.

✈ Flight to Alpha Tribe ✈

 

♪ GENESIS - All in a Mouse's night ♪

 

I can't see you but I know you're there.

Got to get beside you 'cause it's really cold out here.

Come up close to me you'll soon be warm.

Hold me tightly like we're sheltering from a storm.

Think I might go out for a stroll

Into the night, and out of this hole.

Maybe find me a meal.

Walking along this new shag pile

Presents a problem all the while.

Nearly the door.

Suddenly he bumps into wood, the door is closed.

A voice from the bed, he'll be exposed.

Which way to run, must make for the hole,

But the light's been turned on, now he's blind as a mole in coal.

Now I can see they're coming at me,

They've blocked off my door, I haven't a chance in hell.

Come on baby let the poor thing go.

I'm not sleeping with that thing around here, no.

Alright then, I'll fetch a box from below,

Guard him carefully, they're very quick you know.

The door's been opened, my chance to escape.

Must run out quick, better sorry than late.

I'm out on the stairs.

They won't catch me now, I've the run of the house now.

I'll make it downstairs and into the breadbin.

That would be nice.

Suddenly he bumps into fur, that's very unwise,

A cat is much quicker than men and their eyes.

The chase that ensues can have only one end,

Unless outside help steps in for our friend in need.

But now the cat comes in for the kill,

His paw is raised, soon blood will spill, yes it will.

Hard luck mouse, this is the end of your road.

The signpost says inside me, let me bear your heavy load.

But it's not to be, that final pounce

Knocks a jar upon his head, and lays him out.

But it's all in a mouse's night

To take on all those who would fight.

There I was with my back to the wall,

Then comes this monster mouse, he's ten feet tall,

With teeth and claws to match.

It only took one blow.

Shot with Sussie Bell for Feb09 issue of Beautiful Kitchens magazine.

Dear friends,

 

we invite you for joining us watching the Finals of "Angel Dessous - Angels of 2011", the glamorous last event for 2010 on the new stage on Blue Sky.

 

The Show will start on 22nd Dec 12.00 noon with one hour live music on stage with the fantastic singer ~Pandora Breadbin~

 

The finalists walks will start at 1.00 pm

 

The show is hosted by Editorial Clarity and Louise McWinnie, photographed by Blackliquid Tokyoska and directed by Leandra Breen

 

Our lovely finalists are:

 

casual/formal:

 

Linnda Scofield

Puhi Rotaru

Caoimhe Lionheart

Melanie Sautereau

Jade Spectre

13 Cortes

 

Lingerie:

 

Aleida Rhode

Darling Tomorrow

Rissa Friller

Ananaya Mai

Diconay Boa

Federica Galtier

 

12 beautiful finalists are picked and 2 of them will be

 

~Angel of the Year 2011~

 

both will get

 

*** 25.000 money prize ***

*** A Tiar of Virtual Impressions ***

*** Priviledged for Ad Shootings during 2011 ***

*** Winner pics in SCRUPLZ and BeStyle Magazine ***

*** A set of the famous Manifeste Poses ***

*** A model contract with BeStyle Agency ***

 

Our Sponsors are:

 

# Tukinowaguma Hair Style, represented by KateForster Akina and AlexWyler Yoshikawa

# Stiletto Moody, represented by Dancer Dallagio

# Manifeste Poses by July Raymaker

# [White-Widow] by Julie Hastings

# SCRUPLZ Magazine

# Virtual Impressions by Chrissy Ambrose

# BeStyle Magazine and Agency by Agtaope Carter

   

Good luck to all finalists!! <33

 

"Hi Carmen and Eliza! Thank you so much for thinking of me! This was taken in the kitchen above the breadbin! Mom would plaster the wall with our faces if she could! Love and Hugs" Margaret xxx

In the breadbin !

shouts to me JFK breadbins & shout to Pedro, Trans, Focus, Seige and Karma all in attendance and braving the elements ;)

Anyone who follows my photostream knows that I love and collect 1:12 size miniatures which I photograph in realistic scenes. The artifice of recreating in minute detail items in 1:12 scale always amazes me, and it’s amazing how the eye can be fooled. Part of that artifice requires making sure that everything is in place as if the inhabitants of a room have just stepped out and will return at any moment, and I often spend far more time setting things up and adjusting the position of items, sometime by millimetres, to make it just right.

 

As well as photographing the miniature room as a whole, I sometimes photograph individual items within the tableau. On occasion it is so I know what is set where in a room if I decide to recreate it later, but more often than not it’s because I think the miniature artisan item deserves its own focus, be it a hand made hat, a hand painted teapot or a realistic biscuit tin containing biscuits.

 

The theme for “Smile on Saturday” for the 20th of November is “collage”, and whilst I have toyed and made a few different collages, I decided to use this one, to show some of the finer details that go into making a scene realistic. I hope that you like my choice for the theme this week, and that it makes you smile.

 

The details I have displayed around the main photograph are from top left to top right in an anti-clockwise direction:

 

A black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers, which 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.

 

The shelves of the Welsh dresser in the background are cluttered with different patterned crockery 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 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 this scene is set) when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a jar of Marmite 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. 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.

 

Sitting on the table in the foreground of the main photo is a McVitie and Price’s Small Petite Beurre Biscuits tin, containing a selection of different biscuits. The biscuits were made by hand of polymer 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. 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.

 

In the foreground on the table there are several packets of Edwardian cleaning and laundry brands that were in common use in the early Twentieth Century in every household, rich or poor. These are Sunlight Soap, Robin’s Starch, Jumbo Blue and Imp Washer Soap. All these packets were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. 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.

 

Sitting atop a stack of neatly folded 1:12 size linens sits a wicker sewing basket. Sitting open it has needles stuck into the padded lid, whilst inside it are a tape measure, knitting needles, balls of wool, reels of cotton and a pair of shears. All the items and the basket, except for the shears, are hand made by Mrs. Denton of Muffin Lodge in the United Kingdom. The taupe knitting on the two long pins that serve as knitting needles is properly knitted and cast on. The shears with black handles in the basket open and close. Made of metal, they came from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. The blue cotton reel and silver sewing scissors come from an E-Bay stockist of miniatures based in the United Kingdom.

 

In the foreground on the table there is a packet of Edwardian soap that was in common use in the early Twentieth Century in every household, rich or poor. This is Imp Washer Soap. The packet was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Imp Washer Soap was manufactured by T. H. Harris and Sons Limited, a soap manufacturers, tallow melters and bone boiler. Introduced after the Great War, Imp Washer Soap was a cheaper alternative to the more popular brands like Sunlight, Hudsons and Lifebuoy soaps. Imp Washer Soap was advertised as a free lathering and economical cleaner. T. H. Harris and Sons Limited also sold Mazo soap energiser which purported to improve the quality of cleaning power of existing soaps.

 

Sitting on the large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of a copper kettle and a steel iron. The kettle’s lid may be removed.

 

Sitting on the table is a cottage ware teapot. 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.

 

“ Life is good when you have a good sandwich.”

————-————-————-——— —-————-———-————-———-

+ Him +

♦️ Body: ToddleeDoo – Baby Fitted Body

♦️ Head: ToddleeDoo – Bento Head #Opal

♦️Skin: {Pity Party} – Aster Skin (BOM) / 10 Tones to Choose

 

+ Her +

♦️ Body: ToddleeDoo – Baby Fitted Body

♦️ Head: ToddleeDoo – Bento Head #Flora

♦️Skin: {Pity Party} – Aster Skin (BOM) / 10 Tones to Choose

————-————-————-——— —-————-———-————-———-

+Clothing +

 

♦️ Top: :Papaya: LITCHI Shirt – Easter Bunnies / ToddleeDoo Easter Eggs HUNT 2022

♦️ Bottom: :Papaya: APRICOT Easter – Leggins / ToddleeDoo Easter Eggs HUNT 2022

♦️ Shoes : .Tippy.Tap. Pucci EASTER Slippers / .Tippy.Tap. Babee FirstSteps Shoes / ToddleeDoo Easter Eggs HUNT 2022

 

+ Kitchen +

This adorably fun set will have your TD & Bebe babes enjoying their kitchen just like the big kids!

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Kitchen ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Island ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Microwave ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Messy bowls ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Storage containers ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Toaster ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Plates colorfull ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Small plates colorfull ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Cups colorfull ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Bowls colorfull ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Mixing bowls ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Breadbin ]

♦️ Lagom – Lil bear play kitchen [ Fridge ]

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, is paying an unexpected call on her beloved parents whilst her mistress is away visiting her own parents in Wiltshire. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith. Usually even before she walks through the glossy black painted front door, Edith can smell the familiar scent of a mixture of Lifebuoy Soap, Borax and Robin’s Starch, which means her mother is washing the laundry of others wealthier than she in the terrace’s kitchen at the rear of the house. Yet with her father’s promotion, Edith’s mother is only laundering a few days a week now, and today, rather than soap and starch greeting her on the street, she can hear familiar laughter.

 

“Mum!” Edith calls out cheerily as she opens the unlocked front door and walks in. “Mum, it’s me! Is that Bert with you?”

 

She takes a deep breath and holds it with anticipation as she runs down the narrow corridor with excited footsteps past the front room and down into the kitchen, which serves as the heart of Edith’s parent’s home. Bursting through the kitchen door she beams and gasps with delight, for there at Ada’s old and worn round kitchen table sits her mother and her brother Bert. Edith’s little brother works aboard the SS Demosthenes as a dining saloon steward, sailing between England and Australia. Australia was where Bert spent Christmas 1922, so he wasn’t with his family for Christmas. Yet now, just like in the postcard he sent from Queensland showing a bird called a kookaburra inside the shape of the great southern continent surrounded by yellow wattle flowers, he is home on shore leave.

 

“Bert!” Edith gasps in delight. “You’re home!”

 

“Hullo Edith!” Bert says with an equally happy smile as he leaps out of the comfortable Windsor chair usually inhabited by their father and enfolds his sister in an embracing hug.

 

“Oh Bert.” Edith presses herself against her brother, the comforting smell of their mother’s lux soap flakes filling her nostrils. Pressing her hands against his hips, she breaks their embrace and pushes herself back. “Let me look at you then!”

 

Although a year younger than his sister, Bert is taller than Edith now, after a final growth spurt when he was in his late teens. Dressed in one of their mother’s home knitted jumpers and a pair of grey flannel trousers his skin looks sun kissed after spending a few days ashore in Melbourne during the height of summer in the southern hemisphere before sailing back, and the sun has given his sandy blonde hair some natural highlights.

 

“The sea air agrees with you, Bert.”

 

“More likely the Australian sun!” Ada remarks as she picks herself up out of her own chair with a slight groan. “Just look at those colourful cheeks and those freckles.” She waves her hand at her son lovingly. “We don’t usually see them until high summer.”

 

“Hullo Mum!” Edith walks up and embraces her mother. ‘How are you?”

 

“Oh, I’m grand now our Bert is home, and you are too, Edith love.” Ada says in reply, a broad smile gracing her lips and a happy brilliance in her brown eyes. “Now, put that basket down and have a seat. I’ll pop the kettle on and brew us a fresh pot.” She begins to bustle around the great blacklead range and moves the heavy kettle onto the hob. Turning back to the table she picks up the beautiful, glazed teapot in the shape of a cottage with a thatched roof with the chimney as the lid, which Edith bought for her from the Caledonian Market**, and makes a grand sweeping gesture to show Edith it’s presence. “See Edith, a special occasion calls for the use of my special teapot.”

 

“Any day should be a special enough day for you to use that pretty teapot that Edith gave you, Mum.” Bert says, sitting back down at the table.

 

“That’s what I tell her!” Edith agrees.

 

“But then it wouldn’t be a special teapot any more, would it?” Ada says, stepping behind Bert and going to the small tough sink the corner of the kitchen where she turns the squeaky taps and rinses out the pot. “No. It’s a special teapot for special occasions.” She takes up the yellow tea towel with red stitching that hangs over a metal rail above the range and dries the pot. “I used it on Christmas Day didn’t I, Edith love?”

 

“Yes,” Edith agrees. “But you haven’t used it a day since then.”

 

“That’s because there hasn’t been a special occasion worthy of using it,” Ada defends. “Until Bert came home, that is.” She gently squeezes her son’s left shoulder.

 

“I give up!” Edith throws her hands in the air. She shucks off her black three quarter length coat and hangs it on a hook by the back door. She then places her hat on one of the carved knobs of the ladderback chair drawn up to the table next to her mother’s usual seat.

 

“Oh I told you, Edith!” Ada chides. “Don’t put your pretty hat there, love.” She walks over to the Welsh dresser that dominates one wall of the crowded kitchen and pulls out the battered tea cannister. “It might get damaged. Such a pretty hat should sit on the table where it’s safe. You know Edith made that, don’t you Bert?”

 

“Yes, I do, Mum.” Bert acknowledges cheerfully. “Our Edith is the cleverest girl I know.”

 

“I keep saying Mum, the hat’s nothing special. And besides, I didn’t make it. It came from Petticoat Lane***, just like my coat, and it’s not new. I simply decorated the hat with bits and bobs I picked up from a Whitechapel haberdasher Miss Lettice’s char****, Mrs. Boothby, told me about.”

 

“Well, homemade or not, it’s still too pretty to hang there.”

 

“It’s my hat, Mum. I always hang it there and it’s always fine, and I promise you, it’ll be fine there today.”

 

“Well, suit yourself, love. You’re an adult now, just the same as Bert.” Ada remarks dismissively but looks at her daughter doubtfully as she scoops out some black dried tea leaves and puts the heaped spoonfuls into the pot. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

 

“So,” Bert sinks back into his seat and toys with his teacup decorated with pink roses, slowly turning it in its saucer. “What’s the gossip with you then, Edith? How’s your Frank then? Mum says that she and Dad haven’t met him yet.”

 

“It’s become quite the mute point.” Ada remarks as she turns back from the dresser and folds her arms akimbo, frowning at her daughter.

 

“And I hope,” Edith defends herself, challenging her mother’s steely stare. “That she told you why.”

 

“I did!” Ada says crisply.

 

“Word is you’re meeting his mum soon, Edith.” Bert says excitedly.

 

“Well, not his mum. His parents died of the Spanish Flu, but I’m meeting his Granny, who is a bit like his surrogate mum.”

 

“That’s nerve wracking.” Bert replies.

 

“I know! I’m so nervous.” Edith confides, lowing her voice as she leans across the table conspiratorially and reaches for the battered McVitie and Price biscuit tin.

 

“That’s why I can’t get a girl to come home here.” Frank says with a wink and slight indicating nod to their mother. “Imagine meeting Mum.” He lifts the lid off the tin for his sister and lets her make her selection. “They’re all too scared of her.”

 

“Cheeky!” Ada says, laughing good naturedly and swatting her son with the tea towel. “Any girl would be lucky to have me as a prospective mother-in-law.” She shuffles her shoulders and tilts her head upwards as her face forms into a dignified expression. “Or boy.” she adds with undisguised meaning and importance.

 

“So, me and Frank are just fine, thanks Bert. We’re just tickety-boo.*****!” Edith tells her brother before popping a biscuit into her mouth.

 

“Tickety-boo!” Bert enthuses. “You are up on all the latest small talk and phrases, living with your Miss Chetwynd up in Mayfair.”

 

“She comes home with new phrases all the time.” Ada places the freshly refilled cottage ware teapot down on the table between them all. “Goodness knows I can’t keep up with her. It’s the influence of all those fine ladies and gentlemen and moving picture stars that frequent Mis Chetwynd’s flat.”

 

“Moving picture stars? Really” Bert asks excitedly.

 

“Oh Bert!” Edith scoffs, flapping her hand playfully at him. “I only answer the door to them, or serve them tea. And Miss Lettice has only had one moving picture star to tea since I’ve been there: Wanetta Ward.” She sighs. “She’s so beautiful! She works for Gainsborough Pictures******. You’re more likely to have a longer conversation with a moving picture star on board your ship as a dining saloon steward, Bert, than ever I will at Miss Lettice’s.”

 

“I doubt that. There aren’t that many moving picture stars sailing between Australia and home, well none that I know of. Although they are mad for moving pictures over there. There are picture houses everywhere, and they even make their own films there, just like here.”

 

“Anyway, I’m not the interesting one, Bert.” Edith says, seeing a way to turn the conversation to her brother and his news. “You are. Tell me about life on the ship this voyage.”

 

A short while later over tea and biscuits, Edith is brought up to date with Bert’s latest adventures on board his ship, and the interesting people he has served as a first-class saloon steward.

 

“Oh!” Ada suddenly gasps. “Bert! Aren’t you going to give Edith her present?”

 

“Present?” Edith asks with a querying look to her brother.

 

“Yes, Edith love. Don’t you remember Bert wrote it in his last postcard to us?”

 

Edith casts her mind back a few weeks to when her mother showed her the postcard Bert had sent from Australia.

 

“Right you are Mum!” Bert agrees. “So Edith, on Christmas Day, the Second Officer, Mr. Collins, organised a trip for we lads and some of the girls on the ship’s staff who were away from home for Christmas and that were at a loose end. A lot found their own amusements in Melbourne. It’s such a big and vibrant city, full of fun things to do. But about twenty of us didn’t have anywhere to go, so we said yes.”

 

“What did you do, Bert? What had Mr. Collins organised?” Edith asks in suspense.

 

“Well, Mr. Collins was born in Melbourne. Well no, actually he was born a few hours outside of Melbourne in the country at a place called Yarra Glen. It’s quite famous and lots of toffs go there to holiday, not that was where Mr. Collins took us.” Bert quickly adds, seeing the excitement in his sister’s face. “No, Mr. Collins was born on a farm out there – something they call a cattle station – and he took us all out there for a picnic on his parent’s station.”

 

“But a station is a railway station.” Edith mutters, shaking her head, her face crumpling in disbelief.

 

“Well in Australia there are railway stations and cattle station, which are big farms. So, Mr. Collins packed us all into a railway carriage at Flinders Street Railway Station and off we went. We left at ten in the morning and we didn’t get to the railway station at the Yarra Glen until nearly midday.”

 

“Was it hot?” Edith asks. “You always say Australia is hot around this time of year.”

 

“Well it was, but it was alright because we opened up our window in our carriage and poked our heads out so we could look at the passing countryside, so we had a nice breeze. The countryside is so different to here. It’s all yellow grasses and funny trees with washed out leaves: no real greenery at all so to speak, but it’s still really beautiful in its own way.”

 

“Hmph!” Ada snorts from her chair. “Nothing beats the Kentish countryside for beauty.”

 

“Well I guess beauty is a subjective thing, Mum.” Bert goes on, “Mr. Collins was telling us on the train trip down that sometimes travelling artists set up camp on his parent’s property just so that they can paint the landscape.”

 

“Fancy that, Frank!” Edith enthuses. “Did you like it?”

 

“Oh yes! It’s very pretty, in a foreign kind of way. Not many flowers. But we saw jumping kangaroos from the train on the trip down. They sat in the grass and watched us pass, and then some of them just up and jumped away. They can move very quickly when they jump. Anyway, we finally pulled into Yarra Glen. We had to wait whilst a big party of toffs and all their mountains of luggage were taken care of and packed up into cars. Mr. Collins says that there is a famous opera singer who lives out there, named Nellie Melba*******.”

 

“I’ve heard nellie Melba sing before!” Ada exclaims, dropping her pink and yellow floral teacup into her saucer and clapping her hands.

 

“You have, Mum?” Edith asks, the look of lack of comprehension on her face matching her brother’s as they both look to her.

 

“Well, not live of course!” Ada says, taking up her cup of tea before continuing. “But once when I was at Mrs. Hounslow’s, I heard her sing. She was playing records on her gramophone, and I asked who it was, and she invited me to stand in her parlour and listen to her recording of Nellie Melba sing ‘Ave Maria’.” Her children pull a face at the mention of their landlady, the rich and odious old widow whom they both grew up hearing about regularly, and seeing on the rare occasions she would deign to stop by to collect their rent in person, rather than her rent collector. “Now don’t be like that, children! Mrs. Hounslow’s husband died a hero in the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War.”

 

“And neither you, nor she will ever let us forget it.” Bert drones, rolling his eyes.

 

“Now I won’t have a bad word said about her, Bert.” Ada wags her finger admonishingly at her son. “She’s helped pay for many a meal in this house with her sixpences and shillings over the years, especially during the war when things were hard. You should be grateful to her. We all should be.”

 

“Pshaw!” Edith raises her eyes to the ceiling above. “Enough about old Widow Hounslow! Go on with your story, Bert.”

 

“Well,” Bert continues. “Miss Melba must have been home and hosting a big house party, but once they were all packed off, we were ushered to a charabanc******** which took us out to Mr. Collins’ family farm. Once we got to the house – which they call a homestead – Mrs. Collins, Mr, Collins’ mum, had picnic baskets for us, full of delicious sandwiches and pies and cakes. There was even beer and stout for us to drink. When Mr. Collins lead us away from the house to where we were to take our picnic, he took us to a place where there was a stream, so we could dunk the bottles of beer and stout into it to keep them warm. We tethered them to the bank with string he gave us. And so, we sat under these big trees with white bark and ate and drank and had a jolly time of it, all at Mr. Collin’s expense.”

 

“That was nice of him, Bert.” Edith remarks.

 

“It was! We were ever so grateful. He had brought a cricket bat and stumps from the house with him, so we played some cricket after luncheon until it got too warm, and then we sang Christmas carols.”

  

“It must have felt odd, singing Christmas carols in the summer sunshine.”

 

“Not really Edith.” Bert replies. “Christmas is Christmas all over the world, no matter what the weather, if you are in high spirits.”

 

“And the gift?” Ada says, patting her son’s arm as a reminder.

 

“So, when we were walking back from out picnic by the stream, I was carrying one of the picnic baskets, and I noticed what a pretty painted lid it had. When we arrived back at the homestead, I asked Mr. Collins’ mother about it. It turns out that Mr. Collin’s brother and his wife live on the property as well. She cooks for the farmhands and helps keep house for old Mrs. Collins, and she also makes picnic baskets from the reeds growing around the stream we used to keep our beer and stout warm. Her husband carves the lids and she paints them, and she sells them in Yarra Glen.” Bert reaches under the table and pushing his seat backwards, he stands up and places a picnic basket on the table. “So this is for you. It’s the picnic basket I brought back to the house, and then brought all the way from Australia for you. A belated Merry Christmas, big sister.”

 

Edith gasps and raises her hands to her mouth as a smile fills her face. The beautiful picnic hamper sitting proudly on the table has woven pale reed sides and two hinged lids on the top, both painted with stylised leaves and creamy yellow daisies.

 

“Oh Bert!” Edith gasps, as tears well in her eyes. “Oh it’s lovely!” She gets up and hurries over to her brother and embraces him. “Thank you so much!”

 

“I’m so glad you like it, Edith.” Bert replies. “I got more than a bit of ribbing from the other chaps on the sailing home. They took up calling me ‘Basket Bert’.”

 

“Oh they didn’t, Bert?” Edith cries. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Nothing for you be sorry for, Edith, but I afraid that I think it will stick,” Frank adds. “However it’s worth it, if you like the basket. I thought if things were still going well with Frank, you two might use it to go on a picnic in summer.”

 

“Oh, I will Bert!” Edith replies as she runs her hand along the thin and elegant handle. “It’s wonderful! Thank you so much!”

 

*The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.

 

**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.

 

***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.

 

****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.

 

*****Believed to date from British colonial rule in India, and related to the Hindi expression “tickee babu”, meaning something like “everything's alright, sir”, “tickety-boo” means “everything is fine”. It was a common slang phrase that was popular in the 1920s.

 

******Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.

 

*******Dame Nellie Melba was an Australian operatic lyric coloratura soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early Twentieth Century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town. Melba studied singing in Melbourne and made a modest success in performances there. After a brief and unsuccessful marriage, she moved to Europe in search of a singing career. She succeeded in London and Paris. Her repertoire was small; in her whole career she sang no more than 25 roles and was closely identified with only ten. She was known for her performances in French and Italian opera, but sang little German opera. She returned to Australia frequently during the Twentieth Century, singing in opera and concerts, and had a house, “Coombe Cottage” built for her in the Yarra Valley outside of Melbourne.

 

********A charabanc or "char-à-banc" is a type of horse-drawn vehicle or early motor coach, usually open-topped, more common in Britain, but also found in places like Australia during the early part of the Twentieth Century. It has benched seats arranged in rows, looking forward, commonly used for large parties, whether as public conveyances or for excursions.

 

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 central focus of our story, sitting on Ada’s table, is the wicker picnic basket that Bert brought home for Edith. In truth it is not Australian made, but was made by an unknown miniature artisan in America. The floral patterns on the top have been hand painted. The hinged lids lift, just like a real hamper, so things can be put inside.

 

In front of the basket stands Ada’s cottage ware teapot. 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 rood and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics.

 

Surrounding the cottage ware teapot are non-matching teacups, saucers, a milk jug and sugar bowl, all of which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom.

 

Sitting on the table in the foreground is a McVitie and Price’s Small Petite Beurre Biscuits tin, containing a selection of different biscuits. The biscuits were made by hand of polymer 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. 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.

 

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 recently 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 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 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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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).

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid, grew up. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price* biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry occasionally at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith. We find ourselves at the rear of the house in Ada’s cosy kitchen. It’s Wednesday, a free afternoon for Edith, usually kept sacrosanct for Edith to spend it doing something pleasurable with her best friend and fellow maid-of-all-work, Hilda, perusing shop windows or shopping for trimmings at Mrs. Minkin’s Haberdashery in Whitechapel. Yet today, Edith and her fiancée, Mayfair grocer’s delivery boy Frank, who also has managed to arrange to have Wednesday afternoon off until four o’clock, have come to Harlesden together. The couple and Ada have been shopping down on the Harlesden high street at Woolworths*. The trio, well rugged up against the cold December weather, come into the terrace through the back door off the scullery, leading from the small courtyard garden, laden with festive Christmas decorations.

 

“Oh, thank you so much for all your help today, Mum!” Edith sighs with relief as she places a box of Christmas baubles and a box of Christmas crackers onto the kitchen table. She then turns to Frank as he places Ada’s shopping basket full of Christmas decorations next to the box of crackers. “And thank you for your help, carrying Mum’s basket for her, Frank.”

 

“Anything for my best girl,” Frank replies, his cheeks flushing red at his fiancée’s compliment as he smiles at her. “And my future mother-in-law, of course!” he adds hastily as he glances at Ada, as she hangs her red velvet hat decorated with flowers and feathers on a hook near the kitchen door.

 

“Of course!” Ada agrees as she adds her heavy winter coat, cold from the December chill in the air from their walk back from the Harlesden high street on the hook beneath her hat. “Yes, I must say it’s lovely to have a spare set of hands today, Frank love. I’m most grateful.”

 

“It’s a pleasure Mrs. Wat… I mean, Ada.” Frank stumbles, blushing more. He sighs. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to calling you Ada, Mrs. Watsford.”

 

Ada chuckles as she turns around and faces her daughter and future son-in-law, smiling broadly. “Oh, you’ll get used to it soon enough, Frank love.” She walks up and stands next to him, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly. “It took me an age to get used to being called Mrs. Watsford after I married George. Mrs. Watsford, to me anyway, was always George’s mother. When George and I were first married and we went anywhere socially, if anyone mentioned Mrs. Watsford, referring to me, I never answered, always thinking they were talking to, or addressing my mother-in-law, until George gave me a gentle husbandly prompt.” She chuckles again at the thought.

 

“Well, I’ll keep trying… Ada,” Frank says, emphasising her name. “And I’m sure you’re right.”

 

“You’ll also learn, Frank, that Mum is always right,” Edith giggles. “Even when she’s not!”

 

Frank smiles and joins in, his good-natured and easy chuckles intermixing with Edith’s girlish laughter as they echo around the small Harlesden terrace house kitchen.

 

“Aye! Aye! Less of your cheek, Edith!” Ada chides, wagging her finger at the young couple, yet smiling as she does, indicating that she isn’t really cross with them. “You too Frank! Is that how you repay my generosity at paying you a compliment?”

 

“Ahem!” Frank clears his throat and suddenly stands a little more upright. “No Mrs… err… Ada.” He turns and glances at his fiancée, a gormless grin on his face.

 

“You’re both awful!” Ada laughs. “Although Edith is right. I am usually right… in the end.”

 

“She’s right, Frank!” Edith acknowledges her mother as she proceeds to hang her handbag over the knob on the top of her favourite ladderback chair drawn up to the table before removing her black dyed straw cloche that she decorated herself with feathers and purple satin roses from Mrs. Minkin’s Haberdashery.

 

“Oh, don’t put it there, love.” Ada cautions her daughter. “I keep telling you, it might get spoiled, if you hang it there. Such a pretty hat should sit on the table where it’s safe.”

 

“And I keep telling you that it will be fine, Mum.” She pats the hat with satisfaction. “Besides, with all these new Christmas decorations from Woolworths, there isn’t really much room on the table.”

 

“As I just said, Edith love: I am usually right… in the end.” She wags her finger admonishingly at her daughter again. “You’ll see. One day you’ll regret hanging it there.”

 

“Yes Mum!” Edith acknowledges her mother, rolling her eyes. “But not today.”

 

“Now!” Ada claps her hands together, clasping them in anticipation. “Who wants tea then?”

 

Edith looks at Frank and Frank looks at Edith, both smiling broadly.

 

“Oh, I do!” Edith exclaims.

 

“I do!” Frank concurs.

 

“And I know I do,” Ada agrees. “That walk from Woolworths in High Street** may not be far, but it’s so cold out there today. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we didn’t get a dusting of snow*** a bit later.”

 

“If you can see it through the dense fog out there.” Edith remarks disparagingly.

 

Ada turns and stokes the dying embers in the range to bring it back to life before adding a scoop of fresh coal to it. “Be a good girl, and set the table, will you, Edith love? I’ll see to the tea.”

 

Edith walks over to the big, dark Welsh dresser that dominates one side of the tiny kitchen and picks up pretty floral teacups and saucers from among the mismatched crockery on its shelves: one of her mother’s many market finds that helped to bring elegance and beauty to Edith’s childhood home.

 

“Biscuits too, Mum?” she asks cheerfully.

 

“What kind of a question is that, Edith love?” Ada gasps. “Your dad would be furious if we didn’t serve up some of his biscuits from the factory. Besides, what kind of hostess would I be, if I didn’t offer Frank a biscuit of two?”

 

“Thanks Mrs. Wat… Ada.” Frank says, looking to Edith.

 

Edith smiles indulgently and momentarily allows herself to reminisce about years past as she reaches for the familiar McVitie’s**** Petit Beurre***** biscuit tin, its lid battered and the pattern on the top worn and chipped from years of use.

 

Ada turns back to Frank. “Sit down, Frank love.” She gestures with a flapping hand for Frank to settle down in a chair at the kitchen table. “You’ve earned a chance to put your feet up after carrying my basket for me.”

 

“Oh, it was a pleasure, Ada.” Frank says, slipping in at the table as Edith starts to set down the tea things. “It will put us in a festive mood if it does snow.”

 

“Help yourself to biscuits, Frank.” Edith says, opening the tin and placing it in front of her fiancée.

 

“Thanks Edith.” he replies gratefully, picking up a Chocolate Homewheat Digestive******, taking a hungry bite out of it, crumbs spilling onto the blue and white floral plate directly in front of him.

 

Edith finishes setting the table, whilst Ada pours hot water from her large kettle hanging on the hob into her old, glazed Brown Betty******* teapot, before setting it on the table to steep.

 

“So,” Ada asks with a groan, settling comfortably into her own round backed Windsor chair. “How’s your grandmother then?”

 

Frank swallows his mouthful of biscuit before replying, “It’s a slow recovery, but Gran’s definitely improving, thanks Mrs. Wat… Ada.”

 

“It’s so awful having influenza at any time in life, but at her age,” Ada tuts and shakes her head. “Poor Mrs. McTavish. George and I were talking about it when Edith told us she was poorly. She must have caught it going home from the Lyon’s Corner House******** the afternoon of the party George threw for yours and Edith’s engagement. He feels terribly guilty.” She pauses. “We both do, Frank love.”

 

“Oh, it wasn’t your fault, Ada!” Frank insists. “It was cold enough for a dusting of snow that day too, and even with her fox fur collar, I guess she still wasn’t quite well rugged up enough. It was just unfortunate that she caught a chill.”

 

“And you did say she was improving, Frank.” Edith adds helpfully.

 

“Yes,” Frank chuckles. “She was telling me how to make our pot of tea the other day when I visited her after Edith and I had been to the Premier********* over in in East Ham, to see ‘A Girl of London’**********, so that’s a marked improvement.”

 

“She’s very particular on how Francis makes her tea.” Edith adds cheekily, using Frank’s proper name, which he loathes and thinks unmanly.

 

“Edith!” Frank exclaims as his face flushes with embarrassment as he looks at his fiancée, who feigns innocence as she blows a kiss to him over the table.

 

Unaware of the teasing going on between the pair, Ada remarks as she pours Frank his tea, “Well that’s a good thing, Frank love.”

 

“And it’s a very good thing you and Mr. Wat… George, are doing Ada,” Frank says, indicating to all the Christmas decorations they have brought back to the Harlesden terrace with them. “Uprooting Christmas festivities from here as we’d originally, planned and moving them at short notice to Gran’s house. All these lovely new bright decorations,” He fiddles with a box of green and gold baubles in a brightly patterned box and a boxed green tinsel garland. “Will add some festive cheer to Gran’s house, and I know she is looking forward to having Christmas at home, even if she isn’t well enough to help cook the Christmas turkey herself.”

 

“Ahh,” Ada scoffs with a beatific smile and a dismissive wave of her hand as she passes Frank his cup of tea. “You’re welcome, Frank. It would be too much to expect Mrs. McTavish to travel all the way to us, even if it isn’t far from the Tube************ station either way, in her poorly condition. Besides, it wasn’t even my suggestion. Edith should take credit for that.”

 

Edith remains silent, but smiles proudly as she munches quietly on a jam drop biscuit*************.

 

“That’s true Ada. Credit where credit is due**************, Edith,” Frank acknowledges his fiancée. “It’s very good of you to think of Gran’s comfort and health first.”

 

“Oh, that’s alright, Frank!” Edith replies breezily as she finishes her mouthful. “I think anyone else would think the same.”

 

“Not just anyone, Edith - you!” Frank insists. “You are so kind and caring, and that’s one of the many reasons that I love you.”

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith exclaims with a beaming smile. “You are sweet. I love you too!”

 

“Frank’s right, Edith love.” Ada adds kindly. “You are a very good girl to think of Mrs. McTavish and her needs when she hasn’t been well. The lady you have grown up to be makes your dad and me proud, love.”

 

“Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it?” Edith reaches across the table and picks up a boxed angel dressed in a white lace gown with gilt cardboard wings and a halo destined for the top of a tree. “Gran’s not been well, and after all, she does have a parlour every bit as large as our kitchen, so big enough for all of us, especially since Bert won’t be home this Christmas.”

 

“He was lucky to get shore leave last Christmas, Edith love.” Ada tempers. “That was two Christmases in a row we had him home for. We knew we couldn’t have been lucky enough to have had him for a third.”

 

“I know, Mum.” Edith replies. “He just better make sure he gets shore leave for our wedding!”

 

“He will, Edith love. Nothing will stop Bert being here for your big day, when it happens.” Ada insists.

 

*Woolworths began operation in Britain in 1909 when Frank Woolworth opened the first store in Liverpool, as a British subsidiary of the already established American company. The store initially sold a variety of goods for threepence and sixpence, making their goods accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy upper and middle-classes. The British subsidiary proved to be very popular, and it grew quickly, opening twelve stores by 1912 and expanding using its own profits to become a fixture on the high street. The stores became a beloved British institution, with many shoppers assuming they were originally a British company. In 1982, the United Kingdom operations underwent a management buyout from the American parent company, becoming Woolworth Holdings PLC. This followed the American parent company\'s sale of its controlling stake to a local consortium. Later, in 2000, the company\'s parent (by then known as Kingfisher Group) decided to restructure, focusing more on its DIY and electrical markets. The general merchandise division, including Big W stores, was spun off into a separate company called Woolworths in 2001. Unable to adapt to modern retail trends, the company faced increasing competition and financial difficulties. The last Woolworths stores in the United Kingdom closed their doors in December 2008 and January 2009, marking the end of an era.

 

**Woolworths at 37-41 High Street in Harlesden was was the eleventh UK store and the third London store. It opened in 1911 and closed in 1991 at the end of its lease. The original store was rather smaller, expanding to the below frontage in two stages in the 1920s and 1930s. The outlet took a little longer to get established than the first two London stores Brixton and Woolwich, possibly because of the middle-class pretentions of Harlesden at the time when housewives might have been ashamed of shopping in a store that’s byline was selling goods for threepence and sixpence, but had built such a large clientele by the 1930s that it was doubled in size.

 

***It snowed in London in 1925, with significant "snowy northerlies" occurring in late November. While heavy snowfalls were reported in the midlands and north of England in December of that year, London experienced a period of dense fog in December, as well as a very mild, windy, and wet January at the start of the year.

 

****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 Petit Beurre, also known as Véritable Petit Beurre (VPB), is a type of shortbread from Nantes, France. The biscuits of the Lefèvre-Utile company are the most commercially successful variety, although its name is not exclusive to Lefèvre-Utile . It was invented in 1886 by Louis Lefèvre-Utile in the city of Nantes and was inspired by some English products of the time.

 

******McVitie & Price introduced the chocolate digestive biscuit in 1925, which was the primary chocolate biscuit variety they offered at that time. It was a variation of their original digestive biscuit and was named the "Chocolate Homewheat Digestive". Other flavored chocolate biscuits like mint, orange, or those with chocolate chips inside did not exist in this early period.

 

*******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.

 

********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 Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.

 

**********‘A Girl of London’ is a 1925 British silent drama film produced by Stoll Pictures, directed by Henry Edwards and starring Genevieve Townsend, Ian Hunter and Nora Swinburne. Its plot concerns the son of a member of parliament, who is disowned by his father when he marries a girl who works in a factory. Meanwhile, he tries to rescue his new wife from her stepfather who operates a drugs den. It was based on a novel by Douglas Walshe.

 

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

 

************People started calling the London Underground the "Tube" around 1900, after the opening of the Central London Railway. The railway\'s deep, cylindrical tunnels resembled tubes, and a newspaper nickname for it, the “Tuppenny Tube”, due to a flat fare of two pence, helped the term stick. Over time, the nickname spread to refer to the entire system.

 

*************A jam drop biscuit is a classic buttery, shortbread-style cookie with a thumbprint-like indentation filled with jam before baking.

 

**************The phrase "credit paid where it\'s due" means to praise someone for their accomplishments or good work, even if you may not like them or have other negative feelings toward them. It is an expression of fairness that acknowledges merit when it is deserved. It was likely popularised by American statesman Samuel Adams, who wrote "Give credit to whom credit due" in a letter in 1777. The expression\'s origin can also be traced to a biblical parallel in Romans 13:7 and reflects a long-standing principle of giving praise or acknowledgement to those who have earned it.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene with its festive overtones 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:

 

Ada’s kitchen table is covered with boxed Christmas decorations. The boxed tinsel garland and the tree top angel were a gift to me last Christmas from my Flickr friend BKHagar *Kim* who also collects 1:12 miniatures. She picked these up at a house auction as part of a large miniatures collection. The red box containing hand painted Christmas ornaments were hand made and decorated by artists of Crooked Mile Cottage in America. The patterned green box of red and green baubles at the front of Ada’s basket to the right was hand made by Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The box of Christmas crackers is a 1:12 miniatures made by artisan Ken Blythe. I have a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my miniatures collection – books mostly. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! Sadly, so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. As well as making books, he also made other small paper based miniatures including boxes of goods. The box is designed to be opened, and each one contains gaily coloured Christmas crackers made from real crêpe paper. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make them all miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

Ada’s shopping basket comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.

 

Sitting on the table in the foreground is a McVitie and Price’s Small Petite Beurre Biscuits tin, containing a selection of different biscuits. There are several biscuits on the plates as well. The biscuits were made by hand of polymer 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. Also in the foreground there are are non-matching teacups, saucers, a milk jug and sugar bowl, all of which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. The Brown Betty teapot in the came from The Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.

  

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. Edith’s green leather handbag also came from her collection.

 

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.

 

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).

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.

 

Having recently met Mrs. McTavish, the grandmother of Frank Leadbetter, Edith’s young beau, Edith has now arranged for Frank to join her for a Sunday roast with her parents, so that they might finally meet. Wishing to make the right impression, Frank arrived on the doorstep of the Watsfords dressed in his Sunday best suit, and presented Ada with a bunch of beautiful yellow roses and George with a bottle of French red wine. Frank has not been the only one wishing to make a good impression, with Ada scrubbing her home from top to bottom in the days leading up to the visit.

 

The kitchen has always been the heart of Edith’s family home, and today it has a particularly special feel about it. Ada had pulled out one of her best table cloths 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. Ada has even conceded to Edith’s constant reminders that she promised to use the pretty Price Washington ‘Ye Old Cottage’ teapot that Edith bought her.

 

The kitchen is filled with the rich smells of roasted ham and pumpkin, boiled potatoes and vegetables, gravy warming over the grate and the faint fruity aroma of one of Ada’s cherry tarts as it sits waiting to be served for dessert on the dresser’s pull out extension.

 

“It’s a pleasure to finally have you at our table on a Sunday after all this time, Frank.” Ada says welcomingly from her seat in the high backed Windsor chair in front of the kitchen range, smiling across the round kitchen table at their guest.

 

“It’s a great pleasure to be here and to meet you too Mrs. Watsford,” Frank answers, before quickly looking to his right and adding, “And of course you too, Mr. Watsford.”

 

“Yes,” adds George. “All we ever seem to hear from our Edith these days is ‘Frank and I did this’ or ‘Frank said that’, and we wondered when we were going to get to meet you.”

 

“Dad!” admonishes Edith hotly, her cheeks flushing with colour at her father’s direct remark.

 

Frank looks to his sweetheart and smiles at her, silently indicating that what her father said was fine with him. “I am sorry we haven’t met sooner, but I am a stickler for doing things properly.”

 

“Yes, so Edith told us.” Ada answers.

 

“So, she may have told you that I wanted her to meet my family first. Sadly, my parents aren’t alive any longer, but I still have my maternal grandmother, who had more than a hand in my upbringing. I needed to ease her into the idea that I have a sweetheart, you see. It has just been she and I since 1919. I didn’t want to upset our routine, so I slowly introduced the idea of Edith being my sweetheart to her before finally introducing them.”

 

“Edith tells us that the introduction to Mrs. Mc… Tavish, is it?” Ada begins querying. When Frank nods, she continues. “That her introduction to Mrs. McTavish went very well.”

 

“It did indeed. In fact, it went even better than I’d hoped.” Frank enthuses. “You must both be very proud of Edith.”

 

Edith blushes again and looks down into her napkin draped across her lap.

 

‘And now they’ve met,” Frank continues. “It means that we could meet.”

 

“Well,” Ada says kindly. “I think that’s very respectful of you, considering your grandmother’s feelings like that.”

 

“I’m sure Edith would do the same, were she in a similar position, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank replies with a slight blush of his own now gracing his usually pale cheeks.

 

“And thank you again for the lovely roses, Frank.” Ada adds, glancing at the bunch of fat yellow roses on the table that Frank presented to her upon his and Edith’s arrival at the Watsford family home.

 

“Oh, and the wine.” Edith points to the bottle of red wine also sitting on the table.

 

“I’m not really a wine drinker myself,” George remarks. “More of stout man, me.” He taps the reddish brown earthenware jug next to him comfortingly.

 

“It doesn’t matter, George.” Ada admonishes her husband. “It was very thoughtful of you, Frank. I’m sure you make your grandmother as proud as Edith makes us.” Yet even as she speaks, Ada looks distrustfully at the bottle of red wine with its fancy label decorated with garlands and writing in a foreign language. “And where did you find this wine, Frank?”

 

“I did make sure to ask Edith whether you were teetotal, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank assures Ada. “If you disapprove, I’ll take it away. I meant no disrespect.”

 

“Oh it’s not that, Frank. We just aren’t used to it is all. As my husband says, we don’t often have a cause to have wine in this house.”

 

“I don’t think we’ve ever had wine in the house.” George adds.

 

“Oh, when Mum was alive and used to make elderflower or blackberry wine, I always had a small demijohn*** of them on the dresser.” Ada corrects him. “Not that there was ever a great deal in the house.”

 

“I don’t remember that,” George chortles. “But then again,” he adds, raising his bushy eyebrows. “There are a good many things I don’t remember these days.”

 

“Well, I’m afraid this didn’t come from my Granny.” Frank apologises. “But she doesn’t make wine.”

 

“No, but she does make very pretty lace, Mum.” Edith turns to Frank. “So where did you get it from Frank?” she asks. “I don’t remember Mr. Willison being a wine merchant.”

 

“Well, that’s because he’s not. This is a bottle of French wine which comes from a chum of mine who runs a little Italian restaurant up the Islington****.” Frank looks at Edith and smiles. “I’ll take you there one day, Edith, for a very special dinner of home-made spaghetti.”

 

“I’d like that, Frank.” Edith beams.

 

“A French wine from an Italian restaurant?” George queries.

 

“Giuseppe, my chum, serves wine from different countries with his meals, and I asked him what might be best to have.” Frank explains. “And he sold me this bottle.”

 

Ada picks up her tumbler of wine, sniffing at its red liquified contents rather suspiciously before taking her first tentative sip. Swallowing the wine, she isn’t quite sure whether she likes it or not as it glides down her throat. She can taste the fruitiness of it, but it is matched by an acidity that surprises her. It doesn’t taste like the blackberry wine she remembers her mother making. “Once again, it’s very thoughtful of you to give us such a… treat.” Returning her tumbler to the table she discreetly pushes it away from her place at the table, hoping that Frank won’t notice or take offence.

 

“Mum has always said that good manners are the hallmark of a gentleman.” Edith adds with a smile and a nod towards er mother, knowing that Frank has made a good impression with her by the simple gesture of a gift.

 

“And so they are.” Ada nods.

 

“Yellow roses are the universal symbol of friendship.” Frank explains. “And I do sincerely hope that we will be friends, Mr. and Mrs. Watsford.” he adds hopefully, the statement rewarded by a kind smile from both of Edith’s parents.

 

“Where did you learn that from, Frank?” Ada asks.

 

“I came across an old book at the Caledonian Markets* Mrs. Watsford, called, ‘Floral Symbolica’** which lists the meaning of ever so many flowers.”

 

“That sounds very fancy.” George remarks. “Floral… floral sym… what?”

 

“Symbolica, Mr. Watsford.” Frank confirms.

 

“Frank’s a big reader, Dad.” Edith announces, attracting her father’s attention to common ground between the two of them.

 

“What else do you read then, Frank?” George asks with interest. “Besides books of flowers, that is.”

 

“I read lots of things, Mr. Watsford.” Frank replies proudly. “Anything to improve my mind.”

 

“Well, I wish you’d help improve Edith’s mind. She seems only to be interested in romance novels.” George teases his daughter cheekily.

 

“That’s not true, Dad!” Edith gasps, taking her father’s bait far too easily. “I read lots of different things, not just romance novels.”

 

“What do you like to read, Sir?” Frank asks helpfully in an effort to save his sweetheart further embarrassment and character assassination at her father’s hands.

 

“I probably don’t read things you’d like, Frank. I prefer to read for escapism. A good story that grabs me is what I like, like those Fu Manchu***** mystery books, or that new female mystery writer. What’s her name?” He clicks his fingers as he tries to recall her name. “Help me, will you Edith. The woman who wrote ‘The Secret Adversary’ and ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’.”

 

“Christie.” Frank pipes up.

 

“That’s it!” George sighs with relief. “Agatha Christie******. Thank you Frank. Do you read her books too?”

 

“No, I’m afraid I’m not much of a mystery reader myself, Mr. Watsford.”

 

“No, you don’t strike me as a murder mystery type, Frank.” George muses as he eyes the serious young man in his Sunday best suit up and down. “You seem to be a more studious type.” He shrugs. “Pity, she writes ripping good yarns.”

 

“And you’re a delivery lad I believe?” Ada asks, turning the subject more towards knowing more about Frank’s prospects as a potential suitor for her daughter.

 

“That’s right, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank replies proudly, sitting a little straighter in his seat at the table. “I work for Willison’s the Grocers in Mayfair, and I do deliveries around the neighbourhood.”

 

“But he’s doing more than just deliveries now, Dad.” Edith pipes up a little anxiously, seeing the creases in her father’s serious face.

 

“Yes!” Frank adds. “Mr. Willison has taken me under his wing so to speak and is teaching me about displaying goods in the window and the like.”

 

“It’s called visual merchandising.” Edith explains.

 

“Is it now?” Ada remarks, pursing her lips in distrust and raising her eyebrows. “Such fancy words. Our Edith is always coming home with fancy words from your neck of the woods these days.”

 

“Good for you, Lad!” George booms. “Mrs. Watsford here,” He glances beyond the bunch of yellow roses at his wife. “Is perhaps a little less at ease with the idea of bettering yourself than Edith and I are.”

 

“I wouldn’t say that, George.” Ada defends herself. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with a young man improving his lots in life.”

 

“But?” George asks, picking up on the silent second half of his wife’s statement.

 

“But I think that there is such a thing as aspiring too high. There is a class structure that has done us well for time long before I was born.”

 

“For some of us, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank pipes up.

 

Edith’s eyes grow wide as she realises that the conversation over Sunday luncheon is suddenly careening swiftly towards a topic that Frank feels very passionately about, but also one that rattles her mother. She worries that Frank’s enthusiasm might not be so well received by either of her parents. However, even as she thinks these thoughts, it is already too late as Frank opens his mouth and continues.

 

“Now is the time for the working man, and working woman too, to rise up and be better than the lot in life we’ve been dealt, Mrs. Watsford.”

 

Edith watches the almost imperceptible shifts in her mother’s features as they steels and harden.

 

“You may be happy with your place in life, but I for one want to do better. I don’t want to be a grocer’s boy forever. I want to do better, so that I can afford to give Edith a good home.”

 

“Do you plan to own your own grocer’s, lad?” George asks with an air of impossibility.

 

“Maybe, Mr. Watsford. I don’t see why I shouldn’t, or at least shouldn’t try. I have a lot of dreams you see, and ideas for the future.”

 

Ada takes a mouthful of ham, swallowing stiffly as she answers, “Yes, I’ve heard a great deal about your ideas from Edith, Frank.”

 

“I can assure you, Mrs. Watsford, that I am not a Communist.” Frank defends himself, having heard from Edith about her mother’s concerns. “I just want a better world for Edith, for me, for my children.”

 

“And that’s admirable, Frank.” Ada counters. “And I don’t disagree with you. Aspiring to a better life is good. I just think a little less radically than you do, and you’ll forgive me for saying this, but as a person who has had more years on this earth than you have, Frank, I don’t think my opinions are less valid, in spite of their lack of ambition for change.”

 

An uncomfortable silence falls over the table.

 

“Oh I’m sorry, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank says after a moment, dabbing the edge of is mouth with his napkin. “I didn’t mean to cause any offence. Edith tells me that when I get passionate about something, I talk before I think. I apologise for shooting off my mouth.”

 

“That’s alright lad.” George replies soothingly, covering over his wife’s stony silence. “It’s good to feel strongly and want change: a better future for yourself. Ada and I,” He places his bigger hand comfortingly and in a sign of solidarity over his wife’s as she still holds her fork, resting her wrist on the table. “Well, you’ll probably laugh at our old fashioned ideas, but we’ve made positive changes for ourselves and our children in our own, more quiet ways.”

 

“Sorry Mr. Watsford.” Frank sighs. “It’s not the first time my mouth has gotten me in trouble.”

 

“It’s alright, Frank.” Ada says quietly, releasing the handle of her fork and entwining her fingers with those of her husband. “I like you, in spite of the fact that you and I may not entirely agree with the way the world should be or how we go about making it a better place, but I just can’t help worrying about our Edith being with you and your revolutionary ideas.”

 

“Mum!” Edith gasps, raining her hands to her mouth.

 

“I’m sorry, Edith,” Ada says. “But I have to say my peace. I do worry about you. As a mother you do worry, about all your children.”

 

“I promise you that I won’t ever put Edith in harm’s way, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank swears earnestly.

 

“Not intentionally, I know, Frank, but what about unintentionally?” Ada says. “You’re a good lad, and I can see that by your thoughtfulness and your manners. You obviously treat Edith very well. However, the vehemence with which you spurn your new ideas around is frightening to me.” She looks at Edith seriously and continues earnestly. “You’re of age now, Edith love, and I can’t stop you from stepping out with Frank here. You can make your own decisions as to whether he is the right young man for you.”

 

“Oh he is, Mum! I promise you!” Edith pipes up, looking deep into her mother’s serious face.

 

“I suppose I’m just a bit like your granny was with our Edith, Frank. I need to get accustomed to you.” She looks at the plump yellow rose blooms. “George and I accept your offer of friendship, and we hope that you won’t feel too awkward after today to join us for Sunday tea again.”

 

“Oh I assure you Mrs. Watsford, I’d be delighted.”

 

“Good. But in extending the warm hand of friendship, I’d be obliged if you would perhaps temper your more modern and revolutionary ideas, whilst I get used to you, Frank.”

 

All four diners spend a few minutes quietly eating their dinner, with only the scrape of cutlery against crockery to break the silence.

 

As Edith chews her mouthful of boiled potato, she finds it hard to swallow, and when she finally does, she feels it slide down her throat and land heavily in the pit of her stomach. She glances across at Frank to her right, but he doesn’t look up from his plate as he puts a sliver of orange roast pumpkin in his mouth. She had warned Frank to try and curtail his passionate ideas before her parents, but realises now that to ask him to do so is to deny him one of the most important things in his life. She worries whether Frank and her mother will ever see eye-to-eye on things.

 

“So, enough about changing the world,” George says at length, breaking the silence. “What football team do you support then, young Frank?”

 

Edith smiles gratefully at her father, who winks at her over the rim of his glass as she takes a swig of ale.

 

“West Ham United, Sir.” Frank says proudly.

 

“Good lad!” George chortles. “See, he’s not all bad, Ada!”

 

“You must be as excited as me about West Ham playing Bolton at the inaugural Empire Stadium******* match that’s coming up then, Mr. Watsford.” Frank says, also smiling gratefully at George for being the peacemaker and easing the tension in the room.

 

“Oh we all are, lad!” agrees George. “Would that I could get tickets for the match, but being the opening of the stadium, tickets are hard to come by.”

 

“If they finish it in time.” Frank remarks. “There isn’t long to go now, and yet from what I’ve read, it’s nowhere near done yet.”

 

“Now, now, lad!” George admonishes Frank good naturedly, wagging his fork with a speared piece of cauliflower on it. “Have a bit of faith in British construction. That stadium is going to be the centrepiece of the British Empire Exhibition. No full blooded British man is going to let the Empire down by not competing it.”

 

“Yes, you’re quite right, Sir.” Frank agrees.

 

As the mood at the table lifts and shifts a little, Edith is suddenly heartened by the possibility that maybe Frank might win approval from both her parents in the end, if Frank can win her father over. Her father’s opinion matters a great deal to her mother. She slices her knife through another boiled potato on her plate and sighs quietly, knowing that whilst this first meeting of Frank and her parents was not all that she had hoped for, all is not lost and some bridges have been built.

 

*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.

 

**’Floral Symbolica; or, The Language and Sentiment of Flowers’ is a book written by John Ingram, published in London in 1870 by Frederick Warne and Co. who are perhaps best known for publishing the books of Beatrix Potter. ‘Flora Symbolica; or, The language and Sentiment of Flowers includes meanings of many species of flowers, both domestic and exotic, as well as floral poetry, original and selected. It contains a colour frontispiece and fifteen colour plates, printed in colours by Terry. John Henry Ingram (November the 16th, 1842 – February the 12th, 1916) was an English biographer and editor with a special interest in Edgar Allan Poe. Ingram was born at 29 City Road, Finsbury Square, Middlesex, and died at Brighton, England. His family lived at Stoke Newington, recollections of which appear in Poe's works. J. H. Ingram dedicated himself to the resurrection of Poe's reputation, maligned by the dubious memoirs of Rufus Wilmot Griswold; he published the first reliable biography of the author and a four-volume collection of his works.

 

***A demijohn originally referred to any glass vessel with a large body and small neck, enclosed in wickerwork. The word presumably comes from the French dame-jeanne, literally "Lady Jane", as a popular appellation; this word is first attested in France in the Seventeenth century. Demijohns are primarily used for transporting liquids, often water or chemicals. They are also used for in-home fermentation of beverages, often beer or wine.

 

****The Italian quarter of London, known commonly today as “Little Italy” is an Italian ethnic enclave in London. Little Italy’s core historical borders are usually placed at Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue - the Saffron Hill area of Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell spans Camden Borough and Islington Borough. Saffron Hill and St. Peter’s Italian Catholic Church fall within the Camden side. However, even though this was the traditional enclave for Italians, immigrants moved elsewhere in London, bleeding into areas like Islington and Soho where they established bars, cafes and restaurants which sold Italian cuisine and wines.

 

*****’The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu’ was a 1913 novel by prolific writer Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward under the non-deplume Sax Rohmer that portrayed Chinese as opium fiends, thugs, murders and villains. His supervillain Fu-Manchu proved so popular that he wrote a whole series of sequels featuring the odious character between 1914 ad 1917 and then again from 1933 until 1959. The image of "Orientals" invading Western nations became the foundation of Rohmer's commercial success, being able to sell twenty million copies of his books in his lifetime.

 

******By 1923 when this story is set, detective mystery fiction writer Agatha Christie had already written two successful novels, ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ published by The Bodley Head in 1921, which introduced the world to her fictional detective Hercule Poirot, and ‘The Secret Adversary’ also published by The Bodley Head, in 1922, which introduced characters Tommy and Tuppence. In May of 1923, Agatha Christie would release her second novel featuring Hercule Poirot: ‘The Murder on the Links’ which would retail in London bookshops for seven shillings and sixpence.

 

*******Originally known as Empire Stadium, London’s Wembley Stadium was built to serve as the centerpiece of the British Empire Exhibition. It took a total of three hundred days to construct the stadium at a cost of £750,000. The stadium was completed on the 23rd of April 1923, only a few days before the first football match, between the Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United, was to take place at the stadium. This first match was the 1923 FA Cup final, which later became known as the White Horse final. The stadium's first turf was cut by King George V, and it was first opened to the public on 28 April 1923. Much of Humphry Repton's original Wembley Park landscape was transformed in 1922 and 1923 during preparations for the British Empire Exhibition. First known as the "British Empire Exhibition Stadium" or simply the "Empire Stadium", it was built by Sir Robert McAlpine for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 (extended to 1925).

 

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 roast ham dinner that really does look good enough to eat is 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 gravy boat of gravy is also Frances Knight’s work. The knife sitting alongside the ham comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. 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 and the glasses (which are made from real glass) 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 salt and pepper shakers come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The 1:12 artisan bottle of Bordeaux, made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, is made from glass and the winery on the label is a real winery in France. The vase of yellow roses 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 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.

 

Also on the dresser on the pull out drawer is a cherry tart made by Frances Knight. Next to it stands a cottage ware teapot. 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 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).

vesnaarmstrong.blogspot.co.uk/

 

processed with Flypaper Pastel Painterly Textures

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, is staying with her parents for Christmas. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith. What is especially exciting is that Edith's brother, Bert is home for Christmas too. He is a dining saloon steward aboard a passenger ship, so he is lucky to be on shore leave just in time of Christmas!

 

The kitchen has always been the heart of Edith’s family home, and today it has a particularly festive feel about it is Christmas Day and Christmas dinner is about to be served. Strings of brightly coloured paper chains have been strung around the room, draped over the old Welsh dresser, across the mantle of the kitchen range and across the room from corner to corner, hanging in jolly festoons. Ada had pulled out one of her best table cloths with an orange rose pattern on it which now adorns the round kitchen table, hiding its worn surface and the best blue and white china dinner service is being used today. Ada has even conceded to Edith’s constant reminders that she promised to use the pretty Price Washington ‘Ye Old Cottage’ teapot that Edith bought her from the Caledonian Markets* a few months ago because she and her brother Bert are both home for Christmas.

 

The kitchen is filled with the rich smells of Christmas: turkey and potatoes roasting and Yorkshire puddings baking in the oven, gravy warming over the grate and the faint fruity aroma of Ada’s Christmas cake as it sits waiting to be served for dessert on the dresser’s pull out extension.

 

“Bert love,” Ada calls to her son as she stirs the pan of gravy made with juices from the turkey mixed with Bisto Gravy Powder**. “Be a treasure and set the table would you?”

 

“Right-oh Mum!” Edith’s brother pipes up as he rises from his seat on a ladderback chair pulled up to the table where he has been admiring the fabric of his new cobalt blue tie, a Christmas gift from Edith. “First Class Steward Watsford of the SS Demosthenes*** is always ready to assist.”

 

“Thanks love.” Ada replies gratefully as she pushes a few stubborn strands of hair that keep falling loose into her face, back behind her right ear.

 

“It’s just like being at sea, isn’t it, son?” George chuckles good naturedly from his comfortable seat in his Windsor chair where he reads the newspaper and sips a cup of tea.

 

“Better watch out George Watsford, lest I give you a job ‘n all.” Ada warns her husband teasingly as she smiles over at him and winks.

 

“What? I’ve done my job by getting you the best Christmas turkey money can buy from Mr. Ludlow’s butcher’s shop.” he splutters. “Anyway, I can’t do anything dressed in my best bib and tucker****, now can I Ada? I’ll only spoil all your good washing and pressing.”

 

“It won’t stop me giving you one if you stir up trouble for me.” She wags her wooden spoon coated in thick brown gravy warningly at him.

 

“You’re in trouble now, Dad,” Edith laughs as she goes to open the small bread oven of the range. “Mum’s waving her spoon at you.”

 

“No Edith!” Ada gasps. “Don’t open the door yet! All the hot air will come out and the Yorkshire puds will go flat! Didn’t I teach you anything?”

 

“Oh you did, Mum, but I was just going to take a peek at them. Otherwise, how will we know they’re done.”

 

“Even a peek will make them go flat. No, I’ll know when they're ready love. I’ve been using this range,” Ada gently pats the mantle over the range like a faithful dog. “Ever since I married your Dad. It took me a while to learn its ways, but we understand each other now. Don't we old girl? Here, you want to help me, love?”

 

Edith nods.

 

“Then stir the gravy so it doesn’t burn whilst I check on the turkey.” Ada replies.

 

Edith dutifully takes over stirring the pan with the wooden spoon.

 

“Thanks again for my tie, old girl!” Bert says to his sister as he sets out the last of the blue and white dinner plates featuring a central flower on each. “It’s spiffing.”

 

“Oh you’re welcome, Bert.” Edith replies, turning around and smiling at her brother. “Now you’re moving up the ranks, you need to look smart when you’re off duty as well as on.”

 

“Don’t know how you could afford something as smart as this for me.”

 

“Well, Miss Lettice pays me a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, and living so centrally in London, I have access to lots of places to find you presents.”

 

“Petticoat Lane*****?” Ada asks in a quiet whisper as she rises from being bent over the oven.

 

Edith nods.

 

“Oh that reminds me Bert, I’ll have to show you the present that Miss Lettice gave me for Christmas after dinner.”

 

“She spoils you, Edith.” Ada remarks. “Dinner,” she says in a posh voice. “Tea is what we call it, my girl.” she corrects. “All these fancy words have no place in my kitchen.”

 

“Oh Ada!” George counters, looking sharply at his wife over the top of his newspaper. “If Edith learns new, more refined words to describe something, there isn’t anything wrong with that.” He gives his blushing daughter a beatific smile. “Betterment is good for the girl, especially if she wants to get on in the world.”

 

“Well tea was always a good enough word to describe our meal as far as I’m concerned.” Ada replies huffily.

 

“Now, now Ada!” George folds his paper and drapes it over the arm of his chair. Heaving his portly figure out of his well worn chair he walks over to his wife and wraps his arms around her shoulders. “What’s gotten into you today? Where's your Christmas spirit? Christmas is always a jolly time for us Watsfords, not a time for bickering about words.”

 

“Oh I’m sorry, George,” Ada replies, sinking into the comforting embrace of her husband. “I suppose I’ve been running myself ragged getting everything nice for Christmas over the last few days.” She looks at her daughter, who quickly casts her eyes down at the pot of gravy she is stirring. “I’m sorry, Edith love,” she apologies. “I’m not really cross with you. I’m just tired and a bit snappy.”

 

“It’s alright Mum,” Edith replies. “I know.”

 

“I’m happy you’re learning new words.” Ada continues, but then adds, “I just don’t want you getting above your station. One day you’ll leave Miss Chetwynd, and I just don’t want you spoiled for your next mistress. You know not everyone’s generous like she is.”

 

“I know Mum, and I promise I’m not getting above my station. I’m just proud of what she gave me is all, and I want to show it to Bert.”

 

“Of course you do, love.” Ada puts a comforting hand on Edith’s shoulder. “And why not indeed. It’s beautiful, and you’re very lucky to have it. Show it off, love.”

 

“Goodness Edith,” Bert exclaims. “What did she give you?”

 

“It’s a dressing table set from Boots******, made of Bakelite*******.” Edith enthuses. “There’s a brush and comb and mirror and…” She stops herself quickly before she mentions the photograph frame which she has left sitting on the chest of drawers in her little bedroom at the Cavendish Mews flat with her fallen sweetheart Bert’s picture in it. “And… and I just love it!”

 

“That does sound fancy, Edith!” Bert says in an impressed tone. “Makes my box of Australian Fruit Biscuits look shabby in comparison.”

 

“Shabby?” Edith exclaims. “Don’t say that, Bert! I love my Christmas present from you!” she assures him. “I can practically feel the Australian sunshine you talked about radiating from that tin. I’ve never had anything from so far away before! They are exotic, Bert.”

 

“That table set, Bert?” Ada asks.

 

“Table set, shipshape and Bristol fashion********, Mum.” Bert replies proudly.

 

“Good! Then its time to serve up Christmas tea! Edith, pour that gravy into the jug and take out the potatoes. I’ll put out the turkey and the Yorkshire puds. George, you fetch the ale.”

 

“Now that’s a job I can do in my best bib and tucker.” George laughs.

 

Soon the table is covered in Ada’s splendid Christmas dinner: a tray of steaming golden roast potatoes, beautifully risen Yorkshire puddings, a pot of green brussels sprouts and a bowl of peas and carrots. However most impressive of all is the golden brown turkey, glistening in the gaslight of the kitchen, steam rising from its perfectly cooked flesh. The family take their places about the table and George fills everyone’s glass with thick, dark ale.

 

“Goodness Dad!” Bert gasps as he looks at all the delicious food. “How could you afford such a fine turkey? Did you cut a deal using broken biscuits with Mr. Ludlow?”

 

“Cheeky!” George replies with a smile, getting up from his seat and holding his tumber aloft. “I’d like you all to raise your glasses, please.”

 

“Who are we toasting, Dad?” Edith asks. “The King?”

 

“Well, we can toast good King George in a moment, but first I’d like to raise a toast to McVitie and Price’s********* newest Line Manager!”

 

“Oh George!” Ada gasps, jumping up from her seat and throwing her arms around her husband in delight. “You kept mum on that bit of news!”

 

“Congratulations Dad!” Edith says, standing and charging her glass.

 

“Yes! Congratulations Dad!” Bert follows, raising his own glass. “That’s spiffing news!”

 

“And that’s how I could afford such a fine turkey, son.” George replies proudly. “Now, let’s eat!”

 

“Merry Christmas everyone.” Edith says, sitting back down with a smile.

 

“A merry Christmas indeed!” agrees Ada as she returns to her seat. “The best Christmas the Watsford family have ever had I’d say, with you two children home and your Dad’s news!”

 

*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.

 

**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 SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.

 

****The phrase “best bib and tucker”, which means one’s best clothes, emerged during the first half of the eighteenth century. It was used in New Memoires Establishing a True Knowledge of Mankind by Marquis d'Argens, published in 1747. It goes, “The Country-woman minds nothing on Sundays so much as her best Bib and Tucker.”

 

*****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.

 

******Boots the chemist was established in 1849, by John Boot. After his father's death in 1860, Jesse Boot, aged 10, helped his mother run the family's herbal medicine shop in Nottingham, which was incorporated as Boot and Co. Ltd in 1883, becoming Boots Pure Drug Company Ltd in 1888. In 1920, Jesse Boot sold the company to the American United Drug Company. However, because of deteriorating economic circumstances in North America Boots was sold back into British hands in 1933. The grandson of the founder, John Boot, who inherited the title Baron Trent from his father, headed the company. The Boots Pure Drug Company name was changed to The Boots Company Limited in 1971. Between 1898 and 1966, many branches of Boots incorporated a lending library department, known as Boots Book-Lovers' Library.

 

*******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.

 

********The saying “shipshape and Bristol fashion” means things are in good order, neat and clean.

 

*********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.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful Christmas 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 Christmas dinner that really does look good enough to eat is made up of pieces from different suppliers and artisans. The Christmas turkey and the bowl of peas and carrots come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in Essex. The knife sticking out of the turkey comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. The tray of potatoes in the foreground and the six Yorkshire puddings in the midground 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 gravy boat of gravy is also Frances Knight’s work. 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 and the glasses (which are made from real glass) 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 tablecloth is actually a piece of bright cotton print that was tied around the lid of a jar of home made peach and rhubarb jam that I was given a few years ago.

 

The paper chains festooning Ada’s kitchen I made myself using very thinly cut paper. It was a fiddly job to do, but I think it adds festive cheer and realism to this scene, as fancy Christmas decorations would have been beyond the budget of Edith’s parents, and homemade paper chains were common in households before the advent of cheap mass manufactured Christmas decorations.

 

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 Essex. 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 jars of Marmite and Bovril. 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. Also on the dresser on the pull out drawer is a Christmas cake from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. Also from them is the cranberry glass cake stand, made of real glass, on which the cake sits. Next to it stands a cottage ware teapot. 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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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).

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, is home for Christmas with her beloved parents whilst Lettice returns to her own family home in Wiltshire. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden and has just recently been promoted to Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith.

 

It is Christmas Eve, and Ada is busy making Yorkshire puddings for today’s dinner* as a dry run for Christmas Day on the large round kitchen table in the middle of the room, whilst George is helping to wash up some dishes for her at the sink in the corner of the room. Edith sits next to her mother at the table, carefully cutting strips of colourful paper to make paper chains with, sticking them with some homemade flour and water glue.

 

“I don’t see why you have to make Yorkshire puds today, Mum,” Edith says as she cuts a strip of bright royal blue paper. “You’ve been making them for longer than I’ve been alive, so we all know they will be wonderful tomorrow.”

 

“Ah! Ah!” scolds George, glancing over his right shoulder and glaring at his daughter as he dunks a plate in the trough of hot soapy water. “Don’t stop your Mum doing what she wants!” he says admonishingly.

 

“You’re just saying that, so you get some with your tea!” laughs his daughter as she sticks the two ends of the paper together, making another link in her paper chain.

 

“If your Mum wants to test out her cooking, Edith love, who am I to complain if I enjoy the proceeds from it.”

 

“You never can be sure,” Ada explains. “Especially with this old girl.” She runs her hand lovingly over a cold blacklead part of the kitchen range affectionately. “She’s getting like me.”

 

“Temperamental as she gets older.” George laughs as he places the plate he has just washed on the wooden draining board next to the sink.

 

“What was that you were saying about enjoying the proceeds of my endeavours, George?” Ada asks threatening him playfully with the metal spoon that she has stirred the Yorkshire Pudding mixture with.

 

“Careful!” George replies. “Don’t waste any of that precious pudding batter.”

 

Ada laughs and starts to pour the thick pale yellow mixture of eggs, flour and milk into one of the six wells of hot fat in one of her well used muffin tins.

 

“I’m going to miss Bert this Christmas.” Edith sighs heavily glancing up at Ada pouring as she takes a strip of emerald green paper and winds it through the blue piece she has stuck. “It won’t be the same without him.”

 

“I know, Edith love,” Ada replies kindly. “But this is what happens when you work as a steward on a ship.”

 

“It’s not as much fun making paper chains without him.” Edith grumbles, sticking the green paper ends together sulkily. “And it won’t be the same without his laughter on Christmas morning. It’s like the war, all over again.”

 

“Except we know he’s safe and happy,” tempers Ada. “Thank the Lord.” Her hands tremble almost imperceptibly as she pours the batter, remembering the Christmases without her son, always worrying whether he was ever going to come home again.

 

“And there’s no rationing.” adds George. “Thank goodness!”

 

“No wheat,” Ada remembers. “Having to eat beans because there was no beef, pork or mutton to be had.”

 

“It still won’t be the same without him, Mum.”

 

“Be that as it may, we shall have to make sure we have an extra jolly time of it this Christmas in spite of his absence.” Ada confirms. “Bert wouldn’t want us to be sad.”

 

“Don’t worry, Edith love. Just think of the grand Christmas present he will bring you back from his travels. Besides,” pipes up George, depositing another plate into one of the grooves of the worn wooden draining board. “Bert will be having a cracker of a Christmas. Fancy spending Christmas Day in Australia, in the middle of summer time?”

 

“There’s something unnatural about Christmas in the middle of summer time.” Ada mutters. “It’s foreign.”

 

“I’ll be back at work at Miss Lettice’s before his ship docks in Southampton.” mutters Edith.

 

“What a lark!” George muses, having not heard his daughter. “He’ll be having a jolly time of it, Edith love. He’s footloose and fancy free** in a beautiful city with all his chums from the ship for company. I know what I’d be doing if I were him.”

 

“Yes, well lucky you aren’t!” Ada chortles. Pouring batter into the next well she adds more seriously, “I just hope he doesn’t have too good a time of it. As you say George, he’s footloose and fancy free.”

 

“What harm can the boy come to, Ada?”

 

“Plenty can happen, and well you know it!” Ada gives her husband a knowing look as she turns and inserts the muffin tin of pudding batter into the hot oven, before glancing at Edith picking up a cobalt blue strip of paper to add to the chain. “Especially if he is larking about with other lads. He’s no family to spend Christmas Day with, and a pocket full of wages.”

 

“Every city has its temptations, Ada.” George turns back and plunges his hands into the hot water again, reaching blindly for pieces of cutler along the bottom of the worn trough. “At least he is in one of the richest in the world***.”

 

“Well, if it’s one of the richest cities, then Melbourne is bound to have so many temptations!” Ada moans.

 

“We will just have to trust that we’ve brought up Bert well enough that he won’t give into them. He didn’t during the war.”

 

“He was younger then: more timid and shy, and not so worldly as he is now.”

 

“Well no matter what he does,” George withdraws his hands from the water and turns around, drying them on the tea towel draped over his left shoulder as he leans against the trough. “You won’t be there to police his movements, so you’ll just have to trust him.”

 

“So long as he doesn’t get some Australian girl in the family way.”

 

“To young to be a grandmother, eh?” George winks at his wife.

 

“Of course I’m too young!” Ada self-consciously winds a loose strand of her mousy brown hair, limp with perspiration from working so near to the range, behind her ear.

 

“And far too beautiful to be one yet too, I might add.” George says, giving his wife a beaming smile as he walks across the short space between the sink and Ada.

 

“You tell her, Dad!” Edith says proudly, smiling up at her happy parents, taking up a purple strip of paper to add to her ever lengthening chain.

 

George lovingly wraps his hands around his wife’s waist, which even after having two children is still slender and elegant like it was when he first wrapped his arms around it when they first began courting. He rests his head on her shoulder and breathes in her scent: the familiar fragrance of soap, the comforting smell of baking and the sweetness of a small amount of perspiration. It’s a comforting scent and one he has become familiar with since they were first married in 1896.

 

“Oh get away with you!” Ada chuckles as his hands move from her waist and wrap around her smaller hands as she picks up the nearly empty white porcelain dish of pudding batter. “Don’t make me spill any of my batter, George.”

 

“Anyway, if Edith brought her young man over for Christmas Day, we wouldn’t feel Bert’s loss so much,” George adds pointedly, looking directly at his daughter. “Would we Ada? We’d have a lad in the house, just as if he were here!”

 

“Dad!” Edith gasps, looking up from her paper chain making.

 

“That’s right, George.”

 

“Mum!”

 

“Well, it’s true, Edith. If you had invited him for Christmas, we could finally meet him.” Ada remarks, wiping the kitchen table with her yellow dishcloth. “All we hear about is ‘Frank this’ and ‘Frank that’! When are we going to meet this Frank?”

 

“Soon Mum.”

 

“You’ve been saying that for months now.” Ada scolds dismissively. “You’ve been seeing your young Frank for more than half a year now, Edith love. Are you still not sure about him after all this time?”

 

“Oh no, I am Mum, but, well,” she makes light of the questioning of her parents. “I don’t want Dad scaring him off when I’ve finally found myself a nice chap, now do I?”

 

“Cheeky!” George waves an admonishing finger at is daughter jokingly. “You are serious about him though? And he’s serious about you?”

 

“Yes of course, Dad!” Edith replies, giving him a surprised look. “You know that I wouldn’t step out with a chap I didn’t fancy and wasn’t serious about.”

 

“And ahem.,” He clears his throat awkwardly. “And he’s decent,” He emphasises the last word seriously. “He’s not well,” He starts flapping the dishcloth about in the air in front of him. “You know, a cad.”

 

Edith looks perplexed for a moment and then realises what he’s trying to say. “Dad!” she gasps. She feels the flush of reddish pink run up her neck and fill her cheeks. “Don’t worry Dad.” She looks to her mother. “Mum’s talked to me about, well, about boys.” She feels the flush in her cheeks intensify as she says it. “Frank knows that he can’t do anything but kiss me chastely in the back row of the pictures or take me dancing at the Hammersmith Palais**** unless he puts a ring on my finger.”

 

“Well, that’s more than I could do with your mum when we were courting.” He holds his wife at arm’s length and smiles lovingly at her before giving her a bold kiss on the lips. “We’d barely kissed before our wedding day, had we Ada?”

 

“I should think not, George! I’d never had married you if you made unwanted advances when we were courting.” Turning to her daughter she continues, “It wouldn’t have been proper.”

 

“Oh Mum, Dad, we’re in the Twentieth Century now, and things have changed a bit since you two were stepping out together.”

 

“Not that much it hasn’t.” mutters George. “Your Miss Chetwynd might fill your head with some fanciful ideas about men and women: who is who and what is what. But I do know, that,” Once again he puts emphasis on the last word. “Hasn’t changed.”

 

“Don’t worry Dad. Miss Lettice tells me lots of things about the new emancipated woman,” Ada snorts derisively at the idea of such women. “But,” continues Edith. “I promise she never says anything about that sort of thing. I’m not a silly girl, Dad. You and Mum made sure of that, and I’m grateful.”

 

“That’s just as well.” George huffs, entwining his fat sausage like fingers with his wife’s careworn ones. “And is that parlour maid friend of yours from your old house still going with you to the Hammersmith Palais?”

 

“Hilda? Oh yes Dad. She comes along with Frank and me. Frank is such a gentleman that sometimes he’ll ask me if I mind if he asks her for a dance if a chap hasn’t asked her for a while.”

 

George’s eyes widen. “And do you?”

 

“What?”

 

“Mind?”

 

“Oh no, Dad!” Edith assures her father with a gentle smile and a soft giggle. “I trust Frank. He’s nice.”

 

“Well I hope he is.”

 

“He would never do anything with Hilda, and if he had, I would know about it.”

 

“I’m sure you know your Frank and your friend well enough, Edith love.” Ada says calmly.

 

“Don’t worry, Mum and Dad,” Edith lets the Christmas paper chain drop onto the table with a sigh. “You’ll get to meet Frank soon enough. I just want to let Frank do what is right at his own pace, without any pressure.”

 

“We’re not pressuring him, Edith love.” George remarks as he returns to the sink and starts drying the collection of pots and dishes on the draining board.

 

“No Dad, you’re pressuring me.”

 

“What do you mean by do what is right, Edith?” queries Ada.

 

“Well, Frank’s a real gentleman and he’s trying to better himself. As the man in the relationship, he wants me to meet his family first, and then he’ll get to meet you. Frank’s parents died during the Spanish Flu epidemic, so he only has his Granny left now. She lives in Upton Park over in the East End. He’s been waiting for the right time to introduce us, and he finally wants me to meet her in the new year. I guess it’s his way of sharing the fact that I’m his intended.”

 

“Well that’s all right then, Edith love,” George sighs with satisfaction. “Since you say you’re serious about each other, I need to meet the man who is one day going to ask me for permission to marry you.” He looks earnestly at his daughter, the masculine topic of permission to marry at odds with the less masculine sight of him drying dishes. “And that is something that hasn’t changed with the new century, my girl!”

 

“And that’s the other reason why I don’t want to bring him home yet, Dad. I want no talk of marriage. Not right now, anyway.”

 

“You were the one who mentioned it in the first place, love.”

 

“Yes, but you’ll be the one who will suggest that you and Frank have a chat, ‘man-to-man’ up in the front parlour,” she imitates her father’s deeper voice before returning to her own standard speaking voice pitch and tone. “And then you’ll put the hard word on him.”

 

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” George asks as he takes up the last of the drying, a blue and white china tureen decorated with roses. “You’re my only daughter. If he’s serious about you, it’s a conversation to be had.”

 

“You’re Dad’s right, Edith love.” Ada remarks as she checks the time on the old ticking kitchen wall clock hanging on the wall opposite the range. “We just want to make sure that his intentions are honourable.”

 

“Of course my Frank is honourable.” Edith defends him.

 

“Then he won’t mind a serious chat about his intentions.” Ada says sagely.

 

“You both sound as bad as Miss Lettice’s father, the Viscount, trying to marry her off.”

 

“Now, now my girl, even on my new Line Manager wages, I can’t afford to throw a party to marry you off at the Sally Ann***** yet.” George jokes.

 

“I’m being serious Dad!” Edith takes up a pale pink piece of paper and adds it to her paper chain. “Miss Lettice’s father wants her married to this new chap she met for the first time since she was a little girl at the ball he and Lady Chetwynd threw for her.”

 

“Well, I can understand that. Any father wants the best for his daughter.”

 

“Or mother.” adds Ada.

 

“You are your own woman now, Edith love.” George dries his hands on the dishcloth. “I won’t force you to bring him home, but I hope you will, soon. And,” He pauses mid thought.

 

“And?” Edith pipes up, anxious to know what he wants to say.

 

“And when you do, I’ll try not to be so much like Lord what’s-his-name.” he concludes a little begrudgingly.

 

“Oh Dad!” Edith jumps up from the table and runs over to her father, throwing her arms around his neck and kisses him on the cheek. “Thank you! You’re a brick!”

 

George grabs her around the waist and holds her a short length away from him as he looks his daughter up and down appraisingly. “A brick?”

 

“Yes Dad! A real brick!”

 

“How on earth do I resemble a square of baked red clay?”

 

“Oh Dad!” Edith sighs. “You don’t have to be so literal! I don’t mean you look like a brick! It means you are being a support. You know, like a brick wall supports the roof.” She looks up to the dirty ceiling above, yellowed and darkened by the coal range and cooking in the kitchen over many years.

 

“Oh.” George releases his daughter and folds his arms akimbo as she places the dishrag over the edge of the sink. “Twentieth Century speak?”

 

“Yes Dad!” Edith replies, her eyes glittering. “Miss Lettice taught me that one.”

 

“Well,” Ada says with satisfaction as she opens the oven door. “This is something Miss Chetwynd didn’t teach you, but I might one day.”

 

She drops the muffin pan on her wooden chopping board. Out of each hole rises a fluffy golden brown Yorkshire pudding, and the air is suddenly filled with the smell of Christmas.

 

“Looks and smells grand, Mum!” Edith says with a satisfied smile.

 

*It was not uncommon in lower-class households for luncheon to be the main meal of the day, and thus, even though it was had in the middle of the day, it was often referred to as dinner. A lighter meal taken in the evening was often referred to as tea, rather than dinner, often because it was had with a cup of tea, and in some very poor households might only have consisted of a slice of thin bread and dripping.

 

**Both footloose and fancy-free came into use separately in the 1600s. Footloose originally meant free to move one's feet. It's idiomatic meaning, to be able to make one's own choices without considering any responsibilities, came into use in the 1800s. Fancy-free originally meant to be lacking in romantic attachments.

 

***Melbourne, Victoria in the 1880s saw extraordinary growth: consumer confidence, easy access to credit, and steep increases in land prices led to an enormous amount of construction. During this "land boom", Melbourne became known as Marvellous Melbourne and reputedly became the richest city in the world, and the second-largest (after London) in the British Empire. By the 1920s, whilst it was no longer the richest city in the world, it was still one of the wealthiest ones.

 

****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.

 

*****During the Great War, the Salvation Army’s overseas activities were organised by British Salvationists. They operated well equipped huts, canteens, rest facilities, and hostels in Britain, France and Belgium. There, war-weary troops could bathe, refresh their clothing, eat decent food, and prepare themselves physically, mentally, and spiritually for the always difficult return to the trenches. The troops coined the affectionate nickname ‘Sally Ann’ to describe the Salvation Army and the name stuck after the war and was used to describe not only the Salvation Army itself, but their Citadels and halls.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene of washing dishes 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 Yorkshire puddings and batter in the white porcelain bowl 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 rather worn and beaten looking enamelled flour cannister in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green, has been aged on purpose. An artisan piece, it comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. The Brown Betty teapot, made of real glazed pottery, also comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop. The bowl of eggs and the beater, the empty muffin pan and the various odd china pieces all come from online stockists of miniatures on E-Bay. The shears with black handles in the basket open and close. Made of metal, they came from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. The colourful paper chains were made by me.

 

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 which are part of the set from which the flour cannister is from. 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 Marmite, a jar of Bovril 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

 

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.

 

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).

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, and whilst we have not travelled that far physically across London, the tough streets, laneways and blind alleys of Poplar in London’s East End is a world away from Lettice’s rarefied and privileged world. On Tuesday Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, discovered that Edith, Lettice’s maid, didn’t have a sewing machine when the Cockney cleaner found the young maid cutting out the pieces for a new frock. Mrs. Boothby made overtures towards Edith, inviting her to her home in Poplar in London’s East End with an air of mystery, saying she might be able to help her with her predicament of a sewing machine.

 

Friends of Lettice, newlyweds Margot and Dickie Channon, have been gifted a Recency country “cottage residence” called ‘Chi an Treth’ (Cornish for ‘beach house’) in Penzance as a wedding gift by the groom’s father, the Marquess of Taunton. Margot in her desire to turn ‘Chi an Treth’ from a dark Regency house to a more modern country house flooded with light, has commissioned Lettice to help redecorate some of the rooms in a lighter and more modern style, befitting a modern couple like the Channons. Lettice has decamped to Penzance for a week where she is overseeing the painting and papering of ‘Chi an Treth’s’ drawing room, dining room and main reception room, before fitting it out with a lorryload of new and repurposed furnishings, artwork and objets d’arte that she has had sent down weeks prior to her arrival. In her mistress’ absence, Edith has more free time on her hands, and so she was able to agree to Mrs. Boothby’s mysterious invitation. Even though she is happy with her current arrangement to take any items she wants to sew home to her parent’s house in Harlesden, where she can use her mother’s Singer** sewing machine on her days off. The opportunity of gaining access to a sewing machine of her own is too good for Edith to refuse.

 

Now the two women walk through the narrow streets of Poplar, passing along walkways, some concrete, some made of wooden planks and some just dirt, between tenements of two and three stories high. The streets they traverse are dim with the weakening afternoon light from the autumn sky blocked out by the overhanging upper floors of the buildings and the strings of laundry hanging limply along lines between them. Although Edith is not unfamiliar with the part of Whitechapel around Petticoat Lane*** where she shops for second hand clothes to alter and for haberdashery to do them, she still feels nervous in the unfamiliar maze of streets that Mrs. Boothby is guiding her down, and she sticks closely next to or directly behind the old Cockney char. The air is filled with a mixture of strong odours: paraffin oil, boiled cabbage and fried food intermixed with the pervasive stench of damp and unwashed bodies and clothes. Self-consciously, Edith pulls her three quarter length coat more tightly around her in an effort to protect herself from the stench.

 

“Below!” comes a Cockney female voice from above as a sash window groans in protest as it is opened.

 

“Ere! Look out, Edith dearie!” Mrs. Boothby exclaims, grabbing Edith by the arm and roughly pulling the maid out of the way, thrusting her behind her.

 

A moment later the air is filled with the harsh sound of slops splattering against the concrete path, and a pool of dirty liquid stains the concrete a dark muddy brown as it slowly dribbles down into a shallow drain that runs down the middle of the laneway.

 

“Wouldn’t want your nice clothes to get spoilt nah, would we dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says as she turns and smiles into Edith’s startled face.

 

“Was that?” Edith begins but doesn’t finish her question as she peers at the puddle draining away, leaving lumps on the path.

 

“I shouldn’t look too closely if I were you, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says kindly in a matter-of-fact way. “If you ‘ave to ask, you’re better off not knowin’. That’s my opinion, anyway. Come on. Not much further nah.”

 

“You… you will take me home, won’t you Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks a little nervously as they continue their progress down the lane which she notices is getting narrower and darker as they go.

 

“Course I will, dearie! You can rely on old Ida Boothby. I know these streets like the back of my ‘and. Youse perfectly safe wiv me.”

 

The laneway ends suddenly, and Edith is blinded for a moment by bright sunlight as they step out into a rookery**** with two storey Victorian tenements of grey stone and red brick either side of a concrete courtyard with a narrow drain running down its centre. The original builders or owners of the tenements obviously have meant for the sad buildings to be at least a little homely, with shutters painted a Brunswick green hanging to either side of the ground floor windows. Looking up, Edith notices several window boxes of brightly coloured geraniums and other flowers suspended from some of the upper floor windowsills. Women of different ages walk in and out of the open front doors, or sit in them on stools doing mending, knitting or peeling potatoes, all chatting to one another, whilst children skip and play on the concrete of the courtyard.

 

“Welcome to Merrybrook Place,” Mrs. Boothby says with a hint of pride in her voice. “My ‘ome. Though Lawd knows why they called it that. I ain’t never seen no brook, merry or otherwise, runnin’ dahn ‘ere, unless it’s the slops from the privvies dahn the end.” She points to the end of the rookery where, overlooked by some older tenements of brick and wooden shingling most likely from the early Nineteenth Century, a couple of ramshackle privies stand. “So just watch your step, Edith dearie. We don’t want you steppin’ your nice shoes in nuffink nasty.” She gives her a warm smile. “Come on.”

 

As they start walking up the rookery, one woman wrapped in a paisley shawl stands in her doorway staring at Edith with undisguised curiosity and perhaps a little jealousy as she casts her critical gaze over her simple, yet smart, black coat and dyed straw hat decorated with silk flowers and feathers.

 

“Wanna paint a picture Mrs. Friedmann?” Mrs. Boothby calls out hotly to her, challenging her open stare with a defensive one of her own. “Might last you longer, your royal ‘ighness!” She makes a mock over exaggerated curtsey towards her, hitching up the hem of her workday skirts.

 

The woman tilts her head up slightly, sniffs in disgust and looks down her nose with spite at both Edith and the Cockney charwoman before muttering something in a language Edith doesn’t need to speak to understand. Turning on her heel, the woman slams her door sharply behind her, the noise echoing off the hard surfaces of the court.

 

“Who was that, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks nervously.

 

“Lawd love you dearie,” chortles Mrs. Boothby, the action resulting on one of her fruity hacking coughs that seem remarkably loud from such a diminutive figure. “That’s that nasty local Yid***** matchmaker what I told you ‘bout.” Raising her voice she continues, speaking loudly at the closed door. “Golda Friedmann goes around wiv ‘er nose in the air wrapped up in that fancy paisley shawl actin’ like she was the Queen of Russia ‘erself. But she ain’t! She’s no better than the rest of us.”

 

As Mrs. Boothby trudges on up the rookery another doorway opens and an old woman with a figure that shows many years of childbirth steps out, dressed in a black skirt and an old fashioned but pretty floral print Edwardian high necked blouse. “Afternoon Ida.”

 

“Oh! Afternoon Lil!” Mrs. Boothby replies. “Oh Lil! I got somefink in ‘ere for you.” She opens up her capacious blue beaded bag and fossicks around making the beads rattle before withdrawing a couple of thin pieces of soap, one bar a bright buttercup yellow, a second pink and the last white. “’Ere. For the kiddies.”

 

“Oh fanks ever so, Ida!” the other woman replies, gratefully accepting the pieces of soap in her careworn hands.

 

“Edith,” Mrs. Boothby calls. “This ‘ere is my neighbour, Mrs. Conway.” A couple of cheeky little faces with sallow cheeks, but bright eyes, poke out from behind Mrs. Conway’s skirts and smile up shyly at Edith with curiosity. “Hullo kiddies.” Mrs. Boothby says to them. “Nah sweeties from me today. Sorry. Mrs. Conway, this ‘ere is Miss Watsford, what works for one of my ladies up in Mayfair.”

 

“Oh ‘ow do you do?” Mrs. Conway says, wiping her hands down her skirts before reaching out a hand to Edith.

 

“How do you do, Mrs. Conway.” Edith replies with a gentle smile, taking her hand, and feeling her rough flesh rub against her own as the old woman’s bony fingers entwine hers.

 

“Well, must be getting on, Lil,” Mrs. Boothby says. “Ta-ta.”

 

“Ta-ra, Ida. Ta-ra Miss Watsford.” Mrs. Conway replies before turning back and shooing the children inside good naturedly.

 

“Goodbye Mrs, Conway. It was nice to meet you.” Edith says.

 

At the next door, one painted Brunswick green like the shutters, Mrs. Boothby stops and takes out a large string of keys from her bag and promptly finds the one for her own front door. As the key engages with the lock the door groans in protest as it slowly opens. The old woman says, “Just stand ‘ere in the doorway, Edith dearie, while I’ll open the curtains.”

 

She disappears into the gloom, which vanishes a moment later as with a flourish, she flings back some heavy red velvet curtains, flooding the room with light from the front window. It takes a moment for Edith’s eyes to adjust as the old Cockney woman stands for a moment in the pool of light, so brilliant after the gloom, surrounded by a floating army of illuminated dust motes tumbling over one another in the air. As her eyes adjust, Edith discerns things within the tenement front room: a kitchen table not too unlike her own at Cavendish Mews, a couple of sturdy ladderback chairs, an old fashioned black leaded stove and a sink in the corner.

 

“Close the door behind you and come on in, dearie. The ‘ouse is still warmish from this mornin’.” Mrs. Boothby says kindly as she tosses her beaded handbag carelessly onto the table where it lands with a thud and the jangle of beads. “Take a seat and I’ll get the range goin’ and pop the kettle on for a nice cup of Rosie-Lee******! I dunno ‘bout you, but I’m parched.”

 

“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies as she closes the door.

 

Shutting out the unpleasant mixture of odours outside with the closing of the door, Edith is comforted by the smells of carbolic soap and lavender. Looking about she notices a couple of little muslin bags hanging from the curtains.

 

“Good. Nah, give me your ‘at ‘n coat and I’ll ‘ang them up.” Mrs. Boothby says. Noticing Edith’s gaze upon the pouches she explains. “Lavender to ‘elp keep the moths and the smells from the privy at bay.”

 

“Oh.” Edith replies laconically.

 

As Mrs. Boothby hangs up Edith’s coat and hat as well as her own on a hook behind the door and then bustles about stoking up the embers of the fire left in the stove, Edith says, “Mrs. Conway seems like a nice person to have as your neighbour, Mrs. Boothby.”

 

“She’s a good un, that one. She takes care of all the little kiddies round ‘n ‘bout while their parents is at work.” Mrs. Boothby throws some coal into the stove and shoves it with a poker. “She’s got an ‘eart of gold she does. I owe ‘er a lot. She does ‘er best by them kiddies. Gives ‘em a meal made outta what she can, which for some might be the only meal they get. And she gives ‘em a good bath too when she can. That’s why I give ‘er the left over soap ends from the ‘ouses I go to.”

 

“Oh I’m sorry Mrs. Boothby. I always take Miss Lettice’s soap ends to Mum to grate up and make soap flakes from for washing.”

 

“Ahh, don’t worry dearie. I gets plenty from some of the other ‘ouses I go to. Some of ‘em even throws out bars of soap what’s been barely used cos they get cracked and they don’t like the look of ‘em no more. Some of them ladies up the West End don’t know just ‘ow lucky they is to ‘ave as many bars of soap as they like. Nah, you keep takin’ Miss Lettice’s ends to your mum. So long as they’s bein’ used, I’m ‘appy. Waste not, want not, I always say.”

 

With nothing to do whilst the older woman goes about filling the large kettle with water from the sink in the corner of the room, Edith has more time to look at her surroundings. The floor is made of wooden boards whilst the walls are covered in a rather dark green wallpaper featuring old fashioned Art Nouveau patterns. The house must one have had owners or tenants with grander pretentions than Mrs. Boothby for the stove is jutting out of a much larger fireplace surround, which although chipped and badly discoloured from years of coal dust, cooking and cigarette smoke, is marble. However, it is the profusion of ornaments around the small room that catches the young girl’s eye. Along the mantle of the original fireplace stand a piece of Staffordshire, a prettily painted cow creamer, a jug in the shape of a duck coming out of an egg and a teapot in the shape of Queen Victoria. Turning around behind her to where Mrs. Boothby gathers a pretty blue and white china teapot, some cups, saucers and a sugar bowl, she sees a large dresser that is cluttered with more decorative plates, teapots, jugs, tins and a cheese dish in the shape of a cottage.

 

“Not what you was expectin’ I’ll warrant.” Mrs, Boothby remarks with a knowing chuckle that causes her to emit yet another of her throaty coughs.

 

“Oh no Mrs. Boothby!” Edith replies, blushing with shame at being caught out staring about her so shamelessly. “I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I mean… I had no expectations.”

 

“Well, it’s nuffink special, but this is my ‘aven of calm and cleanliness away from the dirty world out there.” She points through the window where, when Edith turns her head, she can see several scrawny children playing marbles on the concrete of the courtyard. “And it’s ‘ome to me.”

 

“Oh yes, it’s lovely and clean and cheerful, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith assures her hostess. “No, I was just admiring all your pretty crockery. It reminds me of my Mum’s kitchen, actually. She is always collecting pretty china and pottery.”

 

“Well, who was it what told you to go dahn to the Caledonian Markets******* to buy a gift for your mum?” the old woman says with a cheeky wink. “Me that who!” She pokes her chest proudly, before coughing heavily again.

 

“So did you get all these from the Caledonian Markets then, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks, looking around again.

 

“Well, most, but not all. I got meself an art gallery from the Caledonian Markets, for when I washes the dishes.” She points to two cheap prints of classic paintings in equally cheap wooden frames hanging on the walls above the little sink. “Better than starin’ at a blank wall, even if it’s covered in wallpaper. Course, some a them ladies up the West End is awfully wasteful wiv much more than soap, and just like them soap ends, I get my share. Somethin’ a bit old fashioned or got a tiny chip in it and they’s throwin’ it out like it was a piece of rubbish, so I offer ta take it. Take that nice cow up there,” She points to the cow creamer on the mantle. “The lid got lost somewhere, so the lady from Belgravia what owned it told ‘er maid to throw it out, so I said I’d take it instead. That,” She points to the Staffordshire statue. “Was one of a pair, what the uvver ‘alf got broken, so it was being chucked, so I took it. I don’t care if it don’t ‘ave the uvver ‘alf. I like it as it is. It’s pretty. The Queen Victoria teapot was getting’ chucked out just ‘cos the old Queen died, and King Bertie was takin’ ‘er place. Well, I wasn’t ‘avin’ none of that. Poor old Queen! I said I’d ‘ave it if no-one else wanted it. And this teapot,” She withdraws the pretty blue and white china teapot from atop the stove. “This was just bein’ thrown out ‘cos it’s old and they’s no bits of the set left but this. But there ain’t nuffink wrong wiv it, and it must be at least a ‘undred years old!”

 

Mrs. Boothby pulls out a gilt edged blue and white cake plate which she puts on the table along with the tea cups, sugar bowl and milk jug. She then goes to the dresser and pulls down a pretty tin decorated with Art Nouveau ladies from which she takes several pieces of shortbread, which she places on the cake plate.

 

“That’s very lovely, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith points to a teapot in the shape of a rabbit sitting in a watering can. “It looks rather like Peter Rabbit.”

 

“Ahh… my Ken loves that too.” Edith’s ears prick at the mention of someone named Ken, but she doesn’t have time to ask who he is before Mrs. Boothby continues, “That bunny rabbit teapot is one of the few pieces I got what ‘as a sad story what goes wiv it. Poor lady what I cleaned for up in St. James’, it were ‘er baby’s, from the nursery, you know?” Edith nods in understanding. “Well, ‘e died. ‘E was a weak little mite ‘e were, ever since ‘e was born, and my poor lady was so upset when ‘e died that she got rid of everyfink in the nursery. She didn’t want nuffink to remind her of that little baby. So, I brought it ‘ome wiv me.” She sighs. “Well, the kettle’s boiled now, so ‘ow about a cup of Rosie-Lee, dearie?”

 

A short while later, Edith and Mrs. Boothby are seated around Mrs. Boothby’s kitchen table with the elegant Regency teapot, some blue and white china cups and the plate of shortbreads before them.

 

“Oh I tell you Edith dearie, I’m dying for a fag!” Mrs Boothby says. She starts fossicking through her capacious beaded bag before withdrawing her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut. Rolling herself a cigarette she lights it with a satisfied sigh and one more of her fruity coughs, dropping the match into a black ashtray that sits on the table full of cigarette butts. Mrs. Boothby settles back happily in her ladderback chair with her cigarette in one hand and reaches out, taking up a shortbread biscuit with the other. Blowing out a plume of blue smoke that tumbles through the air around them, the old woman continues. “Nah, about this sewin’ machine. My Ken’ll be ‘ome soon, I ‘ope. ‘E’s a bit late today.”

 

“Mrs. Boothby, who is Ken?” Edith asks with a questioning look on her face.

 

Just as Mrs. Boothby is about to answer her, she gasps as she hears a rather loud and jolly whistle.

 

“Well, speak of the devil, ‘ere ‘e comes nah!”

 

The front door of the tenement flies open and the space is instantly filled by the bulk of a big man in a flat cap with a large parcel wrapped in newspaper tied with twine under his right arm.

 

*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.

 

***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.

 

****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.

 

*****The word Yid is a Jewish ethnonym of Yiddish origin. It is used as an autonym within the Ashkenazi Jewish community, and also used as slang. When pronounced in such a way that it rhymes with did by non-Jews, it is commonly intended as a pejorative term. It is used as a derogatory epithet, and as an alternative to, the English word 'Jew'. It is uncertain when the word began to be used in a pejorative sense by non-Jews, but some believe it started in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century when there was a large population of Jews and Yiddish speakers concentrated in East London, gaining popularity in the 1930s when Oswald Mosley developed a strong following in the East End of London.

 

******Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.

 

*******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.

 

I would just like to point out that I wrote this story some weeks ago, long before The Queen became ill and well before her passing. However it seems apt that this story of all, which I planned weeks ago to upload today as part of the Chetwyn Mews narrative, mentions the passing of The Queen (albeit Queen Victoria). I wish to dedicate this image and chapter to our own Queen of past and glorious times Queen Elizabeth II (1926 – 2022). Long did she reign over us, happy and glorious. God bless The Queen.

 

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.

 

Mrs. Boothby’s beloved collection of ornaments come from various different sources. The Staffordshire cow (one of a pair) and the cow creamer that stand on the mantlepiece have been hand made and painted by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys. If you look closely, you will see that the Staffordshire cow actually has a smile on its face! Although you can’t notice it in the photo, the cow creamer has its own removable lid which is minute in size! The duck coming from the egg jug on the mantle, the rooster jug, the cottage ware butter dish, Peter Rabbit in the watering can tea pot and the cottage ware teapot to its right on the dresser were all made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson. All the pieces are authentic replicas of real pieces made by different china companies. For example, the cottage ware teapot 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 Queen Victoria teapot on the mantlepiece and the teapot on the dresser to the left of the Peter Rabbit teapot come from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. All the other plates on the dresser came from various online miniature stockists through E-Bay, as do the teapot, plate and cups on Mrs. Boothby’s kitchen table.

 

Mrs. Boothby’s picture gallery in the corner of the room come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

Mrs. Boothby’s beaded handbag on the table is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. Hand crocheted, it is interwoven with antique blue glass beads that are two millimetres in diameter. The beads of the handle are three millimetres in length. It came from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

Spilling from her bag are her Player’s Navy Cut cigarette tin and Swan Vesta matches, which are 1:12 miniatures hand made by Jonesy’s Miniatures in England. The black ashtray is also an artisan piece, the bae of which is filled with “ash”. The tray as well as having grey ash in it, also has a 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (it is affixed there). Made by Nottingham based tobacconist manufacturer John Player and Sons, Player’s Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf, mild being today’s rich flavour). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Player’s and two thirds of these were branded as Player’s Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Player’s sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London). Production continued to grow until at its peak in the late 1950s, Player’s was employing 11,000 workers (compared to 5,000 in 1926) and producing 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. Nowadays the brands “Player” and “John Player Special” are owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands (formerly the Imperial Tobacco Company). Swan Vestas is a brand name for a popular brand of ‘strike-anywhere’ matches. Shorter than normal pocket matches they are particularly popular with smokers and have long used the tagline ‘the smoker’s match’ although this has been replaced by the prefix ‘the original’ on the current packaging. Swan Vestas matches are manufactured under the House of Swan brand, which is also responsible for making other smoking accessories such as cigarette papers, flints and filter tips. The matches are manufactured by Swedish Match in Sweden using local, sustainably grown aspen. The Swan brand began in 1883 when the Collard & Kendall match company in Bootle on Merseyside near Liverpool introduced ‘Swan wax matches’. These were superseded by later versions including ‘Swan White Pine Vestas’ from the Diamond Match Company. These were formed of a wooden splint soaked in wax. They were finally christened ‘Swan Vestas’ in 1906 when Diamond merged with Bryant and May and the company enthusiastically promoted the Swan brand. By the 1930s ‘Swan Vestas’ had become ‘Britain’s best-selling match’.

 

The meagre foodstuffs on Mrs. Boothby’s shelf represent items not unusually found in poorer households across Britain. Before the Second World War, the British populace consumed far more sugar than we do today, partially for the poor because it was cheap and helped give people energy when their diets were lacking good nutritious foods. Therefore finding a tin of treacle, some preserved fruit or jam, and no fresh fruits or vegetables was not an unusual sight in a lower class home. All the tined foodstuffs, with the exception of the tin of S.P.C. peaches, 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. The S.P.C. tin of peaches comes from Shepherd’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. 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 rather worn and beaten looking enamelled bread bin and colander in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green, which have been aged on purpose, are artisan pieces I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The various bowls, cannisters and dishes, the kettle and the Brown Betty teapot I have acquired from various online miniatures stockists throughout the United Kingdom, America and Australia. 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.

 

The black Victorian era stove and the ladderback chair on the left of the table and the small table directly behind it are all miniature pieces 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 Welsh dresser came from Babette’s Miniatures, who have been making miniature dolls’ furnishings since the late Eighteenth Century. The dresser has plate grooves in it to hold plates in place, just like a real dresser would.

 

The grey marbleised fireplace behind the stove and the trough sink in the corner of the kitchen come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The green wallpaper is an authentic replica of real Art Nouveau wallpaper from the first decade of the Twentieth Century which I have printed onto paper. The floorboards are a print of a photo taken of some floorboards that I scaled to 1:12 size to try and maintain a realistic look.

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, is paying an unexpected call on her beloved parents whilst her mistress is away visiting her own parents in Wiltshire. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden and has just recently been promoted to Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith. Usually even before she walks through the glossy black painted front door, Edith can smell the familiar scent of a mixture of Lifebuoy Soap, Borax and Robin’s Starch, which means her mother is washing the laundry of others wealthier than she in the terrace’s kitchen at the rear of the house. Yet with her father’s promotion, Edith’s mother is only laundering a few days a week now, and today, rather than soap and starch, the delicious scent of freshly baked bread greets her.

 

“Mum!” Edith calls out cheerily as she opens the unlocked front door and walks in. “Mum, it’s me!” She takes a deep breath and inhales the aroma of a loaf in the kitchen range’s bread oven. “Something smells good.”

 

“Edith! It isn’t Wednesday! I wasn’t expecting you today!” Ada gasps in delighted surprise, glancing up from her work on the kitchen table to the door leading from the hallway into the kitchen. “What a lovely surprise!”

 

Edith walks across the flagstone floor of the kitchen and embraces her mother. “Hullo Mum.” Ada opens her arms and embraces her daughter as lovingly as she can, anxious not to get flour on Edith’s smart three-quarter length black coat - a second-hand remodel that Edith did after acquiring it from a stall in Petticoat Lane*.

 

“Watch my floury hands, Edith love,” Ada exclaims before placing a kiss on her daughter’s cheek. “I don’t want to ruin your fancy coat with white finger marks. Pop the kettle on the hob and pull up a chair. Keep me company whilst I finish this,” She indicates to a half shaped loaf on a baking tray before her. “And tell me how it is that you can visit me on a Friday that isn’t your day off. What’s Miss Chetwynd up to now, that she’s not at home? Gone back to stay with her friends in Cornwall, has she?”

 

“Not this time, Mum.” Edith takes the kettle from the range over to the small plumbed enamelled sink standing on bricks in the corner of the kitchen and fills it with water. “She’s gone home to her parent’s house in Wiltshire for a big ball, being held for her. So, I thought I’d take advantage of a few light days and slip in unannounced to see you.” She takes the tarnished old kettle and hangs it over the range’s fire to boil. “I hope you don’t mind, Mum.”

 

“Mind?” Ada scoffs as she starts fussing with the cups and the flour cannister on the table in front of her. “Why would I mind my only daughter coming to visit?” She pauses and watches her daughter walk towards the back door and contemplates a difference in her: an imperceptible bounce in her step to most, but quite obvious from a mother’s keen observations of her child. She ponders as she restores the cork stopper to a jar of salt. “A fancy ball, in her honour! Well, isn’t Miss Chetwynd the lucky one!”

 

“You’d think so,” Edith replies. “But apparently it’s her parents’ idea to help her find a suitable husband. Being the independent woman that she is, Miss Lettice is none too happy about it.”

 

“But she’s going?”

 

“Yes, but only out of a sense of duty or obligation, I think. It’s a fancy dress too, and she is going as Cinderella.” Edith removes her purple rose and black feather decorated straw hat and shirks off her coat to reveal a rather simple but pretty plum coloured serge dress with a white lace collar.

 

“Well, thinking of Cinderella, look at you, my darling girl.” The older woman says with pride in her voice. “I recognise that lace. Wasn’t it off that old tea gown Mrs. Beech gave me for rags that I cut off for you, because you took a fancy to it?”

 

“It is, Mum!” Edith smiles as she hangs her coat and hat up on a couple of spare hooks by the back door.

 

“Another Petticoat Lane second-hand clothes stall, remodel you’re wearing, is it?”

 

“Not this time, Mum. I made this myself from scratch with a dress pattern from Fashion for All**,” Edith replies proudly, giving a little twirl that sends her calf length skirt flaring out prettily. “You taught me well. I wore it out for the first time on Sunday.”

 

Ada looks at her daughter’s face, noticing a slight cheekiness to her smile and a sparkle in her eyes as she idly spins with her mind elsewhere than Ada’s kitchen, and she begins to ponder the difference in her.

 

“What are you looking at, Mum?” Edith asks, stopping her turn and catching her mother’s particularly observant gaze.

 

Realising that she has been caught out staring harder than perhaps she should, Ada coughs and quickly covers up her contemplation with bluster. “Well, I’m looking at you, you ninny.” She glances away. “Who else would I be looking at, since you’re the only one parading around my kitchen like you were in one of those fashion magazines you like so much.” Ada’s pride swells as she returns to the task at hand on the table and begins shaping some dough into a loaf shape. “You look very pretty, Edith love. Your Dad and I are so proud of you, you know.”

 

“Thanks Mum. I know you are. Here. Why are you baking bread, Mum?” Edith asks her mother, slipping into her usual perch at the worn kitchen table on the old ladderback chair. “You always get bread from Mr. Rawlinson’s.”

 

“Oh! Well, now I’m only laundering three days a week, what with your Dad being a Line Manager now and all,” the older woman explains as she takes up her knife and scores the top of the freeform loaf with crosshatches. “I’ve got some extra time on my hands, and I’d thought I’d take up baking bread again.” She slaps Edith’s curious hands away as she gently starts to move the blue and white gingham cloth off the top of the large white porcelain bowl before her. “Shoo, my girl! Don’t touch that! It’s proving***!” She returns to scoring the loaf before her. “Harlesden wasn’t always the London suburb that it is today. My Mum, your Granny, used to bake bread for the workers on the farm she lived and worked on, one of the last in the district, and she taught me how to bake bread. I thought I’d bake some as a treat for your Dad and your Aunt Maude.”

 

“I am glad you’ve been able to give up some of your laundering, Mum.” Edith smiles over at Ada. “Now you can do some of the things you want to do for a change.”

 

“Oh, thinking of laundering, Mrs. Hounslow was over here yesterday, and she gave me one of her cast off ladies’ magazines. She’d seen a picture of your Miss Chetwynd looking lovely at Princess Mary’s Wedding**** so she circled it and thought to bring it over when she was bringing me a few extra delicates to wash for her.” She turns towards the great dark Welsh dresser that it seems the kitchen has been built around. “I’ve got it here somewhere.”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith sighs. “I do wish you’d given nasty old Widow Hounslow up when you stopped some of your laundering.”

 

Ada turns back and brushes a stray strand of mousey brown hair fallen loose from her bun and guides it around the back of her ear. “I can’t do that, Edith! Her sixpences kept food…”

 

“I know. I know!” Edith stops her mother, raising her hands. “Her sixpences kept us fed many a day.” She looks up at Ada’s careworn face looking back at her, again a scrutiny in her features as she looks back at Edith. “But you have to admit, Mum, she asks a lot of you and has made you work for every sixpence she’s ever begrudgingly given you.”

 

“We should all work hard for the sixpences others pay us, my girl.”

 

“I know Mum, and I do.” she replies exasperatedly. “I just wish you didn’t have to work so hard for Mrs. Hounslow’s sixpences. You should have dropped old Widow Hounslow and kept that nice Mrs. Young. She was never late paying you.”

 

“Oh, now Mrs. Young’s daughter is out of nappies, she doesn’t need me laundering for her anymore, Edith love. I’m sure she only kept me on out of kindness. Anyway, I know your opinion about Mrs. Hounslow.”

 

“And we all know yours, Mum.” Edith starts drawing with her finger idly on the worn surface of the table.

 

“Alright my girl!” Ada says, flattening her palms before her on the table applying her weight to her locked arms as she leans forward and looks her daughter in the eye. “There’s a wriggling, tickling tummy fish in you, just desperate to get out.”

 

“A what, Mum?” the young girl laughs.

 

Shaking her head, Ada says, “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten wriggling, tickling tummy fish, Edith!” When her daughter returns a perplexed look of confusion, the older woman continues, “It’s what we used to call secrets when you were little. You know, wriggling fish trying to escape, just like wriggling secrets wanting to be told?” Looking at her daughter again with incredulity she adds, “I can’t believe you don’t remember wriggling, tickling tummy fish!”

 

“I vaguely do, Mum.” Edith admits, although more to please her mother than in truth.

 

“Well then?” Ada demands. “Spit it out! You’ve been dying to tell me something ever since you arrived.” She pulls herself upright again and rubs her lower back with a groan. “I can tell. There is something,” She contemplates her daughter again with her thumb and index finger of her right hand worrying her chin. “Something, different about you. Something, bonny and gay. You didn’t come all this way just to visit me when you were here two days ago. What’s happened?”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith exclaims with a joyful giggle. “Such wonderful news! Frank Leadbetter has asked me to walk out with him!”

 

“Frank Leadbetter?” Ada queries with a questioning look.

 

“I’ve told you about Frank before, Mum. He’s Mr. Willison the Mayfair grocers’ delivery man.”

 

“Oh Edith, love!” Ada hurriedly wipes her hands on the red and white gingham tea towel hanging from the rail of the range to rid them of flour. She rushes over and envelops her daughter as she rises from the ladderback chair in an all-encompassing embrace of unbridled delight.

 

“He’s took me to see Wanetta Ward’s new moving picture, ‘After the Ball is Over’, at the Premier in East Ham***** last Sunday, and we agreed to go out again this Sunday. He’s taking me to Regent’s Park.”

 

“Oh, my darling girl, that’s such exciting news! What a wonderful wriggling, tickling tummy fish! No wonder you wanted to get it out! Now, go grab us some cups and bring over the biscuit tin. Your Dad will be home for lunch soon. He’ll be just as glad to hear this news as I am.” Ada sighs with delight, pleased to know the cause of the change in her daughter. “Now let me fill Brown Betty****** and then you must tell me everything: every little detail mind! Don’t leave anything out!”

 

*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.

 

**Fashion for All was one of the many women’s magazines that were published in the exuberant inter-war years which were aimed at young girls who were looking to better their chances of finding a husband through beauty and fashion. As most working-class girls could only imagine buying fashionable frocks from high street shops, there was a great appetite for dressmaking patterns so they could dress fashionably at a fraction of the cost, by making their own dresses using skills they learned at home.

 

***In cooking, proofing (also called proving) is a step in the preparation of yeast bread and other baked goods in which the dough is allowed to rest and rise a final time before baking. During this rest period, yeast ferments the dough and produces gases, thereby leavening the dough.

 

****Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood (1897 – 1965), was the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. She was the sister of Kings Edward VIII and George VI, and aunt of Queen Elizabeth II. She married Viscount Lascelles on the 28th of February 1922 in a ceremony held at Westminster Abbey. The bride was only 24 years old, whilst the groom was 39. There is much conjecture that the marriage was an unhappy one, but their children dispute this and say it was a very happy marriage based upon mutual respect. The wedding was filmed by Pathé News and was the first royal wedding to be featured in fashion magazines, including Vogue.

 

*****The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.

 

******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.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene of baking 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 freeform loaf on the kitchen table, the white porcelain proofing bowl complete with rising dough, the butter wrapped in silver foil and the rolling pin – which is even half coated in flour – 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 rather worn and beaten looking enamelled flour cannister in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green, has been aged on purpose. An artisan piece, it comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom, as does the glass jar of salt which is filled with real salt granules and stoppered with a real cork lid. The metal sieve comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. The other crockery on the table comes from various online stockists of miniatures.

 

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 which are part of the set from which the flour cannister is from. 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 tin of Macfie’s Finest Black Treacle, two jars of P.C. Flett and Company jam, a tin of Heinz marinated apricots, and a jar of Marmite. 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.

 

Robert Andrew Macfie sugar refiner was the first person to use the 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 tinned 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.

 

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).

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, is paying an unexpected call on her parents whilst her mistress is away enjoying the distractions of the London Season. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith. Even before she walks through the glossy black painted front door, Edith can smell the familiar scent of a mixture of Lifebuoy Soap, Borax and Robin’s Starch, which means her mother is washing the laundry of others wealthier than she in the terrace’s kitchen at the rear of the house.

 

“Mum!” Edith calls out cheerily as she opens the unlocked front door and walks in. “Mum, it’s me!”

 

“Edith!” Ada gasps in delighted surprise, glancing up to the door leading from the hallway into the kitchen. “I wasn’t expecting you. What a lovely surprise!”

 

Ada rises from her chair at the worn kitchen table and embraces her daughter lovingly. Holding her at arm’s length, she admires her three-quarter length black coat and purple rose and black feather decorated straw hat. “Look at you, my darling girl.” The older woman self-consciously pushes loose strands of her mousey brown hair back behind her ears. Chuckling awkwardly, she remarks with a downwards glance. “You’re far too fancy for the likes of us now, Edith.”

 

“Don’t talk nonsense, Mum!” Edith dismisses her mother’s comment with a flap of her hand. "My coat came from a Petticoat Lane* second-hand clothes stall. I picked it up dead cheap and remodelled it myself.”

 

“Taking after your old Mum then?” Ada remarks with a hint of pride.

 

“You taught me everything I know about sewing, Mum, and I’ll always be grateful for that.”

 

The joyful smile suddenly fades from Ada’s face as it clouds in concern. “But it’s Tuesday today. You don’t have Tuesdays off. Is everything alright, love?”

 

“It’s fine, Mum.” Edith assures her mother, placing a calming hand on her mother’s shoulder with one hand as she places her basket on the crowded kitchen table with the other. “Miss Lettice has gone to stay with friends on the Isle of Wight for Cowes Week**, so I thought I’d pop in and visit since I have a bit of free time whilst she’s away.”

 

“Oh! That’s alright then!” the older woman sighs with relief, fanning herself as she lowers herself back into her seat.

 

Feeling the stuffiness in the room from the lighted range and the moisture from the steaming tubs of washing, Edith takes off her coat and hangs it on a hook by the back door. She then places her hat on one of the carved knobs of the ladderback chair drawn up to the table next to her mother’s usual seat.

 

“Oh don’t put it there, love.” Ada chides. “It might get damaged. Such a pretty hat should sit on the table where it’s safe.”

 

“It’s nothing special, Mum. This came from Petticoat Lane too, and it’s not new. I decorated the hat with bits and bobs I picked up from a Whitechapel haberdasher Miss Lettice’s char***, Mrs. Boothby, told me about.”

 

“Well, homemade or not, it’s too pretty to hang there.”

 

“It’s my hat, Mum, and I promise you, it’ll be fine there.

 

“Well, suit yourself, love. Anyway, your timing is perfect. I just filled Brown Betty****. Grab yourself a cup and bring over the biscuit tin. Your Dad will be home for lunch soon. He’ll be glad to see you.”

 

Edith walks over to the big, dark Welsh dresser that dominates one side of the tiny kitchen and picks up a pretty floral teacup and saucer from among the mismatched crockery on its shelves: one of her mother’s many market finds that helped to bring elegance and beauty to Edith’s childhood home. She looks fondly at the battered McVitie and Price’s tin. “How’s Dad?”

 

“Oh, things are looking up for him.” Ada says proudly as she flips open her large sewing basket and fossicks through it looking for a spool of brightly coloured blue cotton thread.

 

“Oh?” Edith queries.

 

“Yes, there’s talk of him being made a line manager. Isn’t that a turn up for the books?”

 

“Oh Mum! That’s wonderful news.” The younger woman enthuses as she puts the empty teacup, saucer and biscuit tin on the table and sits down next to her mother. “You might be finally able to pack all this in.” She waves her hand about the kitchen at the tubs of washing, drying laundry and pressed linens.

 

“Oh I don’t know about that, Edith. Anyway, I have built up a good reputation over the years.”

 

“Yes,” Edith remarks scornfully. “For charging too little for the excellent work you do.” She looks over, past her mother, to a neat pile of lace edged linens. “What’s that you’re doing now, Mum?”

 

“Oh it’s just some work for Mrs. Hounslow. She wants her new sheets and pillowcases monogrammed.”

 

“And how much are you, not being paid, for that, Mum?” Edith emphasises.

 

“Oh Edith! Mrs. Hounslow’s a widow.”

 

“I know, Mum. I’ve grown up hearing about how Mrs. Hounslow’s husband died a hero in the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War. But I’ve never heard of her scraping for a penny for a scrap to eat. And where are those pretty lace trimmed sheets from?”

 

“Bishop’s in the High Street.”

 

“See! No second-hand sheets for old Widow Hounslow!”

 

“Now I won’t have a bad word said about her, Edith.” Ada wags her finger admonishingly at her daughter before selecting a needle from the red cotton lined lid of her basket and threads it. “She’s helped pay for many a meal in this house with her sixpences and shillings over the years. You should be grateful to her.”

 

“Pshaw!” Edith raises her eyes to the ceiling above. “I wish you’d let me help out more, Mum. I live in, so I don’t have the expenses of lodgings, and Miss Lettice pays me well.”

 

“Now, I won’t hear of it, Edith.” Ada raises her palms to her daughter, still clutching the threaded needle between her right index finger and thumb. “You earned that money with hard work at Miss Chetwynd’s. You pay enough to help keep us as it is.”

 

“But Mum,” Edith pours tea into her mother’s and then her own teacup. “If Dad does get this better job at McVitie’s, and I paid you a bit more of my wage, you probably really could give up washing, sewing and mending for the likes of Mrs. Hounslow.”

 

“And then what would I do, Edith?” The older woman adds a dash of milk to her tea.

 

“Well, you might like to put your feet up for a bit or buy a few nice new things for around here. Get rid of our battered old breadbin and those cannisters.” She points to the offending worn white enamel green trimmed pieces on the dresser.

 

“Oh, so we’re not grand enough then, Miss Edith?” Ada says in mock offence as she looks down her nose at her daughter and she raises herself and sits a little more erectly in her seat. “I love my breadbin thank you very much. That was a wedding gift from your Aunt Maude.”

 

“You know that’s not what I mean,” Edith replies, shaking her head exasperatedly. Adding milk and sugar to her own tea she continues, “I just want you to have nice things, Mum: things like those I have at Miss Lettice’s.”

 

“I’m so pleased you like it there, love.” Ada places a careworn hand lovingly on top of her daughter’s.

 

“Oh Mum, it’s so much better than Mrs. Plaistow’s was. It’s so much smaller than their townhouse, and I don’t have to traipse up and down stairs all day. There’s a gas stove, so I don’t have to fetch coal in or blacklead grates. Even if there were, Miss Lettice has Mrs. Boothby do all the hard graft I used to have to do at the Plaistow’s.”

 

“And Miss Chetwynd? She’s still being good to you?”

 

“Yes Mum.” Edith takes a sip of her tea. “I still haven’t broken her of the habit of just waltzing into the kitchen whenever she feels like it, rather than ringing the bell.”

 

“And her, a lord’s daughter.” Ada tuts, shaking her head.

 

“Well, a Viscount’s daughter at any rate.”

 

“You think she’d know better.”

 

“I’m sure she’s different when she goes home to Wiltshire. It does sound like a very grand house.”

 

“So much grander than here, Edith.”

 

“Now don’t start again, Mum. You know I didn’t mean anything by what I said before. Anyway. I have a something for you, but I shan’t give it to you if you’re going to be contrary!” Edith teases.

 

“Contrary indeed!” Ada snorts derisively.

 

Edith takes a bulky parcel wrapped in cream butcher’s paper tied up with brightly coloured string from her basket and places it carefully on the table before her mother.

 

“Well what is it?” Ada asks in surprise.

 

“Why don’t you open it, Mum, and find out.” Edith replies playfully in return.

 

With trembling fingers Ada tugs at the knot in the string. Loosening it causes the protective layer of paper to fall noisily away to reveal a beautiful, glazed teapot in the shape of a cottage with a thatched roof with the chimney as the lid.

 

“Oh Edith, love!” gasps Ada. “It’s beautiful!”

 

“Since you won’t let me give you more money, I may as well buy you some nice things Mum!”

 

“Oh this must have cost a fortune!” Ada appraises the paintwork on the pot. “For shame, Edith! You shouldn’t have spent your money on me.”

 

“Nonsense Mum! I bought this at the Caledonian Markets***** where it was so reasonably priced as it was on its own and didn’t have the milk jug and sugar bowl to match. Do you like it?”

 

“Like it, Edith? Oh, I love it!” Ada hugs her daughter, batting her eyelids as she attempts to keep back the tears of appreciation and joy.

 

“Good! Then we can have tea out of this, rather than old Brown Betty!”

 

“What?” Ada cries. “Oh no, I can’t well do that! This teapot is far too nice to use everyday! There’s nothing wrong with Brown Betty. Brown Betty was your Great Grandma’s!” She runs her hand lovingly over the handle of the pot. “No, I’ll keep this pot for good. I’ll take it up to the parlour and we’ll use it on Christmas Day, when you and your brother are home.”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith sighs, shaking her head in loving despair at her mother who beams with delight at her new present.

 

*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.

 

**Cowes Week is one of the longest-running regular regattas in the world, and a fixture of the London Season. With forty daily sailing races, up to one thousand boats, and eight thousand competitors ranging from Olympic and world-class professionals to weekend sailors, it is the largest sailing regatta of its kind in the world. Having started in 1826, the event is held in August each year on the Solent (the area of water between southern England and the Isle of Wight made tricky by strong double tides). It is focussed on the small town of Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

 

***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 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.

 

***** 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.

 

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 central focus of our story, sitting on Ada’s table, is the cottage ware teapot. 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 rood and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics.

 

Surrounding the cottage ware teapot are non-matching teacups, saucers, a milk jug and sugar bowl, all of which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. The Brown Betty teapot in the foreground came from The Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

Sitting atop a stack of neatly folded 1:12 size linens sits Ada’s wicker sewing basket. Sitting open it has needles stuck into the padded lid, whilst inside it are a tape measure, knitting needles, balls of wool, reels of cotton and a pair of shears. All the items and the basket, except for the shears, are hand made by Mrs. Denton of Muffin Lodge in the United Kingdom. The taupe knitting on the two long pins that serve as knitting needles is properly knitted and cast on. The shears with black handles in the basket open and close. Made of metal, they came from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. The blue cotton reel and silver sewing scissors come from an E-Bay stockist of miniatures based in the United Kingdom.

 

Sitting on the table in the foreground is a McVitie and Price’s Small Petite Beurre Biscuits tin, containing a selection of different biscuits. The biscuits were made by hand of polymer 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. 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.

 

Also on Ada’s table in the foreground there are several packets of Edwardian cleaning and laundry brands that were in common use in the early Twentieth Century in every household, rich or poor. These are Sunlight Soap, Robin’s Starch, Jumbo Blue and Imp Washer Soap. All these packets were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

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.

 

Imp Washer Soap was manufactured by T. H. Harris and Sons Limited, a soap manufacturers, tallow melters and bone boiler. Introduced after the Great War, Imp Washer Soap was a cheaper alternative to the more popular brands like Sunlight, Hudsons and Lifebuoy soaps. Imp Washer Soap was advertised as a free lathering and economical cleaner. T. H. Harris and Sons Limited also sold Mazo soap energiser which purported to improve the quality of cleaning power of existing soaps.

 

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 recently 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 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 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.

 

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.

 

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).

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, is paying a call on her parents on her day off. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith.

 

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 Ada prepares a Christmas cake whilst her daughter regales her with tales from Cavendish Mews, her unusually liberated upper-class employer and her eccentric coterie of friends.

 

“And then he just swept me up, right where I stood,” Edith explains. “And spun me around in the most awkward waltz I think I’ve ever danced, Mum!”

 

“What? With the roses still in his arms?” Ada stops stirring the thick, shiny mixture in her large white mixing bowl as she looks at her daughter with incredulity.

 

“And the champagne!” Edith giggles, raising her hand to her mouth as she does.

 

“Well!” the older woman gasps. “I’d never expect such odd behaviour from a gentleman! You did say he’s a proper gentleman?” she queries as an afterthought.

 

“Oh yes, Mum!” Edith assures her. “Mr. Brunton is a proper gentleman: rather theatrical and prone to posturing, but a gentleman, nevertheless. He and Miss Lettice grew up together on neighbouring estates in Wiltshire. His father is a sir or lord or some such.”

 

“Well, that’s alright then.” Ada sighs and starts stirring the sticky mixture with her big metal spoon again. “Mind you, there are plenty who claim to be gentlemen with their smart clothes and silvery tongues who are nothing of the sort.” She pauses again withdrawing the spoon from her mixture and pointing it at her daughter, the mixture dripping off it back into the bowl as she wags it at Edith. “Don’t you ever let your head get turned by one of those toffs, Edith. Whether he’s a gentleman or not, he’s still just a man under it all, and well, we all know that men are always out to chase pretty girls.” She lowers her eyes as a blush flushes her face with embarrassment. “And once he gets what he wants, he’ll drop you like a hot potato fresh from the oven. No gentleman ever married a maid so far as I can tell, ‘cept in those romance books you read.”

 

“Oh Mum! You don’t have to worry about me being around Mr. Bruton.” Edith starts spinning the well worn enamel canister marked ‘flour’ distractedly. “He’s far more interested in the frocks he makes for debutantes and going out to dinner with Miss Lettice than to take an interest in me. I’m just the maid who serves drinks and dinner and hangs his coat.”

 

“But I do worry about you Edith. You’re still only a young girl. Working on your own for a flapper,” She utters the last word with some distaste. “And living under her roof, well, you could be exposed anything for all I know! Now, I do know Miss Chetwynd is good to you, and pays you well, and I’m glad of that. Nevertheless, those flappers seem eccentric and always full of odd ideas and up to mischief.”

 

“Oh, that’s just what you read in the newspapers, Mum. I think the columnists of those stories sensationalise the tales they tell to try and sell more copies.”

 

“Nevertheless, sensationalist or not, those writers have to base some things on truth, so it can’t all be porky pies*!”

 

“Well, you read the articles from The Tattler that I gave you, showing all the photos from Miss Lettice’s cocktail party for Mr. and Mrs. Channon, didn’t you Mum?” When Ada nods her head affirmatively, Edith continues. “Well, that was all true, so you know that whilst Miss Lettice and her friends might be a bit eccentric, she’s still a respectable lady, as well as a flapper.”

 

Ada frowns and shakes her head a little, giving her daughter a questioning look as she observes her sitting across the table from her. “Stop playing with my cannisters and make yourself useful, Edith. I need some more fruit in this Christmas cake batter. Will you cut me some orange and lemon slices, please?”

 

“Yes Mum.”

 

Edith obeys her mother and dutifully gets up from her seat, yet the way she rises appears different to Ada’s sharp observation to the way she used to stand up. It seems elegant, yet affected somehow, with sloping shoulders and a languid head. Every week she notices small changes in Edith: a broader vocabulary and a general improvement in the smartness of her appearance which she likes, yet also an independent boldness and a questioning manner that she thinks unseemly in a young girl, especially one in service. Ada quietly wonders whether her daughter’s current employer will spoil her for any other position Edith may wish to acquire in the future. Edith’s last position with Mrs. Plaistow in Pimlico might have been harder work for a lesser wage, but at least she didn’t come home on her day off with her head turned by the glamour of American moving picture stars and society ladies who have influence over their futures. Girls like Edith have few choices in life, and Ada hopes her daughter doesn’t forget it.

 

“Anyway, enough about me, Mum,” Edith stands at the chopping board next to her mother, takes up Ada’s kitchen knife and starts to slice thin slivers from an orange. “What news of Bert? Have you heard from him?”

 

“Yes, your brother sent a postcard from Melbourne. It’s just up on the mantle.” Ada motions to the shelf above the kitchen range. “Read it.”

 

“It’s hard to imagine Bert on the other side of the world.”

 

“I’m just glad he’s only working as a steward on a passenger liner now, rather than in the navy, and that we aren’t at war anymore.”

 

“Oh I’m glad of that too, Mum.” Edith falls silent as she thinks of her own lost love, Bert the postman, and then quickly blinks away the tears briming in her eyes that threaten to spill over.

 

Determined not to be caught crying, Edith turns and wipes her hands, sticky with orange juice, on the yellow tea towel hanging from the rail beneath the mantle before picking up a postcard featuring a painted photograph of the Federal Parliament House in Melbourne**. She turns it over and reads aloud, “Leaving Melbourne on the Demonsthenes*** on Wednesday. First class dining saloon.” Edith looks over at her mother and smiles. “First class dining saloon! That’s a step up for Bert, Mum!” she remarks before continuing to read aloud. “Sailing home via Capetown. Arrive London twenty third of December.”

 

“Yes, he’ll be back in time for Christmas!” Ada beams as she dips her finger into the mix in the bowl, removing it and tasting the Christmas cake batter. She considers the flavour for a moment before shaking some cinnamon from the red box in front of her into the bowl. “Your Dad and I are so happy! We’ll have our Christmas present.”

 

“And what’s that, Mum?” Edith replaces the postcard on the mantle before turning back to the chopping board where she continues to cut thin slivers of orange.

 

“Having you both home for Christmas, of course!” Ada replies happily.

 

“So, you can use the cottage ware teapot I bought you from the Caledonian Markets****, then Mum.” Edith remarks playfully.

 

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Edith.” the older woman defends as she empties a tin of preserved red cherries into her Christmas cake batter. “It’s much too good to use.”

 

“But you promised, Mum!” Edith whines.

 

“I most certainly did not, Edith!” Ada retorts scoffingly.

 

“Yes you did, Mum!” her daughter responds. “Right here in this very kitchen, the day I gave it to you!” Edith stops cutting the orange, puts down the knife and folds her arms akimbo. “You told me that you’d use it on Christmas Day when Bert and I were home.”

 

Ada stops mixing the batter, puts her hands on her ample hips and stares at her daughter. “Your memory is far too good for remembering incidental things, Edith!”

 

Edith smiles. “I know, Mum.” She picks up a few slices of orange an continues, “Oranges?”

 

*Porky pies is Cockney rhyming slang for lies.

 

**Located on Spring Street on the edge of the Hoddle Grid, Melbourne’s Parliament House’s grand colonnaded front dominates the vista up Bourke Street. Designed by British Army officer and Colonial Engineer, Commissioner of Public Works and politician in colonial Victoria, Major-General Hon. Charles Pasley, construction began in 1855, and the first stage was officially opened the following year, with various sections completed over the following decades; it has never been completed, and the planned dome is one of the most well known unbuilt features of Melbourne. Between 1901 and 1927, it served as the meeting place of the Parliament of Australia, during the period when Melbourne was the temporary national capital.

 

***The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.

 

**** 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.

 

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:

 

Ada’s kitchen table is covered with most of the ingredients needed to make a Christmas cake: red cherries, orange and lemon peel, raisins, flour, baking powder, brandy, cinnamon, eggs and sugar.

 

The bowl of Christmas cake batter, complete with red cherries, was made by hand of polymer 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.

 

On the chopping board and the table you will see two lemons and four oranges. The lemons and oranges are vintage 1:12 artisan pieces that have come from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in England. The attention to detail on these is amazing! You will see the stubs in the skin were the stalk once attached them to the tree, but even more amazing is that, if you look very closely, you will see the rough pitting that you find in the skins of real oranges and lemons! The orange and lemon slices on the chopping board come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, England. The orange slices in particular are so small and so fine. They are cut from long canes like some boiled sweets are but are much smaller in size!

 

The kitchen knife on the chopping board with its inlaid handle and sharpened blade comes from English miniatures specialist Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniature store.

 

The rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters, which match the bread tin on the Welsh dresser in the background, are painted in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The tin of My Lady red cherries came from Shepherds Miniatures in the United Kingdom, as does the tin of Bird’s Golden Raising Powder (an old name for baking powder). 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. 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.

 

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

 

The eggs in the bowl with the whisk are 1:12 artisan miniatures with amazing attention to detail which I have had since I acquired them as a teenager from a high street stockist.

 

The box of cinnamon was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table and the Windsor chair, 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 and the worn Art Deco tea canister and bread box that match the canisters on the table. 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 box of Typhoo Tea, a box of Bisto Gravy, a jar of Marmite, a jar of Bovril 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.

 

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 named in Typhoo Tea. The name Typhoo comes from the Chinese word for "doctor". Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral peninsula of Cheshire. Typhoo Tea is still a household name in Britain to this day.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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).

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 it is Tuesday, and we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve, which is usually a place of calm and organisation. However today, Edith is in a flap, rushing about the room between the stove and the deal kitchen table in the centre of the room, banging copper pots and porcelain serving dishes alike as she starts to serve the day’s luncheon of a roast chicken with boiled vegetables and gravy.

 

“Goodness dearie! What’s to do?*” Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman** who comes on Tuesdays and every third Thursday to do the hard jobs, gasps as she slips into the kitchen via the door that leads from the flat’s entrance hall.

 

“Oh nothing!” Edith spits anxiously as she slams a heavy bottomed copper saucepan on the table’s surface and starts spooning some boiled vegetables into a pretty blue and white serving dish. “It’s just that Miss Lettice’s father is here.”

 

“Oh,” Mrs. Boothby’s eyebrows arch with curiosity over her sparking eyes. “Is that ooh that pompous old windbag is in the parlour?”

 

“Ssshhh!” Edith shushes the older Cockney woman. “He’ll hear you!” She indicates with her slotted ladle to the green baize door that leads from the kitchen to the flat’s dining room and the drawing room beyond it.

 

“I very much doubt that, dearie. “’E seems more than occupied wiv jabberin’ away to Miss Lettice.”

 

Edith’s face suddenly drains of the high colour her anxiety and the hot kitchen has given it. “He didn’t see you, did he Mrs. Boothby?”

 

The wiry thin Cockney woman bursts out laughing, which turns into one of her bouts of fruity coughing. “Goodness no, dearie!” she gasps. “I was just finishin’ polishin’ the bedroom floor and I glimpsed ‘im from a distance sittin’ in the parlour as I was comin’ across the entrance hall wiv me bucket.” She drops her aluminium bucket onto the black and white linoleum floor. “Nah! I knows better than ta show my face there when Miss Lettice ‘as guests.”

 

“Well,“ Edith mutters distractedly as she continues spooning greens from the pot into the tureen. “That’s a relief anyway.”

 

“Now, what’s all this then?” Mrs. Boothby asks with genuine concern. “It ain’t like you ta be upset by one of Miss Lettice’s visitors, dearie. It’s only ‘er old dad come ta pay a call.”

 

“Exactly!” Edith says, dropping the ladle back into the pot. She turns around and withdraws a roast chicken from the oven, golden brown and juicy, which she places on the wooden serving tray in the middle of the table. “Miss Lettice came in here at eleven, bold as brass. She knows I don’t like it when she fails to ring the call bell and comes in here.”

 

“And what did she want?”

 

“Well, she asked me what was for luncheon. I told her I was going to marinade her a nice bit of chicken with some vegetables. She then asked if it could be extended to a whole chicken with a few extra vegetables, as she had an unexpected visitor dropping in from Wiltshire.”

 

“Well, that’s where she comes from, so of course ‘er old dad is gonna come from there too.” Mrs. Boothby observes.

 

“Precisely!” Edith starts mixing some juices from the pan with some gravy salt and some herbs in a smaller copper pot. “When I asked her who was expected, she said breezily as you please, ‘oh just my father’.”

 

“Well,” Mrs. Boothby says, looking at the chicken on the serving dish, inhaling the wafts of delicious steam coming from it appreciatively. “Looks and smells alright ta me.”

 

“Alright! Alright!” Edith splutters as she stirs up the gravy. “I’ve never cooked for a viscount before!”

 

“Ooh’s a viscount?” Mrs. Boothby asks.

 

“He is!” Edith hisses back. “Miss Lettice’s father! He’s the Sixth Viscount Wrexham.”

 

“I thought you said your last position was in Pimlico.” Mrs. Boothby says, looking doubtfully at the maid.

 

“It was, but what has that to do with Lord Chetwynd being a viscount?” Edith pours the rich, thick steaming gravy into a blue and white porcelain gravy boat which matches the tureen and serving dishes.

 

“Well, they’s plenty of fancy titled folk in Pimlico. Didn’t ya serve some there?”

 

“I worked for a steel manufacturer and his wife, not a member of the aristocracy, Mrs. Boothby. I served other manufacturers, businessmen and MPs, but not a viscount.”

 

“Well, I shouldn’t worry too much ‘bout it, dearie. ‘E’ll eat ‘is tea just like manufacturers, businessmen, MPs and everyone else does; wiv ‘is mouth.”

 

“I’m not so sure about that Mrs. Boothby. He’s already asked Miss Lettice several times where the butler is when he wants a drink or anything else.”

 

“Nah! ‘E’s just potificatin’, like all them old lawds and laydees do, cos they got their own butlers and maids and what-not in they’s big ‘ouses at ‘ome.” The older woman comes around and wraps her careworn bony fingers around Edith’s shoulders, squeezing them in a comforting fashion. “Yer listen ta me, dearie. Yer cooked a fine tea ‘ere, just as good as any ‘Is Lawdship what would get back in Wiltshire from ‘is ‘oity-toity cook. ‘E should be grateful ta be getting’ such good food ta eat.”

 

Edith sighs and slumps a little.

 

“Nah! None of that my girl!” Mrs. Boothby continues, frowning at Edith. “Come on! Shoulders back! Show ‘Is Lawdship that youse as good as any servant. Do Miss Lettice proud. Eh?”

 

Edith looks up to Mrs. Boothby gratefully. “Thank you, Mrs. Boothby. You’re right.”

 

“Course I am, dearie. Nah, you go serve and I’ll start the washin’ up. Hhhmm?”

 

As Edith place the dishes and carving cutlery on her serving tray, ready to take into the dining room, she says, “I wonder why he’s come here for luncheon.”

 

“Ooh, dearie?”

 

“The Viscount Wrexham, of course Mrs. Boothby!”

 

“Oh ‘im. Well, I imagine ‘e’ll get a better meal ‘ere than at one of them clubs ‘e goes to in St. James.”

 

“But usually, when he visits London, he and Miss Lettice lunch at Claridge’s, or the Savoy. They’ll get a much finer lunch there than here.”

 

“Well, they’s no point in worryin’ yerself into more of a state ‘bout it, nah is there?”

 

“I suppose not.”

 

“What’s ‘appenin’ is appenin’, and there ain’t nuffin’ yer can do ‘bout it. Nah go serve them their tea before it gets cold.”

 

*The phrase “what’s to do?” in the 1920s and 1930s meant “what’s the matter?” or “what’s wrong?”.

 

**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 busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:

 

On Edith’s deal table is a panoply of things as she readies luncheon for Lettice and her British peerage father. The mahogany stained serving tray, the roast chicken, tureen of vegetables and gravy boat of gravy all came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. They look almost good enough to eat. The carving cutlery, which is made with great attention to detail, comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.

 

To the right of the tray is a box of Queen’s Gravy Salt. Queen’s Gravy Salt is a British brand, and this box is an Edwardian design. Gravy Salt is a simple product it is solid gravy browning and is used to add colour and flavour to soups stews and gravy - and has been used by generations of cooks and caterers. It and the Oxo stock cubes are artisan miniatures from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England. 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 glass jar of herbs with its wooden stopper of cork is also a 1:12 size miniature, as are the blue porcelain mixing bowl, wooden spoon and the copper pots on the table. The smaller of the two on the right I have had since I was a teenager, and it is remarkably heavy for its size!

 

Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.

 

In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.

 

On the bench in the background is a toaster: a very modern convenience for a household even in the early 1920s, but essential when there was no longer a kitchen range on which to toast the bread. Although toasters had been readily available since the turn of the century, they were not commonplace in British kitchens until well after the Great War in the late 1930s. Next to the toaster is a biscuit barrel painted in the style of English ceramic artist Clarice Cliff which is a hand painted 1:12 miniature made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. It contains its own selection of miniature hand-made chocolate biscuits! Next to that stands a bread crock and various jars and preserves for toast.

Sindy were given a yellow kitchen in 1976. These accessories were sold separately on a card.

 

A combined coffee grinder and liquidiser set with a yellow lid.

A food mixer with a clear bowl.

Kitchen scales.

A blue plastic and metal plate toaster.

A yellow bread bin with a lift off lid.

 

I adore the little illustration on the bread bin!

  

With the impending arrival of my first son I had to have a rearrange of my kitchen to fit in his steralizer etc. Here is some new piccy's to look at, the tiles and kitchen as its a rental property can not be changed but the rest of my kitchen has a 50's cupcake/diner-esque feel.

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 Saturday just after midday and we are behind the green baize door that leads from the dining room into the servant’s part of Lettice’s flat. We are in Edith’s preserve, the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen. Edith hears the gentle squeak of the hinges of the green baize door. She looks up from her pride and joy, the gas stove, where she is about to withdraw the boiling kettle to make herself a cup of tea and sees her mistress in the kitchen. Much to Edith’s consternation, her mistress has the most annoying habit of neglecting to use the electric servants’ bells installed by the builders, and visits Edith in what she considers, her kitchen. Frowning, the maid thinks to herself, “Anyone would think she was a shop girl rather than the daughter of a peer!”

 

“Oh Edith! Edith!” gasps Lettice dramatically. “Greek tragedy!”

 

“Whatever is it, Miss?” Edith asks, still frowning as she doubts it is all as bad as her mistress suggests.

 

“Edith, I’ve just had a call from Mrs. Hatchett.”

 

“Yes Miss?” Edith answers, having no idea who Mrs. Hatchett is, or what this Mrs. Hatchett means to Lettice.

 

“Well. She is coming here today, at four, to talk about me redecorating her house. Do we have any fresh cake ready?”

 

“Well, no Miss: only half a Dundee cake. Will that do?”

 

“Oh no Edith! Not for Mrs. Hatchett. We need something… fresh.” Lettice ponders. “Well, could you just pop around the corner to Harrods and buy a cake? I’ll get you some extra money for it.”

 

“No, Miss!” Edith scoffs.

 

Lettice looks up at her maid with wide eyes. “Why ever not Edith?”

 

“It’s Saturday, Miss! Harrods won’t be open.”

 

“Oh,” Lettice frowns and thinks again.

 

“And don’t suggest the local grocer’s,” Edith pipes up quickly as if reading her mistress’ mind. “Mr. Willson is closed too!”

 

“Blast!” Lettice mutters and starts to gnaw at her painted thumbnail as she leans against Edith’s deal kitchen table.

 

“But I can whip up my Mum’s old ‘pantry chocolate cake’, Miss. I have all the ingredients right here. It’s lovely and moist but looks a bit plain. However, if I dust it with a bit of confectioners’ sugar, it looks very nice.”

 

“Oh! Oh, would you Edith? That sounds simply spiffing!” Lettice gasps in delight. She throws her arms around Edith’s neck, much to the other woman’s consternation, and beams one of her winning smiles. “Oh you are a brick!”

 

Lettice flutters out of the kitchen the way she came, much to Edith’s relief.

 

“Spiffing! Humph!” Edith mutters with a snort. She busies herself taking out a copper pot and then fetching flour and sugar canisters, butter, milk and eggs from the food safe, a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade, salt and some Cadbury’s Original dark chocolate from the pantry. With everything laid out on her kitchen table, Edith’s memory of how to bake her mother’s cake comes to the front of her mind.

 

“First of all, beat two eggs,” she tells herself.

 

This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a weekly challenge called “Snap Happy”. A different theme chosen by a member of the group each week, and the image is to be posted on the Monday of the week.

 

This week the theme, “egg” was chosen by Lisa, red stilletto.

 

Eggs are a vital part of cake baking. Goodness knows how they made cakes during the war without them! Edith’s well set out ingredient selection, which does indeed make up the genuine ingredients list for the recipe for “Pantry Chocolate Cake” (a lovely moist and rich chocolate cake from my Great Grandmother’s cooks’ recipe book of ‘fail safe recipes’), is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:

 

The eggs, including the those broken in the bowl are all 1:12 artisan miniatures with amazing attention to detail.

 

On Edith’s deal table is a Cornishware white and blue striped bowl which holds the eggs and also one of her Cornishware cannisters. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.

 

The tall Deftware jug containing milk and the plate with a block of butter on it are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser just out of shot to the right of the table. The block of butter comes from a small silver set that I have had since I was given it as part of a seventh birthday present, and it belongs beneath a butter dish. Fellow Flickr photographer and miniature enthusiast ursula.valtiner and I both have the same silver set with the same yellow block of butter in the butter dish!

 

Next to the Cornishware sugar canister and the copper pot is a jar of Golden Shred Orange Marmalade. Golden Shred orange marmalade still exists today and is a common household brand both in Britain and Australia. It is 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 marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.

 

In front of the bowl of eggs, the whisk and butter is a wrapped block of Cadbury’s Original dark chocolate. Cadbury, like Robertson’s, is a household name known around the world. Established in 1824 in Birmingham by Quaker John Cadbury, they began by selling tea, coffee and drinking chocolate. John Cadbury developed the business with his brother Benjamin, followed by his sons Richard and George. George developed the Bourneville estate, a model village designed to give the company\'s workers improved living conditions. Dairy Milk chocolate, introduced in 1905, used a higher proportion of milk within the recipe compared with rival products. By 1914, the chocolate was the company\'s best-selling product. Cadbury, alongside Rowntree’s and Fry’s, were the big three British confectionery manufacturers throughout much of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Cadbury was granted its first Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria in 1854. It has been a holder of a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II in 1955. Cadbury merged with Schweppes in 1969 and was then purchased by Kraft Foods in 2010.

 

Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.

 

In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.

 

On the bench in the background is a toaster: a very modern convenience for a household even in the early 1920s, but essential when there was no longer a kitchen range on which to toast the bread. Although toasters had been readily available since the turn of the century, they were not commonplace in British kitchens until well after the Great War in the late 1930s. Next to the toaster is a biscuit barrel painted in the style of English ceramic artist Clarice Cliff which is a hand painted 1:12 miniature made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. It contains its own selection of miniature hand-made chocolate biscuits! Next to that stands a bread crock.

Departing Dublin Airport, 19th march 2014 as "Executive 532". Last recorded active Shorts 360 for myself, and as far as I am aware there are none active in Europe these days.

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, and her best friend and fellow maid-of-all-work, Hilda are visiting Edith’s beloved parent for a few hours on their Wednesday afternoon off before going on to catch a late afternoon showing of ‘The Scarlet Woman’* at the nearby Willesden Hippodrome**. Like Edith, Hilda works as a live-in maid and resides just around the corner from Cavendish Mews, in nearby Hill Street. She works for Lettice’s married friends, Margot and Dickie Channon. However, Edith and Hilda met one another at their previous employer, Mrs. Plaistow’s, Pimlico townhouse where the two shared a cold and uncomfortable attic bedroom. In spite of the fact that they are both working for different people now, the girls remain the very best of friends, and catch up frequently. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith and her younger brother Bert, as well as any number of their friends, including Hilda.

 

We find ourselves in the heart of the Watsford’s family home, Ada’s cosy kitchen at the back of the terrace. Ada is holding court, standing at her worn round kitchen table as she gives Hilda another impromptu lesson in Christmas baking as she rolls out some pale sweet shortcrust pastry with her trusty old wooden rolling pin which had belonged to her mother before her. Her daughter and Hilda sit at the table on tall ladderback chairs to either side of her, watching Ada as she takes up a flour dusted fluted metal biscuit cutter and sinks it with ease into the rolled out pastry, cutting out a dainty pastry case. Removing the cutter and leaving it lightly sitting atop the rolled out, but as of yet uncut pastry, she picks up the casing gently in her floured fingers and places it in the final empty space in her patty pan***.

 

“And there you have it, Hilda,” Ada says with a satisfied sigh. “The perfect pastry casing for a perfect fruit mince pie!”

 

“The perfect fruit mince pie will be the one I can eat right now.” George mutters from behind his newspaper as he sits by the hearth in the comfort of his Windsor chair.

 

“You aren’t having a one of these fruit mince pies until Christmas Day, George!” Ada quips. “And that’s a fact.”

 

“Oh Mrs. W.!” Hilda gasps. “You make it all look so simple!”

 

“After you’ve made a few batches, it will be as easy for you as it is for me, Hilda love.” Ada assures the young maid.

 

“Do you really think so, Mrs. W.?” Hilda asks with wide eyes.

 

“Course I do, Hilda love.” Ada goes on.

 

“It’s true, Hilda,” Edith adds from her chair. “The more you practice, the better you’ll get, just like Mum. I was the same as you once.”

 

“You’ve never been hopeless at cooking, Edith.” Hilda mutters disparagingly.

 

“You aren’t hopeless at cooking either, Hilda!” Edith exclaims, standing up and reaching across the table, clasping her best friend’s hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You’ve improved so much with a bit of help from me, some instruction from Mum,” She nods at her mother and smiles gratefully. “And practice.” Letting go of her friend’s hand, she resumes her seat. “No, I meant I was nervous like you are now.” She sighs as she sees Hilda’s face crumple up, betraying how nervous she really is. “But once I had baked a few different things, made a few mistakes in the process, and learned from them, I became much more comfortable.”

 

“We all have to make mistakes, Hilda love.” Ada remarks. “Like Edith says, you have to make mistakes so you can learn from them.”

 

George snorts loudly and chuckles behind his copy of the Daily Express.

 

“And what are you chortling about, George Watsford?” Ada asks, casting an askance glance at her husband.

 

“Nothing Ada love,” he replies, still chuckling from behind the newspaper sheets which he ruffles noisily to try and cover his amusement. “Just something Rupert Bear**** is up to.”

 

“Oh no you aren’t Dad!” Edith giggles. “You’re well past page seven*****.”

 

“George?” Ada queries warily whilst Hilda glances anxiously between Ada’s clouding face and the open Daily Express broadsheet behind which George hides.

 

Finally the paper lowers and George’s beaming face, red with holding in his laughter appears. Glancing out at his wife, his daughter and her best friend, he admits, “Well, I was actually thinking about your biggest baking disaster, Ada love.”

 

“Oh, not that story again, Dad!” Edith groans. “We all know the story of how before you and Mum were married, but were stepping out together, at the Easter Sunday Picnic organised by the Vicar of All Souls******, everyone got a hot cross bun because Mum was being a good Christian soul and handed them out, except for you because she’d given them to everyone else.”

 

Ada blushes with embarrassment as she is reminded of a piece of her own history that she would rather her daughter didn’t know about.

 

“It’s true Mr. W.,” Hilda remarks, leaning on the top worn rung of the back of the ladderback chair she is sitting in as she looks at Edith’s father. “Even I’ve heard it from Edith.”

 

“Oh, that wasn’t the story I was thinking of!” George chuckles, before openly laughing aloud, his noisy guffaws filling the tiny Harlesden terrace house kitchen.

 

“George!” Ada says warningly in a low voice. “What are you going to tell our daughter and her friend? Am I going to like it?”

 

“Oh!” George wipes tears of mirth from his cheeks. “I doubt it, Ada love, but I think it’s worth taking the rap******* to retell it.” He bursts into a new barrage of wheezing laughter that make him breathless.

 

“Well come on then, Dad!” Edith exclaims. “Tell us!”

 

“Don’t encourage your dad, Edith love!” Ada chides her daughter mildly. Turning her attention back to her red-faced husband she adds, “He doesn’t need any help from anyone in that department.” She eyeballs him.

 

“When your mum and I were courting, Edith love,” George finally begins after taking a gulp of tea from his dainty floral Colclough******** teacup, one of Ada’s porcelain treasures found at a flea market*********. “She thought to curry favour she’d best make a nice teacake for my mum, since she was hoping to to become her future daughter-in-law by marrying me.”

 

“I keep telling you George,” Ada protests. “It was only because of my Mum’s blue and white Delftware cannisters. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

 

“What didn’t you do on purpose, Mum?” Edith asks excitedly.

 

“Never you mind, Edith love!” Ada answers quickly.

 

“What happened, Mr. W.?” Hilda giggles, her eyes agog as she hangs on the older man’s every word.

 

“So, she made a lovely apple teacake. Well,” George adds as an afterthought. “It looked lovely.”

 

“What do you mean, looked lovely?” Edith asks. “Didn’t it taste nice? We’ve had Mum’s apple teacake plenty of times over the years and it is always scrumptious.”

 

“Well,” George laughs, again wiping the tears of joviality from the corners of his eyes and his deep set wrinkles around them. “This one certainly wasn’t! You see, Edith love, your Mum had put in a cup of salt, rather than a cup of sugar into the batter! You should have seen Granny Watsford’s face when she ate her first mouthful! Her mouth nearly imploded whilst her eyes practically burst from their sockets! It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen!”

 

George breaks into uncontrollable laughter, which is soon joined by that of his daughter and her friend as they all laugh loudly at the story.

 

“I told you, George,” Ada defends herself, blushing red as she looks at the trio laughing around her, before breaking into a good natured chuckle of her own as she remembers her then future mother-in-law’s alarmed face as she sat ramrod stiff in her old Victorian button back********** upholstered chair, one of two now in Ada and George’s front parlour, and chewed slowly on the cake, before swallowing it awkwardly. “All Mum’s cannisters were all the same size and unmarked. It’s why I make sure that I keep our sugar in that tin cannister, and I keep the salt in a glass jar.”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith laughs, wiping her own eyes which now stream with jovial tears. “That’s awful.”

 

“What was worse was that your Granny ate the whole mouthful and swallowed it, of politeness and deference to your Mum, Edith love.” George goes on. “She liked her you see, and she didn’t want to offend her! Once she’d finished her mouthful, she just quietly put her plate aside, arose, and excused herself with as much dignity as she could muster, asking your Mum to join her in the scullery with a hoarse voice.”

 

“Did you all try the cake too, Mr. W.?” Hilda asks.

 

“Heavens no, Hilda love! We’d all figured out from my Mum’s reaction that there was something very, very wrong with the cake. None of us were game to try it!”

 

“Shouldn’t you be heading back to work after tea, George?” Ada asks, folding her arms akimbo and looking meaningfully at her husband. “I’m sure I can hear the Christmas biscuits selection calling you.”

 

“Oh! Oh alright, Ada love.” George gasps as he recovers his breath from all his laughter. “Looks like I’m being banished, girls, so I’ll say my goodbyes to you both.” He puts his newspaper aside, gets up from his seat and walks over to the pegs by the door leading from the kitchen to the scullery, where his coat, hat and scarf hang.

 

“Be grateful I let you back into the house after your shift, George Wastford!” Ada mutters, but the glint in her eye and the gentle upturn in the corners of her mouth betray the fact that she isn’t really cross with her husband for sharing her story.

 

“You wouldn’t do that to me, Ada love.” George remarks, wrapping his knitted scarf tightly around his neck before shucking on his coat.

 

“Tell too many tales like that about me, and you might push your luck.” Ada replies, cocking her eyebrow, but smiling at ger husband.

 

“Alright, bye love!” George dons his tweed flat cap and walks across the flagstones to kiss his wife. After giving her a chaste, yet loving kiss, he turns to Edith and Hilda at the table. “Bye girls.” He waves and turns away.

 

“Bye Mr. W.!” Hilda says brightly.

 

“Bye Dad!” Edith calls after the retreating figure of her father as he disappears into the scullery and walks out the back door and into the terrace’s rear garden.

 

“What crust!” Ada scoffs as she hears him close the back door. “And thinking of crusts,” She turns her attention back to Edith and Hilda. “We should get on with baking these fruit mince pies before it’s time for you girls to go. We need to give them time to cook and cool.”

 

Edith and Hilda sit in their seats, smirking, their eyes bright with amusement as Ada mixes the large white bowl of fruit mince before her. “Alright, up here, Hilda love!” she says in a commanding voice, taking control of the situation, and regaining her dignity after George’s tale. “You’ll never learn unless you practice, and if you make a mistake, like I did with the apple tea cake I made that day for old Mrs. Watsford, you’ll learn from it.”

 

“Yes Mrs. W.!”

 

Hilda gets up from her seat and stands alongside Ada in front of the pan.

 

“Now, take up the spoons,” Ada directs. “And use one to scoop up some fruit mince and the other to push the mince off the spoon into the pastry tart case. Not too much, mind, Hilda love,” she cautions. “When the fruit mince is hot, it will bubble and expand and we don’t want it overflowing from the cases whilst cooking in the oven.”

 

“No Mrs. W.!”

 

“Just fill the case up three quarters of the way.” Edith adds helpfully.

 

“Good girl, Edith love.” Ada says. “That’s it! Just so.”

 

Hilda takes up a heaped spoon of fruit mince.

 

“No, that’s too much, Hilda, love.” Ada remarks gently. “Shake a bit off back into the bowl.” She and Edith watch as Hilda does as she is told. “That’s better.” Ada nods. “Then fill the case three quarters up.”

 

They watch as Hilda gingerly moves the spoon low over one of the twelve empty sweet shortcrust pastry cases in the patty pan and pushes the mixture off it with the other spoon. The fruit mince falls into the bottom of the casing with a soft, satisfying splat, the mixture of sultanas, currants, raisins, glacé cherries, apple, orange rind, apple, sugar, spices, water and brandy oozing thickly as it settles into place.

 

“Good girl, Hilda love!” Ada says encouragingly, grasping the young girl’s shoulders and squeezing them. “That’s the ticket***********! Once you’ve filled this batch, we’ll pop them into the oven and we’ll make a second batch whilst they cook and then cool. You can cut out the casings and fill them.”

 

“Yes Mrs. W.” Hilda says proudly with a smile as she takes her spoons back to the gleaming, dark and glossy fruit mince in the white mixing bowl and scoops up some more.

 

“Good girl, Hilda love!” Ada says again. “That’s a more manageable amount of fruit mince.”

 

“Thanks awfully, Mrs. W.!” Hilda says with a smile as her face blanches at Ada’s praise.

 

Then, changing topic Ada asks. “So, are you going back to the Scottish Highlands or wherever for Christmas this year, Hilda love?”

 

“Oh Lady Lancraven’s house is in Shropshire, not the Scottish Highlands, Mrs. W.” Hilda replies as she begins to fill a second pastry casing.

 

“Well, wherever it is, are you going, Hilda love?”

 

“No, I’m not this year, Mrs. W., which means I won’t get to see my sister, which is a bit disappointing. But I’m going to spend Christmas Day with Mum at her house in Southall************ at least, so that will be nice.”

 

“What?” Edith pipes up. “No Lady Lancraven’s, this year?”

 

“That will be disappointing for your Mum and your sister, Hilda love.” Ada says consolingly. “You told us you all enjoyed being together so much, last Christmas.”

 

“Why aren’t you going this year, Hilda?” Edith persists.

 

“Well, the Channons have had a bit of a falling out with Mr. Channon’s parents, the Marquis and Marchioness of Taunton, just as of late.” Hilda explains.

 

“This is the first I’ve heard of it.” Edith replies.

 

“I should hope it would be, Edith love!” Ada chides her daughter, wagging a finger at her. “You know that gossiping unnecessarily about your employers will only lead to trouble.” She shakes her head. “There’s nothing worse than a gossiping maid, no matter how good her work is.”

 

“So, what happened?” Edith asks Hilda, ignoring her mother’s protestations.

 

“It’s all over the fact that Mrs. Channon still isn’t with child,” Hilda goes on, lowering her voice as if Margot and Dickie might overhear all the way over in Mayfair. “The Marquis and Marchioness are so anxious that Mr. and Mrs. Channon have a baby to carry on the family name, since Mr. Channon will be the next Marquis, and they have been married a few years.”

 

“Not everyone who wants a family is blessed with one, Hilda love.” Ada says softly.

 

“I know that Mrs. W.” Hilda replies. “It’s not me who needs convincing, but the snooty Marquiss and Marchioness. They want to send poor Mrs. Channon to a clinic of some kind in Switzerland or Germany, somewhere in the mountains, so she can be analysed and examined.”

 

“Prodded and poked, more like!” Edith opines.

 

“I think that’s what caused the fiercest argument between Mr. Channon and the Marquis. I heard Mr. Channon in the study, yelling down the telephone at the Marquis, and saying that he and Mrs. Channon wouldn’t spend Christmas with them at Lady Lancraven’s. Poor Mrs. Channon has been drinking so much lately to calm her nerves as whenever the Marchioness visits or telephones, which is often, she always asks her why she isn’t with child yet. The Marquiss has basically cut off Mr. Channon’s allowance until they produce a baby, and a boy at that, which added extra pressure to them both.”

 

“No wonder Mrs. Channon is drinking then.” Edith remarks.

 

“Oh dear! Poor Mr. and Mrs. Channon. How horrible for them! But if Mr. Channon has had his allowance cut off, how are the household bills being covered, and how are you getting paid, Hilda love?” Ada asks.

 

“You are getting paid, aren’t you Hilda?” Edith pipes up in concern.

 

“Luckily, my wages are paid me by Lord de Virre, Mrs. Channon’s dad,” Hilda explains. “And luckily for Mr. and Mrs. Channon, he has come to their aid too. He’s ever such a nice man, unlike the mean old Marquiss and Marchioness.”

 

“What’s he done?” Edith asks. “Lord de Virre, that is?”

 

“He’s arranging something called a provision for them.” Hilda says a little uncertainly.

 

“A provision?” Ada asks. “Whatever is that, Hilda love?”

 

“I’m not sure exactly, but I think it has something to do with him paying them an allowance instead of the Marquis and Marchioness, at least for now, as Mrs. Channon says that she will cover the household costs from her dad’s provision, so it must involve money in some way.”

 

“Well, that’s a relief!” Edith says. “At least you won’t be put in a position where you have to lie to the wine merchant, like that time when they owed him so much money for champagne and they pretended that they weren’t home, and you had to go along with it and put him off until Mrs. Channon had pawned some of her furs to get him the money.”

 

“That’s a terrible position to put you in, Hilda love!” Ada exclaims.

 

“Well, Mrs. Channon isn’t exactly the best at keeping a household budget at the best of times, Mrs. W., so it’s not the first time that’s happened.”

 

“I don’t know!” Ada shakes her head. “They have more money than we’ll ever have, yet I manage to balance my budget, and did when Edith and Bert were children, and with the costs of everything inflating during the war too!”

 

“Well anyway, that’s why I’m not going to Lady Lancraven’s this year, Mrs. W. It will be nice to spend it with my Mum at least, although I’ll miss seeing Emily. We both will. But we’ll make the best of it.”

 

“Course you will, Hilda love.” Ada wraps a consoling arm around her daughter’s best friend, and pulls her towards her rangy frame.

 

“Where are Mr. and Mrs. Channon going to spend their Christmas then?” Edith asks from her seat at the table.

 

“They are going to spend it with Lord and Lady de Virre in Hans Crescent here in London. Then they are going to go to their Cornish country house outside of Penzance for a few weeks after New Year’s Eve in London. Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Carter are holding a lavish New Year’s Eve fancy dress ball in their Park Lane************* mansion before sailing off on the Mauretania************** to New York to spend the beginning of 1926.”

 

“Well, maybe we can spend a bit more time together over Christmas, Hilda, since neither your employers, nor mine, are going to be around to worry about.” Edith suggests.

 

“That would be nice, Edith. I’d like that.” Hilda smiles gratefully. “Anyway, that’s why I want the fruit mince pies you see, Mr. W., to take to Mum’s on Christmas Day. We don’t have much money between us – certainly not enough to afford the fare that the servants at lady Lancraven’s get – but we can at least have a lovely treat of some fruit mince pies after whatever we cobble together for Christmas tea for the two of us.”

 

“Then we best press on, Hilda love.” Ada says with a smile. “Or else you’ll have none for Christmas.”

 

“Yes Mrs. W.!” Hilda agrees enthusiastically.

 

*The Scarlet Woman is a 1924 silent comedy film directed by Terence Greenidge based on a scenario by British writer Evelyn Waugh. It is a satirical ecclesiastical melodrama about a Catholic plot to bring England back to the Catholic Church, which involves a scheme to convert the Prince of Wales and murder Protestants. The film, which Waugh also acted in, features Elsa Lanchester as a drug-addicted actress and was shot in locations including Oxford and Hampstead.

 

**The Willesden Empire Hippodrome Theatre was confusingly located in Harlesden, although it was not too far from Willesden Junction Railway Station in this west London inner city district. It was opened by Walter Gibbons as a music hall/variety theatre in September 1907. In 1908, the name was shortened to Willesden Hippodrome Theatre. Designed by noted theatre architect Frank Matcham, seating was provided for 864 in the orchestra stalls and pit, 517 in the circle and 602 in the gallery. It had a forty feet wide proscenium, a thirty feet deep stage and eight dressing rooms. It was taken over by Sydney Bernstein’s Granada Theatres Ltd. chain from the third of September 1927 and after some reconstruction was re-opened on the twelfth of September 1927 with a programme policy of cine/variety. From March 1928 it was managed by the Denman/Gaumont group, but was not successful and went back to live theatre use from 28th January 1929. It was closed in May 1930, and was taken over by Associated British Cinemas in August 1930. Now running films only, it operated as a cinema until September 1938. It then re-opened as a music hall/variety theatre, with films shown on Sundays, when live performances were prohibited. The Willesden Hippodrome Theatre was destroyed by German bombs in August/September 1940. The remains of the building stood on the High Street for many years, becoming an unofficial playground for local children, who trespassed onto the property. The remains were demolished in 1957.

 

***A patty pan is a baking pan with a grid of connected, individual cups or moulds used for baking individual portions of batter. It is also known as a muffin tin or cupcake pan and can be used for making muffins, cupcakes, pies or other small baked goods like savory egg cups or mini quiches. It was called a patty pan because it was originally used in the Eighteenth Century to make small meat-filled pastries known as pattys or pastys (today’s equivalent for pasties).

 

****The character Rupert Bear first appeared in the Daily Express on November the 8th, 1920, originally named Little Lost Bear. The character was created by illustrator Mary Tourtel, and Alfred Bestall took over the illustrations in 1935. The cartoon series continues to be published in the Daily Express. The character is also associated with the newspaper through the annual Rupert Annual, which has been published every year since 1936. Rupert has become such a British National Treasure that he has even had his own stamps before. Rupert Bear is part of children's culture in the United Kingdom, and there are four television shows based on the character.

 

*****Rupert Bear first appeared in the Daily Express on page seven, a place he then retained for many years, sob that readers became accustomed to finding him there.

 

******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.

 

*******The phrase "to take the rap" originates from the Eighteenth Century use of "rap" to mean a blow or punishment, and its Nineteenth Century slang use for a prison sentence. Therefore, "taking the rap" evolved to mean accepting a punishment or blame for something, be it a criminal charge or something far less serious in nature.

 

********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.

 

*********A flea market is a type of market where vendors sell a variety of goods, typically second hand, handmade, or antique items. These markets are often outdoors, but can also be held indoors, and may operate on a weekly, seasonal, or annual basis. Shoppers can find everything from clothing and furniture to collectibles and curios at bargain prices.

 

**********Button back upholstered furniture contains buttons embedded in the back of the sofa or chair, which are pulled tightly against the leather creating a shallow dimple effect. This is sometimes known as button tufting.

 

***********The exact origin of "that's the ticket" is debated, but it likely comes from a few different places. It may have started as an allusion to a winning lottery ticket or a specific label for something that was perfect. Alternatively, it could be a corruption of the French phrase "c'est l'etiquette," meaning "that's the proper way" or "that's the label". In the 1820s, there was a related phrase, "that's the ticket for soup," which referred to a card that a beggar could use to receive immediate relief at a soup kitchen, and may also be where this phrase is derived from.

 

************Southall was a working-class suburb of London in the 1920s, characterised by its industrialisation and the influx of workers for manual labour jobs in the area's factories. Many factories were built in Southall, which led to significant population growth and its development into an urban area with a working-class demographic. By the end of the Nineteenth Century, Southall became a highly industrialized district with numerous factories. The Otto Monsted Margarine Works, one of the largest in Europe, was a key part of this industrial base. Workers, including a large number of Welsh and Irish steel workers escaping the harsh economic conditions of their origins, moved to Southall in the 1920s to find employment in the available heavy industry jobs.

 

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

 

**************Built by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson for the Cunard Line, the RMS Mauretania was launched in 1906 and began its first voyage in November 1907. It was designed with a new steam turbine engine and was the world's largest ship until 1910. The ship's impressive speed allowed it to capture the eastbound Blue Riband record in 1907 and the westbound record in 1909. It held both records for two decades, cementing its reputation for speed and elegance. he liner was also celebrated for its luxurious interiors, which featured elaborate designs with numerous types of wood, marble, and tapestries. It was nicknamed the "Grand Old Lady of the Atlantic". During World War I, the British Admiralty commissioned the Mauretania for military service. It was converted to a hospital ship and troopship and was equipped with guns, even sporting dazzle camouflage at one point. After the war, the Mauretania was returned to Cunard and resumed its passenger service. It was converted to burn oil and continued to operate for many years. n 1934, after the merger of Cunard and White Star, the liner was retired from service. It made its final voyage and was towed to Rosyth, Scotland, where it was scrapped in 1935.

 

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:

 

Ada’s kitchen table is covered with things in preparation for her Christmas fruit mince pies.

 

The wooden board the table with the floured rolling pin, the rolled out pastry and the biscuit cutter are artisan miniature pieces made by an unknown artist, which I acquired through Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. The patty pan of casings also comes from there, as does the teapot shaped floral spoon rest and enamel ended spoon sitting in front of the board. The battered flour cannister, painted in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green, also comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop. The bowl of very realistic looking fruit mince comes from 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.

 

In the foreground on the table are non-matching teacups, saucers and sugar bowl, all of which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. The Brown Betty teapot came from The Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

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 and the ladderback chair, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. The rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and bread bin are painted in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop. 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 Marmite, a box of Bisto Gravy Powder, an Oxo stock cube and a box of Ty-Phoo Tea which were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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).

Departing Dublin Airport, 19th march 2014 as "Executive 532". Last recorded active Shorts 360 for myself, and as far as I am aware there are none active in Europe these days.

1. Warm Stove, 2. Old Enamel Breadbin, 3. Another addition to the linen closet, 4. kitchen 4, 5. Canner, 6. Care for a cup of joe?, 7. Untitled, 8. Enamel pans & tijl, 9. Blue Enamel Coffee Boiler, 10. Enamel soap bowls, 11. french coffee pot, 12. Vintage enamel - Clothes Boiler, 13. Large enamelware pitcher14. Not available15. Not available16. Not available

 

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

Well I dont bake bread everyday but we do eat it everyday !!

I always make 2 loaves so one in the breadbin and one in the freezer is the routine,

current mix is somewhat more granary and strong white flour to spelt flour than usual

as those two are out of date and need using up sooner rather than later ;o)

2F39 Motherwell - Dalmuir

 

Partick - Feb 2022.

10mm weevil found in the breadbin consorting with the finest multi-grain loaf. 5 shots with 105mm micro lens and extension tube, handheld in natural light, stacked in Zerene. "27 in 52: insect"

Week 21 in 52 Weeks for Not Dogs

 

As I'm making cupcakes more and more I've recently invested in a new, supa dupa Dualit mixer. I used a slowish shutter speed to get the motion blur on the whisk and a wide aperture to blur the background toaster and breadbin. Two textures added in processing, my 'old plaster' and two layers of

Kim Klassen's 'may magic 2', plus a few adjustments to levels / hues.

The mixer is stood on a piece of glass on top of a red mini backdrop - I smoothed the edges of the glass and also removed the power cord with the spot healing tool.

 

f/2, 1.1 sec, iso100

 

111 pictures in 2011 #81 household appliance

Nadezdasolo decoupage master

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’s beloved parents, George and Ada live in their small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street. Although very 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 younger brother, Bert. 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. With Bert, on shore leave from his job as a first-class saloon steward aboard the SS Demosthenes* for a short while, Ada is organising a special Sunday meal to celebrate her two children being home in London at the same time, and Edith and her beau, Mayfair grocer’s boy, Frank Leadbetter, are to join George, Ada and Bert. We find ourselves in the heart of the Watsford’s family home, Ada’s cosy kitchen at the back of the terrace, where Ada’s worn round kitchen table is covered with vegetables, pots and pans as preparations are underway. Ada’s blouse sleeves are rolled up, and one of her worn aprons is wrapped around her waist over her cotton print dress. Her skin glistens with sweat from the heat radiating from the old blacklead range which is stoked and ready to be used to cook.

 

“Come on Bert!” Ada encourages her son as she wipes her damp forehead with the back of her left hand and glances over her shoulder from the range where her large old kettle is close to boiling and spies him sitting at the kitchen table in the ladderback chair usually occupied by Edith.

 

Bert, dressed in his navy blue Sunday best trousers, matching blue vest and shirt with his own sleeves rolled up to his elbows, sits quietly in front of a wooden chopping board, scratched from many years of Ada’s kitchen knife’s blade cutting things upon it, contemplating what he is doing as he carefully tries to remove the peel from the potato in his hands in one piece.

 

Ada’s face clouds and crumples as she spies her gleaming saucepan sitting next to him on the tabletop, still half empty. “You aren’t half slow at peeling those potatoes, love.”

 

“You can’t rush perfection, Mum.” Bert replies as he carefully slides the blade of the knife under the creamy yellow potato peel with his right hand as he turns it in his left.

 

“I’m not after perfection, love.” Ada replies, huffing a frustrated sigh through her nostrils, as she turns away from the range, crossing her arms akimbo across her chest, trying not to lose her patience with her beloved youngest child. “I just want my potatoes and carrots peeled before it’s time to serve tea. “Look!” she points first to the board and then to the small white bowl to Bert’s right. You’ve still got those potatoes and those carrots to peel!”

 

“What do you call them?” Bert indicates with a nod at a smaller saucepan in front of him with eight round, thick slices of carrot lining its base.

 

“Those aren’t enough carrots for the five of us, Bert!” Ada exclaims in horror. “I need at least another four peeling and slicing and in that pot!”

 

“Well, you could have done them if you hadn’t shelled Dad’s peas and used those dried peas** I brought you back all the way from Australia.”

 

“I bet you they don’t taste any different to British dried peas.” Ada sniffs.

 

“You’ll never know unless you try them, Mum.” Bert remarks in reply.

 

“Dried peas from a shop indeed!” Ada scoffs derisively as she glances at the offending package of dried peas in their box next to her blue and white jug containing Bisto Gravy Powder***. “That’s lazy that is, especially when your dad brings home fresh garden peas for us to enjoy from the allotment. I can dry my own peas. I don’t need shop bought ones.”

 

“It’s no lazier than you making gravy with Bisto’s Gravy Powder, Mum.” Bert remarks, smiling proudly as he carefully removes the knife from the potato with a complete peeling hanging from it.

 

“That’s not true! We’ve been having Bisto’s gravy on Sundays all your life and it never did you any harm.” Ada defends herself. Reaching across the table she tugs on her son’s left ear playfully. “And don’t be so cheeky to your mum!” she adds with a smirk, indicating that she’s not really cross with him over his remark. “Where are your manners?”

 

“Sorry Mum.” Bert apologises.

 

“I’ll give you ‘sorry mum’ in a minute if you don’t crack on with those potatoes and carrots.” Ada turns back to the range and taking a thick yellow cloth from the railing just under the mantle, uses it to pick up the kettle by its handle. With a slight groan at is heaviness, she lifts it up and pours hot water into the blue and white grape patterned jug on the table, containing several heaped spoonsful of gravy powder.

 

“I still don’t understand why you have to boil the potatoes, considering you’re going to roast them, Mum.” Bert casts the perfect peeling into a small bucket on the floor at the left side of his chair that his mother uses for kitchen scraps for his father to take to the allotment for compost.

 

“Lord, I don’t know how you hold onto a job working in the kitchens of that ship if you don’t know anything about cooking, Bert.” Ada remarks, rolling her eyes as she returns the kettle to the stove.

 

“It’s not a kitchen, Mum,” Bert corrects his mother as he takes up another potato and begins to slowly peel it. “It’s called a galley on a ship. Besides, I’m not employed to work in the galley, I’m a steward, employed to serve the food in the first-class dining saloon, on the right side of the galley doors,” A smug smile crosses his face as he speaks. “Thank you very much!”

 

“Oh well, pardon me, Your Highness!” Ada mocks her son, poking her nose in the air as she speaks. “I bet some of those cooks get paid better than you do, Bert, love.” she retorts, bringing her son sharply back down to earth from his lofty delusions of grandeur. “An army marches on its stomach**** and it is no different for that big ship of yours. You wouldn’t have a job serving meals if there was no-one to make them, would you now? I can’t imagine your fine first-class ladies getting their hands dirty making their own meals, any more than I can imagine Edith’s Miss Chetwynd. Can you?”

 

Bert doesn’t answer his mother’s rhetorical questions but instead concentrates on his careful peeling.

 

“I don’t know why you want to try and get the peelings off in one go, love.” Ada stirs the gravy in the jug. “It’s all just bound for your dad’s compost heap, long bits or short!”

 

“It’s a game, Mum.” Bert explains. “You know, fun?”

 

“You have a peculiar idea of fun, Bert!” Ada retorts, screwing up her nose.

 

“A skill then.”

 

“A better skill would be to learn how to cook, Bert love!” Ada keeps stirring the gravy. “Think how much you could impress a young lady if you could help her a bit around the kitchen.”

 

“Ha!” Bert laughs. “Only a lazy one, Mum, like Alice Dunn.”

 

“That’s no way to speak about our Vicar’s daughter*****, Bert!” Ada cries aghast as she stops stirring the contents of the jug for a moment.

 

“But it’s true, Mum.” Bert defends as he continues to peel the potato. “The Vicar Dunn has a housekeeper that cooks for them and all. Alice told me when I first met her. She lorded it over me.”

 

“Well, you were all younger and sillier then.” Ada puts her hands on her hips. “And the reason why the Vicar Dunn and his family have a housekeeper who cooks for them is because…”

 

“They’re rich!” Bert pipes up.

 

“Ha!” It’s Ada’s turn to laugh. “I’ve never heard of a wealthy vicar before.”

 

“Well, they’re certainly better off that we are.”

 

“Your dad and I have done well enough between the two of us. You haven’t ever wanted for much, Bert Watsford, and that’s a fact!” Before her son can interject again, Ada goes on, “What I was going to say about the housekeeper at the vicarage is that the Dunns have her because the Vicar and Mrs. Dunn, and young Alice, are busy doing good deeds around the parish all the time. Why just the other week, Mrs. Dunn and Alice held a jumble sale at All Souls****** Parish Hall to raise funds for farthing breakfasts******* for the poor children in the parishes of the East End who can’t even afford bread and margarine.” She takes up the spoon in the jug again and continues stirring the instant gravy vigorously to break up the lumps of powder. “You never went to school without a good breakfast, nor came home to an empty pantry!” She nods affirmatively. “Oh, by the way, Alice was asking after your welfare and when you were next on shore leave when I saw her at the jumble sale.”

 

“Yes, I’m sure.” Bert says noncommittally, raising his eyebrows as he keeps peeling.

 

“If you ask me, I think Alice Dunn has taken a shine to you, Bert love.”

 

“Get away with you Mum!” Bert laughs before his face suddenly falls. “Oh blast!”

 

“Language, Bert!” Ada chides her son sternly. “You may work on a ship, but that doesn’t mean you have to cuss like a sailor********.”

 

“But look what you made me do, Mum!” Bert holds up the broken piece of potato peeling forlornly.

 

“That’s still no call for you to use foul language, love.” Ada replies, shaking her head in concern. “That’s not how your dad and I raised you. Besides,” She nods at the peeling as Bert drops it in the bucket. “Like I said before, it all goes into your dad’s compost, no matter how long or short the peeling is, and if you ask me, the shorter the peelings, the more potatoes and carrots you’ll peel.”

 

“So why do you boil the potatoes first if you’re going to roast them in the pan with the chicken anyway?” Bert asks as he takes up peeling the rest of the potato, speeding up now that he has broken the peel and showering the chopping board with shorter lengths of it.

 

“Because,” Ada explains as she peers into the jug and moves the spoon about, looking for lumps hidden deep within in the dark brown gravy mix. “Boiling potatoes for a bit before roasting them helps them have a crispier outside and a fluffier inside.”

 

“Sounds daft to me.” Bert replies, puffing out his cheeks.

 

“Daft sounding or not, it works, you mark my words.” Ada wags a finger at Bert. “And the starch from the potatoes will help thicken this gravy when I put it over the chicken and vegetables to roast.”

 

“I believe you, Mum.” Bert says with a sunny smile. “I’ve never had a cause to complain about a single one of your roasts in my whole life.”

 

“I should think you wouldn’t, Bert love!”

 

“So why are we having a special roast for tea today, anyway?”

 

“Well it’s a Sunday********** for a start, Bert love.”

 

“Yes, but this is a special one, Mum. Why?”

 

“Well, it isn’t every day I have my son and daughter together for a Sunday tea.” Ada replies. “You haven’t been on shore leave since Christmas. Edith is bringing Frank with her today too, so I want a nice tea for us all.”

 

“Do you think Frank is going to propose to Edith today, Mum?” Bert asks excitedly.

 

Ada sighs as she folds over the lid of the Bisto Gravy Powder box and takes it and the packet of dried Australian peas her son gave her as a gift and puts them out of the way on a shelf of the old, dark Welsh dresser that dominates her kitchen. “Oh, I doubt it love. Your dad and I were rather hoping that he’d propose on Easter Sunday when we had a picnic together at Roundwood Park***********, but he didn’t then, so I doubt he will today.” She turns back, shaking her head. Leaning against the edge of the dresser she observes a cheeky smile grace her son’s face as he finishes peeling the potato and drops it into her saucepan. She crosses her arms again. “And don’t you be smart and go placing the cat amongst the pigeons************ by asking about it, either.”

 

Bert gazes across at his mother with big doe eyes, feigning innocence. “Me, Mum?”

 

“You Bert!” She gives her son a warning look. “And don’t pretend that you weren’t thinking of asking. I know you were. So I’m asking you nicely, not to.” She eyes her son with a serious look. “Edith’s only just settled herself down and accepted that she just has to be patient and wait for Frank to ask when he’s good and ready.”

 

“What do you mean, Mum?”

 

“Well,” Ada tucks a stray damp strand of mousy brown hair streaked with silver grey that has fallen loose from the chignon at the base of her neck behind her ear distractedly. “Edith and Frank had the fiercest argument about it when they went up the Elephant************* not too long ago. I think it was their first proper falling out since they started stepping out together.”

 

“They patched things up, evidently?”

 

“Oh yes!” Ada agrees. “At the end of the day it wasn’t too much for them to overcome. Even so, your silly big sister was so spooked by it that she went and wasted some of her hard-earned wages that she should be saving on seeing some tea leaf reader************** she found in the newspapers.” She shakes her head. “Between your sister putting her faith in charlatans and you cussing like a sailor,”

 

“I never!”

 

“You did!” Ada shakes her head. “I don’t know what to think of the pair of you?”

 

“I’m alright, Mum.” Bert assures his mother, turning back to his chopping board and taking up a carrot which he begins to peel with quick, downward strokes. “Anyway, you wrote in your last letter that you and Dad had given Frank your blessing for him to ask Edith to marry him, so things must still be serious between them.”

 

“So we have, Bert love.” Ada walks back to the table. “But if there is one thing I have learned about Frank Leadbetter since I first met him, it’s that he doesn’t take a step like this lightly. He’ll want it to be the perfect setting when he asks Edith to marry him, and somehow, I suspect sitting around a Watsford family Sunday roast in my kitchen with his future in-laws is not where he has in mind to do it.”

 

“So when will he do it, Mum?”

 

“When he’s good and ready, Bert love, and not before.” Ada shakes her head. “And he doesn’t need any goading from you.”

 

“I won’t Mum.”

 

“And Edith could do without any embarrassment from her beloved, but cheeky little brother. Alright?”

 

“Alright Mum! I promise I won’t ask about when they’re getting married. I won’t even elude to it.”

 

“Good boy.” Ada coos. “But don’t worry,” She reaches out and ruffles her son’s hair lovingly with an indulgent smile. “I’ll write to you if you’re away when he does.”

 

“Oh Mum!” Bert drops the knife and carrot onto the chopping board and shoos his mother’s hands away as he tries to straighten and smooth his wavy sandy blonde locks. “Don’t do that! I’m going down the Royal Oak*************** after tea. I can’t go with my hair all messed up.”

 

“Oh good!” Ada replies. “You can take your dad with you. He could do with a pint down at the Royal Oak, and I could do with an evening without him under my feet.”

 

“Here, Ada love, can you fasten my tie for me? I’m all thumbs today.” George’s voice asks as he bustles into Ada’s kitchen through the hallway door leading from the front part of the house, tugging on his new cobalt blue cardigan knitted for him by Ada, as he adjusts it to sit straight down his front. A pale blue tie hangs undone trailing to either side of him from beneath one of his Sunday best starched detachable collars****************. “Where am I going?

 

“No Mum!” Bert cries.

 

Ada walks up to her husband as he stands next to the kitchen table. Running her sweat slicked palms and fingers down her apron, she peers at her husband’s collar and loose tie. She pulls the wider length to give more metreage and expertly begins creating a four-in-hand knot***************** with her husband’s tie. Ignoring her son’s protestations, Ada says, “Bert was just telling me that he’s going down the Royal Oak after tea today.”

 

“Mum no!” Bert says again imploringly.

 

Seemingly ignorant and deaf to his plaintive cries, Ada turns back to her son and adds, “Once Edith and Frank have left, of course, I should hope!”

 

“Of course I won’t go before they go, Mum!”

 

“Good!” Turning her attention back to her husband’s tie, Ada continues her expert knotting of it at the apex of the collar she has starched many times over, over the last few years. “And I just said that Bert could take you with him. You haven’t seen George or Agnes Whitehead for ages.”

 

“No Mum!” Bert says again, awkwardly.

 

“Stand still George and stop squirming.” Ada softly chides her husband. “I have enough to do as it is, what with the tea to prepare, and Bert muddle-puddling****************** with the potatoes and carrots, without you moving as I try and fasten your tie.”

 

“Sorry Ada love.” George apologises. “I just struggle with this particular collar.” He reaches up and runs the index finger of his left hand underneath the collar. “It’s so stiff and uncomfortable.”

 

Ada slaps it away sharply. “This is your Sunday best collar that I slaved, starched and sweated over for you, George!”

 

“Yes I know!” George returns his finger to the tight gap between the flesh of his throat and the collar, quickly snatching it away before his wife can slap it again. “I don’t see why I have to wear this confounded collar today, anyway. Why couldn’t I just wear one of my ordinary collars? It’s not like we’re going to a wedding today.” His eyes suddenly grow wide. “Or do we have something to celebrate that you know about, and I don’t?”

 

“Now don’t you start!” Ada replies, pushing the ends of George’s neatly fastened tie back into his hands. “I’ve just told Bert not to throw the cat amongst the pigeons.” She wags a finger at him. “Don’t you do it either, please.” She looks him sternly in the eye.

 

“I promise, I won’t!” George replies, stuffing the ends of his tie beneath his cardigan.

 

“I just want today to be lovely since both Bert and Edith are home, and Frank is coming too.” Ada explains. “I’ll go upstairs and put on my best bib and tucker******************* shortly.” She then quickly switches her attention back to her son. “And what do you mean, ‘no’, Bert?” Ada queries.

 

Bert squirms in his seat as he falls under the scrutinising gaze of his mother. “Well, I’m going out with Conlin Campbell down at the Royal Oak tonight, you see, Mum.” he explains with a strained voice, mentioning his friend of the same age as him who grew up in Harlesden with both Edith and Bert and went to sea with Bert when he took his first seafaring job. “He’s on shore leave too, and we’re catching up with a few of our old friends.”

 

“Well, I don’t see why that matters.” Ada retorts. “Your dad knows Conlin Campbell, and the other boys you knew growing up as well. You all get along. It’ll be good for him.”

 

“Oh Ada!” George replies with a knowing chuckle, smoothing the front of his tie down.

 

“What George?”

 

“Bert doesn’t want his old dad tagging along when…” His eyes glint with mischief from within the wrinkles of flesh around them.

 

“When what, George?” Ada persists.

 

“When there are also ladies joining he and Conlin Campbell.” He chuckles playfully again.

 

Ada’s gaze swings back to her son. “Is this true, Bert?” she asks with incredulity. “You didn’t mention any of the girls were joining you this evening.”

 

“Well,” Bert shrinks in his seat. “You… you didn’t ask… specifically… Mum.”

 

Ada eyes her son. “Very well. Now I’m asking. Who else is joining you at the Royal Oak this evening, Bert?”

 

“Only Jeannie Duttson and Alice Dunn, Mum.” Bert splutters, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment as he speaks, making George chuckle again. “No-one special.”

 

“I told you, Alice Dunn was asking after you!” Ada crows triumphantly, clapping her hands. “Didn’t I?”

 

“Alice was only being polite, Mum! She fancies Conlin, not me, and I certainly don’t fancy Alice Dunn.” Bert reddens further. “But I do rather fancy Jeannie Duttson.”

 

“Any blind man could tell that at New Year!” George laughs loudly.

 

“Dad!” Bert cringes.

 

“I didn’t!” Ada remarks in surprise.

 

“You were too busy playing gracious hostess, Mrs. Watsford.” George says, bowing melodramatically before his wife.

 

“Jeannie Duttson!” Ada breathes. “Well fancy that!”

 

“She’s a good sort, is Jeannie Duttson,” George opines.

 

“She is!” Ada agrees with a beaming smile. “Jeannie has a good head on her shoulders, just what Bert needs!”

 

“And she’s pretty.” George winks cheekily at his son.

 

“She’s got herself a nice little job as a typist at Drummond’s Solicitors up on the High Street.” Ada goes on.

 

“Oh yes! With… with…” George clicks his fingers as he tries to remember the name of the last of Edith’s old school chums who came to celebrate at the Watsford’s on New Year’s Eve.

 

“Katy Bramall.” Bert replies.

 

“That’s it, Bert!” George says with a satisfied sigh. “Clever boy. Katy Bramall.”

 

“Katy’s stepping out with a supervisor from the Holborn exchange********************.” Bert goes on.

 

“Is she now?” George replies with little interest. “Bully for her*********************!” Returning the conversation to Bert’s potential budding relationship with Jeannie, he addresses his wife. “Bert could do far worse than the likes of Jeannie Duttson, like that flibbertigibbet, Alice Dunn.”

 

“Oh George!” Ada chides her husband, scoffing. “Alice is lovely!”

 

“She’s an idle gossip, just like her mother.” George retorts. “No, let Conlin Campbell have her if he so pleases. You’ve picked the right young lady out of those two, Bert my boy.”

 

“So, when’s the big day then?” Ada asks Bert jokingly.

 

“Oh Mum!” he replies, smiling sheepishly. “Isn’t one potential wedding enough for this family?”

 

*The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.

 

**Believe it or not, but dried peas have been a part of the British diet for a very long time, dating back to the start of agriculture in Britain, approximately 6,000 years ago. Evidence suggests peas were one of the earliest crops cultivated in Britain, along with wheat, barley, and broad beans. The practice of drying peas to preserve them also dates back to this period, with green or yellow split peas being boiled to create mushy peas or pease pudding. While the exact date of their introduction to England is difficult to pinpoint, it's clear that dried peas were a staple food source in the Middle Ages, and later became popular dishes like mushy peas. The Carlin pea, a specific variety of dried pea, is known to have been eaten in northern England since the Twelfth Century. In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, the preference shifted towards fresh, green peas, often referred to as "garden peas". However, dried peas continued to be a part of the British culinary landscape, particularly in regional dishes and later in the Twentieth Century in fish-and-chip shops. By the mid 1920s, when this story is set, dried peas were readily available in branded packages at local grocers.

 

***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 phrase "an army marches on its stomach" means that the supply of food is essential for a military campaign's success. It highlights the crucial role of logistics, specifically ensuring that soldiers have adequate provisions to stay healthy and strong while on the move. In essence, the saying emphasizes that a well-fed army is a capable army. Without sufficient sustenance, soldiers would be weakened, unable to march long distances or engage effectively in battle. This proverb is often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, who understood the importance of logistics in his military campaigns.

 

*****The vicar of All Souls Parish Church in Harlesden between 1918 and 1927 was Ernest Arnold Dunn. Whilst I cannot find any details about his family life, I’d like to think that he was a happily married man of god and could well have had a daughter named Alice who no doubt played the organ in church on Sundays.

 

******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 "farthing breakfast" was a cheap meal, typically offered by organizations like The Salvation Army, the Church of England and other religious institutions and charities to children in need, for a farthing (the smallest coin in the British monetary system). A farthing breakfast generally consisted of a slice of bread with jam or margarine, often with cocoa to drink.

 

********The phrase "swear like a sailor" is a common idiom that has been used for a long time to describe someone who uses a lot of curse words or swear words. It is rooted in the stereotype of sailors, who have historically been known for their colorful and sometimes crude language. The term "sailor" in this context doesn't necessarily refer to someone who works on a ship, but rather to the characteristics associated with seafaring life, such as a reputation for being boorish and using foul language.

 

*********Parboiling potatoes before roasting is a common and recommended technique for achieving a crispy exterior and fluffy interior. Parboiling helps to soften the potatoes and create a starchy slurry, which contributes to the formation of a crispy crust during roasting.

 

**********The Sunday roast is a deeply ingrained British tradition, typically featuring a roasted meat dish, usually beef, but in less well-off families, like the Watsfords, chicken or another cheaper meat would suffice, along with a variety of sides like Yorkshire pudding, roasted vegetables, and gravy. This meal is often enjoyed as a family gathering after a Sunday church service, with roots tracing back to the Fifteenth Century in the British Isles.

 

***********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 saying "to put the cat among the pigeons" is a British idiom that means to cause a disturbance or controversy, often by introducing something that is unexpected or unwanted. It refers to the commotion that would occur if a cat were to enter a group of pigeons, as the pigeons would likely become frightened and scattered. The phrase's origins are thought to be linked to a popular pastime in colonial India, where people would place a wild cat in a pen with pigeons and bet on how many birds the cat would catch with one swipe. This activity would naturally cause a great deal of commotion and disturbance among the pigeons. Over time, the phrase evolved to describe any situation where something is done that is likely to cause a stir or a lot of fuss. It implies that the action will disrupt things and lead to a reaction, often negative, from those involved.

 

*************The London suburb of Elephant and Castle, south of the Thames, past Lambeth was known as "the Piccadilly Circus of South London" because it was such a busy shopping precinct. When you went shopping there, it was commonly referred to by Londoners, but South Londoners in particular, as “going up the Elephant”.

 

**************Tea leaf reading, also known as tasseography, is a form of divination that involves interpreting the patterns and shapes of tea leaves left in a cup after the tea has been consumed.

 

***************Located at 95 High Street, Harlesden, the Royal Oak Tavern and Railway Hotel, as it was originally known, was built circa 1880 when Harlesden was at its boom as a smart middle-class London suburb, replacing a building on the site from 1757. The two-storey building featured Venetian blinds and a huge gaslight outside. This in turn was replaced by today’s 1892 re-build. Designed in the baroque style, it is four-storeys in height, built of red brick with stone banding and features a lot of ornate stone detailing. The Royal Oak still features its original 1892 tiles in the hallway, which depicts a Parliamentarian trooper hunting for King Charles II after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. King Charles hid in an oak tree, hence the name Royal Oak. Between 1914 and 1926, the pub was licenced by Mr. George Whitehead, (thus Ada’s mention of George and Mrs. Whitehead in her conversation with her husband and son).

 

****************Removable or detachable collars were shirt collars designed to be separate from the shirt itself and fastened with studs or other mechanisms. They were popular in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, primarily among men who wore white shirts as part of their business or formal attire.

 

*****************The four-in-hand knot is a classic and simple necktie knot, popular in Britain since the 1850s, known for its ease of tying and slightly asymmetrical appearance. It's a versatile knot that can be worn for various occasions, from casual to formal.

 

******************Muddle-puddling is an old-fashioned term for dallying and taking your time.

 

*******************"Best bib and tucker" is an old-fashioned expression meaning one's finest or most formal clothes. It refers to putting on one's best outfit, often for a special occasion. While the phrase itself is used now, the items "bib" and "tucker" are less common in everyday clothing. A "bib" was a frill or ornamental piece at the front of a man's shirt, and a "tucker" was a decorative piece of lace or fabric that covered the neck and shoulders of a woman.

 

********************Before 1927 when there was a shift to automatic “Director” telephone exchanges, London had numerous manual exchanges, each with a specific These exchanges were operated by human operators who connected calls manually. This included HOL for the Holborn Exchange, which was also the first to be converted to a “Director” exchange, followed by others like Bishopgate and Sloane.

 

*********************The phrase “bully for someone” was usually used to express admiration of approval, but is often used ironically, especially when you do not think that someone has done anything special but they want you to praise them.

 

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:

 

Ada’s kitchen table is covered with things in preparation for her special Sunday roast.

 

On the chopping board and the table you will see potatoes and carrots. There are more in the small white bowl and on the table. They, the onion and the shallots come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, England. The kitchen knife on the chopping board with its inlaid handle and sharpened blade comes from English miniatures specialist Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniature store. Ada’s lovely shiny saucepans complete with peas, potatoes and carrots in them come from 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 floral gravy boat containing gravy was also made by her. The blue and white grape patterned jug comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. The box of Bisto Gravy Powder, Ideal Finest Dried Peas and Oxo stock cube box were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire with great detail paid to the packaging.

 

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.

 

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.

 

In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table and the ladderback chair, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. The rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and bread bin are painted in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop. 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 jar of Marmite and a jar of Bovril which were also made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

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.

 

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

 

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).

Sim, é nossa caixa de pão. Havia uma cesta de pão lá dentro antes dela ocupar a caixa. Já que as duas não cabiam juntas, a cesta de pão acabou expulsa.

 

Ver em fundo preto ou grande.

------

Yes, that's our bread box. There was a basket of bread in there before she decided to occupy it. Since both wouldn't fit, the bread was duly pushed onto the floor.

 

View On Black or Large

Green Goddess near the local church ,again protected by straw bales .Iwent in the Breadbin bakers and the water mark up the wall was about 2 foot .11th January 1994.

A failed attempt at stopping my wife go shopping.

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’s beloved parents, George and Ada live in their small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street. Although very 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 younger brother, Bert who is a first-class dining saloon steward aboard the SS Demosthenes* and has recently returned to service after a week of shore leave. 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. Even before she walks through the glossy black painted front door and doorstep scrubbed cleanly first thing that morning by Ada, Edith can smell the familiar scent of a mixture of Lifebuoy Soap, Borax and Robin’s Starch, which means her mother is washing the laundry of others wealthier than she in the terrace’s laundry and kitchen at the rear of the house.

 

“Mum!” Edith calls out cheerily as she opens the unlocked front door and walks in. “Mum, it’s me!”

 

“I’m in the kitchen Edith, love!” Ada calls back in delight.

 

“Of course you are, Mum.” Edith laughs, walking through the door leading from the hallway and the front half of the terrace and its staircase leading upstairs, and into Ada’s kitchen. “Where else would you be?”

 

Ada is standing at her worn kitchen table, whose battle scars of many years of food preparation and the occasional indelible marks left by Edith and Bert during their years attending the local school, are hidden today, covered by a mixture of snowy white linen and laced trimmed Manchester, as well as stacks of cheerfully patterned tea towels. A large wicker basket sits squatly in an unceremonious way on the worn seat of Ada’s Windsor chair, from which yet to be pressed laundry spills. In spite of the kitchen window and the back door being open, providing some much needed fresh summer air, Ada’s kitchen is still hot and humid. Between the heat given off by the huge blacklead coal range that dominates one whole wall of the small terrace kitchen on which several irons stand warming in readiness for use, and the heat given off my the iron she is using now, Ada has a shiny sheen of sweat on her face and her bare lower arms, exposed beneath her rolled up sleeves. Her cheeks are flushed, and the strands of mousy brown hair streaked with silver that have come lose from the chignon at the back of the nape of her neck hang limply with sweat around her face and ears.

 

“How are you Edith, love?” Ada asks, stepping towards her daughter and embracing her lovingly in a sweaty hug that momentarily makes Edith’s floral sprigged summer frock cling to her back under the pressing of her mother’s slicked arms. Holding her at arm’s length, Ada admires Edith’s flounced home-made frock with its fashionable gypsy girdle** affixed with a small bunch of imitation silk violas and her usual purple rose and black feather decorated straw hat. “You look well, my darling girl.” The older woman self-consciously pushes loose strands of her mousey brown hair back behind her ears. Chuckling awkwardly, she remarks with a downwards glance to the fabric she is mid-way through ironing. “Any news yet?”

 

“Not yet, Mum.” Edith says as she places her green leather handbag and small wicker basket on the table and hangs her hat on one of the carved knobs of the ladderback chair drawn up to the table next to her mother’s place. “But I’m satisfied it will come when the time is right.”

 

“And it will, love. It will.” Ada assures herself as much as Edith as she downplays the importance of the engagement everyone in the Watsford family are hoping for.

 

Edith has been stepping out seriously with Mayfair grocer’s delivery boy and occasional window dresser, Frank Leadbetter for a few years now, and even though Edith has pressed, and Frank has sought out permission from both George and Ada to ask for Edith’s hand in marriage, the proposal has yet to materialise. However, as everyone has become acutely aware, Frank cannot be pressed into doing something he is not ready to do yet. No-one doubts his commitment to Edith, but they also know that Frank wants to propose in just the right way, at just the right time.

 

“Shall I pop the kettle on, Mum?” Edith asks hopefully, not waiting for a response as she slips past her mother and over to the range where she checks how full the kettle is, and finding it three quarters empty. “You look quite done in***.”

 

“Oh yes please, Edith love.” Ada sighs gratefully. “I’ve been so busy what with this week’s laundry, including the linens whilst Bert was staying here last week on shore leave, that I hadn’t even thought about a tea, and I am patched.”

 

“Here! Sit yourself down here, Mum.” Edith says kindly, moving the laundry basket off Ada’s chair and placing it on the flagstone kitchen floor, before dragging the chair across the floor and gently encouraging her mother to sit, which she does with a groan, partially from the ache in her lower back from having been bent so long across the table and partially out of gratitude to her caring daughter. Edith glances scornfully at a pair of white linen long bloomers**** with fine laced hems hanging unceremoniously from the basket. “And whose are these, Mum?” she asks, almost accusationally, holding up one frilly laced leg.

 

Ada sighs tiredly. “You know perfectly well whose they are, Edith.”

 

“Old Widow Hounslow!” Edith thrusts the leg of the freshly laundered underwear back into the basket with undisguised disgust. “I might have known.” She stands and wanders over to the rudimentary trough sink built up on two stacks of leftover red bricks that didn’t make it into the kitchen floor and turns the squeaking tap to fill the kettle.

 

“I know your feelings towards Mrs. Hounslow, Edith, and you know mine. Mrs. Hounslow is a venerated widow and an upstanding member of the community.”

 

“I know, Mum. Bert and I have grown up hearing about how old Widow Hounslow’s husband died a hero in the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War.” Edith scoffs as the water pressure, so much lower than that at Cavendish Mews, slowly fills the beaten and stained old metal kettle beloved by her mother. “But an upstanding member of the community?” She snorts derisively. “She might do more for her tenants like you.” She looks with a critical eye around the kitchen whose walls, even with Ada’s regular scrubbing with sugar soap*****, shows the many years of grease and grime upon the ceiling and upper walls where she can’t reach. “I mean it takes forever to even fill the kettle for a tea. There’s no pressure in this water.”

 

“Now, now, Edith!” Ada chides her daughter mildly. “We’re lucky to have running water at all, you know. And don’t forget that if it were not for Mrs. Hounslow, your dad wouldn’t have a plot to go and visit and grow his precious marrows in.”

 

Edith cannot help but smile indulgently at the thought of her beloved father and his endless pursuit to try and grow the best marrows and win first prize at the Willesden Show******, breaking her bitter thoughts about her parent’s mean and penny-pinching landlady and her own former employer, Mrs. Hounslow.

 

“You know I won’t have a bad word said about her, Edith.” Ada wags her finger admonishingly at her daughter from her seat as she reaches down and pulls up Mrs. Hounslow’s bloomers and worries the fine lace hems with her careworn fingers distractedly. “She’s helped pay for many a meal in this house with her sixpences and shillings over the years.”

 

“Pshaw!” Edith raises her eyes to the stained ceiling above. “All of which she’s taken back over the years, and more besides, by increasing the rents and doing nothing around the place to justify it.” She turns off the tap, the brass piping ratting and clunking noisily as she does.

 

Edith cocks her ears and catches the faint waft of a jaunty tune being played on a piano in the distance through the open window, over the sound of young children playing in the street and the low purr of a lone passing motorcar. “That’s the ‘Georgie Porgie’ foxtrot********.” she remarks in surprise.

 

“Yes.” Ada remarks. “Mr. and Mrs. Felton finally saved enough money to buy a rather nice second-hand Broadwood********** piano from Mr. Rosenberg’s Loan Office*********** in Kensal Green for Vera to play on.”

 

“Vera sounds quite accomplished, Mum.”

 

“Well, she was taught by the Vicar Dunn’s daughter, Alice**********, and she’s had plenty of time to hone her own skills on the organ at All Souls*********** every Sunday for the last eight years. It’s rather nice to have music to iron to on occasion.”

 

“So, the Felton’s are moving up in the world it seems, what with the introduction of a piano to their front parlour************, even if it is a second-hand one, and a daughter to play it well.” Edith remarks as she carries the filled, heavy kettle back to the range and puts it atop the hob.

 

Ada goes on, “It certainly seems so. Mrs. Felton was telling me when we were waiting to be served at Mr. Champman’s butchery that Mr. Felton has received a promotion at the bank. He’s a manager of some kind now. Don’t ask me the specifics, please!” Ada pleads raising her hands. “It all got lost on me the way she went on and on about it.”

 

“They’ll be too grand for the likes of us soon, Mum.” Edith chuckles as she steps past her seated mother over to the big, dark Welsh dresser that dominates one side of the tiny kitchen and picks up two pretty floral teacups and saucers from among the mismatched crockery on its shelves: one of her mother’s many market finds that helped to bring elegance and beauty to Edith’s childhood home.

 

“There’s nothing shabby about my front parlour, nor our family Edith Watsord!” Ada retorts defensively. “Your dad might not be a manager in a bank, but he’s a line manager at the factory, and that’s an achievement we should all feel proud of.”

 

“Of course, Mum.” Edith lovingly kisses her mother on the head before reaching out and grabbing the battered McVitie and Price’s tin. “How’s Dad?”

  

“Ahh, you know your dad. He’s fine. Work at the factory is good. He’s got a good team of workers apparently, and they are investing in some new fancy machinery of some kind to help make the production line run more smoothly which will probably make things easier for your dad, and so long as I can pack him off to the allotment at least for a few hours on the weekend, and he can keep out from under my feet doing his beloved Sunday Express crossword*************, I’m happy.”

 

“That’s good, Mum.”

 

“Now, thinking of going up in the world, there was quite a to-do at poor Mrs. Hounslow’s.” Ada goes on as Edith slides the biscuit tin between a half-ironed red and white chequered gingham cleaning cloth and the slightly yellowish thin piece of cotton Ada uses atop some of the more delicate pieces she has to press with the iron.

 

“Not that woman again,” Edith opines, with another roll of her eyes as she fetches down her mother’s worn old glazed Brown Betty************** from the shelf. “Must we?”

 

“Well, it’s not so much Mrs. Hounslow, Edith love, as Trixy.” Ada goes on, referencing the rather timid and mouselike creature Edith trained up to be Mrs. Hounslow’s maid-of-all-work before she left for her next position at Mrs. Plaistow’s in Pimlico.

 

“What’s happened to Trixie?” Edith asks anxiously, turning and looking at her mother. “She isn’t hurt, is she?”

 

“No!” Ada chortles in response. “Far from it, Edith love!”

 

Edith stops what she is doing and slips onto the ladderback chair next to her mother and listens as Ada goes on.

 

“Of course, I was expecting Trixie yesterday to deliver Mrs. Hounslow’s laundry for me to do as she usually does on Tuesdays, but instead of her usual tentative rap on my door, there was a much sharper knock, and one I well recognised.”

 

“Who was it, Mum?”

 

“It was Mr. Stilgoe the rent man.”

 

“But you’ve already paid this month’s rent, haven’t you Mum?”

 

“Course I have.” Ada scoffs dismissively. “I was very surprised to see Mr. Stilgoe standing there with Mrs. Hounslow’s washing in its usual bag which he passed to me rather sheepishly.”

 

“So where was Trixie?” Edith asks with excited interest.

 

“Well, I asked Mr. Stilgoe the same, after I got over my initial shock of seeing him at my back door on a non-rent day with his arms full of Mrs. Hounslow’s dirty laundry. It turns out that Trixie: that timid, mousy milksop***************slip of a girl has only gone and given notice to Mrs. Hounslow with immediate effect after getting herself a better paying job as a shop girl at Gamages****************.”

 

“Gamages!” Edith gasps in amazement. “Well! Fancy that! Jolly good for Trixie! I never knew she had it in her!”

 

“Nor did any of us, least of all poor Mrs. Hounslow, who’s had to go and stay at a hotel in Bournemouth for the summer now to recover from the shock, whilst she tries to employ a new maid.”

 

Edith bristles as she listens to her mother refer to the mean old widow as ‘poor’. Mrs. Hounslow’s comfortable Victorian terrace lacked nothing for its owner, the dark, cluttered and overstuffed interiors maintained to her exacting standards as she crept around the house with a pair of white cotton gloves always stuffed into the pocket of her dress, which she would pull out at a moment’s notice to run along a surface she thought not cleaned properly, calling Edith loudly by name from wherever she stood, holding up an accusing dusty glove glad finger to her maid in silent rebuke, before indicating to the underside of a stair banister of the bottom of an ornately carved credenza before thrusting both gloves into Edith’s hand and marching off imperiously without a word. The old widow was always quick to find fault in anything Edith did, even when she had done it correctly. She remembers the many nights she went to bed in the dark and draughty attic up under the eaves of Mrs. Hounslow’s high pitched roof, where any pretence of comfort was completely dispensed with, her stomach growling after her meagre supper of watery broth with few limp pieces of cabbage and some slices of carrot in it. That was all she could muster for her supper after Mrs. Hounslow had dined on a fine repast and then forbade Edith from eating any of the leftovers, which Edith would then be obliged to serve the following day to the old widow who would greedily devour them for luncheon in the grand dining room. Her hands tremble in her lap beneath the table as she remembers her experiences there.

 

“Poor old Widow Hounslow nothing!” Edith snaps.

 

“Edith!” Ada gasps, hurt in her voice.

 

“I’m sorry Mum, I know you will only speak highly of her, and as your landlady, I can understand a little as to why you would be so deferential to her.” Edith breathes deeply as she looks down at the tabletop. “But you didn’t live with her like I did, so you have no idea how hard it is to work for her, and in what shabby conditions she keeps her maid’s room. I used to sleep on a straw mattress, Mum – a straw mattress that was goodness knows how old, that I had to try and bolster up with old rags and cast-offs that old Widow Hounslow told me to throw out. There were no curtains at the window: nothing to keep the draughts out, except the scraps of old newsprint I used to stuff into the gaps around the window frame, and the old flour sack I had to tack up over the window, which old Widow Hounslow promptly tore down when she did an ‘inspection of my room’ because she accused me of stealing her silver grape scissors*****************, which were sitting downstairs in her nice, cosy and warm drawing room exactly where she had left them the whole time, and she knew it. She even withheld some of my meagre wages to pay for the tacks and sackcloth I’d ‘stolen’ from her. Working yourself to the bone from sunup to sundown, day in and day out, only to be starved, accused of thievery, treated no better than a slave and paid a pittance for it, that mean old woman would test the patience of a saint, Mum, and I for one hope she doesn’t ever get another maid. It’s no less than she deserves!”

 

“It can’t have been all that bad, Edith, surely!” Ada replies aghast.

 

“There are always two sides to every story, Mum.” Edith replies, standing up and visibly shaking as she snatches up the Brown Betty from the table’s surface and walks over to the range where she stands, waiting for the kettle to boil, the water inside it reflecting her own temper. “And that’s old Widow Hounslow’s other side. She may do charitable things like help raise money for farthing breakfasts******************, but if charity begins at home*******************, she’s the most uncharitable person I know to people under her own roof in her employ, and that’s a fact.”

 

Ada blanches. “I’m sorry Edith.” she apologises, ringing her hands as she looks at her daughter’s trembling back. “I really didn’t know.”

 

“Of course you didn’t.” Edith spits bitterly. “Old Widow Hounslow has most people fooled.” Her voice softens. “I just wish you’d listened to me all those times when I said I wanted to come home.”

 

“I didn’t know, Edith love. I just thought, being your first job as a live-in maid, that you were homesick. I was trying to toughen you up by refusing to let you come home. Eventually they stopped.”

 

“That’s because I gave up asking, Mum.” Edith murmurs.

 

“I thought your stories were,” Ada shrugs. “Well, faerie tales and girlish fantasies, made up to make me feel guilty for making you go there. And I did feel guilty, Edith love.” She stands up and steps over behind her daughter and presses herself lovingly against her back, placing her hands gingerly around Edith’s waist and rests her head upon her left shoulder, pulling her closer to her. “I missed having you around, and if you’d been a bit more academically inclined at school, we might have gotten you a job working in an office, like Jeannie Dutton’s parents did at Drummond’s Solicitors and kept you home, but you were so good at the domestic arts, and seemed to enjoy them, and being a domestic is a good steady job, and nothing to be ashamed of.”

 

“Oh, I’m not ashamed, Mum.” Edith murmurs softly. “And I’m not angry with you for not bringing me home. I learned to be more independent and what I could expect from some houses, like Mrs. Plaistow’s. I’m just disappointed that things worked out the way they did in that respect. I think of Miss Lettice and how nice she is an employer, when compared to Mrs. Plaistow or old Widow Hounslow.”

 

“Well, times were a bit different back during the war when I placed you with Mrs. Hounslow, Edith love. I was only doing what I thought was best.”

 

“I know Mum.”

 

“And even now with the ‘servant problem’******************** your dad and I read about in the newspapers, I doubt that you would often get an employer as nice and easy to work for as Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“That’s true, Mum. Hilda doesn’t have the easiest time of it, working for the Channons, and Miss Lettice does go away an awful lot. She’s even off to the country this weekend with Mr. Bruton to decorate the house of Sylvia Fordyce the concert pianist, so I can visit you after Frank and I have been to the pictures on Sunday, as Miss Lettice isn’t expected back until Monday, or even Tuesday next week.”

 

“Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely if you could hear Miss Fordyce play, Edith love.” Ada sighs.

 

“Well, that might be a bit hard, Mum, since unlike the Felton’s, Miss Lettice doesn’t have a piano at Cavendish Mews. I think she hates playing the piano, because she was forced to learn it as a child, but wasn’t very good at it.”

 

Sensing safer ground on which to tread, Ada resumes her seat and asks casually, “So how have things been at Cavendish Mews?”

 

Edith pours hot water into the Brown Betty before returning it to the table to let it steep, surrounded by tea implements and ironing before sitting back down herself.

 

“Well, I actually cooked lunch for Miss Lettice’s mum, the Viscountess, Lady Sadie, the other day.”

 

“That’s a turn up for the books, Edith love.” Ada smiles. “Cooking for a Viscountess!”

 

“Oh Mum, I was so nervous. I was looking through my cookbooks of fancy dishes, and even wondered if I might not order in something readily prepared from the Harrods Meat Hall*********************, when Miss Lettice told me that just some roast beef with Yorkshire pudds and vegetables, served with gravy, would be fine.”

 

“Really, Edith love?” Ada asks in surprise. “A roast and vegetables for a lady as distinguished as Lettice’s mum?”

 

“Evidently, the Viscountess is very much like the Viscount in that respect. They like good old fashioned plain country cooking, none of the fancy stuff Miss Lettice and her friends all like. Remember I roasted some chicken for the Viscount a few years ago?”

 

Ada nods. “So, what’s she like, the Viscountess then?”

 

“Well, she was as much of a surprise to me as the meal I served to her was.” Edith admits. “The way that Miss Lettice described her, I was expecting her to be difficult and bark orders at me, like the Viscount did.”

 

“But you told me, that Miss Chetwynd told you, that he doesn’t like women serving at table, and that’s why the Viscount was gruff with you. I imagine the Viscountess, managing her own household, might be more tolerant of that considering how hard it is to get any servants now, let alone ones as conscientious as you, Edith love.”

 

“Well, you could have bowled me over with a feather*********************, Mum. When I came in to clear the dinner plates away after Miss Lettice rang, the Viscountess actually stopped me as I was clearing her place and told me what a delicious meal it was, and how grateful she was to see the household run so well by me.”

 

“Goodness! That is high praise!” Ada gasps. “Miss Chetwynd must sing your praises to her mum then.”

 

“And not only that, Mum, but I was expecting the Viscountess to be some snooty woman with her nose stuck in the air, dripping in diamonds and sitting around haughtily in a tiara, but she was nothing like that.”

 

“What was she like then, Edith love?”

 

“Well not only was she lovely and polite, saying thank you to me when I took her hat and fox fur stole when she arrived, and when I served her at the table, but she also looked far more… well, it’s hard to explain.” Edith thinks for a moment. “I thought she’d have some fancy dress on with a train, and it probably was very expensive, and cost more than what I’d earn in a year, but it was a simple dress which was cream with flowers sprigged on it. She did have diamond rings on her fingers, but only a strand of double pearls at her throat and her hair was pure white and set in a simple and elegant style of fashionable finger waves***********************. Nothing overly grand. She was just simple and elegant.”

 

“I’m not surprised that the Viscountess was older than you probably expected. Don’t forget that Miss Chetwynd is she and the Viscount’s youngest child. There are three older siblings.”

 

“It wasn’t just that, Mum. It was just that she seemed so, so nice and, ordinary - in an upper-class way of course. She wasn’t at all what I was expecting, quite the opposite in fact, to all the stories Miss Lettice has shared about her. She wasn’t demanding or snappy, and she was just so appreciative. She even pressed a small gratuity into my hands after she had collected her hat and fur tippet from me and was preparing to leave.”

 

“Well, it just shows you doesn’t it, Edith love?” Ada asks.

 

“Shows me what, Mum?”

 

“Well, just as you said about Mrs. Hounslow before, there is always another side to the story. The same goes for the Viscountess. Now you know you have nothing to be frightened of, the next time she comes to visit.”

 

*The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.

 

**A gypsy girdle became a popular feature of women’s dresses from the mid 1920s, consisting of a wide sash fastened over the hips. It was gathered vertically at the centre front where it was often accented by a fashionable rhinestone, or real jewel, brooch or a mirror image clasp.

 

***"Quite done in" means very tired or exhausted. It's an informal expression indicating a state of extreme fatigue.

 

****Bloomers are a type of loose-fitting, voluminous underwear, historically worn by women. They are typically gathered at the knee or ankle and can be worn under skirts or dresses. While once a symbol of women's rights and a practical alternative to restrictive undergarments, they have also become a fashion statement and a popular choice for comfort and style. Bloomers gained popularity in the mid Nineteenth Century, championed by feminist reformer Amelia Bloomer as a more comfortable and practical alternative to the heavily layered and restrictive clothing of the time.

 

*****Sugar soap is a cleaning solution, often in powder or liquid form, used for preparing surfaces before painting or for general cleaning, particularly of walls, kitchens, and bathrooms. Despite its name, it contains no actual sugar. It's known for its ability to cut through grease and grime, making it ideal for removing dirt, nicotine stains, and old wallpaper paste residue.

 

******The “Willesden Show” was an annual event that celebrated growing fresh vegetables and flowers, with prizes. The show also hosted livestock and pets, with dog-handling, sheep shearing, as well as arts and crafts, and even 'bonny babies' would compete for prizes in large canvas tents. The show later became the “Brent Show” after the Willesden Borough merged with Wembley in 1965.

 

********"The Sensational European Novelty Georgie Porgie: Fox-Trot Song" was a popular song written by famous English pianist and composers Billy Mayerl and Gerald "Gee" Paul's adaptation of the Georgie Porgie nursery rhyme, published in 1924 by T. B. Harms & Francis, Day, & Hunter, Incorporated.

 

**********Broadwood and Sons, a renowned English piano manufacturer, was established in 1728 by Burkat Shudi, initially as a harpsichord maker. John Broadwood, who joined the firm and married Shudi's daughter, eventually took over the business in 1773 after Shudi's death. Broadwood and Sons played a significant role in the development and popularization of the piano, particularly the grand piano. The company has a long history of crafting instruments for the British monarchy and notable musicians. After Zumpe's introduction of the square piano in 1763, Broadwood began experimenting with piano designs, eventually developing his own grand piano in 1777. John Broadwood, along with Robert Stodart and Americus Backers, is credited with the development of the English action for pianos. In 1783, Broadwood patented the piano pedal. By 1784, the company was producing more pianos than harpsichords. Throughout the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Broadwood and Sons continued to innovate, including developments in string tension and the introduction of the upright piano. While piano manufacturing faced challenges in the Twentieth Century, Broadwood has maintained its reputation for high-quality instruments and restoration services. The company moved piano production to a factory in Norway in 2003 before returning to England.

 

**********Pawnbrokers were nothing unusual in towns large and small up and down Britain, or indeed across Europe, with their universal pawnbrokers' symbol of three golden balls suspended from a bar, which may be indirectly attributed to the Medici family of Florence, Italy, owing to its symbolic meaning in heraldry. Operated as a source of short-term loans, using personal property as collateral, customers would pawn items like clothing, jewellery, and household goods, receiving a loan and a pawn ticket. The items were held for a set period (often a year and a week) as security, and if the loan and interest were repaid, the items were returned. Upscale pawnshops began to appear in the early Twentieth Century, often referred to as "loan offices", since the term "pawn shop" had a very negative historical reputation at this point. Some of these so-called loan offices were even located in the upper floors of office buildings to offer a certain level of discretion. These "loan offices" often lent to upper-classes often white-collar individuals, including doctors, lawyers and bankers, as well as more colourful individuals like high-rolling gamblers who had incurred debts they could not pay. They often accepted higher value merchandise in exchange for short-term loans. These objects included wine collections, quality jewellery, large diamonds, fine art, larger pieces of furniture (including pianos) and even motorcars in some extreme examples of "high-end loan offices".

 

**********The vicar of All Souls Parish Church in Harlesden between 1918 and 1927 was Ernest Arnold Dunn. Whilst I cannot find any details about his family life, I’d like to think that he was a happily married man of god and could well have had a daughter named Alice who no doubt played the organ in church on Sundays.

 

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

 

************In Victorian and Edwardian times, having a piano in a middle-class home was considered highly important, often seen as a symbol of social status and respectability, as well as a source of entertainment and education.

 

*************The Sundy Express became the first newspaper to publish a crossword in November 1924.

 

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

 

***************In British slang, "milksop" refers to a weak or ineffectual youth, usually but not always, a male. It's a term used to describe someone who lacks courage, spirit, or determination.

 

****************Gamages began life in 1878 in a rented watch repair shop and, after quickly becoming a success amongst its customers, was established as a London institution. It was founded by Albert Walter Gamage, who soon bought out his partner, Frank Spain. In time it was to grow large enough to take up most of the block in which it was situated, it was unusual in that its premises were away from the main Oxford Street shopping area, being at 118–126 Holborn, close to Holborn Circus, on the edge of the City of London . Gamages also ran a successful mail-order business. Many of those who were children at the time remember Gamages because of its unparallelled stock of toys of the day, and the Gamages catalogue, which was a well-loved gift during the autumn, in time for Christmas present requests to be made. One of the store's main attractions was a large model railway which alternated between a day and night scene by the use of lighting. The railway was provided by a man called Bertram Otto who was German by birth. It received many thousands of visitors every Christmas. Gamages had many departments - a much larger number than modern department stores. There was a substantial hardware department on the ground floor which included specialist motor parts and car seat cover sections. There was a photographic department, and camping, pets, toys and sporting departments, the latter selling shotguns. The toy department was extensive and there were substantial fashion, furniture and carpeting departments and in latter years a small food supermarket. During World War I, Gamages manufactured the Leach trench catapult. Gamages was an extremely successful and profitable store. In 1968 a second store was opened in the Liberty Shopping Centre in Romford, Essex. This had a relatively short life as the whole company was taken over by Jeffrey Sterling's Sterling Guarantee Trust in 1970 and the Romford site was sold off to British Home Stores in 1971. The Holborn site closed in March 1972 and there is now no trace of the store to be seen. Gamages reopened in the old Waring and Gillows store in Oxford Street but this venture was short-lived and closed in 1972.

 

*****************Grape scissors, also known as grape shears, are small, specialised scissors designed for cutting grapes from a bunch, particularly for use at the dining table. They are not meant for cutting the thicker stalks of the bunch but rather for neatly snipping off smaller portions of grapes for individual serving.

 

******************A "farthing breakfast" was a cheap meal, typically offered by organizations like The Salvation Army, the Church of England and other religious institutions and charities to children in need, for a farthing (the smallest coin in the British monetary system). A farthing breakfast generally consisted of a slice of bread with jam or margarine, often with cocoa to drink.

 

*******************The proverb "Charity begins at home" suggests that one should prioritize the needs of their family and close community before extending help to others. While the exact origin is debated, it's widely attributed to Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, published in 1642. However, the concept of prioritizing one's immediate circle is much older, appearing in various forms in ancient Greek and biblical texts.

 

********************The "servant problem" refers to the persistent difficulty in finding and retaining domestic servants, a challenge that plagued many households, particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This issue arose from a combination of factors, including changing social attitudes, the increasing availability of other employment opportunities for women, and the demanding nature of domestic work itself.

 

*********************Harrod’s Meat and Fish Hall (the predecessor to today’s food hall) was opened in 1903. There was nothing like it in London at the time. It’s interior, conceived by Yorkshire Arts and Crafts ceramicist and artist William Neatby, was elaborately decorated from floor to ceiling with beautiful Art Nouveau tiles made by Royal Doulton, and a glass roof that flooded the space with light. Completed in nine weeks it featured ornate frieze tiles displaying pastoral scenes of sheep and fish, as well as colourful glazed tiles. By the 1920s, when this scene is set, the Meat and Fish Hall was at its zenith with so much produce on display and available to wealthy patrons that you could barely see the interior.

 

*********************The idiom "you could have knocked me over with a feather" is used to express extreme surprise or astonishment. It implies that the person is so shocked or taken aback that even something as light as a feather could knock them down. The phrase is an exaggeration used to emphasize the intensity of the emotion. The origin of the phrase is not definitively known, but it likely stems from the idea that a feather is incredibly light and easily blown away by even the slightest breeze. Therefore, if something as insubstantial as a feather could knock someone over, it would indicate that they are incredibly fragile or weak due to being overwhelmed by shock or surprise.

 

**********************Finger waving is a vintage hairstyle technique where hair is styled into S-shaped waves, traditionally using fingers and a comb, often with setting lotion or gel to retain its shape. Waving lotion was traditionally made using karaya gum, and Indian produced vegetable gum. This style, popular in the 1920s and 30s, was known for its elegant and sophisticated look. It involves shaping the hair into waves by pinching and forming ridges with fingers and a comb, while the hair is wet or dampened.

 

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:

 

Sitting on the table is an old fashioned metal iron that would have been heated on the stove to warm it before use. The tiny gilt edged teacup, made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, would have been sued by Ada to splash water onto the crinkles in fabric to create steam to draw out any creases in the fabric in the ways before steam iron technology. The first commercially available steam iron was introduced in 1926 by a New York company called Eldec, but it wasn't a commercial success and would have been well in excess of the means at Ada’s disposal to buy one. While electric irons with temperature control existed in the 1920s, Eldec's steam iron was the first of its kind in terms of combining steam and electricity for ironing. Both the iron and the teacup came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. Around and in front of the iron are non-matching teacups, saucers, a milk jug and sugar bowl, all of which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. The Brown Betty teapot in the foreground also came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop. The different stacks of fabrics and linens all came from different online stockists of 1:12 miniatures via E-Bay.

 

Also sitting on the table in the foreground is a McVitie and Price’s Small Petite Beurre Biscuits tin, containing a selection of different biscuits. The biscuits were made by hand of polymer 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. 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.

 

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

 

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 which includes Edith’s green leather handbag.

 

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 Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop. 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 and some Ty-Phoo tea. 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.

 

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.

 

Mrs. Hounslow’s lace trimmed, old fashioned Victorian bloomers were acquired through Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

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).

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).

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.

 

Tonight however it is New Year’s Eve 1924, and we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid is celebrating the end of 1924 and the beginning of 1925 with her beloved parents, George and Ada. 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. With her brother, Bert, on shore leave from his job as a first-class saloon steward aboard the SS Demosthenes* for New Year’s Eve, George has decided to host a small New Year’s Eve gathering in their small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street. Although very far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat and the smart and select cocktail parties she likes to host, the Harlesden terrace is a cosy and welcoming venue for such a party. Not being alone on shore leave, Bert has invited two of his fellow saloon stewards from the Demosthenes to join him for the evening’s revels: Conlin Campbell who grew up in Harlesden with both Edith and Bert and went to sea with Bert when he took his first seafaring job, and Irish lad, Martin Gallagher. Of course, Edith has invited her beau, grocer’s boy, Frank Leadbetter, to join them, and to even up the numbers of young women, Edith has arranged for old school friends Katy Bramall, Jeannie Duttson and Alice Dunn to join them too. For their part, George and Ada have invited Mr. and Mrs. Pyecroft to spend new year in the rarified surrounds of Ada’s front parlour, whilst the young ones enjoy being raucous in the kitchen. Ernie Pyecroft is the local Harlesden ironmonger** and he and George have bonded over their love of growing marrows at the local allotment, where they both have a plot. Ada went to school with Lilian Pyecroft and it is through this connection that the Watsfords and the Pyecrofts are such good friends. Sadly, Mr. and Mrs. Pyecroft lost both their sons in the Great War, and their daughter died of the Spanish Flu during the epidemic in 1918, so being alone now, George and Ada make sure they always spend New Year’s Eve together. However the divide between the generations has been broken down by Fank, who has brought with him a gramophone and a selection of popular music records that he has borrowed from a trade unionist friend of his for the evening, which has persuaded George, Ada and the Pyecrots to join the young ones in the kitchen, where after dinner they have enjoyed an evening of celebratory drinking and dancing. Lettice, having heard of the New Year’s Eve party, bestowed two bottles of champagne upon Edith as a Christmas gift, whilst Frank obtained two bottles of wine from his chum who runs little Italian restaurant up the Islington***. Bert has spent some of his wages on buying bottles of stout and ale from a local publican, and Mrs. Pyecroft has brought a bottle of her homemade elderflower wine.

 

We find ourselves in the heart of the Watsford’s family home, Ada’s cosy kitchen at the back of the terrace, where everyone except for Frank and Edith are busying themselves donning coats, hats, scarves and gloves as they prepare to ring in the new year underneath the nearby Harlesden High Street Jubilee Clock Tower**** with its four gas lamps and drinking fountain. Noisily they cheerfully chat and laugh over the musical strains of ‘I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General’***** which they have all ended up in fits of laughter over several times across the course of the party, after trying without success to sing all the tongue twisting lyrics correctly.

 

“I say Bert,” remarks Martin over the top of the jolly music on the gramophone. “You never told us your sister was such a beauty.”

 

“What?” Bert asks as he buttons up his heavy grey woollen overcoat.

 

“Your sister, Bert.” Martin replies, nodding in Edith’s direction and indicating to her with a half drunk glass of stout in his hand.

 

Bert looks up from fastening his coat and looks as Edith stands in front of Frank as he sits in her usual ladderback chair. Her hand rests on the edge of the festive cloth covered kitchen table where they had eaten their splendid New Year’s Eve roast chicken dinner cooked up by Ada earlier in the evening, which is now is littered with a selection of records in their paper sleeves. Dressed in a pretty pale pink cotton voile****** dress trimmed with matching linen that she made herself, she wears her long hair in a chignon at the back of her neck and has styled her blonde hair at the front into soft waves around her face, which are held in place with a fashionable pink bandeau******* made of pink ribbon. Being her sister, Bert has never really noticed how striking Edith is, yet as she stands, gazing seriously into Frank’s face, he sees that even without applying makeup, and without the aid of the expensive clothes and jewellery he sees many of the first class passengers in the dining saloon of his ship wear, she looks both elegant and beautiful. She catches Bert staring at her and smiles as she lifts the glass of champagne she holds in her right hand to her lips. Her smile beams like a beacon.

 

“Yes, she’s an English rose alright!” adds Conlin, shrugging on his coat. “Peaches and cream skin and pretty blonde hair.”

 

“Aye. Everyone loves a blonde.” Martin adds, agreeing with his friend.

 

“And what am I then?” pipes up Alice Dunn’s voice plaintively as she looks to Conlin, with whom she’s been spending most of New Year’s Eve, either sitting next to him around the Watsford’s table or dancing in his arms to the music from the gramophone around the crowded kitchen.

 

“You, my dear Alice, are the Vicar’s daughter********,” Conlin replies matter-of-factly, as if his statement answers her question.

 

“So what if I am?” she replies with a shrug, winding her scarf around her neck carefully, so as not to mess her own arrangement of soft, mousy blonde waves that she has held in place by a pale blue ribbon bandeau of her own.

 

“It means my dear Alice,” Conlin continues, sweeping an arm around her waist, making her squeal girlishly. “That however much fun you are, you come with a clergyman as a father-in-law for any prospective suitor, and that, can only spell trouble for me.”

 

“And who says I’m looking for a suitor, Conlin Campbell?” Alice answers smugly. “Least of all you!”

 

“All girls are looking for a suitor, Alice.” Bert opines. “Even you! Just look at Edith over there. She’s got Frank, so she’s happy.” He raises his voice slightly over the cacophony of excited voices around him as he leans on the kitchen table in an effort to catch his sister’s attention. “In fact, she and Frank are so happy in one another’s company, the pair of them don’t even want to ring the new year around the Jubilee Clock with the rest of us!”

 

“Oh get along with you, Bert!” Edith replies, as both she and Frank turn their attentions to her brother. “Go and yell your lungs out around the clock with the rest of them. I’m done with all that! I’ll be much happier here with Frank where it’s quieter.”

 

“See?” Bert says, raising his hands.

 

“Lucky blighter.” murmurs Martin.

 

“Now you just keep your eyes off our Edith, young Martin!” Ada’s voice suddenly interrupts the young people’s conversation, her voice light, yet tinged with a seriousness. “She’s Frank’s sweetheart, not yours.” She taps him on the forearm.

 

“Yes Mrs. Watsford.” Martin replies apologetically.

 

“Luckily not all of us want to be Little Polly Flinders and sit home amongst the cinders*********, Martin!” laughs Katy. “Some of us are modern girls, aren’t we Alice?”

 

“Indeed we are,” Alice agrees in a solicitous voice as she winds her arm through Conlin’s.

 

“And we want to go out and have some fun!” giggles Jeannie, who cheekily squashes Bert’s hat on his head, encouraging him to get ready to go out. “So, hurry up, Bert Watsford! Goodness knows how anyone gets fed in the dining room of your ship when you’ve always been such a slowpoke!” She prods Bert in the ribs as she speaks, making him exclaim in surprise.

 

“We say the same, Jeannie,” Conlin agrees, squeezing Alice’s arm with his own as he draws her closer to him. “But Martin and I keep him on time, don’t we Martin?”

 

“Aye, we do that.” Martin concurs.

 

“We just have to wait for Mum and Dad and the Pyecrofts.” Bert defends himself against his friends and shipmates light hearted teasing.

 

“Well, I’m ready.” Ada replies, squashing her red velvet hat with springs of dried flowers around the brim onto her head.

 

“And we’re here too!” George announces, walking into the room with Lilian and Earnest Pyecroft, all three wrapped up in their coats and hats, ready to go out with the others to cheer in the new year around Harlesden’s Jubilee Clock Tower.

 

“Right! Let’s go then!” Jeannie exclaims excitedly.

 

“Will you like to lead the way, Ernie and Lilian?” George asks with a sweeping gesture towards the door.

 

“Come Lilian my dear.” Mr. Pyecroft says, chivalrously offering his wife his hand. “Shall we?”

 

“Rather!” Mrs. Pyecroft answers, taking his proffered hand with her right as she pulls the small fox fur collar at her throat a little tighter around her neck. “What a marvellous way to end a jolly good knees up, George.”

 

“Glad you’ve enjoyed it, Lilian.” George replies with pleasure.

 

Lead by Mr. and Mrs. Pyecroft, Martin and Katy, Conlin and Alice, Bert and Jeannie and George and Ada begin to drift noisily out of the kitchen, all full of good spirits and laughter.

 

“You know you have to kiss me when the clock strikes twelve, Conlin,” Alice says as the pair of them follow Martin and Katy through the door leading from the Watsford’s kitchen to the scullery and then out the back door.

 

“I promise to kiss those organ playing hands of yours, Alice Dunn.” he replies with a chuckle.

 

“I should hope you’ll kiss me on the lips, Conlin Campbell!” she replies indignantly.

 

“Only if you’re lucky.” his retort rewarding him with a kittenish slap to his upper left arm from Alice.

 

“Are you quite sure you don’t want to come and shout in the new year with the rest of us?” Bert asks his sister and Frank as he moves towards the frosted and stained glass paned door that leads to the scullery with Jeannie on his arm. “It will be ripping fun.”

 

“No thank you, Bert.” Frank replies steadfastly. He raises his hands and grasps Edith’s forearms affectionately. “I’ll be fine here with Edith.”

 

“You go on and cheer the new year in for me, Bert.” Edith assures her brother.

 

“It won’t be the same without you, Edith.” Bert says a little imploringly.

 

“Oh Bert!” Ada scoffs. “It won’t be the last new year that you are on shore leave.” She gives his shoulder a shallow swipe at his silliness. “Come along with you.” She starts to steer her son towards the door.

 

“Are you so blind, Bert, that you can’t see that Edith and Frank would much rather celebrate the new year together, and alone,” Jeannie emphasises the last two words as she speaks.

 

“Yes, let’s give the lovebirds a little privacy.” George agrees, winking at his daughter conspiratorially, making both she and Frank blush at his remark.

 

“Come on! Let’s go, or it will be midnight, and we won’t have reached the Jubilee Clock!” Jeannie urges Bert.

 

“Alright then.” Bert shrugs, allowing himself to be steered out the kitchen door. “I say!” he calls to Edith and Frank over his shoulder. “You won’t play ‘There’s Life in the Old Girl Yet’********** before we get back, will you?”

 

“We won’t be gone that long, Bert!” Jeannie insists in a hiss.

 

“We promise.” Edith assures her brother with a comforting smile.

 

As Jeannie, Ada and George bustle Bert out the back door, he stops on the threshold and says to Jeannie, “You go on ahead. I just want to have a quick word with Mum and Dad. We’ll catch up in a minute.” He gives her a gentle push.

 

“You always were such a slowpoke, Bert.” Jeannie teases again. She smiles as she wags her finger at him warningly. “Don’t be too long, or you really will miss midnight, and I’ll be disappointed if you do.”

 

“I promise I won’t, Jeannie.” he assures her, shooing her away.

 

“What’s all this about then, Bert?” George says seriously as they stand in the streak light cast through the chink in the curtains at the kitchen window and watch Jeannie’s hat covered head disappear out the back gate and into the alleyway that runs between the Watsford’s terrace and the terrace backing onto the next street.

 

“Sorry Dad.” Bert apologises. “I just wanted to ask, whilst we’re alone and no-one else is in earshot, but is everything alright between Edith and Frank?”

 

“What do you mean, Bert?” Ada asks.

 

“Has Frank actually proposed yet?” Bert asks with concern.

 

“Well, no. Not as such yet, that I know of, anyway. Ada?”

 

“Edith hasn’t said anything to me, Bert.” Ada answers, her breath spilling out in a cloud of white vapour in the cold of the winter’s night. “I mean, there is an understanding between the two of them. They are both just saving up a bit more money so that they can set up house together before they formalise anything.”

 

“But we are expecting some kind of announcement in the new year, Bert.” George assures his son. “Quite soon as a matter of fact.”

 

“Frank is a good lad,” Ada goes on. “He’d ask your Dad for permission before he formally proposes to your sister.”

 

“What’s all this about, Bert?” George asks, his face clouding with concern.

 

“Well,” Bert says, lowering his gaze and shifting a loose stone across the paving stone beneath the sole of his right boot. “It’s just I had this feeling.”

 

“Feeling? What feeling?” George persists.

 

“Tonight, when they were together, there just seems to be something between them.” Bert says a little uncertainly. “Something awkward.”

 

“I felt that too!” hisses Ada quietly. “On Christmas Day when Frank and old Mrs. McTavish came here.”

 

“I can’t quite put my finger on it.” Bert goes on.

 

“I can’t either, but Edith’s said nothing to me, and she usually tells me most things.” Ada adds.

 

“But not everything.” Bert says dourly.

 

“Look, I’m sure it’s nothing for either of you to worry about.” George assures them, winding an arm around each of them and placing a knitted glove clad hand on their shoulders.

 

“Perhaps that’s why they wanted to stay behind whilst the rest of us went out.” Bert goes on, his eyes brightening.

 

“Perhaps lad,” George agrees. “But if it is, it is none of our affair. So, let’s go and cheer in the new year and leave them to it. Eh?”

 

With a firm hand, George steers his wife and son towards the open gate at the rear of the courtyard.

 

In the Watsford’s kitchen, with the departure of everyone else, a stillness settles in. Edith removes the needle from the gramophone record of the ‘H.M.S. Pinafore selection’ performed by the Court Symphony Orchestra, which has reached its conclusion. The stylus had been sending a soft hissing noise through the copper-plated morning glory horn of the gramophone as the needle remained locked into the groove of the recording. She carefully lifts the record from the gramophone player and slides the shiny black shellack record back into its slip case which rustles as she does.

 

“Gosh!” Frank opines from his seat. “You don’t notice how noisy everyone is until they are gone, do you?”

 

Edith smiles and chuckles. “Bert and his friends are always loud, and Katy, Jeannie and Alice are such giggling girties*********** when they get together.”

 

“Still, they are all very nice,” Frank adds. “And very welcoming. You brother has been so solicitous to me this evening, offering me his stout.”

 

“And Katy dancing with you to try and make Conlin Campbell jealous.” Edith smiles.

 

“Is that her game, then?”

 

“Yes,” Edith laughs. “Although I don’t think it worked. I think Conlin was only happy to leave you in the arms of Katy and more to the point, her two left feet.”

 

“Yes,” Frank admits, sighing as he does. “She wasn’t exactly light on her feet when we danced to ‘Lady Be Good’************.”

 

“No, I could see that.” giggles Edith. “It was rather funny seeing the two of you dance.”

 

“For you, maybe!”

 

“It was… Francis.” Edith adds Frank’s proper name at the end of the sentence cheekily, teasing him.

 

“I wish Gran had never let that slip.” Frank mutters begrudgingly again, as he has several times in the past. “I’m Frank now. No-one at the trades union will take me seriously if I’m called Francis.”

 

“Still, it was awfully good of you to bring the gramophone and records tonight, Frank.” Edith waves her hand across the selection of records on the kitchen table next to the gramophone.

 

“Well, really it’s my friend Richard from the Trade Unionists that we have to thank. He’s spending the new year in Wales with friends, and they already have a gramophone up there, so he didn’t need his.”

 

“Then thank you to Richard of the Trades Union for lending them, but thank you to you, Frank, for being kind enough to bring them with you tonight.” Edith replies. “It certainly made for a much livelier party.”

 

“Well, I’m glad, Edith.”

 

“And it brough Mum and Dad and Mr. and Mrs. Pyecroft down from the front room.”

 

“I’m glad for that too.”

 

The pair fall silent, with only the deep ticking of the kitchen clock on the wall, the crackle from the coal range and the occasional distant squeal or cheer from a new year reveller in the darkened streets outside to break the quiet as it settles down around them. Edith pulls her mother’s Windsor chair up towards Frank so that she can sit opposite him, and once she has settled down comfortably into it, she toys absentmindedly with Frank’s fingers and he lets her.

 

“Frank, there is actually something important I want to talk to you about.” Edith says at length, her head lowered so Frank can’t read her expression as she speaks. “And that’s why I wanted us to stay behind whilst the others went on to the Jubilee Clock to ring in the new year.”

 

“I thought it might have been something like that.” Frank says seriously.

 

“Well, I just think that this needs saying before midnight, so that we can go into 1925 clear in our understanding.”

 

“Oh!” Frank gasps. “That does sound jolly serious, Edith.”

 

“It is serious, Frank.” Ediths head shoots up and she looks at him earnestly.

 

“Oh my!” Frank’s shoulders slump. “Best get it out then, Edith.” He turns and looks at the clock. “There are only a few minutes left in the old year, before the new one starts.”

 

“Well… Frank…” Edith wraps her fingers around Frank’s and holds them tightly in a still grasp as she heaves a heavy sigh. “I’ve been giving this some serious thought.”

 

“Should I be worried, Edith?”

 

“What?” Edith queries, shaking her head. “No. No, Frank. No.”

 

“That’s a relief.” It is Frank’s turn to sigh.

 

“Please Frank,” Edith pleads. “Just hear me out and don’t interrupt for a moment.”

 

When Frank nods shallowly and stares at her intensely with his loving eyes, Edith goes on.

 

“I’ve been thinking about that proposal you made to me that Sunday in the Corner House************* up Tottenham Court Road.”

 

“What proposal, Edith?” Frank blasts. “I haven’t actually proposed marriage yet.” Then he adds hurriedly, “Not that I won’t,” He pauses. “So long as you still want to marry me, Edith.”

 

“Frank!” Edith exclaims in frustration. “You don’t make things easy sometimes! I asked you not to interrupt me.”

 

“Oh! Sorry Edith. I won’t interrupt again.”

 

Edith shakes her head and sighs deeply again as she tries to recollect her thoughts.

 

“So, I thought long and hard about what you said that day. I won’t lie, Frank.” She looks him squarely in the face. “The idea of moving to the country from the city frightened me. In fact, it still does, if I’m being completely honest. I’ve only ever known the city you see.”

 

Realising what she is talking about, Frank longs to speak, and to take his sweetheart into his arms and comfort her, but he thinks better of it, understanding that Edith needs to speak her piece. So, he simply sits in his seat, leaning forward and giving her his full attention.

 

“But now I see that you are only trying to do the best by me, well by both of us really. After that afternoon, I went down to see Mrs. Boothby, and it was she who made me realise that if you and I do go and live in Metroland************** after we are married, it wouldn’t be so bad.” Edith takes a deep breath. “So, I guess what I’m saying, Frank, is that if the opportunity arises after we’re married, for a better position in Chalk Hill or wherever, I’ll go with you.”

 

“Oh Edith!” Frank gasps, standing up.

 

Edith stands too, and they both embrace lovingly.

 

“I knew the idea upset you, Edith, but not as much as it obviously has!” Frank exclaims. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“It’s alright, Frank. I didn’t want to let you see how much it did, because I could see how much it meant to you. You only want a better paying job to help support me, and our family if God grants us one, and a better life for us all. I can see that now.”

 

“Well,” Frank holds Edith at arm’s length, beaming from ear to ear. “God bless Mrs. Boothby for helping you see that, and bless you for being so brave and courageous, my down dear Edith! I must be the luckiest man in the world to have you, Edith Watsford!”

 

“And I must be the luckiest girl.” Edith murmurs in return,

 

“I mean, a job hasn’t turned up yet, and it may not, but if it does, I promise you that you won’t regret it.”

 

The pair embrace again, even more deeply this time.

 

“I better not, Frank Leadbetter!” Edith says with a laugh. “I hope wherever you take me, I will be close to a cinema. I don’t want to miss out on the latest Wanetta Ward film, just because we are living in Metroland.”

 

“I promise you won’t miss out, dear Edith!” Frank assures her.

 

Suddenly there is the distant chime of clocks striking midnight and cheers going up.

 

“Listen!” Edith exclaims. “It’s midnight! Happy New Year, Frank.”

 

“Happy 1925 Edith.” Frank replies.

 

And with that, the two press their lips together in the first kiss between them for 1925, the new year suddenly full of possibility, trepidation and excitement.

 

*The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.

 

**An ironmonger is the old fashioned term for someone who sells items, tools and equipment for use in homes and gardens: what today we would call a hardware shop. Ironmongery stems from the forges of blacksmiths and the workshops of woodworkers. Ironmongery can refer to a wide variety of metal items, including door handles, cabinet knobs, window fittings, hinges, locks, and latches. It can also refer to larger items, such as metal gates and railings. By the 1920s when this story is set, the ironmonger may also have sold cast iron cookware and crockery for the kitchen and even packets of seeds for the nation of British gardeners, as quoted by the Scot, Adam Smith.

 

***The Italian quarter of London, known commonly today as “Little Italy” is an Italian ethnic enclave in London. Little Italy’s core historical borders are usually placed at Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue - the Saffron Hill area of Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell spans Camden Borough and Islington Borough. Saffron Hill and St. Peter’s Italian Catholic Church fall within the Camden side. However, even though this was the traditional enclave for Italians, immigrants moved elsewhere in London, bleeding into areas like Islington and Soho where they established bars, cafes and restaurants which sold Italian cuisine and wines.

 

****The cast iron Jubilee Clock has remained a Harlesden landmark since its erection at Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. It is ornate, decorated with dolphins, armorial bearings, a fluted circular column with spirals, shields of arms and swags. When it was built, it featured four ornate gas lit lamps sprouting from its column and two drinking fountains with taps and bowls at its base. It also featured a weathervane on its top. During the late Twentieth Century elements were removed, including the lanterns and the fountain bowls. In 1997 the clock was restored without these elements, but plans are underway to restore of the weathervane and recreation of the original four circular lanterns to the clock and the two fountains.

 

*****“I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” (often referred to as the "Major-General's Song" or "Modern Major-General's Song") is a patter song from Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera “The Pirates of Penzance”. It has been called the most famous Gilbert and Sullivan patter song. The piece is difficult to perform because of the fast pace and tongue-twisting nature of the lyrics.

 

******Voile is a lightweight, plain woven fabric usually made from 100% cotton or cotton blend. It has the higher thread count than most cotton fabrics, which results in a silky soft hand. Voile fabric is a perfect dressmaking option for summer because it is lightweight, breathable and semi-sheer.

 

*******A bandeau is a narrow band of ribbon, velvet, or similar, worn round the head. They were often accessorised with jewels, imitation flowers, feathers and other trimmings in the 1920s when they were at the height of their popularity.

 

********The vicar of All Souls Parish Church in Harlesden between 1918 and 1927 was Ernest Arnold Dunn. Whilst I cannot find any details about his family life, I’d like to think that he was a happily married man of god and could well have had a daughter named Alice who no doubt played the organ in church on Sundays.

 

*********‘Little Polly Flinders’, is an English nursery rhyme which emerged in the early 1800s. Charles Dibdin, a talented English poet, is said to have composed this delightful ditty. The rhyme spins the tale of a young girl who, one fine morning, wakes up early and adorns her hair with roses. The rhyme was likely concocted as a cautionary tale and a relatable experience for young children. The primary message of the rhyme is to inspire a sense of responsibility, discipline, and order. It cautions against the consequences of neglecting one's duties, such as ruining one's garments. In the mid Nineteenth Century, the song's fame grew tremendously, frequently acting as a helpful aid for instructing children in reading and writing which is why the friends of the Watsford’s children would have known it so well.

 

**********‘There’s Life in the Old Girl Yet’ is a song that was very popular in Britain in 1924. With music and lyrics by Noël Coward the song comes from the 1923 London West End musical, ‘London Calling’ and was popularised by English singer and comic character actor Maisie Gay.

 

***********A “giggling girty” means a girl who laughs a great deal. The term was turned into a popular song in America by the “original radio girl” Vaughn DeLeath. The term has generally fallen out of fashion because the name Gertrude is equally out of favour today.

 

************‘Lady Be Good’ is a foxtrot from the Broadway musical ‘Lady Be Good’ written by George Gershwin, released in 1924.

 

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

 

*************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 cluttered, yet cheerful and festive 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 wonderful nickel plated ‘morning glory horn’ portable gramophone, complete with His Master’s Voice labelling, is a 1:12 miniature artisan piece made by Jonesy’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. It arrived in a similarly labelled 1:12 packing box along with the box of RCA Victor records that you can see peeping out of their box to the right of the gramophone. The gramophone has a rotating crank and a position adjustable horn.

 

The records scattered across Ada’s kitchen table at the front of the gramophone are all made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Known for his authentic recreation of books, 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. What might amaze you is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. Not only did Ken Blythe create books, he also created other 1:12 miniatures with paper and that includes the wonderful gramophone records you see here. Each record is correctly labelled to match its dust cover, and can be removed from its sleeve. Each record sleeve is authentically recreated just like its life-sized equivalent, right down to its creasing and curling corners. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make them all miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The bottle of champagne is a 1:12 size artisan miniature made of glass by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The champagne glasses on the table are hand-made 1:12 artisan miniature pieces made from blown glass, acquired from Karen Ladybug Miniatures. The glass and bottles of ale are also :12 artisan miniature pieces made from blown glass, acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The tablecloth is actually a piece of bright cotton print that was tied around the lid of a jar of home made peach and rhubarb jam that I was given a few years ago.

 

The paper chains festooning Ada’s kitchen I made myself using very thinly cut paper. It was a fiddly job to do, but I think it adds festive cheer and realism to this scene, as fancy Christmas decorations would have been beyond the budget of Edith’s parents, and homemade paper chains were common in households before the advent of cheap mass manufactured Christmas decorations.

 

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 The Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

You will also notice on the shelves of the dresser a few of the common groceries a household like the Watsfords’ may have had: Bisto gravy powder, Ty-Phoo tea and 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 packaging.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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).

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, and whilst we have not travelled that far physically across London, the tough streets and blind alleys of Poplar in London’s East End is a world away from Lettice’s rarefied and privileged world. We have come to the home of Lettice’s charwoman*, Mrs. Boothby, where we find ourselves in the cheerful kitchen cum living room of her tenement in Merrybrook Place: by her own admission, a haven of cleanliness amidst the squalor of the surrounding neighbourhood. Edith, Lettice’s maid, is visiting her Cockney friend and co-worker on a rather impromptu visit, much to the surprise of the old char when she answered the timid knock on her door on Easter Sunday morning and found Edith standing on her stoop, dressed in a lovely floral patterned cotton frock and the wide brimmed straw hat decorated with ribbon and ornamental flowers she bought from Mrs. Minkin’s Haberdashery in Whitechapel.

 

“Edith dearie!” Mrs. Boothby exclaims in delight and one of her fruity smokers’ coughs, a lit hand rolled cigarette in her right hand releasing a thin trail of greyish white smoke into the atmosphere. “What a luverly surprise!”

 

“I’m sorry to pay a call unannounced, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith apologises sheepishly.

 

“Not at all, dearie,” the old Cockney assures her. “Come on in wiv ya. Can’t ‘ave you standin’ on the stoop, what wiv all and sundry keepin’ an ear out for business what ain’t their own.” She gives a hard stare over Edith’s shoulder to the door of Mrs. Friedmann, where the nosy Jewess stands in her usual spot in her doorway, where she leans against its frame wrapped in one of her paisley shawls, observing the goings on of the rookery** with dark and watchful eyes. “Wanna paint a picture Mrs. Friedmann?” Mrs. Boothby calls out across the paved court, challenging her open stare with a defensive one of her own. “Might last you longer, your royal ‘ighness!” She casts her cigarette butt out into the courtyard, and makes a mock over exaggerated curtsey towards her, hitching up the hem of her own workday skirts. She turns her attentions back to Edith. “Come on in, dearie.”

 

It takes a moment for Edith’s eyes to adjust as the old Cockney woman scuttles ahead of her. As they do, Edith discerns the familiar things within the tenement front room that Edith has come to know over her visits since befriending the charwoman who does all the hard graft for her at Cavendish Mews: a kitchen table not too unlike her own at the Mayfair flat, a couple of sturdy ladderback chairs, an old fashioned black leaded stove, a rudimentary trough sink on bricks in the corner of the room and Mrs. Boothby’s pride and joy, her dresser covered in pretty ornamental knick-knacks she has collected over many years.

 

“Close the door behind you and come on in, dearie. It was a bit cold this mornin’, but the ‘ouse is nice and warm. I got the range goin’, so I’ll put the kettle on for a nice cup of Rosie-Lee***, if yer ‘ave the time that is.”

 

“Oh yes, thank you, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies as she closes the door behind her. “That would be lovely.

 

Shutting out the unpleasant mixture of odours outside with the closing of the door, Edith is comforted by the smells of soap and the lavender sachets Mrs. Boothby has hanging from the heavy velvet curtains to keep away the moths, the smells from the communal privy at the end of the rookery, and to a degree the cloying scent of tobacco smoke from her constant smoking.

 

“Good. Nah, go ‘ang up your ‘at ‘n make yerself comfy at the table.”

 

“I’ll fetch down some cups.” Edith replies cheerfully.

 

“Oh you are a luv to ‘elp, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says gratefully, emitting another couple of heavy coughs as she stretches and pulls down the fine blue and white antique porcelain teapot she reserves for when guest come to call from the top shelf of her dresser. “Look ooh’s ‘ere, Ken!” the old woman adds brightly.

 

Edith looks affectionately across the room to the bed nestled in the corner upon which Ken, Mrs. Boothby’s mature aged disabled son sits, playing with his beloved worn teddy bear and floppy stuffed rabbit on the crumpled bedclothes.

 

“Miss Eadie!” Ken gasps, a gormless grin spreading across his childlike innocent face as he recognises Edith.

 

“That’s right, son. It’s Edith come to pay us a call, and on Easter Sunday ‘n all.”

 

Ken drops his stuffed companions, leaps up from his bed and lollops across the room, enveloping Edith in his big, warm embrace, filling her nostrils with the scent of the carbolic soap Mrs. Boothby uses to wash him and his clothes. A tall and muscular man in his forties, his embrace quickly starts to squeeze the air from Edith’s lungs as his grasp grows tighter, making the poor maid cough.

 

“Nah! Nah!” Mrs. Boothby chides, turning away from the stove quickly and giving her son a gentle tap to the shoulder. “Let poor Edith go. You dunno ya own strengf, son. You’ll crush ‘er wiv your bear ‘ug.” She emits another fruity cough as she gives him a stern look.

 

“Oh! Sorry!” Ken apologises, immediately releasing Edith from his embrace and backing away as if he’d been burned, a sheepish look on his face.

 

“It’s alright, Ken.” Edith replies breathily. “Your mum is right though.” She huffs. “You… you do give strong hugs.”

 

“Eggies!” Ken answers excitedly, immediately forgetting his mild chastisement, pointing to some brightly painted eggs**** filling the wicker basket in Edith’s left hand as her arm hangs limply at her side.

 

“’Ere! Mind yer own business, son. What’s in Edith’s basket’s ‘er own affair right enuff.” The old woman strides over to her dresser where she takes down an ornamental Art Nouveau tin, which Edith knows well enough from her previous visits to Mrs. Boothby’s tenement, contains biscuits. “’Ere.” She takes out a shortbread biscuit from the tin and gives it to the bulking lad. “Nah, go sit dahn on your bed and play wiv your toys for a bit longer, and let Edith and I ‘ave a nice chat over a cup of Rosie-Lee. I’ll make you a cup ‘n all. And then Edith can share wiv you wot’s in ‘er basket later,” She turns to Edith and gives her a serious look. “If she wants to, that is.”

 

“Oh, what’s in my basket is what I’m here about, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies, depositing the basket onto the deal pine kitchen table before taking off her hat and hanging it up on a spare peg by the door.

 

“Eggies!” Ken says again.

 

“Oh get on wiv ya, Ken!” Mrs. Boothby chuckles as she kindly tousles her son’s hair affectionately. “Youse got a biscuit, nah go an’ sit dahwn like a told you, and you’ll find out soon enough about them eggs since Edith seems to fink they might be for you.”

 

“Yes Ma!” Ken replies.

 

“Good lad.” his mother replies as he retreats obediently to his bed, where he starts playing with his teddy bear and stuffed rabbit again, yet with half an eye on the basket of pastel coloured eggs on the table.

 

“I fought you’d be spendin’ Easter Sunday wiv Frank, or your parents, Edith dearie.” Mrs Boothby says as she pours hot water into the blue and white china pot and swirls it around to warm it, before pouring the water down the drain of the small trough in the corner of the room.

 

“Oh I’m only stopping for a short while, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith answers, reaching up and withdrawing three pretty blue and white china cups and saucers from the dresser. “I went to Easter services this morning at Grosvenor Chapel*****.”

 

“Chapel! Church! Priest!” Ken calls angrily from his truckle bed. “Priest bad!”

 

“Yes son! The priest is bad, but ‘e ain’t ‘ere so don’t you trouble your pretty ‘ead about it.” Mrs. Boothby says comfortingly, reminded of the Catholic priest that used to bother her to have Ken committed to an assylum. She looks over at her son, and just like a cloud momentarily blocking out the sun, Ken’s angry spat dissipates and he happily mumbles something to his teddy bear before laughing. “That bloody Irish Catholic priest offered to take Ken away, has a lot to answer for.” the old woman mutters as she adds spoonfuls of tea to the pot and tops it up with hot water. “Anyway, you was sayin’ ‘bout your plans today, dearie?”

 

Edith takes down the dainty blue and white sugar bowl and hands a non matching blue and white floral jug to Mrs. Boothby’s outstretched gnarled fingers. “I’m meeting Frank in Upton Park at midday and we’re going to visit his granny, for a few hours, and then, with Miss Lettice down in Wiltshire for Easter, I’ll have a light supper with Mum and Dad before heading back to Cavendish Mews tonight. I had Good Friday with them anyway.”

 

“Got time for some biscuits, Edith dearie?” Mrs. Boothby asks, filling the jug with a splash of milk from a bottle she keeps in the coolest corner of her tenement, underneath the trough sink.

 

“I’ve got the time, but I’d better not spoil my appetite. Mrs. McTavish is roasting lamb****** for lunch, and Frank tells me that she makes a delicious simnel cake*******, and she’s baked one especially for today because I’m visiting.”

 

“That’s so luverly of ‘er, dearie.”

 

Mrs. Boothby puts the pot of tea and milk jug on the table. She encourages Edith to take a seat in the sturdy ladderback chair in front of the dresser with a sweeping gesture, whilst she takes a seat in her own chair by the range.

 

“I tell you what Edith dearie, I’m dying for a fag!” Mrs Boothby says. “And a good chat before you do go on and see Frank and ‘is gran.” She starts fossicking through her capacious blue beaded handbag on the table before withdrawing her cigarette papers, box of National Safety Matches and tin of Player’s Navy Cut********* tobacco. Rolling herself a cigarette she lights it with a satisfied sigh and one more of her fruity coughs, dropping the match into a black ashtray that sits on the table full of cigarette butts. Mrs. Boothby settles back happily in her ladderback chair with her cigarette in one hand and sighs. Blowing out a plume of blue smoke that tumbles through the air around them, the old woman continues. “Nah, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, and what’s it got to do wiv them eggs?” She nods at the basket between them.

 

“Eggies!” Ken pipes up from his corner.

 

“Oh Lawd!” Mrs. Boothby exclaims, before stuffing the cigarette between her teeth. “I’d forget me own ‘ead if it weren’t screwed on good ‘n tight.” She snatches up one of the three teacups, sloshes in a splash of milk, adds two heaped teaspoons of sugar and pours in some tea. She stirs the milky tea with a tannin tarnished teaspoon. “Ere you are then, Ken!” She tuns around and holds the cup out to her son, who happily skips across the room and takes it from her hand. “Be careful wiv that, won’t cha love?” She runs a hand lovingly down his cheek to his chin, which she tweaks gently. “That’s Ma’s good china, ain’t it?”

 

“Good china.” Ken says with reverence as he looks down at the cup full of steaming milky tea in his hands.

 

“That’s my boy. Nah, go and have it over there just for nah.” she continues, pointing over to his truckle bed.

 

Edith pours tea for she and Mrs. Boothby whilst the old Cockney woman addresses her son.

 

“’E likes ‘is tea sweet ‘n milky, does my Ken.” Mrs. Boothby says as she turns back to Edith. “Oh fank you, dearie.” she adds as she sees the hot steaming black tea in her cup. She perches her cigarette on her black ashtray and pulls the cup towards her. “Much obliged.”

 

“You’re welcome, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies, as she adds some milk to her tea before handing the jug to her hostess.

 

Adding a splash of milk to her tea, Mrs. Boothby muses, “I’d a been glad of a daughter like you, if God ‘ad granted me annuva child.” She turns and looks momentarily back at Ken, who sits sipping his tea, looking almost comical as the bulking lad holds the cup so carefully and daintily. “Not that Ken ain’t gift enuff. “E’s one a God’s angels right ‘ere on earf.”

 

“Thank you Mrs. Boothby.” Edith murmurs in reply, blushing at the old woman’s compliment. “I learned my best manners from my Mum.”

 

“I should think you would!” She takes a long drag on her cigarette, the intake making the thin cigarette paper crackle as it is slowly consumed, before she exhales a long greyish plume of acrid smoke above their heads. “Any girl, or boy for that matter, should pay attention to their mas.”

 

“Well, thinking of mums, that’s why I came here today: to give you these.” Edith pushes the basket across the cleanly scrubbed pine surface of the table towards Mrs. Boothby. “With Miss Lettice having gone back down to Wiltshire to have a look at Mr. Gifford’s house and stay with her parents for Easter, Mum and I had time to enjoy an Easter tradition of ours this year, and we dyed these eggs for you as a gift.”

 

“For me?” Mrs. Boothby gasps in delight.

 

“Well, for you and Ken, or course.” Edith goes on.

 

“Eadie!” Ken calls back from his corner, smiling again at Edith.

 

“Oh that’s so luverly of yer both, dearie!” Mrs. Boothby puts her thin, careworn fingers around a bright yellow egg and takes it carefully out of the basket. “Just look at the colour in this one!”

 

“Onion skin.” Edith replies.

 

“What dearie?”

 

“My Mum and I use onion skins to make the yellow dye.”

 

“You never?” exclaims the old woman, her eyes widening in amazement.

 

“On yes, Mrs. Boothby. Onion skins make for a lovely dye. Don’t forget that my Mum is a laundress, so she knows a lot about natural pigments to dye fabrics with.”

 

“Well fancy that! I ain’t never ‘eard of onion skins bein’ used for anyfink much avva than rubbish!”

 

“We use spoiled red cabbage to make blue dye.” Edith smiles.

 

“But red cabbage is red!” Mrs. Boothby laughs, emitting a couple of fruity coughs as she does. She puts the yellow egg back and picks out a blue one. “’Ow can you get blue from red?” She shakes her head in disbelief.

 

“Well, you boil up the red cabbage leaves and then strain out the cabbage. That will make pink or even purple dye.” She takes out a pink egg from the basket and holds it up. “Then you add a tiny bit of baking powder to the cabbage liquid, and it will turn blue.”

 

“Go on wiv ya!” laughs Mrs. Boothby.

 

“It’s true, Mrs. Boothby, sure as…”

 

“As eggs is eggs, dearie?”

 

Edith laughs and sighs. “Yes, Mrs. Boothby! As sure as eggs are eggs. You have to be careful though. If you add too much baking powder, the dye turns green.” She replaces the blue egg and pulls out a green one. “Mum and I always dye pink and purple eggs first, then add a little baking powder to make blue dye, and then once we have enough blue eggs, we add more baking powder and dye green eggs.”

 

“Well, I never!” the old Cockney char exclaims. “I’s older than your ma is, I’ll wager, yet you just taught me sumfink new today. Come ‘ere, Ken!”

 

Ken comes over quickly, carefully replacing his now empty cup and its saucer onto the tabletop next to his mother’s bag.

 

“Good boy. See this ‘ere egg, son?” Mrs. Boothby asks, as she wraps her free right arm part way around her son’s girth.

 

“Yes Ma!” Ken says, smiling with delight at the egg in his mother’s hand, reaching out and carefully touching the dyed surface, running his fingers lightly along it.

 

“This ‘ere egg, Edith coloured and made just for you, ‘cos she knows ‘ow much you love blue.” She hands the egg to him, and Ken holds it carefully. “Nah, whacha say to Edith then, Ken?”

 

“Thank you Eadie!” Ken says lovingly. “Pretty!”

 

“You’re welcome, Ken.” Edith replies with a smile. “Happy Easter.”

 

“Happy Easter, Eadie!” he replies joyfully.

 

Edith watches with delight as Ken rolls the egg around his palms and carefully strokes the blue dyed surface of it.

 

“We’ll keep it for a bit sos you can admire it.” Mrs. Boothby says.

 

“I’m just sorry that they aren’t chocolate Easter eggs*********, Mrs. Boothby, but I can’t really afford that kind of luxury.”

 

“Nonsense Edith, dearie!” the old woman scoffs, waving away Edith’s apology dismissively before picking up what is left of her cigarette and drawing upon it. Billows of greyish smoke tumble from her mouth as she stubs out the butt in the ashtray and says, “You made these ‘ere eggs wiv your own fair ‘and, and look ‘ow ‘appy Ken is. What would ‘e want wiv a chocolate egg, eh? ‘E’s as ‘appy as a lark. Bless ‘im.” She squeezes her son lovingly. “Nah, after a few days of lookin’ at it, then I’ll break it up and we can ‘ave boiled egg on toast, eh Ken?”

 

“Yum Ma!” Ken remarks.

 

“You spoil ‘im, givin’ ‘im all these eggs.” Mrs. Boothby scolds Edith. “Don’t cha want some for Frank and his gran, Mrs. McTavish, since she’s makin’ ya a roast for Easter tea, and a simnel cake ta boot?”

 

“Oh I already gave some for Mrs. McTavish to Frank. He’s going to find a nice box to decorate and present them in, so he’s bringing them.” Edith explains with a smile. “But I did make a few extra for you because I did rather think that you might give them to your neighbour, Mrs. Conway. I remember seeing the children she looks after for the mothers of the neighbourhood who work. I thought you and Ken can take your pick, and you could give the rest to her to share with the children.”

 

“I dare say she’d love that dearie. We could ‘ave a egg rolling contest********** right ‘ere in Merryboork place! The kiddies would ‘ave a right royal time! Fank you for bein’ so thoughtful, Edith dearie.”

 

*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 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.

 

***Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.

 

****People have been decorating eggs for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians decorated ostrich eggs, and early Christians in Mesopotamia dyed eggs to mark Easter. Throughout history, people have given each other eggs at spring festivals to celebrate the new season. Eggs represent new life and rebirth, and it’s thought that this ancient custom became a part of Easter celebrations. In 1290 King Edward I paid for four hundred and fifty eggs to be coloured or covered in gold leaf and given to his entourage, and Henry VIII received one in a silver case as a present from the Pope. From the Eighteenth Century children decorated their own eggs at Easter, or recieved them as presents. These were called ‘pace eggs’. Pace eggs were made from hard boiled hen, duck or goose eggs, with decorated shells dyed with bright colours – just like in the medieval period. They were given as presents at Easter, or to the actors at pace egg plays. Pace egg plays were medieval style mystery plays, with a theatrical fight between a hero and a villain. The hero character was usually killed, before being brought back to life to triumph over the villain. In many plays, the hero character was St George. Pace eggs were also rolled along the ground in a race called an egg roll. Children would roll a decorated pace egg down a hill, and see whose egg rolled the furthest without breaking. It’s possible that these races started as a symbol of the rolling away of the stone from Jesus’ tomb.

 

*****Grosvenor Chapel is an Anglican church in what is now the City of Westminster, in England, built in the 1730s. It inspired many churches in New England. It is situated on South Audley Street in Mayfair. The foundation stone of the Grosvenor Chapel was laid on 7 April 1730 by Sir Richard Grosvenor, 4th Baronet, owner of the surrounding property, who had leased the site for 99 years at a peppercorn rent to a syndicate of four “undertakers” led by Benjamin Timbrell, a prosperous local builder. The new building was completed and ready to use by April 1731.

 

******Like most families in Britain at the time, roast lamb was the meal most associated with Easter Sunday – the tradition of eating lamb on Easter has its roots in early Passover observances.

 

*******Simnel cake is packed with fruits and spices, and covered in marzipan – traditional cakes have 11 marzipan balls on top as well, to represent the 11 apostles (minus Judas).

 

********Made by Nottingham based tobacconist manufacturer John Player and Sons, Player’s Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf, mild being today’s rich flavour). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Player’s and two thirds of these were branded as Player’s Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Player’s sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London). Production continued to grow until at its peak in the late 1950s, Player’s was employing 11,000 workers (compared to 5,000 in 1926) and producing 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. Nowadays the brands "Player" and "John Player Special" are owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands (formerly the Imperial Tobacco Company).

 

*********The first English chocolate Easter egg was sold by Fry’s in 1873, and Cadbury’s quickly followed them, introducing their own chocolate egg in 1875. These early Easter eggs were made using dark chocolate, and were smooth and plain, but in 1897 the famous Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate was first introduced. Chocolate eggs made with this new recipe were very popular, and soon became Easter bestsellers. Even today, most Easter eggs are made using milk chocolate.

 

**********Egg rolling is a tradition that goes back to the Eighteenth century in England. Commencing in Lancashire ‘pace eggs’ became very popular. It continues in some parts of England today, although nowadays it is chocolate eggs being rolled down the hill, rather than the traditional boiled and painted eggs of the past! There is an egg rolling event every year in Preston, Lancashire, but the most famous egg roll takes place in the United States of America, on the lawns of the White House, in Washington

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene with its Easter festive tones 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.

 

The Easter eggs in the basket are 1:12 miniatures which came from Kathleen Knight's Dolls' House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

Mrs. Boothby’s beloved collection of ornaments come from various different sources. The rooster jug, the cottage ware butter dish, Peter Rabbit in the watering can tea pot and the cottage ware teapot on the dresser were all made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson. All the pieces are authentic replicas of real pieces made by different china companies. For example, the cottage ware teapot 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. All the plates on the dresser came from various online miniature stockists through E-Bay, as do the teapot, plate and cups on Mrs. Boothby’s kitchen table.

  

Mrs. Boothby’s beaded handbag on the table is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. Hand crocheted, it is interwoven with antique blue glass beads that are two millimetres in diameter. The beads of the handle are three millimetres in length. It came from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

Spilling from her bag are her Player’s Navy Cut cigarette tin and Swan Vesta matches, which are 1:12 miniatures hand made by Jonesy’s Miniatures in England. The black ashtray is also an artisan piece, the bae of which is filled with “ash”. The tray as well as having grey ash in it, also has a 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (it is affixed there). Made by Nottingham based tobacconist manufacturer John Player and Sons, Player’s Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf, mild being today’s rich flavour). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Player’s and two thirds of these were branded as Player’s Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Player’s sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London). Production continued to grow until at its peak in the late 1950s, Player’s was employing 11,000 workers (compared to 5,000 in 1926) and producing 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. Nowadays the brands “Player” and “John Player Special” are owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands (formerly the Imperial Tobacco Company). Swan Vestas is a brand name for a popular brand of ‘strike-anywhere’ matches. Shorter than normal pocket matches they are particularly popular with smokers and have long used the tagline ‘the smoker’s match’ although this has been replaced by the prefix ‘the original’ on the current packaging. Swan Vestas matches are manufactured under the House of Swan brand, which is also responsible for making other smoking accessories such as cigarette papers, flints and filter tips. The matches are manufactured by Swedish Match in Sweden using local, sustainably grown aspen. The Swan brand began in 1883 when the Collard & Kendall match company in Bootle on Merseyside near Liverpool introduced ‘Swan wax matches’. These were superseded by later versions including ‘Swan White Pine Vestas’ from the Diamond Match Company. These were formed of a wooden splint soaked in wax. They were finally christened ‘Swan Vestas’ in 1906 when Diamond merged with Bryant and May and the company enthusiastically promoted the Swan brand. By the 1930s ‘Swan Vestas’ had become ‘Britain’s best-selling match’.

 

The rather worn and beaten looking enamelled bread bin in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green, which have been aged on purpose, are artisan pieces I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The various bowls, cannisters and dishes, the kettle and the Brown Betty teapot I have acquired from various online miniatures stockists throughout the United Kingdom, America and Australia. 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.

 

The black Victorian era stove and the ladderback chair on the left of the table and the small table directly behind it are all miniature pieces 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 Welsh dresser came from Babette’s Miniatures, who have been making miniature dolls’ furnishings since the late Eighteenth Century. The dresser has plate grooves in it to hold plates in place, just like a real dresser would.

 

The grey marbleised fireplace behind the stove and the trough sink in the corner of the kitchen come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The green wallpaper is an authentic replica of real Art Nouveau wallpaper from the first decade of the Twentieth Century which I have printed onto paper. The floorboards are a print of a photo taken of some floorboards that I scaled to 1:12 size to try and maintain a realistic look.

my ikea billy bookcase

 

Blogged here

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).

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. It is Sunday, Edith’s day off and she is busily preparing for an excursion with her beau, local grocery delivery boy, Frank Leadbetter. The deal pine kitchen table is covered with all that is required to make a selection of sandwiches, with a loaf of fluffy fresh bread, a bar of bright yellow butter, some ripe red tomatoes and a frilly head of green lettuce. After the announcement of the sudden collapse of her ‘uncle’ Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt, patriarch of the family living on the estate adjunct to that of Lettice’s parents, Lettice has hurriedly returned to her grand Georgian family home of Glynes in Wiltshire, leaving Edith with ample time on her hands to plan a picnic for she and Frank. The picnic basket Edith’s brother, Bert, brought back for her from Australia as a Christmas gift sits to the side, waiting to be filled. As Edith prepares the sandwiches, she is kept company by her best friend Hilda, who also has Sundays off.

 

“So, what’s on the menu for today then?” Hilda asks as she looks at Edith deftly slicing pieces of bread from a loaf before then cutting a tomato in half.

 

“Well, tomato and lettuce sandwiches,” Edith replies, indicating with the blade of her knife to the tomatoes on the board before her and the head of lettuce between the two girls. “I’ve got some nice cheese as well for cheese and tomato sandwiches and with Miss Lettice away, there is half a cucumber left, so I thought I’d use it up by making cucumber sandwiches.”

 

“A feast fit for a king, no less!” Hilda says encouragingly.

 

“Oh there’s more.” Edith continues. “I also baked a cherry pie for dessert, using Mum’s recipe.”

 

“Now, I wish I was coming with you, Edith!” Hilda enthuses. “Where are you and Frank going for your picnic?” she asks Edith as she toys with a lettuce leaf on the head that Edith has yet to attack with her knife.

 

“We thought we might go to Kensington gardens today.” Edith replies as she cuts a smaller tomato bought from Willison’s Grocers and starts slicing it into thin slivers. “It’s not too far away, and we like it there.”

 

“Well, you’re blessed with a beautiful, sunny day for it.” Hilda remarks cheerfully, pointing to the kitchen window, through which sunlight streams.

 

Edith stops slicing the tomato, allowing her knife to come to rest in a pool of tomato juice on the cutting board. She glances anxiously at her best friend. “You don’t mind, do you Hilda?”

 

Hilda stops toying with the lettuce leaf. “Mind? Whatever do you mean, Edith? Why should I mind?”

 

A month ago, as Edith, Frank and Hilda were in Hilda’s employer’s kitchen in Hill Street about to leave to go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse* on their Sunday afternoon off, Hilda grew despondent about going. With the dearth of young, or even older, eligible men, Hilda wondered why she bothered to go dancing, when she never met any men and usually ended up dancing with other women who were wallflowers** like her. Ever since then, Edith has been acutely aware of her best friend’s feelings of loneliness. When the two had been housemaids together at the home of Mrs. Plaistow in Pimlico it hadn’t mattered so much as both girls had been single and their shared sense of being without a beau strengthened their bond. However, now Edith has Frank, so Edith has been especially conscious to include Hilda even more than usual in her plans ever since, in an effort to compensate for her friend’s lack of a beau. Rather than go dancing, where the lack of men is so painfully evident, at Frank’s suggestion, he and Edith have altered their usual Sunday afternoon plans and done things where they could include Hilda easily. However, in spite of her conscious efforts, with the good weather of summer in the air, and Lettice being away for an indefinite period of time as she returns to Wiltshire on an urgent family matter, Edith is anxious to use the picnic basket her brother, Bert, brought her back from Australia, and have a picnic just for she and Frank for a change.

 

“Well, I just don’t want you at a loose end is all, Hilda.” Edith replies. “I know you’ve been feeling a bit low ever since that afternoon we went dancing.”

 

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about me, Edith.” Hilda scoffs with a dismissive wave as she sinks back from the table into the rounded back of the second Windsor chair in Edith’s kitchen.

 

“Of course I have to worry about you, Hilda!” Edith retorts. “You are my best friend, after all.”

 

“Well, you don’t need to today, Edith.” Hilda assures her. “Today is a lovely day for you and Frank to go and enjoy your Sunday off without me.” She looks at her friend earnestly. “I know you Edith, and I know what you’ve been doing.”

 

“Me?” Edith hurriedly picks up her knife and finishes slicing the tomato, focussing all her attention on her task, refusing to engage her friend’s gaze. “I haven’t been doing anything.”

 

“Yes you have, Edith. Don’t deny it.” Hilda wags her fleshy right index finger admonishingly at Edith. “I know that ever since we went dancing that Sunday, you and Frank have been colluding to include me in more of your Sunday afternoon activities to make sure I don’t feel left out.”

 

“Oh what rubbish you talk sometimes, Hilda!” Edith says, brushing her friend’s observation off as easily as she sweeps the slices of tomato aside with the flat of her knife. She cuts off a slice of fluffy white bread from the loaf at her left and begins to butter it. “I’ve done no such thing!”

 

“Haven’t you?” Hilda counters rhetorically. “What about the fact that last week we went to the Angel*** rather than go dancing.”

 

“That was just so we could do something different for a change, Hilda. Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it?”

 

“Oh, I enjoyed it well enough, but it seemed a bit unusual to break from our usual routine.”

 

“Frank and I wanted to do something different for a change. We don’t always want to go to the same places.”

 

“I’m sure you two would have preferred to have been alone and sitting in the back of the Premier in East Ham**** with the other young couples in the dark, rather than sitting with me in the middle seats.”

 

“I’ll have you know, Hilda Clerkenwell, that I very much wanted to see ‘Bell Boy 13’*****.”

 

“Mmm…hmmm.” replies Hilda disbelievingly.

 

“I did, Hilda!” Edith says firmly, feverishly buttering the bread.

 

“Well, even if that is the case,” Hilda retorts. “It’s high time you and Frank had a Sunday on your own for a change, rather than spend it with me as well. However jolly the outing may be for me, I’m a third wheel.”

 

“You’re never that, Hilda!” Edith assures her.

 

Hilda gives her friend a knowing look again before speaking. “You don’t often get to take advantage of Miss Lettice being away for an indefinite period.”

 

“That’s true, although it comes about through unfortunate circumstances. A relation has been taken ill.”

 

“Well, unfortunate for her or not, you should take advantage of the fortuitous circumstance it creates for you and enjoy the summer day with Frank.” She runs her finger around the raised edge of the Delftware plate on which a bar of glossy yellow butter sits.

 

Edith pauses slicing another piece of bread from the loaf and looks at Hilda, whose face is hidden my a mass of brown waves as she hangs her head. “There’s something else going on here.” she says firmly. “I know there is. I have sensed it ever since you arrived. Come on Hilda, spit it out!”

 

“Well, there is an extra reason why you needn’t worry about me every Sunday.”

 

Edith drops the bread knife onto the cutting board where it lands with a loud clatter. “You haven’t finally met a nice young man, have you?” she gasps excitedly.

 

Hilda looks to her friend. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Edith, but no.”

 

“Oh, I was hoping that chap I saw you chatting to at the bar of the Angel when you bought us a round of drinks might have taken a shine to you.”

 

“Goodness no!” Hilda laughs loudly. “He was a sailor from Norway. He was only asking me whether I knew of any places he could go for entertainment around there. Once I said I didn’t, he lost interest in me very swiftly.”

 

“So what is it then?”

 

“Well,” Hilda says sheepishly. “You mustn’t laugh at me.”

  

“I’d never laugh at you, Hilda.”

 

“Well, you know the last time we went to visit Mrs. Minkin’s haberdashery in Whitechapel?”

 

“Yes, I bought some new black feathers for my straw cloche after the ones on it were damaged on that windy day.” Edith recollects. “But you didn’t buy anything.”

 

“No, you’re right, I didn’t,” Hilda agrees. “But I did pick up a flyer for a group who knit socks, scarves and balaclavas for the poor in the East End.”

 

“But you don’t know how to knit!” laughs Edith.

 

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you!”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry Hilda,” Edith quickly pipes up, stopping her laughter. “I didn’t mean to laugh.” She covers her mouth as she looks apologetically at her friend. “It is just a surprise is all. I mean, you don’t know how to knit. I tried to teach you, but,” She pauses for a moment to think how to best couch the outcomes without hurting her friend’s feelings any more than she may already have by laughing at the idea of her knitting. “Well, you just never took to it. Did you?”

 

“Well, I wasn’t really keen to learn then.” Hilda admits. “As I recall, you were the one who thought I should learn, and you were so keen to teach me that I thought I’d have a go at it, but my heart wasn’t really in it.”

 

“And that’s changed now?”

 

“Can’t a girl change her mind?”

 

“Oh of course she can Hilda!” Edith defends. “I’m so happy for you,” she adds. “But I’m intrigued. What was it that changed your mind? What has inspired you to what to learn to knit, since Mrs. Minkin and I couldn’t?”

 

“I suppose it was looking around me when we go down to the East End. Up here in Mayfair everything is so nice, and there is enough for everyone, but down there, there are children walking about wearing rags. I can’t afford to feed the starving children of the East End, but maybe I can do some good and help knit them some things to help keep them warm.”

 

“What a lovely idea, Hilda.” Edith says encouragingly. “I’m so proud of you for doing it. I’ve never really thought to do anything like that before.”

 

“Well, I figured I could learn something new, and it might help fill some of my Sundays, so that way you don’t have to include me in your plans.”

 

“I hope you know that Frank and I don’t mind having you tag along, Hilda.”

 

“I know you don’t, because you’re my best friend, and because Frank is a very special and understanding chap.” Hilda replies with a sad smile. “Many other young men wouldn’t be so tolerant.”

 

“It isn’t about tolerance, for either of us.” Edith defends.

 

“I know that too, Edith. I’m just stating a fact that there aren’t many young men like Frank out there, which is all the more reason why you should be enjoying at least the occasional Sunday in the pleasure of his company without me. He’s a good man, Edith, and as you know, men in general are hard to come by, so that makes him even more special. Better hang on to him and not let go, Edith.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Anyway, I like the sound of joining a group where I can come and go as I like, so I’m not committed to giving up all my free Sundays, so we can still go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais or go to the pictures at the West Ham Premier.” Her smile changes as little from sad to hopeful. “And who knows? I might make some new lady friends and acquaintances who have eligible bachelors who are just waiting for a girl like me who can knit them a scarf, or socks.”

 

“Or a jumper!” laughs Edith.

 

“Or a balaclava!” adds Hilda, joining in Edith’s laughing.

 

“I’m happy for you, Hilda.”

 

“Well, I had to do something to get me out of the funk I’ve been in lately,” Hilda replies. “So it was join the knitting circle or join the Socialist Party in Bloomsbury.” she adds jokingly.

 

Edith joins in with her friend’s mischievous laughter.

 

“By the way, Edith. If there happen to be a few too many sandwiches made, I’ll happily take a few with me to the knitting circle.”

 

Edith smiles. “I’ll wrap up a few for you in a brown paper bag, Hilda.”

 

“Thanks ever so, Edith.” Hilda replies gratefully.

 

*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.

 

**A wallflower, as well as being a species of flower is also an informal description of a person, usually a woman or young girl, who has no one to dance with or who feels shy, awkward, or excluded at a party.

 

***The Angel, one of the oldest Rotherhithe pubs, is now in splendid isolation in front of the remains of Edward III's mansion on the Thames Path at the western edge of Rotherhithe. The site was first used when the Bermondsey Abbey monks used to brew beer which they sold to pilgrims. It is located at 24 Rotherhithe St, opposite Execution Dock in Wapping. It has two storeys, plus an attic. It is built of multi-coloured stock brick with a stucco cornice and blocking course. The ground floor frontage is made of wood. There is an area of segmental arches on the first floor with sash windows, and it is topped by a low pitched slate roof. Its Thames frontage has an unusual weatherboarded gallery on wooden posts. The interior is divided by wooden panels into five small rooms. In the early 20th Century its reputation and location attracted local artists including Augustus John and James Abbott McNeil Whistler. In the 1940s and 50s it became a popular destination for celebrities including Laurel and Hardy. Today its customers are local residents, tourists and people walking the Thames Path.

 

****The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.

 

*****’Bell Boy 13’ is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by William A. Seiter, and starring Douglas MacLean, John Steppling, Margaret Loomis, William Courtright, Emily Gerdes, and Eugene Burr. College graduate Harry Elrod (Douglas MacLean) wishes to marry actress Kitty Clyde (Margaret Loomis), but his Uncle Ellrey Elrod (John Steppling) has picked out Angela Fish (Emily Gerdes) as a wife for his nephew. Harry arranges an elopement with Kitty. His uncle's suspicions are aroused and he trails Harry continuously. Miss Fish and her father the Reverend Doctor Wilbur Fish (William Courtright) call. Harry in desperation starts a fire in his room. He is rescued by the fire brigade and then stages a run through the streets in the fire chief's car, intending to catch another train and follow Kitty. He escapes the pursuing firemen, boards the train, and arrives safely at the Philadelphia hotel where Kitty will meet him. There he finds that she has changed her mind, coming to believe that he must have his uncle's consent. He then receives a telegram from his uncle, disowning him. Broke, Harry takes a job as a hotel bell boy. In uniform, he enters where Kitty is dining with Mr. Haskell, her press agent, and sits down, but is dragged away by the indignant hotel manager. Uncle Ellrey comes to the hotel but is shown the wrong room by Harry, so he demands that Harry be fired. The manager, ever ready to make a guest happy, is ready to oblige him, but Harry turns Bolshevist and induces the entire hotel staff to go on strike. The end result is that the uncle is defeated, and Harry wins Kitty.

 

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

 

Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:

 

On Edith’s deal table is a panoply of things as she readies her picnic luncheon. The chopping board, butter knife and tomatoes all came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The tomato slices come from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. The loaf of bread is made from polymer clay and looks remarkably realistic. It was made by Polly’s Pantry in America. The bar of butter on the Delftware plate I have had since I was about six. It came under a 1:12 scale silver butter dish I was given as part of a Christmas gift. The knife on the chopping board and the bread knife come from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures Shop in the United Kingdom. The head of lettuce has been made by an unknown artisan and is made of very thinly rolled clay which has had very realistic detailing picked out on its leaves before being painted. I bought it as part of a job lot of 1:12 size miniature artisan food pieces at an auction when I was a teenager. The Deftware plates are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which I acquired from a seller in America through E-Bay.

 

To the left of the picture you can see the wicker picnic basket that Bert brought home for Edith. In truth it is not Australian made, but was made by an unknown miniature artisan in America. The floral patterns on the top have been hand painted. The hinged lids lift, just like a real hamper, so things can be put inside.

 

Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.

 

In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove on which stand some shiny brass pieces acquired from various online stockists on 1:12 miniatures. The stove would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.

 

On the bench in the background is a toaster: a very modern convenience for a household even in the early 1920s, but essential when there was no longer a kitchen range on which to toast the bread. Although toasters had been readily available since the turn of the century, they were not commonplace in British kitchens until well after the Great War in the late 1930s. Next to the toaster is a biscuit barrel painted in the style of English ceramic artist Clarice Cliff which is a hand painted 1:12 miniature made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. It contains its own selection of miniature hand-made chocolate biscuits! Next to that stands a bread crock. There is also a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Golden Shred orange marmalade still exists today and is a common household brand both in Britain and Australia. It is 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 marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid, grew up. She is visiting her parents as she often does on her Wednesdays off, and today she has been helping her mother, Ada, shop for groceries and the pair have been traversing the Harlesden high street. They have visited Mr. Lovegrove the local grocer where Ada has filled her basket with some of her household staples: fresh lettuce and some delicious looking apples, some McDougall’s white milled flour, Bisto gravy powder, Bird’s Golden Raising Powder, a jar of Marmite, a jar of P.C. Flett Plum Jam, Ty-Phoo tea and some Sunlight Soap and Robin Starch, the latter two which she will use with the laundry she takes in to help supplement the family’s income. Now the pair have arrived home in Ada’s cosy kitchen.

 

“Oh thank you so much, Edith love.” Ada remarks gratefully with a groan as the two ladies lift the heavy basket that they have been carrying between them down the high street up onto Ada’s worn round kitchen table. “You’ve been such a help.” She drops her blue beaded handbag onto the table next to the basket where it lands with a ratting sound.

 

“It’s my pleasure, Mum.” Edith replies with a beaming smile.

 

“I don’t think I could have carried all this home on my own.” Ada continues as she rubs her lower back, stretches, and makes more groaning noises. “Your poor mum is getting old, Edith love.”

 

“What nonsense Mum!” Edith scoffs as she plops her own green leather handbag on the table next to her mother’s bag and then unpins her black straw cloche decorated with purple silk roses and black feathers. “I’ve seen you wash mountains of laundry before. Your arms are stronger than an ox.”

 

“Well,” Ada chuckles. “Maybe you’re right there, Edith love, but all the same, I don’t seem to have the stamina I used to before your dad got his promotion to Line Manager at McVities*.”

 

“That’s because you don’t have to work so hard to help make ends meet now, Mum.” Edith remarks ruefully. “You can be more of a lady of leisure.”

 

“Oh!” Ada flaps her arms dismissively at her daughter before shucking her grey coat from her shoulders and hanging it on its hook by the kitchen door. “I’ll never be one of them, Edith love. There is too much to do, keeping house for your dad, and your brother when he’s home.”

 

“I did say, more of a lady of leisure.” Edith points out, emphasising the words more of. She smirks. “I’d never expect you not to be busy around the house, doing chores and cooking. You wouldn’t be Mum then, at least not mine.”

 

“Oh, thinking of cooking, I must put your dad’s tea in the warming oven.” Ada throws her hands in the air. “I nearly forgot! Where is my head today?” She pats the crown of her floppy black velvet hat with Art Nouveau detailing before quickly unpinning it from her head and hanging it on the hook over the top of her coat.

 

“You’re just excited about going out up The West End tonight, Mum.” Edith laughs joyfully. “Here, I’ll unpack the groceries for you, whilst you get Dad’s tea ready.”

 

“Oh thanks ever so, Edith!” Ada replies gratefully. “It will be yours and my tea too, love.”

 

Edith begins to carefully take items out of her mother’s basket, so as not to spoil and bruise the apples, squash the lettuce leaves, or damage any of the brightly coloured packaging of the other items, placing them on the surface of the kitchen table. Meanwhile Ada snatches up her apron, throws it arounds her neck and fastens it around her waist as she hurries over to the narrow door in the corner of the kitchen that opens into a narrow pantry. She withdraws a rather worn and well used enamel lidded warming dish which she takes over towards the kitchen range which has been warming up during their visit to the Harlesden high street. Balancing the dish firmly on the palm and splayed fingers of her left hand, Ada opens the stiff door of the warming oven with a red and white gingham tea towel which she places over the handle of the oven to prevent her right hand getting burnt. Throwing the red and white checked fabric over her right shoulder, she puts her hand into the oven expertly and gauges the temperature.

 

“Good.” Ada says with a satisfied sigh. “Perfect to warm up your dad’s tea.”

 

She slides the dish in noisily and closes the door again with the aid of the tea towel, groaning at the wilful resistance of the door as she does so.

 

“You know, you should get old Widow Hounslow to replace that old range, Mum.” Edith remarks as she takes the jar of Marmite out of her mother’s basket and deposits it on the table next to the packet of Ty-Phoo tea.

 

“What’s that?” Ada spins around and looks aghast at her daughter with wide eyes, as though the young girl has just sworn at her.

 

“You know as well as I, Mum, that that old penny-pinching landlady can well afford to take that old iron monster out and install a much more up-to-date gas cooker for you.”

 

“Don’t be so blasphemous!” Ada balks. She turns back and places a careworn hand lovingly on a part of the blacklead façade of the old kitchen range that she knows isn’t hot. “This old lady and I have been working together longer than you’ve been alive for, Edith love. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

“Miss Lettice has a lovely gas stove in Cavendish Mews, Mum.” Edith insists. “It’s ever so modern and easy to use. It has a thermostat so there’s no need for me to stick my hand in the oven to gauge the temperature the way you have to.”

 

“That’s lazy cooking, that is.” Ada scoffs with a dismissive wave of her hand.

 

“No it’s not, Mum.” Edith retorts. “The advertisements in the newspapers say it’s a way to ensure perfect cooking every time.” She goes on. “And because its gas, it doesn’t need coal, so it’s much cleaner.”

 

“What would I do with a gas stove and oven at my age, Edith love? I wouldn’t know how to use it, even if Mrs. Hounslow did install one for me. I’m too set in my ways and habits to go changing with all this new-fangled gas cookery. No!” She bangs the blacklead heartily. “I know her as well as I know the back of my own hand, Edith love. A gas stove might be alright for the likes of you, working for such a fine lady as Miss Chetwynd, but I’m content with my old girl. We rub along well together, even if we do have our differences some days. Thank you all the same.”

 

“Well, I still think Mrs. Hounslow is a mean old landlady, Mum. She never spends a penny she doesn’t have to on this old place to make things easier or more comfortable for you and Dad.”

 

“Oh Edith! Mrs. Hounslow’s a widow.”

 

“I know, Mum. You’re always using that as a defence for her poor behaviour. I’ve grown up hearing about how Mrs. Hounslow’s husband died a hero in the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War.” She releases an exasperated sigh as she picks up the jar of plum jam and goes to put it away. “But he left her well off with plenty of houses like this to let to the likes of you who pays more than you probably should for it, as well as a fine house of her own. I should know.” She snorts derisively. “I worked in it for long enough with no thanks, so I know how comfortably she has it, widow or not!”

 

“Edith!” Ada says with hurt in her voice as she withdraws the head of lettuce from her basket. “I helped you get your very first position with Mrs. Hounslow.”

 

“I know you did, Mum, and I’m not ungrateful to you for helping me get it.” Edith lets out another exasperated sigh as she returns to the kitchen table. “All the same, I’ve never heard or seen Mrs. Hounslow have to scrape or work hard for anything, and it breaks my heart to see you slave over that old range and blacklead it, week after week, when you could have something so much nicer that wouldn’t put old Widow Hounslow into the poor house.”

 

“Now, you know I won’t have a bad word said about her, Edith.” Ada wags her finger admonishingly at her daughter before reaching into her basket and withdrawing one of the lovely red apples she bought from Mr. Lovegrove’s Grocers. “She’s helped pay for many a meal in this house with her sixpences and shillings over the years. She may have even paid for this apple, since I still take in her laundry.” She holds the apple up so that it catches the diffused light which shines in weakly through the dirty kitchen window behind the lace curtains Ada made to block out the view into the dismal back courtyard and laundry.

 

“Well,” Edith folds her arms akimbo. “You know my opinion about you doing that.”

 

“I do, Edith love.” Ada says kindly in an effort to diffuse her daughter’s hot dislike of the mean spirited old woman. “And I dare say you’re right. There are probably plenty of other more deserving women in the neighbourhood who will pay me more for my services.” She takes the lettuce and puts it in a box under the kitchen trough style sink. “But she is our landlady, so I want to keep on her good side as much as I can. You should at least be grateful to her for giving us a stable roof over our heads all your life.”

 

“Pshaw!” Edith raises her eyes to the ceiling above. “That only leaks on occasion.”

 

“What’s that, that’s leaking, Edith love?” comes a jolly male voice as the door leading from the hallway to the kitchen opens and George, Edith’s father, walks in, his face bright from his brisque stroll home from the McVite and Price factory. “Hullo Ada love! Goodness is it Wednesday already, Edith? That comes around quickly doesn’t it?”

 

“Hullo Dad!” Edith beams.

 

“Oh nothing’s leaking, love.” Ada assures George as she allows herself to be embraced and then kissed on the cheek lovingly by her husband. “Edith and I were just having a disagreement.”

 

“A disagreement?” George looks in concern between his wife and daughter before stepping over to his beloved child and embracing her lovingly and kissing her on the cheek as well. “What are my two favourite girls arguing over? Not me I hope?” he chortles good naturedly.

 

“No Dad,” Edith replies, hugging her father pleasurably in return. “Old Widow Hounslow, as a matter of fact.”

 

“What?” George scoffs. “That old harridan? Why are you two even wasting a single valuable breath on her?”

 

“Oh, you’re as bad as Edith, George!” Ada pulls the tea towel off her shoulder and flicks it at her husband. “No wonder she takes against her so with you talking about Mrs. Hounslow that way.”

 

“I’m only speaking the truth, Ada love.” George replies knowingly. “She’s a piece of work and that’s a fact.”

 

“See Mum!” Edith replies in a justified tone.

 

“And speaking of the truth, I hope that’s my tea I can smell in the oven.” George remarks, making a show of sniffing the air about him appreciatively, which is starting to fill with the aroma of warming meat and vegetables.

 

“Course it is, George.” Ada says. “But it’s not quite hot enough yet. Even with Edith’s help with the shopping today, I’m afraid it was a large one this week, and we came back a bit later than I’d planned.”

 

“Gossiping with Mrs. Chapman, I’ll wager.” George replies jokingly with a cheeky smile and a wink at his daughter before settling comfortably into his high backed Windsor chair by the warm range.

 

“I’ll give you gossiping, George Watsford!” Ada replies, knowing her husband’s humour well and not taking him seriously. She gentle nudges his work boot clad foot against the flagstones with her own boot toe. “I have a good mind to feed that delicious smelling tea to the neighbour’s mouser** after a remark like that!”

 

“Perce wouldn’t like it.” George replies with a smile, not missing a beat since he has heard his wife’s jokingly idle threat many a time before. “So best you give it to one who will appreciate it.”

 

“I’ll keep half of it myself and give the rest to Edith then.” Ada laughs. “She appreciates it every bit as much as you do, George.”

 

“Mum’s been telling everyone that will listen to her that you’re taking her up The West End tonight, Dad.” Edith says excitedly, turning back from the large dark wooden Welsh dresser where she has just put the packet of Ty-Phoo Tea and the jar of Marmite on the first shelf.

 

“Has she now?” George asks, screwing up his eye as he looks to his wife, who busies herself filling the big kettle with water from the small kitchen sink to boil and make tea with.

 

“And why shouldn’t I, George?” Ada defends as she walks past her husband and puts the kettle over the range hob.

 

“Well, it’s not like your loving husband hasn’t taken you to the pictures before.” he replies.

 

“That’s true,” Ada retorts as she pulls the Brown Betty*** teapot across the worn surface of her kitchen table and lifts the lid. “Whilst you’re over there, pass me the tea cannister and a teaspoon will you, Edith love.” she requests of her daughter. She turns back and addresses her husband again. “However, it isn’t every day that my husband takes me to see a Buster Keaton**** premier at The Tivoli***** up The Strand.” She smiles with satisfaction before turning back to the table and starts adding spoonfuls of tealeaves from her cannister to the glazed brown pot. “And that, I think is worth crowing over.” Her smile turns a little guilty. “Even just a little bit.”

 

“More than a little bit,” giggles Edith. “Mum told Mrs. Chapman and Mrs. Lovegrove, and Miss Phipps and Mrs. Whitehead from down the Royal Oak******* whom we ran into on the street.”

 

“Edith!” Ada gasps. “You make me sound like the biggest gossiper in Harlesden!”

 

“Well, you just said yourself that going to see the premier of ‘Three Ages’******** at the Tivoli was newsworthy,” Edith replies. “So why shouldn’t you share it, Mum?”

 

“Exactly!” agrees George enthusiastically. “News will get around that there is much to be jealous of Mrs. George Watsford when her husband takes her to the fanciest new picture theatre in London’s West End.”

 

“And that will make you look like someone to aspire to amongst your workmates.” Ada laughs.

 

“Just so.” He joins in her laughter.

 

“I must confess, even I’m a bit jealous, Mum. Frank and I usually see pictures before you two,” Edith says with a sigh as she sits down at the table in her usual high backed ladderback chair. “But of course being the premier tonight, we haven’t seen it yet.”

 

“I could have wrangled tickets for you and Frank if you’d wanted, you know Edith.” George pipes up.

 

“Oh I’m sure you could have, Dad. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to go, but you know I only have Wednesdays off until four o’clock. What time are you and Mum going?”

 

“Six.”

 

“There you go, then. I’ll be preparing Miss Lettice’s dinner. She’ll be back from Ascot by that time. She’s been visiting a client up there today.” Edith pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath before launching into what she has been wanting to ask her mother ever since she arrived this morning, but hasn’t had an opportunity to raise. It seems an opportune moment to raise the topic whilst her father is at home as well. “Thinking of Frank, I wanted to ask you something, Mum and Dad?”

 

Ada pauses with the steaming kettle in her hands, just about to pour, whilst George looks across the table to his daughter.

 

“What is it about Frank, Edith love?” George asks with concern. “Is everything alright.”

 

“Oh it’s nothing to worry about, Dad!” Edith quickly assures her parents, who both release sighs of relief at her utterance. “No, but I was just wondering…” She pauses again.

 

“What were you wondering, Edith love?” Ada encourages her daughter, pouring hot water into the Brown Betty as she asks.

 

“Well, I just wondered whether, now that you’ve met Frank, and I’ve met Frank’s grandmother, whether it wasn’t high time that you met each other.”

 

“What a capital idea!” George exclaims, sitting forward in his chair, clapping his hands in delight.

 

“Hhhmmm,” her mother remarks, pursing her lips as she considers Edith’s suggestion. “That’s probably a good idea, considering you two are serious about one another.”

 

“Yes, Ada love, we should get to know Frank’s granny, especially as she’s his only close living relation.”

 

Edith releases a pent-up sigh she didn’t realise that she had been holding onto.

 

“Yes, your dad is right,” Ada goes on. “That would be capital. Have you spoken with Mrs. Leadbetter about it and asked her?”

 

“Mrs. McTavish, you mean, Mum.” Edith corrects.

 

“McTavish?” George queries. “But that’s not Frank’s surname.”

 

“And it’s Scottish.” Ada notes as she replaces the kettle back on the range’s hob.

 

“Mrs. McTavish is Frank’s maternal grandmother, which is why she isn’t a Leadbetter,” Edith elucidates with a smile. “And yes, she is Scottish, Mum. Frank is asking her this week when he visits her, and he and I will chat when we next see one another.”

 

“What were you thinking we’d do, Edith love?” Ada asks.

 

“Well, if it isn’t too much to ask, Mum, since Mrs. McTavish is a bit older and may not be up to hosting you and Dad, would you would consider doing a Sunday lunch for her here, like you did when Frank came over?” She looks at her mother, whose eyebrows are arched and her mouth screwed up in contemplation as her tongue pokes the inside of her right cheek thoughtfully. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be a grand Sunday roast. Mrs. McTavish is quite partial to stew and dumplings. Her teeth aren’t as good as they used to be, she tells me.”

 

“I’ll say yes,” George answers happily. “But then again,” He looks to his wife. “I’m not the cook, so it’s your choice, Ada love.”

 

Ada arranges her collection of beloved mismatched china cups and saucers and doesn’t answer straight away. “I dare say I could manage a nice hearty beef stew with some of my extra large and soft suet dumplings.” she says with a smile.

 

“And your cherry pie for dessert, Mum?” Edith asks hopefully. “Frank does love your cherry pie.”

 

“I don’t see why not.” Ada replies after a moment’s deliberation.

 

“Oh thank you Mum!” Edith leaps up from her seat and flings her arms joyfully around her mother’s neck as she kisses her cheek. “You’re an absolute brick!”

 

Ada chuckles. “There you go again with that new-fangled talk of yours that I don’t understand, but I dare say that’s a compliment, judging by your reaction.”

 

“Don’t be obtuse, Ada.” George mutters from his chair. “You know you’ve made the girl happy.”

 

“When Mum?”

 

“Well, you have a chat with Frank, when you see him next.” Ada replies, patting her daughter calmingly on the back. “And find out what Mrs. McTavish says. Then you can send me a postcard********* with details as to her response between now and next Wednesday. That will give me a chance to have a think and we can chat about it next Wednesday. How does that sound?”

 

“Oh that sounds perfect, Mum!” Edith sighs.

 

“Good! Now, you pour the tea, Edith love. I’m going to serve up tea for us. It smells like it’s ready.”

 

“About time,” murmurs George. “I’m starving.”

 

*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.

 

**A mouser is an animal that catches mice, usually a cat, but sometimes also a small terrier.

 

***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.

 

****Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American actor, comedian, and director. He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression that earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". He was born into a vaudeville family in Piqua, Kansas in 1895. In February 1917, he met Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. Joe Keaton disapproved of films. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he was asked to jump in and start acting. Keaton was such a natural in his first film, The Butcher Boy, he was hired on the spot. After Keaton's successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Productions. He made a series of 19 two-reel comedies. He then moved to feature-length films; several of them, such as Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), and The Cameraman (1928), remain highly regarded. His career declined when he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and lost his artistic independence. His wife divorced him, and he descended into alcoholism. He recovered in the 1940s, remarried, and revived his career as an honored comic performer for the rest of his life, earning an Academy Honorary Award in 1959. Late in his career, Keaton made cameos in Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, Chaplin's Limelight, Samuel Beckett's Film and the Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time". He died of lung cancer in 1966, at the age of seventy.

 

*****Several years after the end of the Great War, the Strand road widening had been completed and a site formerly occupied by the Louis XIV style Tivoli Theatre of Varieties became available to build a cinema. Theatre architect Bertie Crewe and the architectural firm Gunton & Gunton designed the new Tivoli Theatre. It opened on the 6th September 1923 with music hall artiste Little Tich and others appearing on the stage, before the main feature film Ramon Novarro in "Where the Pavement Ends". A deal had been done with Loew’s Inc., for the Tivoli Theatre to present exclusive runs of MGM films concurrent with their American release. The exterior of the building was imposing, but quite plain, and was treated in white Portland stone. Inside the auditorium, the seating was provided for 906 in the stalls, 637 in the circle and 572 in the balcony. The Tivoli Theatre became the first London cinema to screen proper sound films when in 1925 DeForrest Phonofilm shorts were screened. Also in 1925, it was taken over by MGM/Loew’s and became their showcase theatre. Ramon Novarro in "Ben Hur" was a big hit at the Tivoli Theatre, showing twice daily, it attracted audiences of 1,200,000 during its showcase premiere run in 1926. As newer cinemas opened around the Leicester Square area, the Tivoli Theatre gradually lost ground to screening first run films and closed on 25th June 1938. It re-opened in August 1938 as a second-run weekly change house. Closed ‘indefinitely’ from 30th September 1939 due to the beginning of World War II, it suffered severe bomb damage in 1941, and its basements were used as an air raid shelter. It was repaired and reopened on 22nd February 1943 with a premiere run of Tommy Handley in "It’s That Man Again". First run films then continued, sometimes playing concurrent with the New Gallery Cinema on Regent Street. From the early-1950’s it was linked with the Astoria Theatre, Charing Cross Road, playing pre-release ABC release films. The Tivoli Theatre was closed by the Rank Organisation on 29th September 1956 with John Mills in "The Baby and the Battleship" and Peggie Castle in "Oklahoma Woman". It was sold to Montague Burton and was demolished.

 

*******Located at 95 High Street, Harlesden, the Royal Oak Tavern and Railway Hotel, as it was originally known, was built circa 1880 when Harlesden was at its boom as a smart middle-class London suburb, replacing a building on the site from 1757. The two-storey building featured Venetian blinds and a huge gaslight outside. This in turn was replaced by today’s 1892 re-build. Designed in the baroque style, it is four-storeys in height, built of red brick with stone banding and features a lot of ornate stone detailing. The Royal Oak still features its original 1892 tiles in the hallway, which depicts a Parliamentarian trooper hunting for King Charles II after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. King Charles hid in an oak tree, hence the name Royal Oak. Between 1914 and 1926, the pub was licenced by Mr. George Whitehead (thus Ada’s conversation with Mr. Whitehead’s wife in the street).

 

********’Three Ages’ is a 1923 black-and-white American feature-length silent comedy film starring comedian Buster Keaton, Margaret Leahy and Wallace Beery. The first feature Keaton wrote, directed, produced, and starred in, Keaton structured the film like three inter-cut short films. While Keaton was a proven success in the short film medium, he had yet to prove himself as a feature-length star. Had the project flopped, the film would have been broken into three short films, each covering one of the ages. Three plots in three different historical periods—prehistoric times, Ancient Rome, and modern times (the Roaring Twenties)—are intercut to prove the point that man's love for woman has not significantly changed throughout history. In all three plots, characters played by the small and slight Buster Keaton and handsome bruiser Wallace Beery compete for the attention of the same woman, played by Margaret Leahy. Each plot follows similar "arcs" in the story line in which Keaton's character works for his beloved's attention and eventually wins her over.

 

*********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 ‘de leurs jours’ with the minutiae of life on them. This is because unlike today where mail is delivered on a daily basis or , 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. This means that people in the early Twentieth Century amassed vast collections of picture postcards which today are highly collectible depending upon their theme.

 

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:

 

Inside Ada’s basket and on the table around it there are various foods and cleaning agents which would have been household names in the 1920s, and some of which are still known today including Marmite, Ty-Phoo Tea, Bisto Gravy Powder, Bird’s Golden Raising Powder, P.C. Flett & Co Plum Jam, Robin Starch and Sunlight Soap. 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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Also in Ada’s basket are some very lifelike looking fruit and vegetables. The apples are made of polymer clay are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany. The leaves of lettuce are artisan made of very thin sheets of clay and are beautifully detailed. I acquired them from an auction house some twenty years ago as part of a lot made up of miniature artisan food.

 

Ada’s beaded handbag is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. Hand crocheted, it is interwoven with antique blue glass beads that are two millimetres in diameter. The beads of the handle are three millimetres in length.

 

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 foreground on the table are non-matching teacups, saucers and sugar bowl, all of which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. The Brown Betty teapot came from The Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

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 The Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

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).