ten months, opening well before the rest of the Exhibition was ready. Designed by John William Simpson and Maxwell Ayrton, and built by Sir Robert McAlpine, it could hold 125,000 people, 30,000 of them seated. The building was an unusual mix of Roman imperial and Mughal architecture. Although it incorporated a football pitch, it was not solely intended as a football stadium. Its quarter mile running track, incorporating a 220 yard straight track (the longest in the country) were seen as being at least equally important. The only standard gauge locomotive involved in the construction of the Stadium has survived, and still runs on Sir William McAlpine's private Fawley Hill railway near Henley.

 

*********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, morning and afternoon tea and reading time.

 

**********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.

 

***********The Palace of Engineering was originally called the Palace of Housing and Transport when the British Empire Exhibition opened. It contained a crane capable of moving 25 tons (a practical necessity, not an exhibit) and contained displays on engineering, shipbuilding, electric power, motor vehicles, railways, including locomotives, metallurgy and telegraphs and wireless. In 1925 there seems to have been less emphasis on things that could also be classified as Industry, with instead more on housing and aircraft. The Palace of Industry was slightly smaller. It contained displays on the chemical industry, coal, metals, medicinal drugs, sewage disposal, food, drinks, tobacco, clothing, gramophones, gas and Nobel explosives.

 

************Queen Mary's Dolls' House is a dollhouse built in 1:12 scale in the early 1920s, completed in 1924, for Queen Mary, the wife of King George V. It was designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, with contributions from many notable artists and craftsmen of the period, including a library of miniature books containing original stories written by authors including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and A. A. Milne illustrated by famous illustrators of the time like Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. The idea for building the dollhouse originally came from the Queen's cousin, Princess Marie Louise, who discussed her idea with one of the top architects of the time, Sir Edwin Lutyens, at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1921. Sir Edwin agreed to construct the dollhouse and began preparations. Princess Marie Louise had many connections in the arts and arranged for the top artists and craftsmen of the time to contribute their special abilities to the house. It was created as a gift to Queen Mary from the people, and to serve as a historical document on how a royal family might have lived during that period in England. It showcased the very finest and most modern goods of the period. Later the dollhouse was put on display to raise funds for the Queen's charities. It was originally exhibited at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 and again in 1925, where more than 1.6 million people came to view it, and is now on display in Windsor Castle, at Windsor, as a tourist attraction.

 

This bright window display may look like it is full of real products from today and yesteryear, but just like Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, these items are all 1:12 scale miniature pieces from my own collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The window is full of wonderful British household brands, some of which like Robertson’s Golden Shred Marmalade, Marmite, Oxo stock cubes and Twinings tea we still know today. All these pieces have been made by various artisans including Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire and Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, or supplied from various stockists of 1:12 miniatures including Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop and Shephard’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom, or through various online stockists. I created the Union Jack bunting that is draped to either side of the display. I also recreated the British Empire Exhibition poster.

 

The two carboard displays at the very front for Rountree’s Gums and Golden Shred Marmalade are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. The Golliwog advertising Robertson’s Golden Shred Marmalade in particular has some nostalgia for me, and takes me back to my own childhood. The famous Robertson's Golliwog symbol (not seen as racially charged at the time) appeared in 1910 after a trip to the United States to set up a plant in Boston. His son John bought a golliwog doll there. For some reason this started to appear first on their price lists and was then adopted as their trade mark. I have pins with the Robertson’s Golliwog on it that I collected as a child. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. However, he did not make books exclusively. He also made other small pieces like these advertising pieces for miniature shops. What might amaze you, looking at these cardboard stand-ups is that they are just like their real life equivalents, both front and back! To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a real 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 and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

Golden Shred orange marmalade and Silver Shred lime marmalade still exist today and are common household brands both in Britain and Australia. They are produced by Robertson’s. Robertson’s Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson’s Silver Shred is a clear, tangy, lemon flavoured shredded marmalade. Robertson’s marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.

 

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.

 

Peter Leech and Sons was a grocers that operated out of Lowther Street in Whitehaven from the 1880s. They had a large range of tinned goods that they sold including coffee, tea, tinned salmon and golden syrup. They were admired for their particularly attractive labelling. I do not know exactly when they ceased production, but I believe it may have happened just before the Second World War.

 

Founded by Henry Isaac Rowntree in Castlegate in York in 1862, Rowntree's developed strong associations with Quaker philanthropy. Throughout much of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, it was one of the big three confectionery manufacturers in the United Kingdom, alongside Cadbury and Fry, both also founded by Quakers. In 1981, Rowntree's received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade. In 1988, when the company was acquired by Nestlé, it was the fourth-largest confectionery manufacturer in the world. The Rowntree brand continues to be used to market Nestlé's jelly sweet brands, such as Fruit Pastilles and Fruit Gums, and is still based in York.

 

Twinings is a British marketer of tea and other beverages, including coffee, hot chocolate and malt drinks, based in Andover, Hampshire. The brand is owned by Associated British Foods. It holds the world's oldest continually used company logo, and is London's longest-standing ratepayer, having occupied the same premises on the Strand since 1706. Twinings tea varieties include black tea, green tea and herbal teas, along with fruit-based cold infusions. Twinings was founded by Thomas Twining, who opened Britain's first known tea room, at No. 216 Strand, London, in 1706; it still operates today. Holder of a royal warrant, Twinings was acquired by Associated British Foods in 1964. The company is associated with Earl Grey tea, a tea infused with bergamot, though it is unclear when this association began, and how important the company's involvement with the tea has been. Competitor Jacksons of Piccadilly – acquired by Twinings during the 1990s – also had associations with the bergamot blend. In April 2008, Twinings announced their decision to close its Belfast Nambarrie plant, a tea company in trade for over 140 years. Citing an "efficiency drive", Twinings moved most of its production to China and Poland in late 2011, while retaining its Andover, Hampshire factory with a reduced workforce. In 2023, Twinings ceased production of lapsang souchong, replacing it with a product called "Distinctively Smoky", widely considered to be inferior quality.

 

In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.

 

Bird’s were best known for making custard and Bird’s Custard is still a common household name, although they produced other desserts beyond custard, including the blancmange. They also made Bird’s Golden Raising Powder – their brand of baking powder. Bird’s Custard was first formulated and first cooked by Alfred Bird in 1837 at his chemist shop in Birmingham. He developed the recipe because his wife was allergic to eggs, the key ingredient used to thicken traditional custard. The Birds continued to serve real custard to dinner guests, until one evening when the egg-free custard was served instead, either by accident or design. The dessert was so well received by the other diners that Alfred Bird put the recipe into wider production. John Monkhouse (1862–1938) was a prosperous Methodist businessman who co-founded Monk and Glass, which made custard powder and jelly. Monk and Glass custard was made in Clerkenwell and sold in the home market, and exported to the Empire and to America. They acquired by its rival Bird’s Custard in the early Twentieth Century.

 

Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.

 

Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.

 

Bournville is a brand of dark chocolate produced by Cadbury. It is named after the model village of the same name in Birmingham, England and was first sold in 1908. Bournville Cocoa was one of the products sold by Cadbury. The label on the canister is a transitional one used after the First World War and shared both the old fashioned Edwardian letter B and more modern 1920s lettering for the remainder of the name. The red of the lettering is pre-war whilst the orange and white a post-war change.

 

Peek Freans is the name of a former biscuit making company based in Bermondsey, which is now a global brand of biscuits and related confectionery owned by various food businesses. De Beauvoir Biscuit Company owns but does not market in the United Kingdom, Europe and United States; Mondelēz International owns the brand in Canada; and English Biscuit Manufacturers owns the brand in Pakistan. Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd was registered in 1857 by James Peek (1800–1879) and his nephew-in-law George Hender Frean. The business was based in a disused sugar refinery on Mill Street in Dockhead, South East London, in the west of Bermondsey. With a quickly expanding business, in 1860, Peek engaged his friend John Carr, the apprenticed son of the Carlisle-based Scottish milling and biscuit-making family, Carr's. From 1861, Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd started exporting biscuits to Australia, but outgrew their premises from 1870 after agreeing to fulfil an order from the French Army for 460 long tons of biscuits for the ration packs supplied to soldiers fighting the Franco-Prussian War. After hostilities ended, the French Government ordered a further 16,000 long tons (11 million) sweet "Pearl" biscuits in celebration of the end of the Siege of Paris, and further flour supplies for Paris in 1871 and 1872, with financing undertaken by their bankers the Rothschilds. The consequential consumer demands of emigrating French expatriate soldiers, allowed the company to start exporting directly to Ontario, Canada from the mid-1870s. On 23 April 1873, the old Dockhead factory burnt down in a spectacular fire,[1] which brought the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) out on a London Fire Brigade horse-drawn water pump to view the resulting explosions. In 1906, the Peek, Frean and Co. factory in Bermondsey was the subject of one of the earliest documentary films shot by Cricks and Sharp. This was in part to celebrate an expansion of the company's cake business, which later made the wedding cakes for both Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten (later Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh) and Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles III), and Lady Diana Spencer. In 1924, the company established their first factory outside the UK, in Dum Dum in India. In 1931, five personnel from the Bermondsey factory went to Australia to train the staff in the new factory in Camperdown, in Sydney. In 1949, they established their first bakery in Canada, located on Bermondsey Road in East York, Ontario, which still today produces Peek Freans branded products. After 126 years, the London factory was closed by then owner BSN on Wednesday 26 May 1989.

 

Carr's is a British biscuit and cracker manufacturer, currently owned by Pladis Global through its subsidiary United Biscuits. The company was founded in 1831 by Jonathan Dodgson Carr and is marketed in the United States by Kellogg's. In 1831, Carr formed a small bakery and biscuit factory in the English city of Carlisle in Cumberland; he received a royal warrant in 1841. Within fifteen years of being founded, it had become Britain's largest baking business. Carr's business was both a mill and a bakery, an early example of vertical integration, and produced bread by night and biscuits by day. The biscuits were loosely based on dry biscuits used on long voyages by sailors. They could be kept crisp and fresh in tins, and despite their fragility could easily be transported to other parts of the country by canal and railway. Carr died in 1884, but by 1885, the company was making 128 varieties of biscuit and employing 1000 workers. In 1894 the company was registered as Carr and Co. Ltd. but reverted to being a private company in 1908. Carrs Flour Mills Limited was incorporated after acquiring the flour-milling assets. It became part of Cavenham Foods in 1964 until 1972, when it was sold to United Biscuits group, along with Cavenham's other biscuit brands Wright's Biscuits and Kemps for $10 million. United Biscuits was sold by its private equity owners to the Turkish-based multinational Yıldız Holding in 2014; in 2016 all UB brands including Carr's were combined with Yildiz's other snack brands to form Pladis Global.

 

Macfarlane Lang and Company began as Lang’s bakery in 1817, before becoming MacFarlane Lang in 1841. The first biscuit factory opened in 1886 and changed its name to MacFarlane Lang & Co. in the same year. The business then opened a factory in Fulham, London in 1903, and in 1904 became MacFarlane Lang & Co. Ltd. In 1948 it formed United Biscuits Ltd. along with McVitie and Price.

 

A co-operative wholesale society, or CWS, is a form of co-operative federation (that is, a co-operative in which all the members are co-operatives), in this case, the members are usually consumer cooperatives. The best historical examples of this are the English CWS and the Scottish CWS, which are the predecessors of the 21st Century Co-operative Group. Indeed, in Britain, the terms Co-operative Wholesale Society and CWS are used to refer to this specific organisation rather than the organisational form. They sold things like tea, cocoa and biscuits.

 

Sunlight Soap was first introduced in 1884 by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.

 

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. They 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.

1. an itty bitty garland..., 2. Falling asleep in a half-dream, 3. walk of fame, 4. blessed just to be, 5. all that could be heard were the tiny hands and feet of rain against the window, 6. Untitled, 7. new polas to swap out on the wall, 8. beauty, truth & love, 9. other peoples' rooms, 10. elucidate, 11. Just to put your mind at ease, You don’t owe me anything You paid me well in memories, 12. a chemex morning, 13. top floor, 14. layers, 15. rudbeckia, on film, 16. .alley cat.

 

these are not my photos. please click on the links above to visit the talented photographers.

When I was about 4 you could always find me in the spring with my head into a tulip blossom. I thought it enchanting there were stripes inside and black powdery anthers that you could not see from the outside. One day I came running into the house and told my mother I could see Spring behind the tulips! As I grew older I think I rarely hit such elucidated moments as the ones in childhood!

There is a lot of controversy about the Continental Clip. Even the Poodle community is sharply divided over what, to us, is merely a haircut. In an effort to elucidate the public about its use amongst working dogs, I'd like to present The Spoowardess-- OK, to be POOlitically correct, I suppose she's a Flight Attendant.

 

She wants you to fly the Frou-Frou skies aboard Continental, which boasts the world's highest Standards.

 

BTW: Topknot is pressed flat at top to fit beneath overhead storage compartments.

 

Pen and ink, watercolor wash and a dull Sharpee marker (no wine this time).