cleaningcloth photos on Flickr

PADDY: "Oh the faerie tale tea set for such a formal occasion, I think. If you could ask Daddy to unpack it for us, please. Thank you Cousin Paddington."

COUSIN PADDINGTON: "I will. I think he has just put a cake in the oven."

SCOUT: "Did I hear cake, Cousin Paddington? Paddy, Jago, Cousin Paddington, look! It's sunny outside. Come play hide-and-seek in the garden with Bogart and me whilst it's still good weather."

PADDY: "Oh Scout and Bogart, we would love to, but we are rather busy at the moment."

BOGART: "Paddy, why are you polishing your good antique silver tea service and the tea spoons."

PADDY: "Well Bogart, you see we..."

SCOUT: "Paddy! Are those Daddy's special pearls?"

PADDY: "Yes, they are, Scout. I thought you might like to wear them."

SCOUT: "But it isn't my birthday or another special occasion, is it Paddy?"

PADDY: "Well, Scout, as I was just about to explain to Bogart, the reason why Daddy's pearls are out and I am cleaning the silver is because we have a very special guest coming for a visit."

SCOUT: "Oh! Is it the Christmas Bear, Paddy?"

BOGART: "It's only June, Scout! It can't be the Christmas Bear."

PADDY: "Bogart is right, Scout. It is the wrong time of year for the Christmas Bear to visit. He will be helping Father Christmas in the North Pole right now."

COUSIN PADDINGTON: "It's someone else of equal importance, Scout."

SCOUT: "Hhhmmm." *Ponders.* "Is it Daddy's Mummy? He always gets out nice china and silverware when she visits."

PADDY: "No, it isn't Daddy's Mummy, Scout."

JAGO: "But it is another nice lady from England."

BOGART: "Oh! Is it Mummy June? How exciting! I know you miss Mummy June, Jago."

JAGO: *A little sadly.* "No, it isn't Mummy June, but it is someone who is equally as important."

SCOUT: "I really can't think. Who is it who is coming visiting?"

PADDY: "Well, you know how there are big celebrations for The Queen in London because it is her Platinum Jubilee, Scout?"

SCOUT: "Oh yes! We have watched so much of the celebrations on the telly with Daddy: the Trooping of the Colour and the special Thanksgiving Ceremony. Today there are horsey races for The Queen."

PADDY: "Well, tomorrow Her Majesty Queen Lilibet is coming here to visit and stay for a little while. She is doing a Royal Tour of the Commonwealth, and that includes here."

BOGART: "The Bear Queen Lilibet is visiting, Paddy?"

PADDY: "Yes indeed Bogart!"

BOGART: "Oh how exciting, Paddy!" *Jumps up and down with excitement.*

JAGO: "Isn't it, Bogart."

PADDY: "So as a result of her impending visit, Daddy thought you might like to wear the pearls, Scout."

SCOUT: "Oh Paddy! That is soooo exciting!" *Trembles with delight.* "Do you think she might like me to perform for her, Paddy?"

BOGART: "Oh yes! The Great Scoutlova could perform for Her Majesty!"

COUSIN PADDINGTON: "And honoured guests, Bogart!"

BOGART: "Oh of course! That goes without saying, Cousin Paddington."

PADDY: "I think that sounds like a lovely idea, Scout. I'm sure Her Majesty would love to see you perform!"

SCOUT: "Oh goody!" *Jumps up and down with delight.* "Come on Bogart, forget about hide-and-seek. Come help me find my tutu! I need to practice. Goodbye Paddy, Jago and Cousin Paddington."

PADDY, JAGO and COUSIN PADDINGTON: "Goodbye Scout and Bogart." *Wave goodbye.*

2022 marks the year that Her Majesty The Queen will become the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee after 70 years of devoted and loyal service to her people.

Celebrations will be happening in Britain and around the world during the Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend which takes place from 2nd to 5th June, and that includes here! How very exciting!

God bless our Queen! Long may she reign over us!

This beautiful nursery tea set comprising of a tea pot, milk jug and sugar bowl are very Art Deco. They were obviously made for the child of a very wealthy family, as the set is made of very heavy sterling silver. The hallmarks on each piece (including on the inner lip of the teapot lid) indicates that it was made in Sheffield by the well known English silversmith James Dixon of James Dixon and Sons in 1921. The pot also features an ebonised finial and handle which are affixed with tiny sterling silver screws and wingnuts, just like a real teapot!

My Paddington Bear came to live with me in London when I was two years old (many, many years ago). He was hand made by my Great Aunt and he has a chocolate coloured felt hat, the brim of which had to be pinned up by a safety pin to stop it getting in his eyes. The collar of his mackintosh is made of the same felt. He wears wellington boots made from the same red leather used to make the toggles on his mackintosh.

He has travelled with me across the world and he and I have had many adventures together over the years. He is a very precious member of my small family.

Scout was a gift to Paddy from my friend. He is a Fair Trade Bear hand knitted in Africa. His name comes from the shop my friend found him in: Scout House. He tells me that life was very different where he came from, and Paddy is helping introduce him to many new experiences. Scout catches on quickly, and has proven to be a cheeky, but very lovable member of our closely knit family.

Travelling all the way from London, Cousin Paddington was caught in transit thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, so it looks like he is stopping with us for a long while. That makes me happy, as the more I look into his happy, smiling face, the more attached I am becoming to him.

Bogart has travelled all the way from Georgia, via Alabama as a gift to me from a friend. He has lovely Southern manners and seems to be a fun and gentle soul with an inquisitive nature.

Jago was a gift from a dear friend in England. He is made of English mohair with suede paw pads and glass eyes. He is a gentle bear, kind and patient who carries an air of calm about him. He is already fitting in with everyone else very nicely.

What Would She Think, do You Suppose? by raaen99

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

Today however we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid, is paying her usual weekly call on her beloved parents. 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 in 1922, Edith’s mother is only laundering a few days a week now. The money she makes from this endeavour she uses for housekeeping to make she and George’s life a little more comfortable, but she is able to hold a little back as pin money* to indulge in one of her joys, collecting pretty china ornaments to decorate their home with.

We are in Ada’s front parlour, which is where most of her decorative porcelain finds from different shops, fairs and markets around London are proudly displayed. With busy stylised floral wallpaper and every surface cluttered with ornaments, it can only be described as Victorian in style and it is an example of conscious consumption, rather than qualitative consumption, to demonstrate how prosperous the Watsford family is. Like many others of its kind in Harlesden and elsewhere in London, it is the room least used in the house, reserved for when special guests like the parish minister or wealthy old widow Mrs. Hounslow pay a call. Yet in spite of that, the front parlour’s clutter needs cleaning and dusting, and Edith is helping her mother do so today, all the while regaling her with the story about Lettice’s newest gadget, the wireless.

“Oh Mum!” Edith gushes enthusiastically, waving her dust cloth around animatedly. “It was amazing! It’s like having a whole band inside a little box!”

“As good as listening to the brass bands that play in the rotunda at King Edward VII’s Park**, Edith love?” Ada asks in amazement.

“Every bit as good as them, or the ones in Regent Park, Mum.”

“Well I never!” Ada pauses dusting a brightly painted bust of Queen Victoria on the parlour’s sideboard with her feather duster as she contemplates such a contraption. “Fancy that! A band in a box!” she gasps. “And you say it isn’t run by electricity then, Edith love?”

“No, it has a battery inside. That’s why it’s called a wireless, Mum.”

“Well, what won’t they think of next!”

“And the British Broadcasting Company*** plays news as well as music, every day.”

“Even on Sundays?”

“Even on Sundays, Mum. Miss Lettice says that I’m allowed to listen to it when I’m dusting the drawing room.”

“That’s very generous of Miss Chetwynd, Edith. I hope you said thank you to her.”

“Oh I did, Mum, but,” Edith pauses for a moment before continuing on a little more disappointedly. “Well, the broadcasts aren’t usually playing when I’m cleaning in there as it’s far too early. They only broadcast for a few hours a day, but Mr. Spencely, that’s Miss Lettice’s chap, says that will change once the wireless catches on. Besides, I don’t see why I can’t listen to it when Miss Lettice is out visiting or down in Wiltshire. What’s the harm?”

“Lucky Miss Chetwynd, and lucky you then, Edith love.”

“I didn’t think I’d take to it at first. We have enough contraptions in the flat, what with that awful telephone thing ringing away loudly day and night like the devil that it is.” Edith nods dourly.

“Well, those telephone contraptions are unnatural!” Ada frowns disapprovingly.

“That’s what I say, Mum.”

“Who needs a machine to talk into when it’s every bit as easy to send a postcard**** to convey your message? Not that it will because it’s just a toy for the toffs,” Ada scoffs. “But were that telephone thing ever to catch on, it would do our poor mailmen out of jobs.”

Edith looks across at where her mother, having picked up the feather duster, is cleaning again. As well as the bust of Queen Victoria there are commemorative plates marking the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897, coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1902 and King George V and Queen Mary in 1911, as well as a plate featuring King Edward VII which was present from her Aunt Maude to her mother when she took a holiday to Folkstone. “I wonder what she would think of it?”

“Who?” Ada asks, pausing and looking across at her daughter, dusting cloth in hand over the tea table.

“The old Queen, Mum. I wonder what she’d make of the wireless.”

“I wonder what the old Queen would make about a lot of things from the Twentieth Century.” Ada replies. “The world has changed so much, even in the last twenty-two years since she has been gone, god rest her soul. There’s motorcars and lorries replacing horse drawn carriages and carts, and electricity being used more often and by more people these days.”

“Not that you have it here, Mum.” Edith adds cheekily, pointing to the three burner gasolier overhead.

“I should hope not! It’s unnatural, just like the telephone.” Her eyes grow wide. “I’ll stick with what I know, thank you very much.”

“Well, I use electricity at Miss Lettice’s, and I did at Mrs. Plaistow’s, and it hasn’t done me any harm.”

“So you think!” Ada wags the feather duster at her daughter, a shower of dust motes flying angrily from her agitation, tumbling through the air of the parlour between them. “You don’t know yet. Some of these things take time to show any ill effects.” She sighs. “But I hope for your sake, not. But going back to the old Queen and the music in a box, I’d like to think she’d like it.”

“Do you think, Mum? She was such an old lady.”

“She wasn’t always an old lady, you know, Edith love! Like all of us, she was young once, too.”

“It’s hard to believe.”

“That’s because you were still a babe in nappies, not even one, when she died, so all you know are images of her late in life. Even when I was young, the Queen was still a distant figure, although she was popular around the time of her Diamond Jubilee. But you listen to my Grandma, your Great Grandma, and she’d tell you different. Before her husband died, the Queen was ever so interested in new things. She used to take the train, when it was new and experimental, all over the country, and she took up photography when it was new. So why shouldn’t she have been interested in the wireless box. Tell me, is it easy to operate?”

“Oh yes Mum!” Edith assures her mother. “There is a knob to turn it on or off, a knob to adjust the volume, and a knob to tune it in, but once you have the radio station, you don’t need to tune it again. It does make a nasty noise when you first turn it on, but that’s only because it has valves inside and they have tow arm up. That only takes a minute or two, and then you have beautiful music, or news reports or whatever.”

“Well, it does sound splendid, Edith love.”

“Frank says that eventually everyone will have a wireless.”

“Does he now, Edith love?” Ada says with a snort and a doubtful smile.

“He does, Mum!”

“He sounds like a bit of a dreamer, does your Frank.” Ada replies. “Not that there is anything wrong with having dreams, mind you. We all have to dream of something.”

“Yes but Frank says that now is the time for the working man, and woman too.”

“I say, Edith love,” Ada asks in a worried voice. “He’s not one of those Communists is he? You know, overthrow the King and government and create anarchy like they did in Russia with the poor Tsar?”

“No Mum!” Edith laughs. “Like I’d step out with a Communist. No, Frank just thinks with all the new inventions being developed, wages increasing and things getting a bit more affordable for everyone, that it’s a better time to be a working person.”

“Well, I have to agree that things are getting better for us as working people. We live better quality lives, but I don’t think it is ‘our time’ as you say he says. This wireless thing may be wonderful, but it’s a rich man’s toy, just like the telephone contraption.”

“He believes in the emancipation of women, Mum.” Edith adds hopefully.

“Ahh, now on that point I think your Frank and I agree. Which is more than can be said for her.” Ada taps the crown on the bust of Queen Victoria. “I’m glad your Frank believes in the vote for all of us. Let’s hope it happens in both our lifetimes.*****”

The two ladies carry on dusting in silence for a short while before Ada asks, “Thinking of Frank, are you any closer to meeting his grandmother?”

“I did mention it to Frank when we went down to the Angel down in Rotherhithe on New Year’s Eve, Mum.”

“And what did he say, Edith love?”

“Well, he told me that he’s told her about me.”

“That’s good.”

“He says that she might be a bit jealous of me usurping her.”

“Usurping her? What on earth does that mean, Edith love?” Ada asks in alarm. “It sounds like you’re trying to hurt her!”

“It means to take the place of someone.” Edith replies proudly. “Frank taught me that.”

“Did he indeed.” Ada cocks an eyebrow.

“Anyway, once she’s adjusted herself to the idea of me being in Frank’s life, he’ll ask me around for tea at her house in Upton Park.”

“And when’s that likely to be?” Ada asks with concern.

“In a few weeks Frank says.” Edith replies brightly. “She’s apparently already starting to come around to the idea.”

“Well that is good to hear, Edith love. I respect that your Frank wants to do things properly and introduce you to his family first, but your Dad and I are most anxious to meet him, you know.”

“Patience Mum! If I can wait, you can too. It will happen soon enough.”

“Enough of your cheek, young lady!” Ada retorts playfully. “I’ve the patience of a saint managing you and your brother when you were little!”

“We weren’t that bad, were we Mum?”

“Don’t you believe it! Your brother wanted to do anything his big sister did.” Ada chuckles, looking at the two family photos on the mantlepiece: one with George and Ada and Edith and one with the three of them and Edith’s little brother, Bert. Suddenly, she gasps. “I almost forgot! I got a letter from your brother the other day. It’s on the mantle in the kitchen. Goodness knows I’d forget my head if it weren’t screwed on!” She taps her head lightly three times with her fist. “It says he should be home soon, and he says he’s got something for you from his travels. Come on, Edith love. It’s time we had a nice cup of tea anyway. Let’s go read it over a pot, eh? Then we’ll come back and finish the dusting.”

Edith and Ada both put down their cleaning tools and laughing and continuing to chat jovially, they walk out of the front parlour and head down the short corridor to the kitchen at the back of the house.

*Originating in Seventeenth Century England, the term pin money first meant “an allowance of money given by a husband to his wife for her personal expenditures. Married women, who typically lacked other sources of spending money, tended to view an allowance as something quite desirable. By the Twentieth Century, the term had come to mean a small sum of money, whether an allowance or earned, for spending on inessentials, separate and in addition to the housekeeping money a wife might have to spend.

**King Edward VII Park is a large park in Willesden between Uffington Road, All Souls Avenue and Doyle Gardens. It features a large recreational ground, a sports ground, a rotunda, and although now gone, had one of London’s most popular lidos, an outdoor pool, which opened in 1911, with the adjoining chalet café.

***The British Broadcasting Company, as the BBC was originally called, was formed on the 18th of October 1922 by a group of leading wireless manufacturers including Marconi. Daily broadcasting by the BBC began in Marconi's London studio, 2LO, in the Strand, on November the 14th, 1922. John Reith, a thirty-three-year-old Scottish engineer, was appointed General Manager of the BBC at the end of 1922. Following the closure of numerous amateur stations, the BBC started its first daily radio service in London – 2LO. After much argument, news was supplied by an agency, and music drama and “talks” filled the airwaves for only a few hours a day. It wasn't long before radio could be heard across the nation, especially when radio stations were set up outside of London, like on the 6th of March when the BBC first broadcast from Glasgow via station 5SC.

****One hundred years ago, postcards were the most common and easiest way to communicate with loved ones not only across countries whilst on holidays, but across neighbourhoods on a daily basis with the minutiae of life on them. This is because unlike today where mail is delivered on a daily basis, there were several deliveries done a day. Postcards were cheap and plentiful, and readily available, so as long as you knew how to write and how to read, it was a cost effective way of communicating your intentions. At the height of the postcard mania in 1903, London residents could have as many as twelve separate visits from the mailman in a single day, excluding Sundays. This means that people in the early Twentieth Century amassed vast collections of picture postcards which today are highly collectible depending upon their theme.

*****It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over the age of twenty-one were able to vote in Britain and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men.

This cluttered sideboard may look realistic to you, however it is in fact made up of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my childhood.

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

The bust of Queen Victoria was made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. It has been hand painted by me.

The commemorative plates of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1902 and the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911 are all made by the British miniature artist Rachel Munday. The plate on the far left is a piece of souvenir ware from around 1905 and is made of very finely pressed tin.

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

The little white vase to the far right of the photo is mid Victorian and would once have been part of a tiny doll’s tea service. It is Parian Ware. Parian Ware is a type of biscuit porcelain imitating marble. It was developed around 1845 by the Staffordshire pottery manufacturer Mintons, and named after Paros, the Greek island renowned for its fine-textured, white Parian marble, used since antiquity for sculpture.

The ‘home sweet home’ embroidery and the painting on the wall come from online shops who sell dollhouse miniatures, as does the Art Nouveau vase on the left hand side of the picture.

The sideboard is a piece I bought as part of a larger drawing room suite of dolls house furniture from a department store when I was a teenager.

Mrs. Boothby the Matchmaker by raaen99

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

Today is Tuesday and we are in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve, except on Tuesdays, every third Thursday of the month and occasionally after a big party. That is when Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, comes from her home in Poplar to do all the hard jobs and Edith shares the space with her. Although this can be a bit of challenge, especially as Mrs. Boothby likes to smoke indoors, Edith is grateful that unlike her previous positions, she does not have to scrub the black and quite chequered kitchen linoleum, nor polish the parquetry floors, not do her most hated job, black lead the stovetop. Mrs. Boothby does them all without complaint, with reliability and to a very high standard. She is also very handy on cleaning and washing up duty with Edith after one of Lettice’s extravagant cocktail parties. Edith also has to admit that after her original reluctance, Mrs. Boothby has turned out to be rather pleasant company and the two have had many fine chats over time.

“Oh Mrs. Boothby, after you’ve finished polishing the floors in the drawing room this morning, would you mind laying down this sheet on the space behind Miss Lettice’s chair and the Chinese screen?” Edith pushes a neatly folded white sheet across the kitchen table to the old char.

“Why ‘ave I got to put dahn an old sheet for?” She looks perplexed at the pile of fabric before her. “Don’t Miss Chetwynd ‘ave enough rugs?”

“Oh yes, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith trys somewhat unsuccessfully to cover her amused smile. “It isn’t for that.”

“Then what’s it for, if you don’t mind me askin’?”

“It’s a drop sheet, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith elucidates.

“Oh. She getting’ painters in then? I bet I could find her cheaper ‘ouse painters than ooever she got. My Bruvver does a bit a ‘ouse paintin’, an I reckon ‘e does a very fine job ‘n all.”

“Oh no, Mrs. Boothby. Miss Lettice is going to paint a table today.”

“Paint a table?” The old woman looks queryingly at her younger counterpart. “Why? Ain’t it any good as is?”

“Apparently not, Mrs. Boothby. However, it isn’t for her. It’s for Miss de Virre, I mean, Mrs. Channon. It’s a table from her house in Cornwall.”

“Tartin’ up tables!” The old cockney woman tuts as she casts her eyes to the ceiling. “What them rich fancy folk won’t fink up next. I just throw an oilcloth over my table when I got friends comin’ for tea. That covers up the marks good and proper.”

“Oh no, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith explains. “Miss Lettice is going to redecorate it as part of her re-design of Mrs. Channon’s drawing room.”

“Well,” grumbles the old woman. “Whatever she’s doin’ it for, I hope she don’t get paint on my nice clean polished floors.”

“That’s what the drop sheet is for, Mrs. Boothby.”

“Ere dearie, pop the kettle on so as we can ‘ave a nice cup of Rosie-Lee** before I get started on the floors.” Mrs. Boothby says to Edith. “Washin’ floors can be firsty work for a woman, so best I get a cuppa before I start.”

“Yes, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies, lighting the gas ring underneath the bright copper kettle and walking over to the pine dresser to fetch two Delftware cups, saucers a milk jug and the sugar bowl.

Mrs. Boothby groans as she bends her wiry body to the floor to check what she calls her ‘Boothby boxes’, which are two boxes kept in the corner of the kitchen next to the dresser. One contains her scrubbing brushes, dustpan, and polishing rags, whilst the other contains a plethora of cleaning products.

“Ah,” the old Cockney woman mutters as she delves through the latter, metal cans clunking against one another as she does her inventory. “Pop Vim on the shopping list, will you Edith love. This can’s all but empty nah.” She continues fossicking. “Oh, and we need some more floor polish too.”

“Do you like that Kleen-eze Mr. Willison sent me last time, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks as she lays out the tea things on the deal kitchen table above the char’s head.

“It weren’t bad stuff, that. Yeah, ta. Get ‘him to get us some more of it if ‘e can.” The old woman affirms.

“I’ll see if Frank can get me some,” Edith says blithely, yet as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she realises her mistake as a frisson of energy electrifies the kitchen.

Edith likes Mrs. Boothby, but she knows that any news will soon be spread around Poplar and the surrounding area once Mrs. Boothby hears it. She and the other charwomen she knows run a very well informed gossip chain, and there is little Mrs. Boothby can’t tell Edith about the comings and goings on in the household of her former employer Mrs. Plaistow, thanks to her charwoman friend Jackie who does work for her and quite a few other houses in Pimlico, including that of Lettice’s former client, successful Islington Studios*** actress, Wanetta Ward. Edith, who is a little starstruck by the glamourous American, often gets tasty titbits of gossip about her from Mrs. Boothby thanks to Jackie who also cleans for her, however Edith does not fancy the shoe being on the other foot. However, as she turns back from fussing unnecessarily over the kettle, she sees it is too late. Mrs. Boothby’s pale and wrinkled face, framed by her wiry grey hair tied up in a brightly coloured scarf is paying close attention to the young maid. Her dark eyes are gleaming with delight, and she smiles like the cat who ate the cream.

“Oh!” she says with one of her bushy eyebrows arching upwards. “Frank now, is it?”

“Well I…” Edith stutters, her own pale cheeks growing warm as a blush fills them with colour.

“Yes my girl?” Mrs, Boothby asks, as with another groan she resumes her upright state. “And just when did Mr. Willison’s young delivery boy go from bein’ Mr. Leadbeater or bein’ Frank? Last I ‘eard, you weren’t interested in ‘im.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested in him, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith worries the blue rimmed edge of a saucer self-consciously. “I’d just never considered him as a prospect, is all. And I hadn’t Mrs. Boothby. Not until,”

“Yes,”

“Well, not until you’d mentioned it, Mrs. Boothby.”

“Aha!” the old cockney woman crows. “Ada Boothby does it again!”

“Does what, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks.

“Matchmakes, of course.” She smiles broadly, a glow of pride emanating from her slender figure in her grey dress and brightly printed cotton pinny. She rubs her careworn hands together with glee. “Oh I can’t wait to tell that damned Golda Friedmann dahn the end of my rookery****. She’ll be fit to be tied.”

“Wait!” Edith gasps, not understanding. “Who’s Golda Friedmann, and how she know about Frank and I? I don’t know her. She doesn’t work in the haberdashers in Poplar you sent me to.”

“Oh Lawd love you,” chortles Mrs. Boothby, the action resulting on one of her fruity hacking coughs that seem remarkably loud from such a diminutive figure. After catching her breath, she continues breathily, “She don’t know anyfink about you an’ your Frank.” She gulps again. “Nah! She’s the local matchmaker round our way, along with a few other Yids***** in Poplar. Goes around wiv ‘er nose in the air wrapped up in a fancy paisley shawl tellin’ folk she’s the one to match their son or daughter, like she was the Queen of Russia ‘erself.”

“Well she didn’t match me with Frank.” Edith says defensively.

“I know, Edith love.” Mrs. Boothby assures her with a calming wave of her hands.

“And nor did you, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith continues. “So I don’t see why you should feel so proud of yourself.”

“But you just said that if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t of considered ‘im!”

“Well,” Edith takes the kettle off the stove and pours hot water into the white teapot. “That’s true, but I’m the one that mentioned what you’d said to me about he and I on the night of Miss Lettice’s supper party for Mr. Channon and Miss de Virre.” She puts the lid on the pot with a clunk. “Err, I mean Mrs. Channon.”

Mrs. Boothby drags up a chair to the deal kitchen table and takes a seat, never taking her eyes off Edith’s face. “So ahh, when did you and Mr. Leadbeater, or should I say Frank, start, walkin’ out togevva?” She walks her index and middle finger across the clean table in front of her, as if to demonstrate her meaning.

“Only a few weeks now.” Edith admits with downcast eyes and a shy smile.

“A few weeks?” Mrs. Boothby gasps in outrage. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“I guess it just slipped my mind, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith defends herself, setting out the tea cups in the saucers, pushing one across to the charwoman. “What with one thing an another. Besides,” she adds. “I didn’t want to tell you unless I was sure. I wouldn’t want to go disappointing you if it all came to aught.”

“But nah fings is workin’ out for the two of you then?” Mrs. Boothby asks as she accepts the cup and saucer and reaches for the milk jug, slopping a good glug into the bottom of her empty cup******.

“We seem to have struck a nice rhythm, and Frank and I have a lot in common.”

“Oh that’s lovely to ‘ear, dearie.” the old woman watches as Edith pours tea into her cup. “I told you, youse was pretty, didn’t I?” She takes hold of the sugar bowl and greedily spoons in several heaped teaspoons of fine white sugar into her tea before stirring it loudly. “And you never knew ‘till I told you. So where’ve you been goin’? The ‘Ammersmith Palais*******?”

“Yes, we’ve been there a few times, along with my friend Hilda.”

“She’s the parlour maid from your Mrs. Plaistow’s isn’t she?” Mrs. Boothby asks, before adding unnecessarily, “The plain one.”

“Oh I wouldn’t call her plain, Mrs. Boothby!” Edith defends her friend hotly as she pours tea into her own empty cup, before then adding a dash of milk. “That’s most uncharitable.”

“I didn’t say that, Jackie told me when I mentioned to ‘er that you was still friends wiv ‘er from when you worked there togevva.”

“Oh yes, I remember Jackie,” Edith picks up her cup and sips her tea. “Always with an ear out for gossip.”

“We chars ‘ave to take our pleasures where we can get ‘em, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says with a slightly haughty tone as she slurps her own tea loudly. “Bein’ a char is ‘ard graft day in, day out. And you can ‘ardly take the moral ‘ighground, what wiv you askin’ me about the goings on at Miss Ward’s, nah can you?”

Edith, suitably chastened, remains silent, her lack of response serving as an affirmation of the old Cockney’s statement.

“Anyway, I might never ‘ave met your ‘Ilda, but I bet she’s not a patch on you deary, what wiv your peaches n’ cream complexion and beautiful hair. What you got natural from God, so many women I know get from lotions and potions. Nah wonder Frank was nervous ‘bout askin’ you to step out wiv ‘im. Youse a real catch Edith love.”

“I never said he was nervous, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith giggles.

“But ‘e were, weren’t ‘e?” The old woman chuckles knowingly as she cradles her warm cup in both her hands. “All little boys what fink they’re big men, get nervous round a pretty girl.”

“Well,” Edith admits. “Maybe just a little.” Then she adds, “But I was nervous too.”

“Well, that’s nice, dearie. Youse just enjoy bein’ young an’ ‘appy togevva.” The old woman gazes into the distance, a far away look sodtening the sharpness of her gaze and the squareness of her jaw as her mouth hangs open slightly. She stays that way for a moment or two before she regains her steely composure and sharp look. Turning back to Edith she says, “Nah, ‘ow does this sound, Edith love? Mrs. Ada Boothby, Matchmaker and ‘Igh Class Char? That would shove it right up that uppity Golda Friedmann and ‘er matchmaker friends!”

“Oh Mrs. Boothy!” Edith giggles.

*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.

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

***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.

****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.

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

*******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.

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.

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

In front of Mrs. Boothby’s box is a can of Vim with stylised Art Deco packaging and some Kleeneze floor polish. Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight. Kleeneze is a homeware company started in Hanham, Bristol. The company's founder, Harry Crook, had emigrated to the United States with his family several years earlier, and whilst there joined Fuller Brush as a sales representative. He returned to Bristol several years later, and started a business making brushes and floor polish which were sold door-to-door by salesmen. Technically Kleeneze didn’t start until 1923, which is one years after this story is set. I couldn’t resist including it, as I doubt I will ever be able to photograph it as a main part of any other tableaux. Thus, I hope you will forgive me for this indulgence.

In the box are two containers of Zebo grate polish, a bottle of Bluebell Metal Polish and a can of Brasso. Zebo (or originally Zebra) Grate Polish was a substance launched in 1890 by Reckitts to polish the grate to a gleam using a mixture that consisted of pure black graphite finely ground, carbon black, a binding agent and a solvent to keep it fluid for application with a cloth or more commonly newspaper. Brasso Metal Polish is a British all-purpose metal cleaning product introduced to market in 1905 by Reckitt and Sons, who also produced Silvo, which was used specifically for cleaning silver, silver plate and EPNS. Bluebell metal cleaning products were a household name in the 1920s and 1930s after the business was incorporated in 1900.

The tin buckets, wooden apple box, basket, mop, brush and pan are all artisan made miniatures that I have acquired in more recent years.

Cleaning Silver for the Soirée by raaen99

44 70

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. Two of Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie of bright young things are getting married: Dickie Channon, eldest surviving son of the Marquess of Taunton, and Margot de Virre, only daughter of Lord Charles and Lady Lucie de Virre. Lettice is hosting an exclusive buffet supper party in their honour at the end of the week, which is turning out to be one of the events of the 1921 London Season. Over the last few days, the flat has been in upheaval as Edith and Lettice’s charwoman* Mrs. Boothby have begun cleaning the flat thoroughly in preparation for the occasion. Things have been so tumultuous that Lettice has decamped and fled to Margot’s parents’ house in Hans Crescent in nearby Belgravia. This leaves Edith with a little more time to do the chores that need doing in the led up to the party, without having to worry about Lettice’s needs.

Whilst Edith awaits the arrival of Mrs. Boothby, she takes advantage of the beautiful morning and gathers pieces of silverware from around the flat and sets them up on her green baize cloth in the middle of the kitchen table where a pool of beautiful sunlight pours through the kitchen window. She takes out her tin of Silvo silver polish paste and her cleaning rags and sets about polishing each piece. Taking up one of the tall, elegant candlesticks that sit on either end of the console in the dining room Edith applies the paste with a small brush and then proceeds to wipe it with her cloth, burnishing away any sign of golden tarnish until the piece gleams in her hands. She sighs with satisfaction as she sets it aside where it winks and shines in the sunlight.

“A job worth doing is a job well done.” she says quietly as she grasps the next candlestick.

Edith is grateful that unlike her previous positions, she does not have to scrub the black and quite chequered kitchen linoleum, nor polish the parquetry floors, not do her most hated job, black lead the stovetop, as Mrs. Boothby does them all without complaint, with reliability and to a very high standard. However, unlike the butler of the townhouse in Pimlico where she held her last position, Edith doesn’t mind polishing silver. She finds it more gratification in seeing the silver pieces shine, whereas for her a floor is just that – a floor. The items she polishes have elegant lines like the Georgian water jug and the Edwardian sugar castor, and in some cases, like the avant-garde Art Deco decanter and goblet set, are artisan pieces purchased by her mistress from the Portland Gallery in Soho. Putting aside the second candlestick, Edith reaches out and picks up one of the goblets from the drinks set. They each have several bands around the cup and have a sturdy weight to them. Applying Silvo paste she starts to hum ‘Look for the Silver Lining’**.

“Morning dearie!” Mrs. Boothby calls cheerily as she comes through the servants’ entrance door into the kitchen, a fruity cough that comes from deep within her wiry little body and her footfall in her low heeled shoes announcing her presence just as clearly as her greeting. “Oooh. Someone’s cheery today. Meetin’ a sweetheart this afternoon, are we?”

“Good morning Mrs. Boothby,” Edith replies without getting up from her Windsor chair. “No, I’m not meeting anyone this afternoon. I just happen to enjoy cleaning the silver.”

The older cockney woman shirks off her long dark blue coat and hangs it on the hook she has claimed as her own by the door. “You what?” Her eyes bulge from her wrinkled face as her mouth falls open in surprise.

“I enjoy cleaning silver.” Edith reiterates, holding out the half polished goblet. “See how nicely it burnishes up.”

Mrs. Boothby recoils from the proffered goblet with a disdainful look as she turns and hangs her pre-war blue toque up on the hook too. “Nah, just let me rest me weary bones for a few minutes before I start, Edith love!”

“There’s tea in the pot by the stove, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith indicates with a movement of her head to the stove behind her. “I’ve only just finished my own so it’s still warm and not too steeped.”

“Aah, nah that’s the ticket!” Mrs. Boothby drops her beaded bag on the table with a thud before bustling over to the dresser where she withdraws a Delftware teacup and saucer. “I’m parched after me trip up from Poplar this mornin’! Tottenham Court Road was a sewer of traffic! I swear I’m gonna get ‘it by a crazy cabby or lorry driver one a these days! Now, I’ll just sit ‘ere and ‘ave a reviving cup of Rosie-Lee*** and a fag before I get started.”

“What are you going to do this morning?”

“Give Miss Lettice’s barfroom a good scrub ‘n polish.” She pours tea into her cup and then walks over to the food safe where she takes out a pint of milk and adds it to her tea. “’Er makeup don’t half leave marks. Lawd knows ‘ow she gets that muck off ‘er face.” She shakes her head in disbelief.

“Snowfire Cold Cream.” Edith replies matter-of-factly as she puts aside the gleaming goblet and sets to task on an ornate Georgian lidded serving dish which has been borrowed from Glynes**** silver selection for the soirée.

“You know, in my day, a lady what painted ‘er face was, well, a you-know-what.” The old Cockney charwoman’s eyebrows arch over her eyes, wrinkling her forehead more as she gives Edith a knowing look.

“Yes, well, this is the 1920s, and some ladies paint their faces now.” Edith starts applying Silvo paste to the crimped edge of the serving dish’ lid. “It’s quite fashionable these days you know.”

“Don’t I evva!” Mrs. Boothby utters another barking cough. “It’s indecent the way some girls dress an’ paint their faces nowadays. Not that Miss Lettice is one of ‘em girls. She’s got a bit of class what does our Miss Lettice,” She pauses. “But only just.”

“My poor Mum would be horrified if I came home on my day off wearing makeup.” Edith remarks. “She might even take to scrubbing my face rather than the linens she has to wash.”

Both women chuckle lightly at the thought as they exchange smiles.

“Nah, you don’t need no makeup Edith, love! Youse pretty as a picture, you are, wiv your peaches ’n cream complexion. Youse a right English rose!”

“That’s very kind of you to say so, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith blushes awkwardly at the compliment from the old woman and busies herself even harder with burnishing the lid on the green baize before her.

Mrs. Boothby 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 reaches over to the deal dresser and grabs a small black ashtray. Lighting her cigarette with a satisfied sigh and one more of her fruity coughs, she wanders over to the open window with her cup of tea in one hand, the ashtray in the other, and her cigarette between her teeth. She deposits the ashtray and her cup and saucer on the wide window ledge.

“You must be the only maid in London, what likes cleanin’ silver, dearie.” she observes as she blows a plume of blueish white smoke out of the window. “How can you get pleasure from cleanin’ somethin’ that’s just gonna get tarnished again?”

“Well, don’t you take pleasure from seeing the drawing room floor beautifully waxed, or the bathroom clean?”

The wry laugh that erupts from Mrs. Boothby’s ends up morphing into more barking, fruity coughs. “Good lawd, no!” She wipes her mouth with a cleanly laundered handkerchief from her pocket. “It’s the same! No sooner are them floors polished, than some la-di-dah toff comes along wiv their dirty boots traipsing muddy prints all over ‘em.” She shakes her head. “Nah! What I take pleasure from, is the thought of the bunse I get skivvying, and what I’m gonna do wiv that bunse.”

“Bunse, Mrs. Boothby?”

“Money, Edith love. Money!”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, it’s the bunse wot get me frough cleanin’, scrubbin’ and skivvying all day, ev’ry day. Do you fink any of the toffs at this party is gonna look at the candlesticks you just polished and fink of the elbow grease you put into makin’ ‘em shine? No!”

“Oh I know, Mrs. Boothby. I don’t expect them to.” Edith replies. “But I’ll know. I want to do my job to the best of my ability. Mum always taught me, and Dad too, that any job doing, is worth doing right. If Miss Lettice or any of her friends notice the nicely polished silver, even if I never hear about it, that is an added bonus.”

Mrs. Boothby shakes her head in mild disbelief. “Youse too good for any of ‘em, dearie.”

“It’s funny you should say that, Mrs. Boothby. It’s what I keep telling Mum about old Widow Hounslow. I told her just the other week that she was too good for her when she told me that she was monogramming the nasty old so-and-so’s pillowcases.”

“Like mum, like daughter, then.” the older Cockney woman observes with a long and noisy slurp of tea.

“I suppose,” Edith smiles shyly.

“’Ere! Thinkin’ of your mum.” Mrs. Boothby points her smoking cigarette end at Edith. “Did she like the teapot you bought ‘er dahwn the Caledonian Markets**** then?”

“Oh yes!” Edith deposits the nicely polished ornamental lid onto the green baize. “Of course, she did exactly what I told you she would do.”

“Keepin’ it for good?”

“She says she’ll use it on Christmas Day when my brother Bert and I are home.”

“Well, Christmas Day is as good a day to use it as any, ‘specially if you and your bruvver is comin’ ‘ome. Better use it once a year, than not at all. Eh?”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“Course I’m right.” Mrs. Boothby remarks with a satisfied smile, before taking another loud slurp of tea from her cup.

The two women remain in comfortable silence for a little while, each lost in their own thoughts, whilst outside the quiet kitchen, the constant burble of distant London traffic coming Mortimer and Regent Streets and the occasional twitter of a bird carries across the rooftops of Mayfair.

“Well, this ain’t gonna get the barfroom done, nah is it?” the old Cockney char remarks at length with a resigned sigh. She stubs out the butt of her cigarette in the ashtray where it is extinguished with a hiss and a final long curl of blueish white smoke. Downing the last of her tea, she thrusts herself forward forcefully, causing another of her rasping coughs to burst forth from within her diminutive frame.

“Just leave your cup and saucer in the sink, Mrs. Boothby, and I’ll wash it when I’ve finished polishing.” Edith remarks as she picks up a silver spoon to burnish.

“Alight dearie.” she replies. “Ta!”

Depositing the cup and saucer as instructed, the char reaches down below the sink to fetch her box of cleaning agents.

“When you’ve finished the bathroom, let me know, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith adds. “And we’ll borrow the caretaker’s ladder so we can dust and polish the crystal on the chandeliers in the drawing room and dining room.”

“Right-oh, dearie.” she replies.

As Mrs. Boothby is about to walk through the green baize door that leads from the kitchen into the dining room of the flat, Edith pipes up, “I do think of the wages I earn too, Mrs. Boothby.”

“I should ‘ope so, dearie!” she replies with a smile. “I’s glad to ‘ear it though.”

“And why is that?” Edith deposits the spoon and picks up another to apply Silvo paste to.

“Cos, for a minute there I fought I was workin’ wiv a bloomin' saint!” Her smile changes, betraying her cheeky nature as her eyes light up. “Gawn!”

After the old woman has disappeared through the door with her cleaning box, Edith smiles and starts humming ‘Look for the Silver Lining’ again as she picks up another goblet to polish.

*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.

**’Look for the Silver Lining’ was a popular 1919 song written by Jerome Kern, popularised by singer Marion Harris in 1921.

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

****Glynes is the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, the childhood home of Lettice and the current home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie.

***** 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 selection of silver for Edith to polish 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.

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

All of Edith’s silver to clean are 1:12 artisan miniatures. The pair of candelabra at the end of Edith’s deal table are sterling silver artisan miniatures from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. The silver drinks set and tray is made by artisan Clare Bell at the Clare Bell Brass Works in Maine, in the United States. Each goblet is only one centimetre in height and the decanter at the far end is two- and three-quarter centimetres with the stopper inserted. The sugar castor of sterling silver is one and a half centimetres in height and half a centimetre in diameter. It has holes in its finial actually and actually comes apart like its life size equivalent. The finial unscrews from the body so it can be filled. I am told that icing sugar can pass through the holes in the finial, but I have chosen not to try this party trick myself. A sugar castor was used in Edwardian times to shake sugar onto fruits and desserts. Georgian water jug, the salt and pepper in the foreground and the two Georgian lidded serving dishes were made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.

The green baize cloth on the table is actually part of a green baize cleaning cloth from my linen cupboard, and Edith’s sliver cleaning rag is cut from one of my own old Goddard silver cleaning cloths. The Silvo Silver Polish tub was made by me, and the label is an Edwardian design. Silvo was a British silver cleaning product introduced to market in 1905 by Reckitt and Sons, who also produced Brasso. Silvo has a Royal Warrant.

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.

On the left hand draining board of the sink in the background stands a box of Sunlight soap. Produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories, Sunlight was one of the most popular brands of soap created by Lever Brothers in England. Port Sunlight also produced the popular soap brands Lux, and Lifebuoy. Sunlight Soap was first introduced in 1884.

To the left of the sink is the food safe with a mop leaning against it. In the days before refrigeration, or when refrigeration was expensive, perishable foods such as meat, butter, milk and eggs were kept in a food safe. Winter was easier than summer to keep food fresh and butter coolers and shallow bowls of cold water were early ways to keep things like milk and butter cool. A food safe was a wooden cupboard with doors and sides open to the air apart from a covering of fine galvinised wire mesh. This allowed the air to circulate while keeping insects out. There was usually an upper and a lower compartment, normally lined with what was known as American cloth, a fabric with a glazed or varnished wipe-clean surface. Refrigerators, like washing machines were American inventions and were not commonplace in even wealthy upper-class households until well after the Second World War.

An Accidental Discovery by raaen99

45 32

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 have left the hustle and bustle of London, travelling southwest to a stretch of windswept coastline just a short drive the pretty Cornish town of Penzance. Here, friends of Lettice, newlyweds Margot and Dickie Channon, have been gifted a Recency country “cottage residence” called ‘Chi an Treth’ (Cornish for ‘beach house’) as a wedding gift by the groom’s father, the Marquess of Taunton. Margot, encouraged by her father Lord de Virre who will foot the bill, has commissioned Lettice to redecorate a few of the principal rooms of ‘Chi an Treth’. In the lead up to the wedding, Lord de Virre has spent a great deal of money making the Regency house habitable after many years of sitting empty and bringing it up to the Twentieth Century standards his daughter expects, paying for electrification, replumbing, and a connection to the Penzance telephone exchange. Now, with their honeymoon over, Dickie and Margot have finally taken possession of their country house gift and have invited Lettice to come and spend a Friday to Monday with them so that she might view the rooms Margot wants redecorating for herself and perhaps start formulating some ideas as to how modernise their old fashioned décor. As Lettice is unable to drive and therefore does not own a car, Margot and Dickie have extended the weekend invitation to one of their other Embassy Club coterie, Lettice’s old childhood chum, Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. Gerald owns a Morris*, so he can motor both Lettice and himself down from London on Friday and back again on Monday.

After the retirement of the housekeeper, Mrs. Trevethan, from the main house to the gatekeeper’s cottage, the quartet of Bright Young Things** find themselves alone in the sprawling double storey Regency residence of white stucco with ample time on their hands owing to a lack of distractions beyond what parlour games from the Nineteenth Century they found mouldering in the games room cupboard. Encouraged by the consumption of several bottles of French champagne before, during and after dinner, Lettice, Margot, Dickie and Gerald have embarked upon a game of sardines*** after Lettice suggested them playing it earlier in the day. An old house, new to them all, full of wonderful nooks and crannies is too much of a temptation not to play the game. So far Gerald has been found hiding behind an old oriental screen in one of the disused bedrooms and Margot inside the capacious, if slightly musty, interior of an empty wardrobe. Lettice was the last of them to find Margot, so it is her turn to hide and await the other three sardines to seek her out.

Abandoning the ideas of the disused bedrooms upstairs, Lettice has returned to the ground floor of ‘Chi an Treth’ in search of a much better hiding place. Seeking out the service entrance, she quietly pushes open the green baize door studded with dull brass tacks. Like all the other doors and windows of ‘Chi an Treth’, it groans on its hinges, but gives way easily, leading Lettice into the servants’ quarters of the house with its white painted walls and bare lightbulb utilitarian décor. She is about to go into the kitchen to seek out the pantry or a dry store cupboard when her eye catches a narrow wooden door standing partially ajar at the end of a rather short corridor with no other doors off it and only a small bench for furniture.

“Perfect!” she breathes with excitement, scuttling along the old, worn flagstone floor, her louis heels clicking loudly. “Shhhh!” she hisses at them in her slightly inebriated state. “You’re sure to give me away if I don’t hurry!”

Unusually, the door opens outwards, and unlike the green baize door, whilst it does creak, its groaning protests are far quieter than its counterparts. Slipping inside, Lettice finds the light pull cord and with eyes closed, yanks on it, hoping that this rather out-of-the-way store cupboard has been electrified. Her wishes are granted as with a click and the almost imperceptible buzz of electricity, the room is suddenly flooded in a soft golden light from a naked bulb above. A small flurry of dust motes disturbed into the air are illuminated in the glow.

“Oh bully for Lord de Virre!” Lettice exclaims, clasping her elegant hands in delight. “Thank goodness he insisted the service area of the house was electrified as well as the living areas.”

Happy with her choice of hiding place, Lettice settles to await for the others to find her out and sardine with her.

Figuring it will take a little while for her friends to find her and finding sitting in one spot doing nothing rather boring, Lettice decides to explore her cupboard hiding place more thoroughly. She works out quickly that it must be a storage room for things for the nearby dining room as there are stacks of neatly folded table linens on the lower shelves. There are also interesting odd pieces of various dinner sets including tureens without lids, jugs, bowls and stacks of mismatched plates.

“Hhhmmm. No longer usable, but evidently too good to throw away.” she remarks as she picks up a blue and white sugar bowl without a lid bearing a pretty floral pattern. She turns it over in her hands thoughtfully. “This must be Regency era. I wonder if the old captain himself used this.”

Putting it back, she continues to explore, finding incomplete canteens of cutlery, lacquered stands for vases and bowls and boxes of any amount of different cleaning agents from different eras of the house’s history. Lettice quietly wonders whether there are cupboards like this at Glynes**** and if so, what she might find in them.

“Perhaps my own family’s long lost portrait,” she remarks aloud, even though there is no one to hear her. Peering curiously into a Huntley and Palmer’s***** biscuit box full of age discoloured napkins she adds, “Not that we have one that I know of.”

Stepping back, she suddenly discovers that the pale blue satin front of her bodice has come away with dust from the Huntly and Palmer’s box.

“Oh no!” she exclaims, batting at the sooty looking smears with her hands. “Oh, Gerald will kill me if I ruin one of his dresses!”

Unwilling to pull out any of the neatly folded table linens on the lower shelves out and sully them for fear of Mrs. Trevethan’s wrath if she is in fact the regular user of them, Lettice begins to fossick for alternatives to dust down her gown and manage, if not eradicate, any marks on her bodice. Forgetting the box of old linen napkins in her panic, she searches the shelves high and low for a cloth of some kind.

It is then that she spots a muslin cloth which looks quite clean dangling from a stack on an upper shelf. Lettice stretches up, but isn’t quite tall enough to reach it, even when she stands on her toes. She jumps up but misses it. She jumps again and feels the fabric teasingly caress her fingertips like a light breeze. She jumps a third time, and this time catches the fabric between her right index and middle fingers. Locking them tightly, she lands on the ground again, but doesn’t realise that by doing so she is also bringing with her the rest of the pile as well as the cloth, and down it comes, colliding crashing, making such a din that Lettice screams in fright, adding to the discordant cacophony as wood splinters, newspaper crumples and china shatters over the unforgiving flagstone floor.

The little broom cupboard is plunged into a thick silence in the immediate wake of the accident. Standing with her back against a shelf, Lettice is momentarily shocked into stillness before her body starts to react to the near miss of the shower of objects that now lie smashed and broken across the ground, as opening her tightly clenched eyes she starts to tremble and then sob.

“Lettice! Lettice!” Dickie cries are heard getting closer and closer to her hiding place along with the thunder of his approaching footsteps as he bursts into the cupboard. His eyes widen at the carnage of splintered porcelain, pottery and glass across the floor along with shattered pieces of wood. As he takes it in, he looks over at his friend, dusty and sobbing, but apparently unharmed. “Lettice dear girl! Are you alright?”

It is like the floodgates open with his words and Lettice stumbles across the broken items into Dickie’s arms and cries, uttering great juddering sobs as she clings to him.

“There, there, old girl,” Dickie soothes reassuringly, running his hands over Lettice’s blonde hair as she buries herself into his chest. “It’s alright. You’re alright. No harm done. You’ve just had a bad fright is all.”

“Lettice!” Gerald’s voice calls anxiously as his running steps grow louder before finding Dickie and Lettice on the threshold of the store cupboard. “Lettice are you alright? Answer me.”

“Shh. Shh.” Dickie mutters. “It’s alright old girl.”

“Oh my god, Lettice!” Margot gasps, appearing at the door. “Dickie! Dickie, is she injured? Oh! I’ll never forgive myself if she’s been hurt.”

“It’s alright darling, it’s fine Gerald.” Dickie assures them. “Lettice just had a rather nasty fright and a near miss is all.” He sways gently, rocking Lettice slowly as she continues to cry, only with less force now as she starts to calm down. Looking over his shoulder at his wife’s face, looking even more pale than usual against her dark hair he says, “Go fetch the brandy from the drawing room would you, my love?”

“Of course! Of course!” Margot replies breathlessly as she turns to leave.

“And for god’s sake, don’t run Margot. Just walk.” he chides as she goes. “We don’t want you turning an ankle on the flags to top it all off.”

“What happened?” Gerald asks, looking at the mess lying across the ground and the swirl of dust motes dancing in the golden light cast by the naked lightbulb above as it gently circles above.

“I’d say a few boxes went for a tumble, dear boy.” Dickie observes. “But there’s been no harm done to Lettice here. Now has there?” He directs his last comment to the young lady in his arms.

“Which is more than I can say for the captain’s old dinner service.” Gerald remarks, bending down and picking up a chunk of white pottery by its brightly painted handle. “What a mess you’ve made Lettuce Leaf.”

Sniffing, Lettice releases herself from Dickie’s arms and wipes her eyes with the back of her now rather grubby hand, smearing kohl across her cheek. “Don’t… don’t call me that, Gerald,” she says in a breaking voice. “You know I don’t like it.”

Gerald smiles gratefully firstly at her and then at Dickie. “No,” he smirks. “No harm done to Lettice.”

“Here’s the brandy,” Margot calls, appearing at the door clutching the crystal decanter from the drawing room and a faceted glass tumbler.

“Capital, my love.” Dickie says gratefully.

Gerald takes them from Margot and pours several large slugs of brandy into the tumbler and hands it to Lettice, who takes it in both of her still slightly trembling hands and raises the glass to her quivering lips.

“I say old girl,” Dickie pipes up cheerfully in an effort to break the tension. “I always took you for being an expert at playing sardines!”

“Yes darling,” Gerald adds. “You know that you’re supposed to let us find you, not alert us of your hiding place by creating a ruckus.”

“Or a mess,” Lettice snuffles. Looking down at the broken pieces she notices what is left of an old pendulum wall clock amongst the debris, it’s glass face covering shattered and its hands telling the incorrect time of ten past ten, no doubt never to move again. “Oh, I am sorry Dickie.”

“Come, come!” Dickie replies, placing a caring arm around his friend’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter about that. They’re just things. So long as you’re not hurt.” He smiles at her. “That’s what’s important.”

“Oh but Mrs. Trevethan!” Lettice protests. “She already has so much to do, looking after us and keeping the house tidy without this!” She extends a hand to the debris at her feet.

“Oh, pooh Mrs. Trevethan!” Margot replies, walking into the storeroom. “They don’t call this a broom cupboard for nothing!” She goes to a corner of the room which has remained undisturbed and pulls out a handmade birchwood broom and a metal bucket. “I’ll clean this up.” She looks over at Gerald, lolling languidly against the door frame holding the decanter of brandy. “And Gerald will help me, won’t you Gerald?”

“What? Me?” Gerald’s eyes grow wide as he looks back at Margot in shock as she withdraws a dustpan and brush. “But… but I’m a guest.”

“And such a helpful guest too,” Margot answers back in honeyed tones. “He designs frocks and sweeps floors.” She thrusts the dustpan and brush out to him forcefully. “What more could a hostess ask for?”

“But.. but what about Dickie?” he splutters.

“Dickie is playing nursemaid to Lettice,” she replies matter-of-factly. “So he’s got his hands full.”

“Evidently so have I.” Gerald replies glumly as he begrudgingly accepts the dustpan and brush from Margot.

Lettice giggles, but quickly smothers it with her hand as she receives a glare from her childhood friend.

“That’s better!” Dickie smiles. “Now, you just come out here, and we’ll leave Margot and Gerald to this.” He ushers Lettice out of the cupboard. “There’s a little seat out here in the hallway.”

The pair sit down on the small wooden bench in the hallway and watch in silence as Gerald and Margot start sorting things.

“Well, I don’t think this will ever go again.” Gerald chuckles as he picks up the wall clock and leans it against a corner of the shelves atop a stack of flour bags, its springs and cogs protesting metallically with its movement.

“If it even was going before, Gerald.” Margot replies. “I think our Mrs. Trevethan is a little bit of a hoarder, with so much space to store things and the run of the house her own until now.” She considers and assesses the mess on the floor with her left hand resting on her hip as she clutches the broom, looking a peculiar sight dressed in an elegant deep blue satin evening frock and high heels whilst holding it. “Now, any broken bits of wood can go into here.” She puts down a metal bucket. “And we’ll use it for firewood. And any broken glass and porcelain can go here.” She places a second bucket next to the first. “And I’ll get Mrs. Trevethan to deal with it in the morning.”

“I say,” Gerald remarks as he leans over a cracked square of wood and some discoloured tissue paper. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?” Margot asks as she starts sweeping broken pieces of pottery and shards of glass into a pile.

“This.” Gerald replies as he starts to move the splintered piece of wood.

“Gerald now isn’t a time for playing,” Margot says exasperatedly as she leans on the broom handle. “We’ll never get this cleaned up by breakfast time if you insist on fiddling with everything. Let’s just tidy this up. It won’t take long!”

“No!” protests Gerald, transfixed by what he has found. “I’m serious.”

“So am I, Gerald.” grumbles Margot.

Not hearing her querulous remark, he ignores her, and he moves closer to the pile of wood. “It looks like an old frame.” He shifts the wood aside. “A gilded frame.”

“Houses like this are full of old frames, Gerald,” Dickie calls from his seat on the bench next to Lettice where he cradles her with one arm, and the decanter of brandy in his other hand. “You know that. We English never like to throw away anything that might be of service at a later date.”

“No, this is different. It’s a beautiful frame. It must have been boxed up as it’s in splendid condition.”

Outside the store cupboard, Lettice and Dickie hear Margot’s broom cease its gentle swishing as the pair in the storeroom cease speaking.

“Margot? Gerald?” Dickie calls. “Are you alright?”

When no answer is forthcoming, both he and Lettice pick themselves up off the bench and walk to the door of the storeroom.

“I say you two,” Dickie continues. “What is going on here?” He looks at his wife and friend who are standing in the middle of the space, staring at the gilded frame as it gleams in the light, nestled comfortably amid a bed of crumpled tissue paper. His eyes widen.

“What is it, Gerald?” Lettice asks.

Gerald turns around and stares at Lettice, a look of amazement on his face. “See for yourself, darling.” he breathes.

Lettice looks at the painting inside the frame. Looking out from behind a thin layer of protective glass, a young lady with dark curls shaped into a stylish fashion by a host of red ribbons gazes over the bare shoulder. Two ropes of pearls hang about her elongated neck. However, it is her face, beautiful and radiant, with a knowing smile and soulful brown eyes that follow you about that catches her own eyes. She gasps.

“Lettice, dear girl,” breathes Dickie softly. “I think you may have inadvertently discovered the long lost Winterhatler****** of ‘Chi an Treth’.”

*Morris Motors Limited was a privately owned British motor vehicle manufacturing company established in 1919. With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris's business continued to grow and increase its share of the British market. By 1926 its production represented forty-two per cent of British car manufacturing. Amongst their more popular range was the Morris Cowley which included a four-seat tourer which was first released in 1920.

**The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.

***Sardines is an active game that is played like hide and go seek — only in reverse! One person hides, and everyone else searches for the hidden person. Whenever a person finds the hidden person, they quietly join them in their hiding spot. There is no winner of the game. The last person to join the sardines will be the hider in the next round. Sardines was a very popular game in the 1920s and 1930s played by houseguests in rambling old country houses where there were unusual, unknown and creative places to hide.

****Glynes is the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie.

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

******Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805 – 1873) was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865).

This cluttered storage space full of interesting remnants of times past may not be all that it first appears, for this scene is made up of items from my miniatures collection, including pieces that I have had since I was a child.

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

The lost Winterhalter painting of ‘Chi an Treth’ in its gilded frame is a 1:12 artisan piece made by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

The pendulum wall clock behind the frame I have had since I was a young child. It was either a Christmas or a birthday gift, but I cannot remember which.

The tin buckets, mop and birchwood broom are all artisan made miniatures that I have acquired in more recent years.

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

The table linens on the bottom right-hand shelves are all 1:12 size miniatures with beautiful tint stitching to finish each piece off. They were acquired from Michelle’s Miniatures in Sydney.

The porcelain jugs, bowls, tureens, plates and cups all come from different eBay online sellers.

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

In front bottom right hand corner of the photo is a can of Vim with stylised Art Deco packaging. It was made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, as was the box of Sunlight soap in the small tin bucked to the right of the photograph. Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight. Kleeneze is a homeware company started in Hanham, Bristol. The company's founder, Harry Crook, had emigrated to the United States with his family several years earlier, and whilst there joined Fuller Brush as a sales representative. He returned to Bristol several years later, and started a business making brushes and floor polish which were sold door-to-door by salesmen. Technically Kleeneze didn’t start until 1923, which is two years after this story is set. I couldn’t resist including it, as I doubt I will ever be able to photograph it as a main part of any other tableaux. Thus, I hope you will forgive me for this indulgence.

On the shelf to the left of the photograph is some Zebo grate polish made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Zebo (or originally Zebra) Grate Polish was a substance launched in 1890 by Reckitts to polish the grate to a gleam using a mixture that consisted of pure black graphite finely ground, carbon black, a binding agent and a solvent to keep it fluid for application with a cloth or more commonly newspaper.

The tin buckets, wooden apple box, basket, mop, brush, pan and birchwood broom are all artisan made miniatures that I have acquired in more recent years.

2015_141 by B*lly Frank

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A Butler’s Work is Never Done! by raaen99

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Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.

Today we are below stairs in the Butler’s Pantry. Lord Southgate is hosting a small dinner for some of the members from the House of Lords this evening: influential men whom he hopes to curry favour with in order to pass a private member’s bill regarding the city’s parks and gardens. This means extra work for Withers the Butler. Whilst Cook enjoys herself as she prepares a fine repast for the gentlemen in the adjoining kitchen, Withers busies himself with one of his most hated jobs: cleaning the silver, which is in need of a good polish. Having selected the wine for the dinner and pulled out Lady Southgate’s modish new tea service for an expected afternoon caller, he can now set about polishing the silver. He has laid out the green baize, fetched his cleaning cloths and withdrawn the container of Silvo Silver Cleaning Paste from beneath the Butler’s sink.

The theme for the 17th of April “Looking Close… on Friday” is “Candle Holder”, and the four examples of candle holders sitting on the table waiting to be polished seemed the perfect choice for the theme. The three prong candelabra is an artisan piece of sterling silver made in Berlin and is actually only 3 centimetres in height and 3 centimetres in width. The two Victorian candlesticks are also artisan pieces of sterling silver made in England and are only 2 ½ centimetres in height and ½ a centimetre in width at the base. The avant-garde Art Nouveau candlestick in the form of a woman with foliate decoration is also an artisan piece of sterling silver made in America and is 3 centimetres in height and ½ a centimetre in width at the base. These are part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood including the pair of silver Victorian candlesticks and the 1:12 wax candles in the foreground, which I was given as part of my tenth birthday present. The other two candle holders I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.

The Butler’s Pantry is situated on the ground floor of Wickham Place, adjunct to the magnificent formal dining room and adjoining the Wickham Place kitchens. The Butler’s Pantry is the preserve of Withers as Butler to Lord and Lady Southgate, and it is well appointed. It has a white enamelled Butler’s sink and deep cupboards to house the necessary glassware and china such a fine house requires. You can just see some of the gilt white Paragon dinner service in the cupboards to the right, and some of Lady Southgate’s new Royal Doulton tea service on the right of the Butler’s sink. On the left of the Butler’s sink stand several bottles of wine: a German Moselle, a French Burgundy and a French champagne chosen by Withers from Lord Southgate’s cellar. The silver on the table consists of a Georgian and an Edwardian lidded serving dish, a Georgian tea caddy, an Edwardian sugar caster, mustard pot and pepper pot (part of a larger cruet set) two Victorian single candlesticks, a three prong Edwardian candelabra and a very avant-garde Art Nouveau candlestick in the form of a woman with foliate decoration. Once shone to a gleam with the aide of Silvo Silver Cleaning Paste and his blue silver cleaning cloths, Withers can replace the spent candles with fresh Price’s Carriage Candles from the box. The gold plate and the silver, both in use and on display in the house, would have been fetched by Withers from Wickham Place’s strong room.

Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:

The silver on the table includes a Georgian and an Edwardian lidded serving dish, a Georgian tea caddy, an Edwardian sugar caster, mustard pot and pepper pot (part of a larger cruet set) two Victorian single candlesticks, a three prong Edwardian candelabra and a very avant-garde Art Nouveau candlestick in the form of a woman with foliate decoration. All the pieces are sterling silver miniatures and are copies of genuine articles. All are made by artists in England except the three prong candelabra and the sugar castor which are German and the Art Nouveau candlestick in the form of a woman with foliate decoration who is American made. The sugar castor of 1 ½ centimetres in height and half a centimetre in diameter in the foreground with its holes in its finial actually comes apart like its life size equivalent. The finial unscrews from the body so it can be filled. I am told that icing sugar can pass through the holes in the finial, but I have chosen not to try this party trick myself. A sugar castor was used in Edwardian times to shake sugar onto fruits and desserts.

The box of Price’s Carriage Candles contains twelve artisan made wax candles like the two in front of the box. The design of the box is Victorian. Price’s was established in 1830 and still exists today. They received the Royal Warrant to Queen Victoria after making Sherwood candles for her wedding. By 1900 they were the largest manufacturer of candles in the world, producing 130 differently named and specified sizes of candles. They supplied candles for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Phillip Mountbatten in 1947 and received the Royal Warrant of Queen Elizabeth II after supplying candles for her coronation in 1953.

The green baize cloth on the table is actually part of a green baize cleaning cloth from my linen cupboard, and the two sliver cleaning rags are cut from one of my own old Goddard silver cleaning cloths. The Silvo Silver Polish tub was made by me, and the label is an Edwardian design. Silvo was a British silver cleaning product introduced to market in 1905 by Reckitt and Sons, who also produced Brasso. Like Price’s Candles, Silvo also has a Royal Warrant.

The dresser on the far right of the picture contains a gilt white china dinner service for eight. On display you can see some plates, a coffee pot and a gravy boat.

The Butler’s sink is littered with interesting items. On the far left is a sterling silver biscuit barrel based on a Victorian design. There are also three bottles of wine: a German Moselle, a French Burgundy and a French champagne. There is also the sucrier (lidded sugar bowl) which is part of a set which also appears to the right of the sink. That set is hand painted and gilded and is based on a Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. Near the taps is a box of Sunglight soap and a jar of Vim, both cleaning essentials in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight. Sunlight Soap was first introduced in 1884.

What Lettice Found at Wanetta Ward’s Flat by raaen99

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

Today however we are not in Lettice’s flat. Instead, we have followed Lettice south-west, through the neighbouring borough of Belgravia to the smart London suburb of Pimlico and its rows of cream and white painted Regency terraces. However, Lettice is not standing before one of these, but before a smart red brick Edwardian set of three storey flats on Rochester Row. Looking up, Lettice admires the red and white banding details of the building, macabrely known after the Great War as ‘blood ‘n’ bandages’ stripes. The beautiful façade features bay windows and balconies with ornate Art Nouveau cast iron balustrades. One of them is now the residence of recently arrived American film actress Wanetta Ward.

Approaching the front door Lettice sees the newly minted shiny brass plaque amongst those of the residents with Wanetta’s name emblazoned on it in neat, yet bold, engraved letters. She pushes open the heavy black painted front door with the leadlight windows and walks into the deserted communal foyer and takes the stairs up to flat number four, her louis heels echoing loudly throughout the cavernous space illuminated by a lightwell three floors above. Stopping on the first floor landing before a door painted a uniform black, but without the leadlight, bearing the number four in polished brass, she presses the doorbell.

From deep within the flat the sound of a bell echoes hollowly, implying what Lettice hopes – that the flat is now empty of its previous resident’s possessions. She waits, but when no-one comes to open the door, she presses the doorbell for longer. Once again, the bell echoes mournfully from deep within the flat behind the closed door. Finally, a pair of shuffling footsteps can be heard along with indecipherable muttering and a familiar fruity cough as the latch turns.

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

“Well, as I live an’ breave!” she exclaims in return with a broad and toothy smile. “If it ain’t Miss Lettice! G’mornin’ mum!” She bobs a curtsey. “You must be ‘ere to see Miss Ward. C’mon in.”

Lettice walks through the door held open by Mrs. Boothby and steps into a well proportioned vestibule devoid of furnishings, but with traces of where furniture and paintings once were by way of tell-tale shadows and outlines on the floor and walls.

“Come this way, mum. She’s just through ‘ere in the drawin’ room.” Mrs. Boothby says, leading the way, her low heeled shoes slapping across the parquetry floors.

“But how is it that you are here, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice asks in bewilderment.

“Well, you know ‘ow I ‘as me friend Jackie, what cleans for you when I’s sick?” Lettice nods pointlessly to the back of the old woman’s head, but she continues as if sensing it through the rear of her skull. “Well, she got this cleanin’ job to tidy up after the last man up an’ left, and couldn’t do it on ‘er own, so she asked me to ‘elp. So ere I is, and we is just in ‘ere.”

The pair walk through a door into a light filled room devoid of furniture except for an old chair without its cushioned seat and two rather imposing built-in bookshelves either side of an old white plaster fireplace. A second charwoman is busy sweeping up the broken fragments of an old blue and white bowl with her dustpan and broom and depositing them into an old wooden crate that must once have held apples according to the label. The room is silent, but for the sound of sweeping and the clatter of crockery shards, and the sounds echo throughout the empty space. In the world outside Lettice can hear the clatter of horses hooves and the purr of a motor cars from street below. Lettice immediately spots Wanetta’s lucky pink hat covered in silk flowers hanging off the back of the solitary chair and her brass handled walking stick that she uses for affect leaning against it. And there, silhouetted against the light pouring through the bay window overlooking Rochester Row stands the elegant and statuesque figure of Wanetta Ward, the morning highlighting the edges of her hair in auburn.

“S’cuse me mum, I’s gotta get back to me dustin’.” Mrs. Boothby says as she goes over to the fireplace and picks up a feather duster.

“Miss Chetwynd, darling!” Miss Ward exclaims with delight, spinning elegantly around and striding towards Lettice with open arms.

Lettice allows herself somewhat awkwardly to be enveloped by the American’s overly familiar perfumed embrace. Dressed in a smart black suit, Lettice notices the accents of pink that match Wanetta’s lucky hat on the collar of her jacket and the hem of her calf length skirt.

“How do you do Miss Ward.”

“Oh, just tickety-boo**, I think you British say.” Miss Ward enthuses. “Except you’re still calling me Miss Ward, and not Wanetta, like I told you to.” She wags a grey glove clad finger at Lettice.

“I think,” Lettice remarks, carefully choosing her words but speaking firmly. “That would add a certain… overfamiliarity to our professional relationship. I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“Oh you British are such stuffed shirts***,” Miss Ward flaps her arms dismissively at Lettice. “But have it your own way. So,” She spins around, stretching out her arms expansively in a dramatic pose. “What do you think?”

Lettice looks around at the spacious room. “It’s very elegantly proportioned from what I’ve seen so far.”

“So, do you think it will suit a young up-and-coming film star?”

“I take it the screen test went well then, Miss Ward?” Lettice smiles at her hostess.

“Meet Islington Studio’s**** newest actress!” the American woman exclaims with a cocked manicured eyebrow as her painted pink lips curl in a proud smile.

“Congratulations Miss Ward! That’s wonderful news!”

“Thank you, darling. I play my first part next week.”

“Excellent! I shall look forward to hearing more as the weeks go by.”

“You mean?” Miss Ward gasps, clasping her hands in hope. “You’ll take me on?”

“I think so, Miss Ward.” Lettice replies. “It will be quite fun to have a completely clean slate to work with.”

“Oh, you darling, darling girl!” Miss Ward jumps up and down on the balls of her feet in delight.

Mrs. Boothby’s friend Jackie looks up from her floor polishing and discreetly shakes her head at the American woman’s dramatic outburst.

“Miss Ward, tell me about the treatment you were hoping for in here.” Lettice asks, looking around at the old fashioned flocked wallpaper.

Miss Ward starts to stalk around the room. “Now, I want colour, darling! My favourite colour is yellow, so I was thinking yellow vases, lamps, glassware, that sort of stuff.”

“I see,” Lettice listens attentively, nodding. “I can see if my Italian contacts can find some nice Murano glass for you.”

“Excellent! Excellent!” The American claps her painted fingers in delight. Gesticulating energetically around the room to imaginary tables and pedestals she adds, “And remember, I want oriental too!”

“I have an excellent merchant right here in London who imports the most wonderful items from the far east. You might even find you possess a little piece of Shanghai, Miss Ward.”

“Sounds perfect, darling! Now, I was thinking that with these bookcases pulled out, this will make a wonderful wall for vibrantly coloured wallpaper.” She stretches her arms dramatically in two wide arcs, as if representing the daring colour that she envisages in her mind. “Something with a bold pattern.”

“And how does your new landlord feel about you having these bookshelves removed?”

“Oh! Captain Llewellyn? He won’t mind, so long as I smile prettily and bat my eyelashes enough.” the American woman giggles.

“That’s not Captain Wynn Llewellyn, by chance, is it Miss Ward?”

“Why yes darling!” She beams another of her bright smiles. “Do you know him?”

“Yes, Miss Ward. He’s a family friend.”

“Gosh! What a small world!”

“Too right it is!” pipes up Mrs. Boothby from in front of the bookshelves she is busily dusting, whilst carefully eavesdropping on every word in the conversation between the two ladies. “She knows me ‘n all!”

“You do?” Miss Ward gives the old charwoman a doubtful look and then Lettice a questioning one.

“Mrs. Boothby cleans for me every week, Miss Ward.” Lettice elucidates.

The American nods. “Well, a girl like you must know everyone there is to know in London, darling.”

Lettice blushes at the candid remark and looks away, hiding her embarrassment whilst she composes herself. “Well, at least in this case I know your landlord, so there shouldn’t be any trouble with removing the bookshelves. Now, I must say that with such wonderful light in here, I really do think you’ll need some white to offset the bold colours you want.”

“White?” Miss Ward whines. “But I just said I want colour. No white!” She pouts her lips petulantly, which silently Lettice admits gives her a smouldering look which perhaps explains how she succeeded with her screen test. “White is so… so… white, and boring.”

“It won’t be boring the way I use it, Miss Ward, I can assure you.” Lettice wanders over to the fireplace, carefully and politely avoiding the area that Mrs. Boothby’s friend Jackie just polished. Picking up a small white vase sitting on the mantlepiece she continues, “You need something to temper bright colours. If I am to be your interior designer, Miss Ward, you are going to have to trust my judgement.” She turns the vase over in her hands thoughtfully. “I promise you that I won’t lead you astray.”

“Alright,” Miss Ward replies, looking doubtfully at Lettice. “But not too much white.”

“With bold colours and patterns, dark furnishings, some golden yellow elements and white accents as I suggest, your flat will exude elegance and the exoticism of the orient,” Lettice purrs reassuringly, replacing the vase on the mantlepiece. “Just as you desire.”

“Well…”

“Where will you be staying whilst your flat is redecorated, Miss Ward?” Lettice boldly speaks over Miss Ward, swiftly crushing any disagreement.

“At the Metropole***** near the Embankment.”

“Excellent. What I will do is create some sketches for you with my ideas for your interiors and then we can meet at the Metropole for tea, in say a week or so. Then you can see my vision and you may pass your judgement.”

“Very well, darling.” the American woman replies meekly.

“Wonderful!” Lettice smiles happily. “Now, you’d best show me around the rest of the flat so I can envision what it could look like. It’s quite inspiring, you know!”

“Then please, step this way and I’ll show you my future boudoir.” Miss Ward says, suddenly regaining her confidence and sense of drama. Purposefully, she strides towards the drawing room door, indicating for Lettice to follow her with a flourishing wave that is fit for a rising film star with the world at her feet.

As Lettice moves to join her newest client on a tour of the rest of the flat, she stops short and turns back.

“Oh Mrs. Boothby.”

“Yes mum?” the old Cockney woman asks.

“Please don’t dispose of that vase. Just leave it on the mantlepiece if you would.” She points across the room to the vase sitting forlornly. “I have plans for it.” she muses quietly.

*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.

***The phrase “stuffed shirt” refers to a person who is pompous, inflexible or conservative.

****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.

***** Now known as the Corinthia Hotel, the Metropole Hotel is located at the corner of Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall Place in central London on a triangular site between the Thames Embankment and Trafalgar Square. Built in 1883 it functioned as an hotel between 1885 until World War I when, located so close to the Palace of Westminster and Whitehall, it was requisitioned by the government. It reopened after the war with a luxurious new interior and continued to operate until 1936 when the government requisitioned it again whilst they redeveloped buildings at Whitehall Gardens. They kept using it in the lead up to the Second World War. After the war it continued to be used by government departments until 2004. In 2007 it reopened as the luxurious Corinthia Hotel.

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

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

The Chippendale dining room chair is a very special piece. Part of a dining setting for six, it came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying from which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The chair is taken from a real Chippendale design.

Wanetta’s lucky pink hat covered in silk flowers, which hangs of the back of the chair on the right is made by Miss Amelia’s Miniatures in the Canary Islands. It is an artisan miniature made just like a real hat, right down to a tag in the inside of the crown to show where the back of the hat is! 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. Miss Amelia is an exception to the rule coming from Spain, but like her American counterparts, her millinery creations are superb. Like a real fashion house, all her hats have names. This pink raw silk flower covered hat is called “Lilith”. Wanetta’s walking stick, made of ebonized wood with a real metal knob was made by the Little Green Workshop in England.

In front of the basket is a can of Vim with stylised Art Deco packaging and some Kleeneze floor polish. Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight. Kleeneze is a homeware company started in Hanham, Bristol. The company's founder, Harry Crook, had emigrated to the United States with his family several years earlier, and whilst there joined Fuller Brush as a sales representative. He returned to Bristol several years later, and started a business making brushes and floor polish which were sold door-to-door by salesmen. Technically Kleeneze didn’t start until 1923, which is two years after this story is set. I couldn’t resist including it, as I doubt I will ever be able to photograph it as a main part of any other tableaux. Thus, I hope you will forgive me for this indulgence.

In the basket is a second can of Vim with slightly older packaging, some Zebo grate polish and a can of Brasso. Zebo (or originally Zebra) Grate Polish was a substance launched in 1890 by Reckitts to polish the grate to a gleam using a mixture that consisted of pure black graphite finely ground, carbon black, a binding agent and a solvent to keep it fluid for application with a cloth or more commonly newspaper. Brasso Metal Polish is a British all-purpose metal cleaning product introduced to market in 1905 by Reckitt and Sons, who also produced Silvo, which was used specifically for cleaning silver, silver plate and EPNS.

The tin buckets, wooden apple box, basket, mop, brush, pan and birchwood broom are all artisan made miniatures that I have acquired in more recent years. Sadly, the broken bowl is a result of an accident, which is unusual for me. When this bowl arrived it was wrapped in a small sealable plastic bag which slipped from my fingers and the blue and white porcelain bowl shattered on my slate kitchen floor where I unpack my parcels! I kept it as a reminder to be careful when unpacking my miniature treasures. Don’t worry, I have a replacement bowl which I am very careful with.

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

The little white vase on the mantlepiece is mid Victorian and would once have been part of a doll’s tea service. It is Parian Ware. Parian Ware is a type of biscuit porcelain imitating marble. It was developed around 1845 by the Staffordshire pottery manufacturer Mintons, and named after Paros, the Greek island renowned for its fine-textured, white Parian marble, used since antiquity for sculpture. The vase and a matching jug I picked up as part of a job lot at auction some years ago.

The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster.

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

Big Bear ready for work! Maybe? by Dilys Anne Kevan

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BIG BEAR: Tuesday 13th is unlucky in Spain (not that I'm superstitious, we also say that being superstitious brings bad luck! Haha!) Anyway they say that if it is a Tuesday and the 13th you shouldn't embark or get married, but it says nothing about washing windows! Well I have been curious for a long time about what the Lovely Linda can see from the windows so I clambered up and the answer is NOT MUCH!! But I did see they were dirty so I got down and clambered back up fully equipped! However once I got Dilys to take my photo as a witness of my good intentions I decided this was a very precarious situation for plump, not as young as I used to be, bear!) I've decided to leave such household tasks to Dilys! When she can get around to it!

DILYS: I'm making no promises!!!

Packung mit 10 Favorit Autotüchern by altpapiersammler

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Ein Produkt der vereinigten Papierwerke Nürnberg, Ansicht der Vorder- und Rückseite der Verpackung aus Transparentpapier.

Photo 167/365 - Knackered by Aerokev

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Photo 167/365 - 16 June 2010.

A very time poor day but at least it was more positive than yesterday.

This was a quick shot from my Plan B bucket, didn't have any time or much light to work with. About a month ago I posted this photo of Danbo coming home late. This was the "punishment", that she had to help me clean my car and you can see it was exhausting work!

Thanks everyone for continuing to look and comment on my photos while I post and do a runner. Tonight I am scoffing my dinner and rushing off to badminton. Semi-final showdown against the team we beat last year in the grand final. It is against the captain I detest the most as she has been for years leveraging her position on the committee to cheat and penalise us. She had the gall to openly talk in front of us about a month ago, trying to plot ways to penalise us if we get into the finals! Seriously!

My Shooting Set : 撮影道具 by Toshihiro Gamo

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Shooting set of if I ride a bike to go to take the flowers and insects. Two DSR lens is a single-focus lens and a long telephoto zoom lens. Wide-angle shooting I do in the RX100.

Bag: Lowepro Inverse 100AW

Camera: Nikon D5100, SONY Cyber-Shot DSC-RX100

Lens: TAMRON SP 70-300mm F / 4-5.6 Di VC USD (Model A005), Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f / 1.8G

Accessories: close-up lens No.1, No.3, No.10, PL filter

Other: cleaning cloth, blower, etc.

However, when the Kasamu shooting equipment, I carry in a backpack.

would explain why it is heavy by tmv_media

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Camera bag & current contents...

Bag: LowePro Flipside AW400

Contents:

Sony SLT-A77V with vertical grip

Sony A550 with vertical grip

Sony 28-75mm f/2.8 lens

Sony 100mm f/2.8 macro lens

Sony 500mm f/8 lens

Sony 70-300mm G series lens

Sony 18-55mm kit lens

Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens

Polaris light meter.

Sony GPS

Survival blanket

Maglite, with long lanyard

Cokin filters system & 3 filters. 2x B+W 10 stop ND filters, 2x circular polarising filters, other filters.

Cable release

Sony DSC-TX5 + spare battery

old business cards

Sony HVL-AM42 flash

2 refuse sacks (for very very wet days)

flash diffuser

cleaning cloth

bag for memory cards

pens

sufficient memory cards for most trips.

bootlace & mini-karabiners

alpkit head torch

spray diffuser bottle with water & 10% glycerine

Solution 30 lens cleaner

giottos blower

Just the essentials.......

Lonely Laundry by Russ Allison Loar

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Cleaning cloths by Martijn van Veelen

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Woordfoto: doeken

Cleaning rag by michael_hamburg69

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Putzlappen

Somebun was feeling very curious by Evelien

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No seafood. by Dietmar Vollmer

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Nicht essbar.

15|52: zwei_unverzichtbare_begleiter - two_vital_accessories by Queen Breaca (on ipernity)

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KW 15: Fotografie

Die kleine G12 ist immer dabei - auch wenn ich die "große" Ausrüstung gepackt habe, steckt sie in einem Seitenfach. Sie macht gestochen scharfe Bilder (im RAW-Format), hat eine akzeptable Makro-Funktion, ein dreh- und schwenkbares Display, dazu noch diverse Gimmicks (z. B. ein Fisheye-Effekt-Verzerrprogramm, braucht mensch nicht, ist aber lustig), kurz: sie macht einfach Spaß. Und das Leica-Putztuch ist unverwüstlich - absolut fusselfrei, sehr strapazierbar, kann mehrfach in die Waschmaschine gesteckt werden, hält jahrelang - das einzige , was es nicht kann, ist sich von selbst melden, falls ich mal vergessen habe, es einzupacken, deshalb muss ich immer mindestens zwei davon haben.

This photograph or any part of this photograph may NOT be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (on websites, blogs) without prior permission. Use without permission is illegal.

Reading Glasses by Mr.TinMD

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Recently, I've been having trouble reading small print, in low-light situations. I've always had perfect vision, in contrast with my dental and other issues, so it was quite a shock when an optometrist told me I needed reading glasses due to Presbyopia. The thought of aging-related vision problems was depressing enough, and I didn't want to buy those glasses they sell at CVS, so I did some research and bought a pair online that I thought looked decent, Seattle Eyeworks 812. They came with a cleaning cloth that doubles as an eye chart. Whoa, I can see things close up again! This should improve my typing accuracy on the Blackberry. Fortunately, beyond about 14" my vision is still excellent without glasses, but I'll probably eventually need prescription eyeglasses of some kind.

Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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What's in my bag (04-19-2011) by Sean Davis

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Jonodesign meets Oger - Tablet Cloth + Pochet by Jonodesign

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Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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Glasses by Jo Zimny Photos

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The Flickr Lounge-Shelter

They gave me a new glass case to keep my glasses safe!

Picked these up at the optometrist this morning. I've been waiting for a long time for a new pair of glasses. These are similar to my others but a much nicer model! They have transition and anti-glare features which are a must here in the sunny southwest.

08 - January - 2013: Jujube by Ash if

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Very small but very tasty.

Jonodesign Tablet Cloth – Agrahove – design by PeachBeach by Jonodesign

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Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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My first Nikon by Roger Smith

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I finally bought my first piece of Nikon equipment. I wanted to post a photo of it becusae I knew it would be a proud moment for Doc!

All joking aside, it is a pretty cool little unit. It's a micro-fiber cleaning cloth that tucks neatly away in the little black neoprene case and then clips onto anything convenient. I bought it after destroying a multi-coated filter by cleaning it with my glove in the snow last week.

Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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257 2019 coffee morning, then more cleaning by Margaret Stranks

I had to help with the village coffee morning today, as there were a few of the other committee members away. At first we thought no-one was coming, but by 11am there was a good enough crowd - including a couple of new people, which is always good. Afterwards, Mike was feeling a bit chesty and had a bit of vertigo, so he didn't accompany me to Bicester to help with the house move etc. I didn't see R & C at all (but was sent a gorgeous photo of C!), as they were at the old house, while K was doing painting, and I was doing cleaning at the new house. It was a lovely sunny day, but not too hot, so very pleasant. I used up this bottle of Cif - which was left when Mum died in 2015. She bought it on 4th June 2010, as you can see by the date written on in chinagraph pencil! Mum always did that with her shopping, so she knew when she had bought things, and when they might be out-of-date. Not sure that Cif would ever 'go off' but I guess it just became a habit. Anyway, happy memories of my lovely mummy, and nice to think of her contributing to cleaning her granddaughter's new house!

Harga dan Spesifikasi Huawei Mate 40 yang Baru Meluncur by Fitness Microfiber

Huawei telah resmi meluncurkan smartphone seri Mate 40 terbarunya secara global pada Kamis (22/10). Ada empat varian Mate yang diluncurkan oleh Huawei, yakni Mate 40, Mate 40 Pro, dan Mate 40 Pro+, serta unit khusus kerja sama dengan Porsche, yakni Mate 40 RS.

see more :

www.cnnindonesia.com/teknologi/20201023082122-185-561810/...

Sedia berbagai produk Microfiber

kunjungi : www.microfiber.mipacko.com

tokopedia : www.tokopedia.com/mipacko

or

admin@mipacko.com

Telp : 0822 1768 0990 / 0878 2287 6296

Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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Daily Inspiration by Jonodesign

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7 Cara Menghilangkan Lemak di Wajah dan Bikin Pipi Tirus by Fitness Microfiber

Sedia berbagai produk Microfiber

kunjungi : www.microfiber.mipacko.com

tokopedia : www.tokopedia.com/mipacko

or

admin@mipacko.com

Telp : 0822 1768 0990 / 0878 2287 6296

Day 027 - Perfume - The Story of a Murderer by Tonka 3000

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I got the perfect idea from a movie I saw some days ago. I went home and clubbed my girlfriend to death with a stick, then smeared fat all over her body and then wrapped her up in linnen cloth. After that I destilled her and her lovely smell into a little bottle, the one I'm holding on this picture.

She smells great! Yeeey....

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Cleaning cloth by Cheryl Colan

This cleaning cloth stayed in the box and has never been used, except to hold the phone while the protective film was applied on day one. Listed on eBay

Scratched Records by Carter Collectables

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W H Smith Anti-Static Cleaning Cloth

Please feel free to copy and re-publish this image - as long as you play nicely and give us credit and a link to www.cartercollectables.co.uk - please see www.flickr.com/photos/cartercollectables/collections/7215...

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