French postcard by Editions Lyna, Paris, offered by Corvisart, Epinal, no. 2085. Photo: Sam Lévin.

 

French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she became an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.

 

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying to launch a modelling career and found herself on the cover of the French magazine Elle in May 1949. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.

 

Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the shooting of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at that time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.

 

Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.

 

Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career

Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.

 

Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.

 

Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."

 

Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

A family of ducks swam into view while I was try to get a few decent shots of the smaller, faster birds....at least this fellow had the decency to pose for me ;-)

 

Taken at the Adriana Hess Wetland Park in University Place, Washington, USA

 

Thank you everyone! You helped this photo make Explore on May 10th 2007!

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 at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is visiting her family home for Christmas and the New Year. She motored down to Wiltshire with her 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. The Christmas tree, cut from the grove of trees on the Glynes estate, adorned with its gold tinsel, satin bows and shiny glass baubles still stands amidst all the grand gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings of the drawing room: a remnant of the family Christmas, the gaily decorated presents that sat beneath its boughs are but a joyful memory from Christmas Day now, and the tree will be taken down by Bramley, the Chetwynd’s faithful butler and several of the Glynes’ maids tomorrow for Twelfth Night*. Lettice’s sister, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), is also staying at Glynes with her own family, but has gone to visit locally living friends with her husband, Charles, and their three children. However, Lettice’s Aunt Eglantyne, the younger artistic spinster sister of the Viscount (known affectionately as Aunt Egg by all her nieces and nephews), remains at Glynes for the day along with Lettice. The Viscount and Lady Sadie, Leslie and Arabella, and Eglantyne are all gathered in the drawing room at the behest of Lettice, who has mysteriously announced that she has some important news to share, but will divulge nothing more.

 

“Where the devil is she then?” asks the Viscount irritably as he sits on an upright gilt salon chair embroidered with fine petit point by his mother, his arms folded akimbo across his chest. “The bloody cheek of her!”

 

“Language, Cosmo.” chides Lady Sadie from her seat across the fire from him, her usual place in the Glynes drawing room, where she quietly sits and embroiders some roses on a piece of linen stretched across her embroidery hoop.

 

“Well!” blusters the Viscount. “I think I have a right to be irked, Sadie. Lettice goes on about wanting to make some important announcement, telling us we all need to be present, being irritably mysterious about it,” He unfolds his arms and gesticulates before him. “And then she doesn’t even have the decency to show up at the time she asks us all to be here. Leslie and I need to be attending to the estate, not pandering to her and playing her silly games!”

 

“Pappa is right. It is rather selfish of Tice, Mamma.” Leslie adds in a slightly kinder, yet serious tone, uncharacteristically critical of his youngest sibling. “The estate doesn’t stop just because it’s New Year, and Pappa and I have business at Willow Wood Farm, and that’s on the far side of the estate.”

 

“If Lettice says it’s important, it’s important, Cosmo dear.” Eglantyne insists coolly from her seat on a sofa, toying distractedly with the long black glass bead sautoir** cascading down the front of her dramatic russet coloured Delphos gown***, her usual choice of frock, as she flips through Lady Sadie’s latest copy of Horse and Hound****. “She isn’t prone to over dramatisation.”

 

“No, but she does enjoy being the centre of attention.” mutters the Viscount.

 

“Wherever might she get that from?” Eglantyne asks rhetorically as she looks up at her brother from over the top of the magazine, watching him redden, bluster and shift uncomfortably in his seat under her astute observations, causing her to smile behind the pages of equestrian events held up in front of her.

 

Lady Sadie glances at the delicate Dresden china clock on the drawing room mantle. “I’m as put out as you Cosmo. Arabella and I have business in the village to attend to, don’t we Arabella dear?” When Arabella nods her ascent with a shallow nod, Lady Sadie goes on. “But it is only just after eleven. Let’s give Lettice a few more minutes.”

 

As the Viscount coughs and grumbles his reluctant agreement, folding his arms akimbo again across his golden yellow shepherd’s check***** vest, a loud rumbling from outside begins to break the tense atmosphere of the drawing room. “What the blazes…” the Viscount falters.

 

Lady Sadie puts aside her embroidery, rises from her seat and walks across the drawing room carpet to the full length windows that afford unobstructed views of the driveway. She discreetly moves the scrim curtain slightly and sighs heavily. “It’s Sir John in that ghastly, vulgar and showy car of his.”

 

“He’s come down in his Torpedo******?” Leslie pipes up, pulling himself out of his languid position by his wife’s side on the sofa, sitting upright in excitement. “I say! How ripping!”

 

“A racing car for a racy lifestyle.” opines the Viscount disparagingly in a quiet voice. “The old letch.”

 

Not hearing her husband’s denigrating comments about Sir John, Lady Sadie replies to her son’s remark. “Irritating is more like it. This really is too tiresome!” She sighs again. “What on earth can he want?”

 

“I thought you liked, Sir John, Sadie.” Arabella remarks, looking up from an old copy of The Tatler******* in her hands.

 

“Oh I don’t mind him, dear,” Lady Sadie responds with a huff, dropping the edge of the lace scrim curtain and turning back to face the room, whilst outside the front door Sir John energetically leaps elegantly from his Bugatti. “It’s just that being our neighbour… mmm… of sorts, and of influence in the district, whatever his business is, it will take precedence over Lettice’s news, however important she may think it, and that means we will be later in visiting the Miss Evanses.”

 

“Heaven forbid we should miss visiting the Miss Evanses.” Arabella remarks sarcastically, glad that she is facing away from her mother-in-law and into the room as she rolls her eyes upwards and smirks cheekily at Leslie, who smirks back as they share their mutual dislike of the two genteel gossipy spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house, in Glynes village.

 

“Arabella!” Lady Sadie chides. “You know as well as I do that both the Miss Evanses have been sick with head colds since before Christmas.”

 

“That didn’t stop them trudging up here from the village with their beastly head colds to see the Christmas tree in the hall,” Leslie gripes. “Snuffling and coughing all over the place, and making a general nuisance of themselves with their simpering ‘only if it’s not too much trouble to get us a chair, give us an extra snifter or two of brandy, have Harris take us home’.” He rolls his eyes this time.

 

“Well, whatever they may or may not be, Leslie,” Lady Sadie counters. “The Evanses live in our village, and as lady of the manor, and your wife the future lady, Arabella and I have a duty to pay sick visits to them and see to their wellbeing. It’s just the same for you, as the presumptive heir, have a duty to visit the tenant farmers at Willow Wood Farm with your father.”

 

“I think Lettice should accompany us to the Miss Evanses, since she is putting us out like this.” Arabella says sulkily. “Perhaps three against two will make our sick visit a little more palatable. Even when they are sick, they can still whitter away nineteen to the dozen********. It’s exhausting.”

 

“Arabella!” Lady Sadie scolds. “That is most uncharitable.”

 

“But true.” smirks Leslie.

 

“Nothing will ever kill Geraldine or Henrietta Evans.” mutters the Viscount disgruntledly. “And at this rate, with infernal Sir John here as well, Leslie and I will never get to Willow Wood Farm.”

 

“Now, now!” Ladie Sadie replies as she walks back across the room. “Be polite. Stop slouching,” She flips her bejewelled hand in her husband’s general direction, causing him to sit up straightly in his seat. “And mind your manners, Cosmo.” She lowers herself elegantly into her seat and smooths down the tweed of her skirt over her knees as she prepares to receive Sir John with a painted smile on her face. “It’s not Sir John’s fault that you have better things to do than sit down and chat about county business with him.”

 

At that moment, the door to the Glynes drawing room opens and Bramley walks in.

 

“Err… Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, Milord.” the butler announces stiffly, but with a slight awkwardness as he speaks and steps aside to allow Sir John to enter.

 

Sir John strides in, oozing the confidence of male privilege that his sex, class and enormous wealth bestows with every step, wearing it every bit as well as the smart and well-cut Jermyn Street********* tweed suit he is dressed in. As he does so, Lettice follows closely in his wake, smiling a little shyly as she then steps alongside him and slips her left hand into his right. He turns his head ever so slightly to her and squeezes her hand in return in a most intimate fashion as his confident smile strengthens ever so slightly.

 

Arabella gasps as does Leslie, the married couple exchanging surprised glances at what they see. The pages of Horse and Hound in Eglantyne’s hands shiver with astonishment as she stares with her wide green eyes as her niece and Sir John approach them all.

 

“Sir John,” the Viscount says, rising to his feet. “How do you do. To what do I owe the..” The strangled gasp of surprise coming from his wife as she rises from her seat with trembling elegance distracts him momentarily. He turns away from his guest and sees Lady Sadie’s face drain of colour, as her blue eyes like cold aquamarine chips grow wide. He frowns at her, then quickly returns his attention to Sir John and concludes his sentence. “The unexpected pleasure?” It is then that he notices his youngest daughter as she slips alongside Sir John. “Oh good! There you are Lettice.” he says with false bonhomie. “Look who’s here!”

 

“Err.. Cosmo.” Lady Sadie manages to utter in a strangulated way as she steps from her seat to her husband’s side.

 

“How do you do, Lord Chetwynd,” Sir John turns his attention momentarily to the Viscount’s wife. “Lady Sadie.” He nods curtly. “It’s not really so unexpected a visit.” he continues, cutting off anything Lady Sadie might be about to say with his well elocuted syllables, his confident smile broadening a little more.

 

“Cosmo.” Lady Sadie tries to interject again.

 

“You see,” Sir John concludes. “I’ve come here at Lettice’s behest.”

 

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

 

Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice reacquainted herself with Sir John in the last year at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show in Bond Street, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. As well as lavishing her with his attentions, Sir John made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded. However, in an effort to be discreet, at Lettice’s insistence, they have not made their engagement public, allowing the dust about Selwyn’s break of his and Lettice’s engagement to settle, until now.

 

“At… Lettice’s behest?” the Viscount queries, cocking an eyebrow as he looks uncomprehendingly at his daughter. “What’s this about, Lettice? Enough with your silly games of intrigue! Leslie and I don’t have time for this, when we have estate business to attend to.”

 

“Err… Pappa.” Leslie ventures.

 

“Cosmo.” Lady Sadie tries again, reaching out and touching her husband’s arm, and indicating to her youngest daughter’s hand.

 

“You might think otherwise, Lord Chetwynd, when you hear what I’ve come here about.” remarks Sir John matter-of-factly.

 

“We’re engaged, Pappa!” Lettice blurts out, unable to contain herself any longer, her painted lips broadening into a bright smile as she shows her perfect white teeth. “Sir John and I!”

 

Lady Sadie, Leslie, Arabella and Eglantyne all draw their breath as one.

 

“What?” the Viscount’s face falls.

 

“Sir John and I are engaged, Pappa.” Lettice repeats.

 

“You… you and… Sir John?” the Viscount stammers, looking uncomprehendingly between his daughter and the older man.

 

“Lettice and I are announcing our engagement, Lord Chetwynd.” Sir John says, his confident smile strengthening as he tenderly raises Lettice’s left hand in his right one, the intimate movement sending a shock through Lady Sadie. He proudly proffers Lettice’s hand to the Viscount and Lady Sadie, where a beautiful and surprisingly dainty Victorian engagement ring sits on Lettice’s ring finger, a large square cut emerald********** surrounded by smaller diamonds set in platinum sparkling gaily in the light cast by the electrified chandelier above.

 

Leslie and Arabella gasp, rising quickly to their feet and scurrying across the drawing room carpet to inspect the ring. Never one to be rushed, Eglantyne slowly rises with poise and elegance, but says nothing, her lips pursed, and her face twisted into a look of disgusted intrigue, before slowly sauntering the few paces to join her nephew and his wife at Lettice and Sir John’s side.

 

“I wish you every happiness Tice***********!” Arabella cries with enthusiasm, throwing her arms around her sister-in-law, her exuberance breaking the stunned silence of the others.

 

“Yes, every happiness, Tice!” Leslie adds, following his wife’s response and hugging his sister. Yet as the felicitations fall from his lips, his voice betrays the concerns he has. As he holds her at arm’s length, his sparking pale blue eyes and slightly quavering smile are full of unspoken questions. Lettice smiles confidently in return and silently squeezes her eldest brother’s forearms as an indication that everything is alright, even if the news of her engagement is a shock to him. Leslie’s smile strengthens a little, his face taking on a slightly resigned look as he continues with a huff, “Good old Tice! After seeing all the fuss of our wedding, and how beautiful Bella looked, you just couldn’t resist, could you?”

 

Lettice releases the breath she had been holding, laughing anxiously as she does. “No, you’re quite right, Leslie! I had to be the next one in the family to get married! Heaven forbid one of Mamma’s cousins usurped me.”

 

“I say, congratulations old bean!************” Leslie says, turning his attention to Sir John and slapping his right upper arm with his left hand in a kind fashion and shaking his hand enthusiastically. “You’ve picked yourself a beautiful and intelligent bride.”

 

“Thanks ever so, old chap.” Sir John replies with a happy smile of gratitude towards his future brother-in-law.

 

“Yes, congratulations, Sir John.” Arabella says kindly. A little unsure as to whether to kiss him or not, she falters before him. “Tice inherited the looks and the brains in the Chetwynd family,” She turns to Leslie and smiles. “Unlike my husband.”

 

“Cheeky!” Leslie laughs as he looks at his pretty wife.

 

“Thank you, my dear Mrs. Chetwynd.” Sir John replies to Arabella, proffering his right cheek for her to kiss, assisting her in her indecision. “Now, if we are to be family, you really must address me as John.” His right cheek grazes Arabella’s left cheek.

 

“If we are to have you as our brother-in-law, you must call us Leslie and Bella.” Leslie pipes up.

 

“Yes… yes of course, Leslie and Bella.” Sir John chuckles distractedly in reply, accepting another congratulatory handshake from Leslie. Yet his eyes drift from Leslie’s gaze to his fiancée as she stands looking somewhat forlorn before her parents. Although her back is turned to him, Sir John can tell by her stance that Lettice is anxious. Her shoulders are stiffly upright, and her hands are clasped in front of her beseechingly.

 

“I wish you every happiness, Lettice my dear.” Lady Sadie remarks as she places her arms firmly on Lettice’s forearms and proffers her an air kiss of congratulations. “Although this is somewhat of a surprise, I must say.” she adds with an awkward laugh, releasing her daughter and staring across at Sir John.

 

“Engaged?” the Viscount asks in disbelief again.

 

“Please say you aren’t cross with me, Pappa.” Lettice addresses her crestfallen looking father with a mewling pout. “With us. I mean, I know we didn’t actually ask your permission, but we didn’t think you’d mind,” She prattles on. “And I am of age, after all.”

 

“Of course you are, Lettice my dear.” Lady Sadie replies on behalf of her husband, filling in the awkward silence between father and daughter. “I must say, you certainly took your time about it though.” She tuts. “Twenty-four, out in society and still on the shelf.” She smiles, but like Leslie there is concern in her blue eyes, causing her usual hard brilliance to mellow into a softer hue as worry fills them. “Still, you have chosen,’ she gulps. “Chosen well. Sir John is every bit of a catch as you are. It’s… it’s just come as something of a surprise, hasn’t it, Cosmo, my dear?”

 

“Please say you’re happy for me, Pappa!” Lettice implores.

  

“But when?” the Viscount manages to ask his daughter in a voice hoarse with emotion, looking at her with questioning eyes, seeing Lettice as a young woman for the first time, rather than a little girl. “How?”

 

“Oh, in the usual way, Lord Chetwynd.” Sir John says brightly, taking a few steps, leading him out of Leslie and Arabella’s orb of conversation and intruding into Lettice’s one with her parents. “I proposed, and she said yes.”

 

“Well, it kind of snuck up on us and surprised us, didn’t it, John darling.” Lettice says awkwardly, gulping and breathing heavily as she does.

 

“Yes!” Sir John chuckles a little awkwardly, thrusting his left hand deep into his trouser pocket as he rolls up and down slightly upon the balls of his feet. “Yes, I suppose it did.”

 

“So how did it happen,” Eglantyne asks as she steps up to her niece and fiancée, speaking for the first time. “Exactly?” There is an edge of hostility to her voice as she speaks, and as she glides elegantly up alongside her brother, she blows a cloud of acrid smoke from the Black Russian Sobranie************* she has lit and placed in her amber and gold holder, into Sir John’s face as she speaks. “It’s a story I should very much like to hear.”

 

“Aunt Egg!” Lettice exclaims, fanning her face with her hand to dissipate the heavy fug of smoke that envelops them.

 

“Really Eglantyne!” Lady Sadie snaps. “Must you smoke in here? You know how much I disapprove of men smoking indoors,” She looks askance at her sister-in-law with her hennaed red hair and bohemian dress drawing upon her cigarette. “Never mind women! It’s undignified!”

 

“Yes, I must, Sadie, even if it sticks in your craw. If my niece is announcing her surprise engagement, I think I must insist on smoking, short of being offered a very stiff drink by you to dull the surprise.” Eglantyne snaps back.

 

Lettice looks at her aunt with hurt eyes. “Aunt Egg!”

 

Ignoring Lettice, Eglantyne folds her arms akimbo and fixes Sir John with her appraising green eyes, smiling as she draws deeply on her cigarette through her holder. “Please, do go on, John. Regale us with the tale of your proposal.”

 

“Well, you were actually there, Eglantyne my dear,” Sir John replies with confidence, giving Lettice’s forearm a gentle comforting and protective squeeze, drawing her closer to him, determined not to be intimidated by Eglantyne, ignoring her evident hostility.

 

“I was?” Eglantyne asks in surprise, sending forth another plume of acrid greyish blue smoke.

 

“You were.” he assures her. “It was the night of the Portland Gallery’s autumn show.”

 

“Lettice?” Eglantyne queries, turning in surprise to Lettice. “Why did I not know about this?” she asks with a mixture of resentment and bitterness in her voice.

 

“Well, Lettice doesn’t have to tell you everything, Eglantyne.,” Sir John retorts. “Even if you are her favourite aunt.

 

“Well it didn’t quite happen that night, Aunt Egg” Lettice tries to explain in an apologetic tone. “It is true that John did propose to me that night, or rather he made me a proposition…” She pauses. “Of sorts.”

 

“A proposition?” Lady Sadie asks in concern, glancing first and Lettice and then more skeptically at Sir John. “What did you mean, child?”

 

“Well, I offered her my hand in marriage that night, should she ever need it.” Sir John replies.

 

“But that was…” Lady Sadie calculates the dates in her head. “But… didn’t you… you and Selwyn… still have an understanding then?” she manages to falter as she blushes, looking questioningly at her daughter.

 

“I did, Mamma.” Lettice replies.

 

“And that, my dear Eglantyne is why you wouldn’t have heard about my proposal that evening.” Sir John says cheerfully. “There was nothing to say on the matter. Lettice was still engaged to young Spencely at the time. I’d only asked Lettice to consider my proposal that evening, not accept it, and then, only in the event should circumstances with young Spencely ever change.”

 

“And how fortuitous for you that her circumstances changed, dear John.” Eglantyne remarks caustically.

 

“Aunt Egg!” Lettice looks askance at her aunt.

 

“Fortunate for us both, dear Eglantyne.” Sir John replies, pulling Lettice a little closer to him.

 

“I never took you for the marrying kind, John.” Eglantyne opines.

 

“Well,” Sir John bristles. “I didn’t take you as being a woman who put such faith in society gossip, Eglantyne.”

 

“Eglantyne!” Lady Sadie echoes Lettice’s admonishment.

 

“I was merely making an observation.” Eglantyne retorts, raising her bejewelled gnarled hands in defence, sending a trail of curling cigarette smoke into the air as she does. “I meant no offence.”

 

“Well, your opinions on the institution of marriage are well known, Eglantyne.” Lady Sadie quips, shaking her head slightly at her sister-in-law as she eyes her with an inscrutable look with hard eyes. “So let that be an end to it!”

 

“I shall say no more.” Eglantyne replies, withdrawing and standing next to Leslie.

 

“The main thing is, I proposed.” Sir John says defiantly.

 

“And I accepted, willingly.” Lettice says with a sudden steeliness in her voice. “And” She looks earnestly into her father’s face. “I hope you will give us your blessing, Pappa. Will you?”

 

Everyone in the drawing room suddenly looks at the Viscount as he stands in silence before his daughter. His look is indecipherable as he stares at her, his eyes sparkling with the unshed tears he holds back. His hands tremble almost imperceptibly at his side. The silence is palpable, and the longer it goes on, only broken by the gentle ticking on the clock on the mantle, the more awkward everyone becomes.

 

“Cosmo?” Lady Sadie asks uncertainly, gently reaching out and grasping his slumping shoulder.

 

“Pappa?” Lettice asks tentatively, her eyes filling with tears that threaten to spill at any moment.

 

He doesn’t reply at first, seemingly frozen in his stance as he gazes with a questioning look at his daughter. The unanswered question by his daughter finally reaches into the Viscount’s consciousness and breaks his silence. He coughs and stammers. “Well… well, your mother has said it already, but this news..” He pauses. “This welcome news..” he corrects. He lets out a shuddering breath as he speaks the two words. “Has come upon us rather suddenly. But you are of age, Lettice, so you do not need my permission. You may marry whomever you wish.”

 

“Indeed!” pipes up Lady Sadie. “You certainly took your time about it, Lettice. You aren’t getting any younger. You’re twenty-four now.”

 

“But will you give us your blessing, Pappa?” Lettice asks again, wrapping her left hand in Sir John’s right hand and squeezing it. When he squeezes it comfortingly in return Lady Sadie’s eyes to widen slightly and she shudders again at their obvious intimacy, which she is not used to.

 

“Are you happy with your choice, Lettice?” the Viscount asks.

 

Lettice doesn’t answer for a moment. Her mind is awash with a mixture of emotions: anger and resentment for Lady Zinnia, heartbreak and disappointment for Selwyn at his betrayal of her, gratefulness to Sir John for his proposal of marriage and his willingness to be truthful to her. “Of course I am, Pappa!” she finally answers with steeliness in her voice, chuckling as she finishes speaking. “We both are, aren’t we, John darling?” She turns to her fiancée.

 

“Indeed we are, Lettice.” he agrees, nodding his assent.

 

“Then we must open some champagne to celebrate!” the Viscount replies, blinking and smiling brightly at his daughter. “After all it isn’t every day that my youngest daughter announces her engagement, is it?” He opens his arms welcomingly to her.

 

“Oh Pappa!” Lettice exclaims with relief, releasing the pent-up breath she didn’t even realise that she was holding on to.

 

“Thank you!”

 

As Lettice falls into her father’s arms, burying her head into his shoulder she lets the tears of happiness and relief fall from her eyes as she closes them and inhales the familiar scent of her father, a mixture of musky eau de cologne and the scent of books. What she does not notice is the Viscount’s own tears and the trace of concern in his face and eyes as he pulls her close to him.

 

“Are you really sure, Lettice.” he whispers quietly in her ear.

 

“I am, Pappa.” she answers back in equally hushed tones, tightening her closed lids and smiling.

 

Releasing her from his embrace, the Viscount approaches Sir John. Sniffing he blusters, “Well, what is it they say, Sir John? I’m not losing a daughter, but gaining a son.” He reaches out his big hand and firmly shakes Sir John’s, slapping him firmly on the upper arm in a chummy way. “Isn’t that right?”

 

“Indeed it is, Lord Chetwynd,” Sir John says with a sigh of relief, not quite yet feeling comfortable or familiar enough to release the formality and call him, Cosmo.

 

“Congratulations!” the Viscount says with a half-smile, shaking Sir John’s hand.

 

“Yes, congratulations.” Lady Sadie echoes her husband, smiling politely at Sir John before allowing her gaze to dart back to her youngest child.

 

“Well!” the Viscount booms. “We must celebrate! Sadie! Ring for Bramley!” He claps his hands. “We must have champagne!”

 

A short while later Bramley and Moira the head parlourmaid arrive, as instructed, with two bottles of the finest champagne from the Viscount’s cellars in silver coolers and a tray of champagne flutes on a silver tray. They place them upon the ornate galleried gilded rococo table placed in the centre of the cluster of sofas and chairs.

 

“If I may wish you and Sir John my heartiest congratulations, My Lady.” the old retainer says to Lettice.

 

“Thank you, Bramley.” Lettice replies with a satisfied smile. “If you’d be good enough to share the news with all the staff below stairs, I’d appreciate it.”

 

“Certainly, My Lady.”

 

Amid the hubbub of slightly subdued chatter around the table, the Viscount pops the cork of one of the bottles and fills several of the glasses, draining the bottle before opening the second and filling the remaining flutes and passing the glasses around.

 

“A toast!” the Viscount announces, clearing his throat.

 

“Oh, it’s a shame that Lally and Charles aren’t here for this.” Blurts out Arabella.

 

“Well, we’ll just have to have another round when they get back from their visit to Bowood**************.” Leslie says. “Won’t we?”

 

“A toast!” the Viscount says again, raising his flute of sparking champagne and smiling at Lettice. “To the marriage of my lovely youngest daughter, Lettice and her fiancée, our friend and neighbour, Sir John. Nettleford-Hughes”

 

He, Lady Sadie, Leslie, Arabella and even Eglantyne, albeit a little begrudgingly, toast the newly engaged couple. “To Lettice and Sir John.” As the party sip their congratulatory champagne, Lady Sadie cannot help but shudder again as she watches Lettice’s and Sir John’s lips meet in a chaste kiss.

 

The company then break up into smaller groups and chatter animatedly as they sip their champagne. Sir John talks with Eglantyne on one of the sofas, their faces serious and their conversation animated. The Viscount and Leslie mill next to the drawing room’s impressive chinoiserie screen discussing the fact that it is now unlikely that they will get to Willow Wood Farm today. Lady Sadie wanders around, never quite settling, joining the fray of conversations, but then moving on, going from one armchair or sofa to another until she finishes her glass of champagne and quietly slips out of the drawing room. Arabella and Lettice put their heads together conspiratorially, giggling girlishly.

 

“Oh Tice!” Arabella sighs. “That is such a stunning engagement ring!”

 

“It was John’s mother’s ring.” Lettice answers. “His younger sister, Clemance has been keeping it safely aside for him.”

 

“I didn’t know Sir John had a sister, Tice.” Arabella admits.

 

“John, Bella my dear.” Lettice corrects her sister-in-law.

 

“Yes, of course: John!” Arabella replies, blushing as she does.

 

“John actually has quite a number of siblings, Bella, but I think Clemence is his favourite. She lived with her husband abroad for many years, in Paris mostly, but when he died last year, she returned to England, which is probably why you’ve never heard of her. She lives in London now, so when he announced our engagement, she gave him the ring, saying that she had kept it safely for him until he finally found the right young lady to give it to.”

 

“And that was you, Tice! You!” Arabella laughs.

 

“You are a hopeless romantic, Bella!” Lettice laughs, grateful to have at least one member of her family happy about her engagement. “Quite hopeless!”

 

“You know me, Tice!” Arabella giggles in response. “How delightful Sir… I mean, John’s sister sounds.”

 

“Oh, Clemance is lovely, Arabella. I’m sure you’ll like her when you meet her.”

 

“Just look at the way that emerald sparkles!” Arabella adds, lifting Lettice’s hand, causing the stones to wink and sparkle. “It’s magnificent.” she breathes with excitement. “It speaks of exotic climes and thrilling adventures.”

  

“Do you know, Bella, that emeralds are purported to be the revealer of truths?” Lettice asks her sister-in-law, speaking loudly enough for her father to hear. When Arabella shakes her head, Lettice goes on, “Emeralds reputedly could cut through all illusions and spells, including the truth or falsity of a lover's oath. Some believed it could also dampen lust. However, that is contrary to what they thought in ancient Greece and Rome, where emeralds were said to be the gemstone of the goddess Venus, purveyor of love and hope.”

 

“Who told you that, my clever girl?” the Viscount interrupts, drawing up alongside his daughter and daughter-in-law, his half empty glass of champagne in his hand.

 

“The language tutor you engaged to teach me French, Pappa.” Lettice laughs.

 

“What has the meaning of emeralds in ancient times to do with French?” the Viscount retorts in surprise, guffawing as he does.

 

“Nothing, but I did find that Monsieur Bertrand did have a secret passion for allegory as we took our lessons.”

 

“Not so secret, evidently, Tice.” giggles Arabella.

 

“Well, I hope he taught you about allegory in French, my dear.” the Viscount chortles.

 

“Bien sûr, Pappa!” Lettice laughs, the joyous sound making her father smile sadly.

 

“I’m so happy for you, Tice my dear!” Arabella enthuses again. “Sir John really is quite the catch.”

 

Father, daughter and daughter-in-law chuckle for a moment before the Viscount says, “My dear, I’m sorry to intrude on your conversation with Arabella, but I have a word with you?”

 

“Of course, Pappa.”

 

“In private.” he adds.

 

“Of course, Pappa.” Lettice says, nodding as she gives her sister-in-law an apologetic look.

 

“Please excuse us, Arabella my dear.” the Viscount apologises as he leads Lettice away from the cluster of his family gathered in clusters around the gilded galleried table, to a sofa further away where they can have a discussion without the fear of being eavesdropped upon. “Please.” He indicates for her to sit.

 

“This is all rather cloak and dagger, isn’t it Pappa?” Lettice titters as she does as she is bidden, and sinks down upon the soft gold satin upholstery with figured patterns upon it.

 

“This is no laughing matter, Lettice.” the Viscount acknowledges, his crumpled and wrinkled face looking dark. “Now this is serious, my dear. I want to talk to you.”

 

“Pappa!” Lettice’s face clouds as she sips her half empty flute of champagne. “You’re worrying me.”

 

“No need to be worried, my girl.” The Viscount takes a mouthful of champagne before continuing. “However, I do need to ask you something.”

 

“Yes,” Lettice replies, instantly taking a more dour stance. “What is it, Pappa?”

 

“Now, you know that I’m not one who is very good with expressing my emotions,” the Viscount blusters awkwardly. “But I hope that you do know I love you. Don’t you, my girl?”

 

“Oh Pappa!” Lettice scoffs, waving her hand, the emerald catching the Viscount’s eye as it and the surrounding diamonds winks and sparkle. “Of course I do!”

 

“And that I only want the very best for you.” He wags his index finger at her.

 

“Of course, Pappa.”

 

“Then please understand that what I’m about to ask and say, only comes from my love and concern for you and your happiness?”

 

“Goodness!” Lettice exclaims with a mixture of trepidation and frustration. “What on earth is this about Pappa?”

 

“Well,” the Viscount confesses. “I just want to make sure that you are quite certain.”

 

“Of marrying John?”

 

“Of marrying Sir John.” he agrees.

 

“Oh really Pappa!” Lettice mutters. “You must start calling him John, if we are to be engaged. You can’t very well call my husband Sir John all our married life.”

 

“Yes, quite. Err… John.” he coughs awkwardly. He pauses and takes another mouthful of champagne, swilling the fizzy liquid around in his mouth. Sighing he adds, “This is all very sudden, Lettice.”

 

“I knew you’d say that, Pappa, but it’s been long enough, and I’ve made up my mind,” Lettice replies defiantly. “No matter what you and Aunt Egg may think.”

 

“Now, now. Don’t be too hard on us, my girl. It’s just that this has all come as rather a shock to us. You mustn’t expect hearty congratulations when we had no idea this arrangement between the two of you was even a possibility.”

 

“Why do you call it an arrangement, Pappa?” Lettice asks hotly.

 

The Viscount doesn’t answer straight away. “No reason my girl. A poor choice of words on my part. An understanding then.” he concedes. “Anyway, you can hardly expect your aunt to be pleased no matter who you choose to marry. You know she’s a free spirit and doesn’t conform to society like the rest of us.” He looks across at Eglantyne as she talks with Sir John on the sofa. “I mean, Eglantyne wasn’t exactly thrilled when Leslie announced he was marrying Arabella,” He chuckles. “And we’d been voicing that possibility within her earshot for years before he finally asked her to marry him.”

 

“Well, she seemed a little happier about Leslie’s engagement than mine.” Lettice sulks. “She needn’t have been quite so openly hostile.”

 

“You’re her protégée, my girl, and you are my favourite daughter.” The Viscount chuckles again. “Just don’t tell Lally that by the way.” He wags a finger at Lettice. “We just want to be sure that you are happy, and that this isn’t something you are just rushing into. Give us both time. Eh?”

 

“Alright Pappa.” Lettice acquiesces.

 

“Good girl.” The Viscount smiles at his daughter before going on. “He’s a lot older than you, isn’t he? Sir John, I mean.” the Viscount continues. “He’s closer to my age than he is yours.”

 

“You’re concerned about the age difference between us?” Lettice asks.

 

The Viscount bites the inside of his bottom lip in concern. He’s felt for a long time now that Sir John was quite a lecherous man, paying undue attention to younger women at the social functions he and the Viscount attended in the district at the same time. Then there were the whiffs of scandal, implying that he may have gone off with one or two of them. There was even the rumour that he went home with a much younger partygoer at the 1922 Hunt Ball held at Glynes, purportedly because Lettice had spurned his attentions that evening, preferring those of Selwyn Spencely. All this whilst uncomfortable to think about, was at least at arm’s length when Sir John had his life, and the Viscount and his family had theirs, yet now the two have been catapulted together with the announcement of Lettice’s engagement to Sir John. These circumstances have brought the Viscount’s disparaging thoughts and the rumours about Sir John to the front of his mind. He stares at his daughter: a young lady yes, but still such an innocent as she looks at him with her defiant gaze. Does he share his concerns with her?

 

“Well, I…” he stammers. “Well it’s just that…”

 

“Pappa?”

 

“I just don’t want you feeling that you have to get married. I… I mean… I mean your mother and I want you to marry of course, and marry well.” he huffs. “And I know… John is a most eligible bachelor, but that doesn’t mean I want you to settle for Sir… err John, just because…”

 

“Settle?” Lettice interrupts.

 

“I want to make sure that that there is no undue influence, I mean. You know,” He gesticulates in the space between them. “Upon your decision, I mean, to marry him.”

 

“Undue influence?” Lettice looks at her father in surprise. “What on earth does that mean?”

 

“Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!” The Viscount sighs heavily as he rubs his big hand over his wrinkled and weathered face. “This isn’t coming out quite the way I wanted it, my girl.” He pauses and tries again. “You know words are not my strongest suit. Look, let me speak plainly.”

 

“I wish you would, Pappa.”

 

“I know back in twenty-two, your mother saw Sir John as a good match, and I know that you had your reservations about him being… well, being too old and stuffy. Of course you were attracted to young Spencely with all his charms.”

 

“What on earth has this to do with undue influence, Pappa?” Lettice asks. “This makes no sense.”

 

The Viscount lowers his voice. “I just want to make sure that you haven’t changed your mind about Sir John, because of something,” He turns and glances over his shoulder, unable to see his wife, who still hasn’t returned since he saw her deposit her empty champagne flute on the silver tray before quietly leaving the room with her head bowed in concern. He turns back to Lettice. “Something your mother might have said, or suggested, after young Spencely ended your engagement so suddenly.”

 

“Well, Mamma has hardly hidden her displeasure at my current status of remaining unmarried, Pappa at twenty-four. When I announced the understanding between Selwyn and I, it was obviously a relief to her.”

 

“I know your mother has put a great deal of emphasis on you being out in society for a while now, and anxious about you being stuck on the shelf. But I…”

 

“Pappa, please stop.” Lettice sets her now empty champagne glass aside and holds up her hands. “I can assure you that there was no undue pressure or influence from Mamma, or you in my decision.”

 

“No! No of course not.” he stammers in reply. Sighing he continues, “Well, that’s a relief. And.. and John?”

 

“Well, aside from him making his proposal at the Portland Gallery, which would weigh heavily on any girl’s conscience, there has been no pressure from him to decide.”

 

“It does seem a little bit odd, don’t you think?” the Viscount shakes his head as he screws up his face in distaste.

 

“Odd, Pappa?”

 

“Yes. It seems a rather rum business*************** what with him making the proposition to you as he did at the gallery, and then shortly after, Lady Zinnia announcing that Selwyn is marrying that horrible Antipodean**************** heiress in Durban.”

 

“Kitty Avendale” Lettice sighs heavily.

 

“Is that her name?”

 

“Yes.” Lettice answers laconically, focussing her attention on her toe of her shoe as she uses it to rub the pile of the Oriental carpet beneath it distractedly.

 

“Ghastly name, for a ghastly girl. “Treacherous trollop!”

 

Lettice allows herself a sad chuckle before going on. “Well,” she sighs. “I shan’t disagree with you about her name Pappa, but no, I don’t believe that John and Lady Zinnia are in any way conspiring. When John offered his proposal of sorts, he knew perfectly well that Selwyn and I were planning to get married upon his return from Durban.”

 

“Are you quite sure about that?”

 

“What are you implying, Pappa?”

 

“Nothing, my girl. I just want to make sure that you’re sure, and that… that this isn’t a result of some arrangement between Zinnia and John. She never wanted you to marry young Spencely, and wanted to end your romantic involvement with him, no matter what the cost, and Sir… err John and his proposal seems the perfect solution, if she knew that John was interested in you.”

 

The Viscount’s words hang between father and daughter.

 

“No, Pappa.” Lettice says resolutely. “John is not contriving with Lady Zinnia. He even encouraged me to hold onto hope that Selwyn was coming back to me. He said that I should only consider his offer if circumstances between Selwyn and I changed,” She sighs heavily. “And that is exactly what has happened, Pappa. Circumstances have changed, and none of them have to do with any scheming from John or Lady Zinnia. I’m quite sure of it. John was quite content to remain unmarried.”

 

“That’s what I mean, my dear girl!” His eyes light up. “Pardon me for saying this, but it seems so incredibly at odds with his behaviour to date.”

 

“But why should John wish to enter into a marriage he doesn’t want for Lady Zinnia’s ends, Pappa? It makes no sense that he would do that.”

 

“I concede, I can’t answer that.”

 

“Has it ever occurred to you, Pappa, that I might be the one who stirred his heart?”

 

“Well, of course it has, my dear!” he assures her hurriedly. “I think there are a great many men whose hearts you could stir”

 

“You’re so kind Pappa.” Lettice lowers her gaze. “I promise you that John says that he admires me for far more than my beauty, and her certainly isn’t a fortune hunter.”

 

“I’m quite aware of the latter, my dear. He is richer than Croesus*****************.”

 

“He admires me for my mind, my wit, and my business acumen. As he says, he’s a businessman at heart, so he wants to marry someone with a similar mind. We’ve already discussed the difference in age between us, and what that means for both of us. You also may be surprised, and hopefully pleased, to hear that he has no wish to stop me from continuing my endeavours in my interior design business.”

 

The Viscount’s face shows his pleased amazement. “I must confess that does surprise me.”

 

“That’s what I mean by John being a businessman at heart, Pappa. He has remarked, on a number of occasions, that the last kind of woman he wishes to attach himself to is one who is bord and bone idle.”

 

“I see.”

 

“Or one who becomes jealous if he has to go away on business trips. He admires industry and fruitfulness. His offer is a very generous one. I am able to enjoy being Lady Nettleford-Hughes and all the status and wealth that accompanies the title. I shall be chatelaine of his properties and enjoy them. He will even allow me to hang what he calls my ‘daubs’ on the walls of his houses if it so pleases me.”

 

The Viscount chuckles at Sir John’s adroit term for the style of modern paintings Lettice has a preference for.

 

“And all the while I will still have my own business to run: a business he not only supports, but encourages.” Lettice goes on.

 

“And you’re quite sure that the understanding between you and Selwyn is ended, my girl?” the Viscount asks seriously, lowering his head. “I mean, quite sure?”

 

“I am Pappa.” Lettice replies adamantly. “He’s engaged. That feels like a very definite action in order for him to end things with me. If he’d really wanted to marry me, now the year of separation imposed upon us by Lady Zinnia is at an end, he could have communicated it with me. They do have a telephone exchange in Durban, even if he was delayed in sailing back to me. But I’ve heard nothing from him at all. His silence speaks volumes.”

 

“I see.” the Viscount lowers his eyes momentarily. “No chance then?”

 

“Pappa!” Lettice gasps with exasperation. “How many times must I tell you before you believe me? Yes, I’m quite sure it is done with Selwyn and there is no chance for us. I saw the proof for myself: a whole cache of newspaper articles and clippings showing Selwyn and Miss Avendale smiling together with headlines emblazoned beneath them touting their engagement. What more proof do I need?” She holds up a hand. “And before you say it, Pappa, I will not suffer the indignity of hearing it directly from him. I would die of shame and embarrassment.”

 

“No of course not, Lettice.” He pauses for a moment and then adds. “But these wretched newspaper men often mistake their facts in an effort to get their stories out quickly. And,” he continues. “Such things as newspapers can be forged you know, especially for a woman as wealthy and influential as Zinnia is.”

 

“I know Pappa, and in my heart of hearts, I did consider it.”

 

“And I wouldn’t put anything past that scheming Zinnia. She’s a horrible, ghastly and despicable woman with eyes only for intrigues and forwarding her own interests!”

 

“You are kind to defend me Pappa, and I don’t disagree with your frank observations of her, which I adore. Lady Zinnia is no friend to me. Please forgive me for saying this Pappa, and for being so frank, but,” She smiles sadly. “It does sound rather like you are a drowning man clutching at straws.”

 

The Viscount looks his daughter earnestly in the face. “When did you grow up to be such a wise young lady, Lettice? You know me so well, my dear.” The Viscount chuckles sadly. “It is true that both your mother and I had high hopes for the match with young Spencely. He… well, he seemed like such a good match for you. It seemed perfect. He’s handsome. You are similar in age. He comes from an excellent family, Lady Zinnia and her intrigues notwithstanding. Even the fact that he designed houses made the whole thing seem preordained. He could have designed the houses and you could have decorated them.”

 

“I agree, Pappa.” The pain of Selwyn’s betrayal bursts within her like a blossom blooming, filling her heart with pain, and her eyes well with tears she is determined not to shed. She gulps before continuing. “Selwyn seemed to be the perfect match, but evidently it wasn’t, if he has decided to marry Miss Avendale.”

 

“I didn’t expect of him what has transpired. He seemed like a very decent fellow with a good character.”

 

“I don’t disagree with you, Pappa. As you know, I’m as surprised and upset by it as anyone, as I think as the jilted party, I have the right to be.”

 

“Oh of course you do, my dear! Of course!”

 

“And Gerald, who of course knows him from the club they both share, said the same thing as you. I cannot explain it, other than he fell in love with Miss Avendale.” She lets out a remorseful sigh. “For a little while after I received the news of Selwyn’s engagement from Lady Zinnia, I must confess that I held out a candle for Selwyn. I hoped that he would contact me and tell me that it was all some mistake, or a fabrication of some kind by his mother,” She looks seriously up at her father. ‘But he didn’t, did he?”

 

“Well, then I suppose there is very little left to be said on the matter, is there?” the Viscount says resignedly.

 

“Don’t be so downhearted, Pappa. Be happy for me. Be happy for both of us. John is a good man. Yes, he’s older that Selwyn, and no, he’s not perfect, but he’s good, and most importantly he isn’t lying to me, Pappa.” It is her turn to look her father squarely in the face. “I won’t be dissuaded from this marriage, Pappa. I intend to marry him.”

 

“As long as you are sure, my girl.”

 

“I am.” Lettice replies resolutely. “Quite sure, Pappa.”

 

“And he makes you happy, Lettice? You know that your happiness in paramount to me, whatever your mother may feel about titles and social standing.”

 

“He does Pappa.”

 

“Well then, I guess there is little more to say on that matter, either.”

 

“Where is Mamma, by the way?” Lettice looks over her shoulder where Eglantyne and Sir John are still engaged in their conversation, whilst Leslie and Arabella share a confidence together, standing by the galleried table, heads down and giggling together.

 

“I saw her leave a little while ago.” the Viscount states. “Is she not back?” He looks and still can’t see her. “Perhaps she went to shed her tears of joy at your engagement in private. You know how your mother feels about showing too much emotion…” He pauses and then adds, “In public anyway. I shall go and find her, and then, Lettice my dear, we will open another bottle of champagne. After all, it isn’t every day that my youngest daughter announces her engagement.”

 

“Then you are happy for me, Pappa?” Lettice asks hopefully.

 

“Your happiness is all that matters, my dear. So, if you are happy, I will be happy for you. Although it will take a little while for me to get used to having a son-in-law who is the same age as me, you have my blessing.”

 

“Oh Pappa!” Lettice leaps out of her seat and embraces her father gratefully. “Thank you!”

 

The Viscount lingers for a while, enjoying the moment of intimacy with his favourite child before he releases her, and holds her at arm’s length, smiling at her. “I’ll be back with your mother shortly.” he says, excusing himself.

 

*Dating back to the fourth century, many Christians have observed the Twelfth Night — the evening before the Epiphany — as the ideal time to take down the Christmas tree and festive decorations. Traditionally, the Twelfth Night marks the end of the Christmas season, but there's reportedly some debate among Christian groups about which date is correct. By custom, the Twelfth Night falls on either January 5 or January 6, depending on whether you count Christmas Day as the first day. The Epiphany, also known as Three Kings' Day, commemorates the visit of the three wise men to baby Jesus in Bethlehem.

 

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

 

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

 

****Horse and Hound is the oldest equestrian weekly magazine of the United Kingdom. Its first edition was published in 1884. The magazine contains horse industry news, reports from equestrian events, veterinary advice about caring for horses, and horses for sale.

 

*****Shepherd’s check is a popular pattern for a rather sturdy tweed, commonly worn in the country. Coming in various colours and pattern styles, the small check version in black and white is commonly known as Pepita check in Germanic countries.

 

******Introduced in 1922, the Type 30 was the first production Bugatti to feature an Inline-8. Nicknamed the “Torpedo” because of its similar look to the wartime munition, at the time Bugatti opted to move to a small two-litre engine to make the car more saleable, lighter and cheap. The engine capacity also made the Type 30 eligible for Grand Prix racing, which was a new direction for the marque. Despite the modest engine capacity, the power output was still remarkable thanks to the triple-valve arrangement. Also benefiting the Type 30 was good road handling, braking and steering which was common throughout the marque. The Type 30 was also the first Bugatti to have front brakes.

 

*******Tatler was introduced on the 3rd of July 1901, by Clement Shorter, publisher of The Sphere. It was named after the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. Originally sold occasionally as The Tatler and for some time a weekly publication, it had a subtitle varying on "an illustrated journal of society and the drama". It contained news and pictures of high society balls, charity events, race meetings, shooting parties, fashion and gossip, with cartoons by "The Tout" and H. M. Bateman.

 

********We are all familiar with the phrase “ten to the dozen’” which means someone who talks fast. However, the original expression is actually “nineteen to the dozen”. Why nineteen, you ask? Many sources say we simply don’t know, but there are other sources that claim it goes back to the Cornish tin and copper mines, which regularly flooded. With advancements in steam technology, the hand pumps they used to pump out this water were replaced by beam engines that could pump 19,000 gallons of water out for every twelve bushels of coal burned (much more efficient than the hand pumps!)

 

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

 

**********The first diamond engagement ring can be traced back to 1477 when Archduke Maximillian of Austria proposed to Mary Burgundy. This exchange began a tradition that caught on in elite societies. However, engagement rings didn’t become popular among the masses until the mid-1900s. In 1947, British-owned diamond company, De Beers, premiered a new advertising campaign. This campaign featured the slogan, “A diamond is forever,” and helped diamond engagement rings to soar in popularity. Within three years of the launch of this campaign, diamond engagement ring sales increased by fifty percent and the numbers continued to skyrocket. In fact, in 1939, only about ten percent of engagement rings included diamonds. Thus, Lettice’s Victorian engagement ring, taken from Sir John’s mother’s collection of jewellery featuring an emerald as the predominant stone, would not have been unusual.

 

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

 

************Gaining popularity by the younger upper-class set between the wars, “old bean” was a phrase used as a friendly reference to a man. It arose in the trenches of the Great War, used by the Tommies, but was always tinged with upper-class stuffiness, which is possibly why it caught on more with the upper-classes of society.

 

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

 

**************Bowood is a Grade I listed Georgian country house in Wiltshire, that has been owned for more than two hundred and fifty years by the Fitzmaurice family. The house, with interiors by Robert Adam, stands on extensive grounds which include a garden designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. It is adjacent to the village of Derry Hill, halfway between Calne and Chippenham. The greater part of the house was demolished in 1956.

 

***************Rum is a British slang word that means odd (in a negative way) or disreputable.

 

**************** Antipodean is a term relating to Australia or New Zealand (used by inhabitants of the northern hemisphere).

 

*****************The idiom “richer than Croesus” means very wealthy. This term alludes to Croesus, the legendary King of Lydia and supposedly the richest man on earth. The simile was first recorded in English in 1577.

 

This grand Georgian interior may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection and includes items I have collected as an adult, as well as one that was especially made for me.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The gilt Louis Quatorze chairs and sofa, the gilded Rococo chinoiserie central table and the gilt swan round tables and matching pedestal are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

The gilt high backed salon chair in the foreground to the left is also made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq, but what is particularly special about it is that it has been covered in antique Austrian floral micro petite point by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, which makes this a one-of-a-kind piece. The artisan who made this says that as one of her hobbies, she enjoys visiting old National Trust Houses in the hope of getting some inspiration to help her create new and exciting miniatures. She saw some beautiful petit point chairs a few years ago in one of the big houses in Derbyshire and then found exquisitely detailed petit point that was fine enough for 1:12 scale projects. She also made the footstool you see in the right foreground. In addition, she also painted the Bespaq chest of drawers you can see in the background to the far right of the photo. She has painted an idyllic English school Eighteenth Century picnicking scene on its front, making it a very special one of a kind.

 

The beautiful gold and bronze decorated black chinoiserie screen in the background is a very special 1:12 miniature screen created especially for me, and there is no other like it anywhere else in the world. It was handmade and decorated over a twelve month period for me as a Christmas gift two years ago by miniature artisan Tim Sidford as a thanks for the handmade Christmas baubles I make him every year. Tim’s miniature works are truly amazing! You can see some of his handmade decorated interiors using upcycled Playmobil, found objects and 1:12 miniatures here: www.flickr.com/photos/timsidford/albums/72157624010136051/

 

The elegant ornaments that decorate the surfaces of the Chetwynd’s palatial drawing room very much reflect the Eighteenth Century spirit of the room.

 

On the pedestal to the left of the screen stands a blue and white hand painted vase which I acquired from Kathleen Knights Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. Standing on the hand painted set of drawers to the right of the photo stand are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces, The pair have been hand painted and gilded by me. Also on the chest of drawers stand two large lidded urns and a pedestal bowl. These three pieces were made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. All the pieces in the cabinet in the background are also made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik.

 

The silver champagne bucket, wine cooler and tray on the central chinoiserie tea table, have been made with great attenti

After talking at length to one of the fellow foamers at Duplainville about the changes over the years to the feel of railfaning at the popular Wisconsin train watching site, and the negativity that has developed between the railroad and railfans regarding decency and respect for each group lately, it was a breath of fresh air to see my son Mitch and the conductor of CP 199 give each other a friendly gesture in passing Sunday. While just for a moment, all the animosity that has developed lately between MOW crews, train crews, the police and railfans seemed to disappear for a brief moment with this scene.

The phrase 'In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves' was coined by Edward Bulwer-Lytton who was a popular Victorian novelist, poet, playwright and politician. Apparently he also coined the phrases "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", "dweller on the threshold" as well as the infamous opening line "It was a dark and stormy night". The man deserves some props for such wordsmithery. Anyway if we fast forward about 150 years we find Sir Mix-A-Lot's seminal hit 'Baby got back' which has the immortal opening line 'I love big butts and I cannot lie'. Personally I think Mr Lot was merely expanding on Bulwer-Lytton's line of thinking in his 1992 paean of decency and good taste but I have little to prove this theory. Apart from this picture. Which I think is compelling enough. Case closed.

 

This piece is another of our upcycled pieces and was, I think, originally a print of the Mona Lisa but when I found it it had some kind of pink wash on it and a hastily drawn stick figure face. Given my proclivity for wombling this was clearly not something that I could overlook and just leave lying forlornly in the street so I scooped her and took her home for some much need care and attention at the id-iom art hospital.

 

Cheers

 

id-iom

A scene from the 1966 film "Press for Time", courtesy of the Buses on Screen website (www.busesonscreen.net), as former Bournemouth Corporation 1939 Leyland TD5 open-topper (FEL214) meets a Devon General Leyland Atlantean on the streets of Teignmouth (called "Tinmouth" in the film). The presence on board of Norman Wisdom causes the bus to plunge into Teignmouth harbour and sink.

 

Strangely revered in Albania and also the Isle of Man, where he was long in tax-avoiding residence, Norman Wisdom once enjoyed great popularity during the 1950s and into the mid-1960s for his brand of slapstick comedy served with a hefty dollop of pathos. Charlie Chaplin acknowledged him as a worthy comic successor, and the two native Londoners shared the experience of harsh and impoverished childhoods.

 

In a series of money-spinners for the Rank Organisation, Norman Wisdom played the part of a simpleton who reduced the world around him to chaos, but was redeemed by a basic human decency.

 

Thus it is with "Press for Time", although watching it on YouTube, I did not have the patience to see exactly how the luckless FEL214 ended up in the water. I do remember the August 1966 issue of Buses Illustrated magazine showing the bus making a dramatic splash.

 

Such a fine vehicle was a sad loss to preservation, although as bus snuff movies go, FEL214’s fate was not as dramatic as that of RM1536, which tumbled over a North Kent cliff and exploded, bringing the Young Ones sitcom to a definite end.

This print, by York Show Prints in York, AL was hanging in the office at Annie Mae's Place (Burkville, AL) when we visited this weekend for the annual Okra Festival.

 

I had heard of York Show Prints before, as they've (or maybe more correctly, he's) been represented at Kentuck Festival of the Arts before. York is run by Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. and the business doesn't have a phone...so I'll have to write him a letter (York Show Print, P.O. Box 154, York, Alabama, 36925) about getting a copy of this "proceed and be bold" print.

 

((Other really neat show print houses include Nashville's ultra-famous Hatch Show Print and (I especially like) Yee-Haw Industries of Knoxville.))

 

"Proceed and Be Bold!" is a catchphrase used by the incredibly talented Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee, cofounder of Auburn's Rural Studio (and winner in 2000 of a MacArthur 'genius' grant, among other awards).

 

The Rural Studio was developed within the Auburn School of Architecture with intent to get students out of the classroom and in to hands-on experience with members of a community that would actually be utilizing their work. In the past, the students' hands-on experience consisted of them building temporary works...a beam or truss, which would later be torn down. D.K. Ruth, who hired Mockbee at Auburn, discussed with Mockbee that one could take such materials and (rather than a temporary exercise) they could "build something substantial". The idea for Rural Studio was less pre-conceived notions of what architecture is - be it for glass skyscrapers or McMansions - and more a noble architecture of decency for poor people - beautiful whether built with carpet squares, car windshields, or tires. Mockbee died December 30, 2001 but left behind were stunning, noble works for people in one of the poorest areas in the country.

 

The Rural Studio is still going strong.

 

Here are a couple of excerpts from Rural Studio, Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency:

 

..."And here we are in the twenty-first century," Mockbee says, "and we're still ignoring the problem and southern blacks are still invisible." He concludes that addressing problems and trying to correct them is "the role an artist or architect should play."

 

..."The best way to make real architecture is by letting a building evolve out of the culture and place. These small projects designed by students at the studio remind us what it means to have an American architecture without pretense. They offer us a simple glimpse into what is essential to the future of American architecture, its honesty."

You know, I never thought I would find myself saying this, but I feel a little bit like Sally Field. " They liked me." I think I have to say, "They really liked me." Why else would all those people have stopped to pick me up, and taken me into their homes (in Seattle, in Regina, in Montreal), and treated me with such kindness (and don't forget the hippies with the $50 station wagon). I must have put off a fairly decent vibe, back in the day.

I have a few folks I'd like to thank. Thank you, ART_NAHPRO, for putting me up to this exegesis, with a typically ill-thought-out, blurted out comment, "When are you going to tell us about being at Woodstock." I hope you got more than your money'sworth, like you went in to Blimpey's (isn't that what you English feebly call a hamburger?) and got served an eleven-course, three-star Michelin feast.

And thanks to Elisa in Seattle (ezook on flickr) for taking some photos for me, and offering moral-support, in general.

And a last thank you to jennie (jaggitha here on flickr), who also took a photo for me, of a lovely sunset in Vancouver. I had asked jennie to tell me the name of a charity she might like for me to contribute to, and she named the Downtown Eastside Women's Center, in Vancouver. Jennie told me that, "As may or may not have been apparent during your visit back then, there is a huge poverty and drug problem in Vancouver, mainly caused by the stranglehold of Hell's Angels and other gangs in Vancouver. Vancouver really is, as you said, such a beautiful [city] . . . , so it's very shameful that there should be so many people in the downtown core who are in such rough shape.

I'm going to send my small contribution to the DEWC, and I would ask you, if you have enjoyed my little (okay, not little) peregrination, that you might consider sending your own contribution to the DEWC (you can find out about donating here). or, alternatively, that you consider donating to a women's shelter in your own community. A third alternative would be that you might consider donating to some worthy cause, either locally, nationally, or globally. I would only ask that you not donate to organizations that might further the ideals of the Ku Klux Klan, jihad, Russian oligarchs, or fast-food franchise proselytizers, most specifically McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken (now known as KFC). A fourth alternative would be that when you see me, you buy me a beer, and, if you are feeling really generous, a large sausage, mushroom, and pepperoni pizza. If you are a vegetarian, you could get half mushrooms only.

When I got to the bus station in Cambridge (Ohio, if you haven't been paying attention), I called home and my mother probably drove out to get me. No doubt she shed a few tears---she's like that. I don't remember my reunion with my long-time girlfriend, but she didn't dump me, I can tell you that.

It would be the next summer that my relationship with my family would fall apart. My sister told my mother off, and we loaded up all her stuff into a rented U-Haul and together drove up north to our grandmother's (my father's mother's) house. I didn't speak to my Mother and stepfather for some time after that (though, of course, my mother continued to pay the bills.) And my girlfriend and I drifted apart (an outcome that seems now, in retrospect, inevitable).

I knew, even at the time, that what I had seen in Montreal, the warmth and familial decency of Ginette's family, which I have so inadequately conveyed here, was the real lesson of my trip. The next summer I would spend some weeks living with a German family in Bavaria, and I got a mammoth second helping of Wonderful Family.

I think, like Moses, I saw The Promised Land, but didn't quite have the tools to get there. Sex and Drugs and Rock & Roll are nice enough, in their way, but they are no substitute for the love of your friends and family.

And, as Porky Pig would say, "Th-th-th-that's all folks!" Add Roy Rogers in there: "Happy Trails to you, until we meet again."

Catching up on some back shots from the beginning of the year

 

On a walk around the Addington Cemetery with a wonderful Flickr friend. February 13, 2016 Christchurch New Zealand.

 

There is so much damaged in the cemetery because of the earthquake we have had. It is such a pity as I don' think it will ever be fully repaired.

 

The Addington Cemetery was established in 1858 when the Scottish Presbyterians of St Andrew’s Church purchased land for a cemetery in Selwyn Street. Although not the first cemetery in Christchurch, Addington was in fact the first “public” cemetery, “being open to all persons of any religious community” and allowing the performance of any religious service “not contrary to public decency”.

 

The first burial took place on the 10th of November 1858. The cemetery has several persons of note buried within its grounds including activist Kate Sheppard, Christchurch Mayor Tommy Taylor and members of the pioneer family, the Deans.

For More Info:http://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/addington-cemetery/

Alright! I admit I chose to photograph this female protester because she's attractive, but I knew it would make a good picture and at least I had the decency to adopt a crouching position to take the shot!

Drivers and courier trimmed to match along with decency shields and litter bin.

From LEGO World Utrecht in October 2015.

 

This gave me the best laugh of the exhibition (which, incidentally, is a good word for what's happening here). And before you ask: No, I did not check if Kevin Garnett was anatomically correct (or well-built, if you like). But his shorts didn't seem to want to stay up - somebody helped him back to decency a bit later, but by the next morning he was out and about again.

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.

 

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

 

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

 

Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded. However, in an effort to be discreet, at Lettice’s insistence, they are not making their engagement public until the new year: after the dust about Selwyn’s break of his and Lettice’s engagement settles. So Lettice and Sir John are going on about their separate lives, but in the lead up to Christmas they invariably end up running into one another at the last mad rush of parties before everyone who hasn’t already decamps to the country to celebrate Christmas.

 

Tonight, we are in the drawing room of Cavendish Mews, where Lettice is entertaining her elder sister Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally). Lally, who resides with her husband Charles Lanchenbury and their two children, Harrold and Annabelle, at Dorrington House, a smart Jacobean manor house of the late 1600s in High Wycome in the country of Buckinghamshire, has come up to London to do her Christmas shopping, and access the larger range of shops and Oxford Street department stores mot afforded to her in the country. Rather than motor up and then back to High Wycombe the same day, Lally is stopping the night with Lettice after the two siblings have spent the day shopping together. Tomorrow Lally will motor down to Wiltshire to their parents and drop off all hers and Lettice’s gifts for their annual family Christmas together at their country family seat before motoring back to Buckinghamshire. Just by good fortune, Lettice is going to one of the last big Christmas parties of 1924, and knowing the host and hostess very well, being part of her Embassy Club coterie, she has wrangled an invitation for Lally to attend too. Now the two, both dressed up in beautiful and delicate evening frocks and bedecked in jewels, with their hair freshly coiffed and set by a fashionable West End hairdresser, sit chatting, sipping champagne and cooling their heels before attending the party at a fashionably late respectable time.

 

“I say, Tice darling!” Lally remarks as she looks at the pink salmon mousse in the shape of a fish sprinkled with thinly slice cucumber and garnished with lemon wedges on the low black japanned coffee table between she and her sister. “This is all rather splendid!”

 

“Oh there’s more to come,” Lettice replies, picking up a sparking glass of champagne which almost blends into her silvery grey silk crêpe gown adorned with silver and gold sequins. “Edith is just bringing it now.”

 

“To use one of the phrases of the moment that you and your fashionable friends love, ‘how ripping’!” Lally replies, picking up her own glass and sipping the sparkling golden liquid from it.

 

“That’s the spirit, Lally darling! You’ll fit in perfectly tonight.” Lettice replies encouragingly.

 

“I must say, this is awfully good of you, Tice.”

 

“What is, Lally?”

 

“Well, all of this.” Lally replies, stretching her arms elegantly and gesticulating at the festively decorated drawing room around them with its bright Christmas tree covered in shining glass baubles surrounded by a mountain of presents, and garland draped fireplace covered in Christmas cards.

 

“What? The decorations?” Lettice asks. “But I would have decorated for Christmas , even if you weren’t coming, Lally darling.”

 

“No Tice!” Lally hisses in reply. “Not the decorations. I’m so grateful to you for allowing me to come and stay here tonight after my shopping expeditions to buy presents for the children and the rest of the family, not to mention the last minute invitation to the party.”

 

“Well, I wasn’t going to let my sister stay in a London hotel when there is a perfectly good spare bedroom here.” Lettice retorts.

 

“I mean, I know I could have motored back to Buckinghamshire after we’d finished shopping today, but it’s so much easier just to stay in town overnight.”

 

“Of course it is, Lally.” Lettice agrees. “Don’t give it another thought. And as for the party,” She wafts her hand breezily. “It was simple to get you an invitation. It helps when you know both the hosts intimately.”

 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to motor you down to Glynes* tomorrow, Tice?”

 

“No thank you, Lally,” Lettice declines. “Thank you all the same. I’m sure you won’t want me in the car with you tomorrow, all grumpy and woolly headed, nursing a beasty hangover after all the excesses of tonight. I plan on getting rather tight** tonight, since George and Cilla are footing the drinks bill.”

 

“Well, perhaps not, since you put it that way, Tice.”

 

“Besides, I doubt there would be room enough in your little Baby Austin*** for me as well as both your presents and mine for the family Christmas.” She nods in the direction of the pile of presents sitting underneath her Christmas tree all wrapped up in bright festive metallic papers and gaily coloured ribbons, and several very full bags from some of London’s best department stores.

 

“Yes, we did shop up quite a storm today, didn’t we?” Lally remarks a little guiltily.

 

“More you than me, Lally darling. I’ve already done most of my Christmas shopping.”

 

“Well, it’s too much of a temptation, isn’t it Tice? There are so many more wonderful shops here in London than there are in the counties, not to mention the department stores.”

 

“It was rather fun luncheoning at Derry and Tom’s**** café today.” Lettice smiles, casting her mind back to earlier in the day when the pair of them were ensconced in a cosy nook at a quiet table for two at the Kensington department store, with the table before them laid with fine white napery, gilt edged china, glinting silverware and gleaming glassware, with the hubbub of quiet and polite, predominantly female, chatter drifting around them as Edwardian matrons and their daughters or other well-heeled young women enjoyed a fine repast just like them between their Christmas shopping excursions.

 

At that moment, Edith, Lettice’s maid, slips through the green baize door that leads from the service area of the flat into the dining room, carrying a silver tray on which stands a bowl of gleaming black caviar, a plate holding an assortment of watercracker biscuits and another upon which stand an array of very smart looking canapés. She walks purposefully across the dining room and into the drawing room, lowering the tray onto the coffee table between the two sisters as they chat, gently pushing aside several cheerfully wrapped presents to make room for it.

 

“Not that High Wycombe feels like the country so much anymore,” Lally goes on. “What with those ghastly Metroland estates full of endless streets of mind numbingly matching two-up two-down***** rows of houses being developed up and down the railway line, chewing up the beautiful English countryside.”

 

Edith’s hands shake as a sudden shudder runs through her, making the plates and cutlery on the tray rattle noisily.

 

“I’m sure we’ll have a department store built in the high street before too long, what with the influx of commuters to London pouring into High Wycombe every weekday.”

 

“Are you alright, Edith?” Lettice asks in concern, reaching out a hand and grasping her maid’s shoulder.

 

As if struck with a hot poker, Edith quickly stands up and brushes down her lace trimmed afternoon uniform apron and her black silk moiré dress. “Yes Miss.” She replies stiffly. “I beg your pardon Miss,” She bobs a small curtsey and then turns to Lally and does the same. “Mrs. Lanchenbury.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure there’s nothing to forgive, Edith.” Lally replies kindly as she sinks back into the comfortable rounded back of one of the Lettice’s Art Deco tub armchairs.

 

“Indeed, there isn’t.” Lettice assures her maid. She looks into her pretty face and notices that Edith’s peaches and cream complexion looks a little pale. “Are you quite sure you’re alright, Edith?”

 

“Oh yes Miss!” Edith replies quickly. “It was just someone walking over my grave.”

 

“Well, let’s hope its not one of the three ghosts of Christmas.” Lettice chuckles, smiling wistfully as she remembers she and Edith sitting down to listen to a dramatised recording of Charles Dickens classic novella ‘A Christmas Carol’ on her new wireless, a gift from Selwyn Spencely, in December last year******.

 

“Oh indeed, Miss.” Edith smiles shyly as she agrees.

 

“Oh, and thank you for putting up with me for tonight,” Lally pipes up quickly. “And all of my,” She waves her hand laconically at all the presents spread about the flat’s drawing room. “My acquisitions.”

 

“Oh that’s quite alright, Mrs, Lanchenbury.” Edith assures her. “No bother at all.”

 

“That’s kind of you, Edith.” Lally acknowledges. “I’m sure I make extra, unnecessary work for you. And I really do appreciate it.”

 

The sisters watch as Edith withdraws and slips quickly behind the green baize door and back to her preserve of the Cavendish Mews kitchen.

 

“Do you think she’s really alight, Tice darling?” Lally asks with concern. “She looked a little pale.”

 

“Oh I think so, Lally. I noticed that too. But I think, like the rest of us, she’s just tired as the year comes to an end. Although she won’t admit it, I think she’s quietly quite looking forward to me going home to Glynes, so that she can go home and spend a lovely Christmas with her own family. She tells me that her steward brother has shore leave again this year.”

 

“I do hope I’m not being too much of an inconvenience, Tice darling.” Lally goes on, once they think Edith is safely out of earshot. “I know how hard it is to get good help these days, and maids can be so temperamental nowadays.”

 

“Oh, you’re no more a bother to Edith than you are to me, Lally darling. And if you were, you’re certainly making it up to me at any rate by taking my gifts down to Glynes with you.”

 

“It’s my pleasure, Tice.” Lally smiles at her sister. “Anyway, it makes sense. If I’m going to take most of the presents down there to avoid the children fossicking for them before Christmas at home, it makes sense to take yours down with me too.”

 

“Well, I am most awfully grateful, Lally darling.”

 

“So, when are you going down to stay with Mamma and Pappa then?”

 

“I’ve arranged to motor down with Gerald on the twenty second. When are you, Charles and the children going?”

 

“Well, we’ll be there before you. I’m taking the children and Nanny down on the twentieth. Charles will follow on the twenty second like you. He has some final business with Lord Lanchenbury before Christmas, whereas my last duty with the High Wycome WI******* for 1924 is to give my treasurer’s report to Mrs. Alsop.” Lally pulls a face. “On the eighteenth.”

 

“The ghastly gossip and bore, Mrs. Alsop!” Lettice deposits her glass back onto the coffee table and raises her hands to her cheeks in mock horror s she pulls a sad face.

 

“Oh you!” Lally hisses with a cheeky smile. “You wouldn’t be so glib about ghastly Mrs. Alsop if you’d met her, Tice,” She nods seriously as her lips crumple disapprovingly.

 

“Well, mercifully Aunt Egg saved me from that fait accompli when she organsied the invitation to the Caxton’s Friday to Monday party at Gossington in Scotland,” Lettice remarks, before adding, “Not that that didn’t have ramifications of its own, in due course.”

 

“Indeed.” Lally replies sagely, her head bobbing up and down slowly.

 

“Mind you, I did receive a Christmas card from Gladys and John in the post the other day.”

 

“You didn’t!” Lally gasps in surprise.

 

“I did!”

 

Lettice stands up and walks over to the mantelpiece, cluttered with a dozen or so gaily coloured cards, all stylised in the simple lines of the Art Deco aesthetic movement that is swiftly becoming fashionable as the decade of 1920s moves forward. She fishes out a card hidden towards the back featuring a Christmas tree lined laneway at night with a car motoring down it. The car’s two beaming headlights and the crescent moon above are painted in gold paint which has also been used on the ‘Season’s Greetings’ written in bold text at the bottom of the card. She hands it to Lally who flips it open.

 

“’Best wishes to you and your family this festive season’,” Lally reads aloud. “’And a happy 1925 from Gladys and John.’” She closes the card and hands it back with an edge of distaste to Lettice, who slips it back behind a card featuring two bright red poinsettias on a blue background. “Well, it’s cursory, but not unpleasant.” Lally pronounces. “That’s somewhat of a turn up for the books, I must say!”

 

“Oh, I don’t think it was actually written by Gladys.” Lettice replies, returning to her seat and picking up her glass of champagne. “I think her dragon of a personal secretary, Miss Goodwyn, did it and simply gave it to Gladys and John to sign.”

 

“Yes, but she didn’t have to send you a card at all, did she, Tice darling?”

 

“I suppose not, but I think she knows that Phoebe and I have developed a friendship… mmm… of sorts… since that afternoon tea at Aunt Egg’s.”

 

“Is Pheobe finally starting to come out of her shell, now that she’s not under Lady Glady’s roof so much?”

 

“Since I set things right at her Ridgmount Gardens pied-à-terre********, yes.” Lettice replies with a satisficed smile. “I mean, she’ll never be frightfully outgoing, and I’d never call her one of my bosom friends*********, but Phoebe is actually turning out to be a rather pleasant companion, in a quiet and more reserved way. At least she expresses her opinions more readily now, and being on the quieter side, I’ve discovered that she is very good at observing people and noticing little things that others don’t.”

 

“Well that’s good.”

 

“Yes, it is rather.”

 

“Well, I must say this looks awfully jolly and festive.” Lally remarks, looking at the brightly coloured canapés and sleek black caviar on the silver tray. “Now, Tice darling, you must tell me all about this Christmas party we’re going to tonight.”

 

“Oh, well it isn’t strictly a Christmas party as such, Lally darling.” Lettice corrects her sister politely as she puts down her glass and picks up a thin watercracker biscuit which she smothers in glistening black caviar. She then deposits the silver spoon back into the bowl and passes the caviar lavished cracker to her sister.

 

“Thank you, Tice.” Lally says, accepting the watercracker gratefully. “It isn’t?”

 

“No. This is more of a transatlantic set, you see, what with Georgie being American and Cilla being British.” Lettice fixes herself a caviar smothered watercracker biscuit. “So, tonight is more of an amalgam of celebrations.”

 

“And amalgam?” Lally bites into the caviar and sighs with pleasure.

 

“Yes. It’s a Thanksgiving Christmas party, combining the American tradition of Thanksgiving with our Christmas traditions.”

 

“Then why can’t it be a Christmas Thanksgiving party, since it’s being celebrated here in England?” She finishes the caviar.

 

“Do have a canapés,” Lettice remarks, picking up the plate and holding it out to Lally. “They’re rather good.” As Lally accepts one from the proffered plate she goes on, “Well, firstly, Thanksgiving is celebrated before Christmas in late November********** apparently so it takes precedence, and secondly, it is technically Georgie’s party,” She takes a canapé for herself. ‘So he can call it whatever he likes, can’t he?”

 

“Oh these are jolly scrumptious!” Lally enthuses as she consumes the dainty canapé delicately.

 

“Do have another, Lally darling!” Lettice encourages, picking up the plate and passing it to her sister. “Help yourself. Eat up!”

 

Lally reaches over and accepts the plate gratefully. She selects another one. She pauses for a moment and thinks. “However, I don’t see why we need to eat so heartily before we attend this party of yours we’re going to, whatever it’s called. Isn’t there going to be any food?”

 

Lettice lifts her head fall backwards as she laughs lightly at her sister’s remark. “You’ve never been to one of the Carter’s parties before.” she says knowingly. “It’s not like Mater’s Hunt Balls with the local landed county gentry, where it’s all ‘no, after you’ politeness and no-one takes more than they need. Georgie is American, and frightfully well off thanks to things they call dry goods stores.”

 

Lally laughs. “What on earth are those?”

 

“I wish I knew.” Lettice laughs. “Gerald and I have been trying to get to the bottom of what they are ever since Cilla and Georgie got married.” She takes another sip of champagne before continuing. “Anyway, as a result of his dry goods store money, and Cilla’s positive obsession at acquiring as many new friends as possible now that she is rich, every acquaintance and hanger-on in London will be in attendance tonight, and believe me, when the food comes out, it’s like a pack of vultures swooping. We’ll be lucky if we get a few pieces of canapés each. So eat up!”

 

“How frightful!” Lally remarks, popping another canapé in her mouth and taking another from the plate before handing it back to Lettice, who places it back on the table.

 

“It is rather, but only when it comes to food, Lally darling.” Lettice lavishes another watercracker with caviar. “Georgie and Cilla’s ballroom in their Park Lane*********** mansion is to die for! It’s all Palladian columns, gilding and polished parquetry beneath crystal chandeliers they bought for a song from an old rundown château in the south of France whilst they were on their honeymoon.”

 

“Rather!” Lally exclaims.

 

“Old Philadelphia money also pays for the hottest new dance bands.” Lettice remarks conspiratorially before eating the caviar covered watercracker.

 

“Who will be performing tonight?” Lally asks excitedly.

 

“Only the Savoy Havana Band************!” Lettice enthuses, clapping her bejewelled hands.

 

“Heavens! How thrilling!”

 

“Georgie has paid goodness knows how much to Wilfred de Mornys************* for them to perform tonight! It’s going to be a whizzer of a party, Lally darling!” She takes a canapé and bites into it before continuing on. “And, for all Georgie and Cilla’s hangers-on, tonight will be the last big event of the 1924 Season, so we’ll be sure to be mixing with some very smart and select people: interesting and influential types, you know the sort, not to mention the brightest of the Bright Young Things**************.”

 

“Oh, I’m far too old to be mixing with the likes of them, Tice.” Lally scoffs with a dismissive wave of her hand. “That’s more your set. I’ll just blend into the background and be a wallflower tonight.”

 

“Nonsense Lally! You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Lettice retorts, looking her sister up and down, appraising her blonde hair, admittedly streaked with a few silver greys, set in a stylish cascade of waves and pinned elegantly in a chignon at the back of her neck, dressed in one of Gerald’s beaded evening frocks in striking French blue************** borrowed from Lettice’s wardrobe, diamonds sparkling at her ears and two strands of pearls encircling her neck. “You can hold your own with them. Anyway, I’ll introduce you and they’ll love the fact that you’re my elder sister.” She finishes her canapé. “They will grill you for dreadful stories of me misbehaving from childhood that they can then dine out on in the New Year, so best you try and remember my most ghastly exploits.”

 

“Like when you put a frog from the ornamental lake in Nanny Webb’s apron?” Lally giggles.

 

“That’s the ticket, Lally darling!”

 

“And you don’t mind?” Lally picks up a watercracer and adds a smaller amount of black caviar to it than her sister’s servings.

 

“My dear Lally, I relish it! There’s nothing more boring than not being spoken about.” She rolls her eyes.

 

“I should have thought that with that ghastly cad, Selwyn Spencely, breaking off your engagement like that, that being spoken about would be the last thing you’d want.”

 

Lettice doesn’t answer for a moment, but then replies, “Well, that’s why I need people to talk about and ask me about anything other than that. I don’t want people’s pity, least of all any of Cilla’s hangers-on, who don’t know me from a bar of soap****************.”

 

The sisters fall into an awkward silence. Lettice toys with the spoon sitting atop the caviar idly.

 

“You know, you really are being most frightfully decent about all that beastly business with Lady Zinnia,” Lally finally says, breaking the sudden, smothering quiet engulfing the siblings. “And Selwyn not even having the decency to come back and tell you that he’s engaged to someone else, himself!”

 

“Oh,” Lettice replies breezily, waving Lally’s remark away with a dismissive sweep. “I mean, it was never definite that Selwyn was going to come back to me. And with Selwyn’s absence for a year, I didn’t feel this ending quite so acutely, as I did his departure.” she lies.

 

“Oh but we’d all so hoped that it would work out: Mamma, Pappa, Leslie, Charles, all of us, really.”

 

“Not Aunt Egg.” Lettice counters.

 

“Well, Aunt Egg doesn’t believe in marriage, but all the same, she only wants your happiness.”

 

“Well,” Lettice rubs her hands together, flicking crumbs of golden puff pastry from the canapes on the Chinese silk carpet at her feet. “It’s done now, and that’s all there is to it.”

 

“Be that as it may,” Lally adds. “I have no doubt that you have something up your sleeve.”

 

“What do you mean?” Lettice asks as she sits up with a start, suddenly very alert as to what her sister is saying.

 

“Oh, nothing, Tice darling. Don’t worry!” Lally chuckles languidly. “I only meant that you won’t let the grass grow beneath your feet. You’ll have some plan or other to stop yourself from sitting idly by and missing Selwyn. A new interior design project or some such for the new year.”

 

Lettice longs to confide in her elder sister about her recent secret engagement to Sir John Nettleford-Hughes. Although the two siblings have not always been the closest, thanks largely to the selfish and jealous actions of their mother, Lady Sadie, who forced a rift between them by setting up cases of one-upmanship, now that they are aware of this and no longer play into Lady Sadie’s emotional clutches, they have become close again, so it pains Lettice not to be honest with Lally. However, she knows that not only would Lally consider her sudden engagement on the heels of Selwyn’s abandonment of her rather rash, but that Lally dislikes Sir John, and Lettice suspects that if she knew about it, she would try relentlessly to get Lettice to break off her engagement. She knows that her reasoning behind keeping her engagement a secret until after the dust settles on her break with Selwyn is wise and sound, so she keeps her own counsel and remains silent on the matter of her engagement.

 

Lally gets up from her seat and wanders over to the fireplace, warming herself by the glowing wood fire as it crackles pleasurably as she picks up the cards and reads whom they are from inside.

 

“Mrs. Hatchett?” She foists a card with a little black Scottish terrier in a hamper tied with a pink bow on the front before Lettice. “Isn’t she the wife of that Labour politician who was part of Ramsay MacDonald’s short-lived minority Labour government?”

 

“Charles Hatchett? Yes. I decorated the Hatchett’s house in Sussex back in 1921, and Mrs. Hatchett still sends me a Christmas card every year.”

 

“Thank God the country came to its senses and the Conservatives won the general election in October. We’re back to normal politically again.”

 

Lettice doesn’t reply as Lally continues to peruse the cards.

 

“Oh-ho!” Lally chuckles, holding up one featuring a painting of a pair of brightly coloured wooden dolls in festive Art Deco version of Victorian style outfits. “Pappa would habe you hung, drawn and quartered as a traitor if he knew you were in receipt of correspondence from the film star Wanetta Ward.”

 

“Why?” Lettice gasps. “I decorated her flat too.”

 

“Yes,” Lally muses. “I remember, and I remember all the stink that came about because you deliberately failed to tell Mamma and Pappa about it.” She wags her finger accusing at her sister, yet the impish smile on her face confirms that she isn’t in the last cross with Lettice.

 

“Well, I knew they wouldn’t approve,” Lettice defends. “And I wanted her as a client. She’s very high profile, and she boosted my own business profile with my decoration of her flat.”

 

“Yes, well, lets hope Pappa has forgotten about it.”

 

“Why is he suddenly even more vehemently against Miss Ward than he was when I decorated her flat? I held to the promise I made to him then. I haven’t decorated any more, and I quote, ‘unsuitable actress’’ houses since I did hers.”

 

“Didn’t Mamma write and tell you?” Lally asks.

 

“No. Tell me what?”

 

“Marsen’s gone.” Lally replies, referring to the Chetwynd family’s footman, who always faithfully opens the front door and carries Lettice’s bags when she visits Glynes.

 

“Gone? Gone where? Gone when?”

 

“He left about two weeks ago apparently,” Lally replies, replacing the card on the mantle. “After he came to London on one of his days off.”

 

“What has that to do with Wanetta Ward, Lally darling?”

 

“Everything, Tice!” Lally replies with a light hearted laugh. “He saw that awful cardboard costume cutout picture of hers set in London when the Thames froze over.”

 

“‘Skating and Sinning’.” Lettice breathes.

 

“Yes!” Lally gasps. Raising her hand to her throat and clutching her pearls she continues, “Don’t tell me you saw it, Tice darling?”

 

“Well, no. I only know about it because Miss Ward told me about it not long after I completed the redecoration of her flat.” Lettice eyes her sister suspiciously. “But it sounds to me, like you’ve seen it.”

 

“Heavens no!” Lally laughs again, releasing her pearls and replacing the card in front of Lettice’s statuette of the ‘Theban dancer’ which sits in the centre of the mantlepiece. “I only know about it because Mrs. Sawyer tells me about all the pictures she sees with her husband at The Grand***************** in High Wycombe on the weekends when we discuss the menus on Mondays.”

 

“So why is Daddy so black on Miss Ward? Don’t tell me he dislikes her films.” Lettice says in disbelief. “I doubt he’s ever been to the pictures; he speaks so disparagingly of them.”

 

“Indeed he hasn’t, Tice. No. You see when Marsden saw your Miss Ward in ‘Skating and Sinning’, he fell madly and passionately in love with her, much to his ruination, or so Mamma tells me, and he decided that one day he would become an actor in the pictures. It turns out that he took secret acting lessons from Mrs. Maginot.”

 

“Not Mrs. Maginot, the haberdashers in Glynes?”

 

“The very one, Tice!” Lally titters. “She does have rather a theatrical bent, and manages the Glynes Theatrical Players as well as her shop in the village.”

 

“I know, but we’ve all been subject to their awful plays before, especially the Christmas panto****************** which we’ll both have to suffer through painted smiles this year, since its on the night of the twenty second. It’s ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ this year, and goodness knows I don’t wish to see Mr. Lewis the church verger reprise his role Dame Trott*******************.”

 

“As awful as it’s bound to be, Tice darling, Mrs, Maingot must have something of a knack when it comes to acting, because after a year and a half of lessons with her, Marsen went up to London to Islington Studios******************** last month to try out for a bit part in an upcoming film to be released in 1925, and landed the role as the romantic lead opposite his beloved Miss Ward!”

 

“What?” Lettice bursts out laughing. “Well I never!”

 

“Indeed! So, he came home to Glynes and handed Mamma his notice then and there!” Lally joins her sister’s raucous laughter. “Can you believe it? Our Marsden, starring in a film?”

 

“They must have hired him for his looks and his height, Lally darling, not his acting skills. Well, we definitely can’t see that production!”

 

“I’m almost tempted to sneak into The Grand and see it with Mrs. Sawyer when it coms out next year.” Lally laughs.

 

“Well, fancy Marsen being an actor in the pictures!”

 

“Yes, Mamma is fit to be tied! She has put an advertisement in The Lady*********************, but of course you know how hard it is to get a young man to be a footman these days that I think it’s a hopeless endeavour.”

 

“Well, only the really grand houses have footmen these days.” Lettice mutters, shuddering as she remembers Lady Zinna’s imperious footmen at her Park Lane mansion on the day Lettice fond out that Selwyn had become engaged to someone else. “Poor Bramley will have to answer the door as well as all his other butlering duties.”

 

Lally continues to flick through the cards until she comes across a rater innocuous one of a cottage with a smoking chimney set against a forest of pine trees.

 

“Sir John Nettleford-Hughes?” Lally gasps. “That old lecher?”

 

Lettice blushes at the mention of his name. Before she became secretly engaged to Sir John, he had sent her an early Christmas card which she put up, and rather than take it down when her sister arrived to stay, she simply left it up, hidden discreetly towards the back of the cards on display.

 

“He’s really not that bad,” Lettice says, grateful that her elder sister is too preoccupied with putting the card back to turn around and see her flushed cheeks. “Not once you get to know him. He was at Gossington when I went to stay with John and Gladys, and I was seated next to him at dinner. He’s really quite interesting and entertaining.”

 

“Lecherous and handsy don’t you mean?”

 

“No, I don’t. He really is rather kind, and more of a gentleman than you might suppose, Lally darling. Honestly.”

 

“You’ve changed your tune.” Lally replies, finally spinning around and facing her sister. “I seem to remember you and I both agreeing not that long ago on what a ghastly handsy old man he is!”

 

“Well, that was before Gossington.” Lettice defends. “Anyway, I really have Sir John to thank for the wonderful review by Henry Tipping********************** in Country Life***********************. After all, it was thanks to him that I met Mr. and Mrs. Gifford properly and redecorated the Pagoda Room for them. Mr. Gifford is Sir John’s nephew, and Mr. Gifford’s godfather is Henry Tipping.”

 

“You are a dark horse, aren’t you Tice, my darling?” Lally says with a puzzled smile.

 

“What do you mean, Lally?”

 

“Well, you and your interesting assortment of friends: politicians wives, lady novelists, actresses and lecherous old men!” Lally replies with a chuckle. “If this is the artistic life of a London society interior designer, I think I’ll be glad to get home to the quiet life of a Buckinghamshire lady of the manor. No Miss Wards or Sir Johns there!”

 

“Not yet, Lally darling! Not yet. But wait until Metroland reaches you. See what neighbours you get then!” Lettice gently teases her sister. “Besides,” she adds with an enigmatic smile. “I’m going to corrupt you with London society at this Thanksgiving Christmas party of the Carter’s this evening. High Wycombe is going to appear even more dreary dull to you after tonight.” She pauses for a moment. “Oh, and by the way, Sir John will be at the party this evening.”

 

Lally’s eyes grow wide in surprise. “No!”

 

“Yes.” Before Lally has a chance to protest, Lettice goes on, “Sir John is a distant relation of Cilla’s, so it’s not unexpected that he would be there. So, I’ll have the chance to show you just how charming he really can be.”

 

“You make it sound like you’re going to convert me, Tice.” Lally says warily.

 

“And so I am, Lally darling! By the end of tonight, you’ll love him! Now, drink up! It’s high time we were away!” Lettice holds her half drunk glass of champagne out to her sister whilst taking a less than ladylike gulp from her own. “The night is still young, and we don’t want to miss all the fun, or the good quality champagne.”

 

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

 

**To get tight is an old fashioned term used to describe getting drunk.

 

***The Austin 7 is an economy car that was produced from 1923 until 1939 in the United Kingdom by Austin. It was nicknamed the "Baby Austin" and was at that time one of the most popular cars produced for the British market and sold well abroad. Its effect on the British market was similar to that of the Model T Ford in the US, replacing most other British economy cars and cyclecars of the early 1920s.

 

****Derry and Toms was a smart London department store that was founded in 1860 in Kensington High Street. In 1930 a new three storey store was built in Art Deco style, and it was famous for its Roof Garden which opened in 1938. In 1973 the store was closed and became home to Big Biba, which closed in 1975. The site was developed into smaller stores and offices.

 

*****Two-up two-down is a type of small house with two rooms on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs. There are many types of terraced houses in the United Kingdom, and these are among the most modest. The first two-up two-down terraces were built in the 1870s, but the concept of them made up the backbone of the Metroland suburban expansions of the 1920s with streets lined with rows of two-up two-down semi-detached houses in Mock Tudor, Jacobethan, Arts and Crafts and inter-war Art Deco styles bastardised from the aesthetic styles created by the likes of English Arts and Crafts Movement designers like William Morris and Charles Voysey.

 

******The BBC presented the first dramatised recording of Charles Dickens classic novella ‘A Christmas Carol’ in December 1922. The dramatic recital was performed by Cyril Estacourt (who went on to do a good many more recital pieces for the BBC over the ensuing years) with carol interludes performed by the Star Street Congregational Church Choir. The recording was actually broadcast on the BBC’s 5WA Cardiff, but I hope you will indulge my slight alteration by placing it in the London studios of the BBC for dramatic purposes.

  

*******The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organization for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being the first speaker in 1897. It was based on the British concept of Women's Guilds, created by Rev Archibald Charteris in 1887 and originally confined to the Church of Scotland. From Canada the organization spread back to the motherland, throughout the British Empire and Commonwealth, and thence to other countries. Many WIs belong to the Associated Country Women of the World organization. Each individual WI is a separate charitable organisation, run by and for its own members with a constitution agreed at national level but the possibility of local bye-laws. WIs are grouped into Federations, roughly corresponding to counties or islands, which each have a local office and one or more paid staff.

 

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

 

*********The term bosom friend is recorded as far back as the late Sixteenth Century. In those days, the bosom referred to the chest as the seat of deep emotions, though now the word usually means a woman's “chest.” A bosom friend, then, is one you might share these deep feelings with or have deep feelings for.

 

**********In the United States, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.

 

***********Park Lane is a dual carriageway road in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is part of the London Inner Ring Road and runs from Hyde Park Corner in the south to Marble Arch in the north. It separates Hyde Park to the west from Mayfair to the east. The road was originally a simple country lane on the boundary of Hyde Park, separated by a brick wall. Aristocratic properties appeared during the late 18th century, including Breadalbane House, Somerset House, and Londonderry House. The road grew in popularity during the 19th century after improvements to Hyde Park Corner and more affordable views of the park, which attracted the nouveau riche to the street and led to it becoming one of the most fashionable roads to live on in London. Notable residents included the 1st Duke of Westminster's residence at Grosvenor House, the Dukes of Somerset at Somerset House, and the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli at No. 93. Other historic properties include Dorchester House, Brook House and Dudley House. In the 20th century, Park Lane became well known for its luxury hotels, particularly The Dorchester, completed in 1931, which became closely associated with eminent writers and international film stars. Flats and shops began appearing on the road, including penthouse flats. Several buildings suffered damage during World War II, yet the road still attracted significant development, including the Park Lane Hotel and the London Hilton on Park Lane, and several sports car garages. A number of properties on the road today are owned by some of the wealthiest businessmen from the Middle East and Asia.

 

************The Savoy Havana Band was a popular British dance band of the 1920s. It was resident at the Savoy Hotel in London, between 1921 and 1927. The band made their first live outside broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation from the Savoy Hotel on the 3rd of October, 1923.

 

*************Wilfred de Mornys managed both the Savoy Havana band and their colleagues the more famous Savoy Orpheans, both of whom performed at the Savoy in London.

  

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

 

***************French Blue is a rich, deep blue that exudes elegance and sophistication. This captivating hue is inspired by the vibrant blue uniforms worn by the French military in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

 

****************Meaning to be completely unacquainted with, “not to know – from a bar of soap” is often attributed as an Australian colloquialism, because it is there that it is most commonly used in everyday parlance, however the term was first used in the Chicago Daily Tribune in May 1877 when writing a review about the English comic opera singer and actress Emily Soldene: “The ‘prima donna’ does not know a bar of music from a bar of soap; the chief actor would not be allowed to play supernumerary in a dumb show.”

 

*****************Located about a mile from High Wycombe town centre. The Grand Cinema was opened on the 28th April 1913 with “Zigomar”. It was designed by T. Thurlow, and had an attractively decorated façade. There was a small stage and some dressing rooms for variety acts. It was closed for several months in 1953, and re-opened under new operators. It closed forever on the 8th September 1962 with Kenneth More in “Some People” and Ray Barrett in “Time to Remember”. Part of the building was demolished and the remainder was used as a tailors. It then became a furniture showroom for James Blundell, who seemed to have a knack of converting closed cinemas for their own use. It then became an electrical store, and the façade was re-modelled.

 

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

 

*******************Dame Trott is the long suffering mother of Jack in the Christmas pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk. She is outrageous, brash and loud, and traditionally played by a man in drag.

 

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

 

*********************The Lady is one of Britain's longest-running women's magazines. It has been in continuous publication since 1885 and is based in London. It is particularly notable for its classified advertisements for domestic service and child care; it also has extensive listings of holiday properties.

 

**********************Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.

 

***********************Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.

 

I love Christmas, and I love decorating at Christmas too. This even extends to my miniatures collection. This upper-class domestic scene is different to what you may think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The elegantly decorated Christmas tree is a hand-made 1:12 size artisan miniature made by an artist in America. The presents beneath it and on the coffee table come from various miniature specialist stockists in England.

 

The 1:12 miniature garland over the Art Deco fireplace was hand-made by Karen Lady Bug Miniatures in England and the 1;12 Art Deco card selection on the mantle came from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature store in England.

 

The salmon mousse garnished with cucumber slices and lemon wedges is an artisan miniature by an unknown artist. It is even presented on a holly sprigged plate, so it is very festive! The champagne bottle, glasses and bowl of caviar are hand-made 1:12 artisan miniature pieces too, acquired from Karen Ladybug Miniatures.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

On the left hand side of the mantle, behind the cards, you can just glimpse the turquoise coloured top of an Art Deco metal clock hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken.

 

In the middle of the mantle is a miniature artisan hand painted Art Deco statue on a “marble” plinth. Made by Warwick Miniatures in England, it is a 1:12 copy of the “Theban Dancer” sculpture created by Claire-Jeanne-Roberte Colinet in 1925.

 

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

Note that my camera as ABOVE his nose. That happens rarely for me as I'm always in my wheelchair and my subjects are usually standing. Chris was sitting on the stoop of Wallace's Drug store waiting for them to open. Me too. Only I was sitting, like I said, in my chair. Boring story, isn't it?

 

Since Chris didn't have the decency to provide me with a face full of wrinkles, cracks, and crevices I thought I'd forego my usual less than flattering treatment and see if I can actually work out something vaguely akin to a 'straight' portrait.

 

Turns out I can't. Close, but not quite. Oh well.

 

Original File: Chris_5322.psd

Peace is restored. The Egyptian Geese couple reunites and returns to decency, living happily ever after.

Gutter journalism of Brisbane's "Courier Mail". The newspapers unwarranted criticism of Tony Abbott (Australian Prime Minister) and the implied disrespect by The Editor of "The Courier Mail" for His Royal Highness Prince Philip (Duke of Edinburgh) in granting of a Knighthood is lacking decency.

 

The headline is right: The Courier Mail has the wrong tone.

 

Shame on "The Courier Mail"; well done Tony: congratulations Prince Philip.

even after the ordeal that evil foursome (juey, kagey_b, presty and rozreynolds) had put me thought i still had the decency to invite them round for breakfast.

 

if you like this come and join the greatest group on flickr: the full english

via Instagram ift.tt/2jjfZvI

Music: youtu.be/d7F02UGnFfU?si=xNYVDcwKkUcqFpni

 

I was reading Pat A. Fleming's poem “What Life Should Be” the other night to my daughter and wanted to create an image that illustrates the feelings it embodies. Here's the poem and if you don't like to read, there is a song that accompanies the picture.

 

"To learn while still a child

What this life is meant to be.

To know it goes beyond myself,

It’s so much more than me.

To overcome the tragedies,

To survive the hardest times.

To face those moments filled with pain,

And still, manage to be kind.

To fight for those who can’t themselves,

To always share my light.

With those who wander in the dark,

To love with all my might.

To still stand up with courage,

Though standing on my own.

To still get up and face each day,

Even when I feel alone.

To try to understand the ones

That no one cares to know.

And make them feel some value

When the world has let them go.

To be an anchor, strong and true,

That person loyal to the end.

To be a constant source of hope

To my family and my friends.

To live a life of decency,

To share my heart and soul.

To always say I’m sorry

When I’ve harmed both friend and foe.

To be proud of whom I’ve tried to be,

And this life I chose to live.

To make the most of every day

By giving all I have to give.

To me, that’s what this life should be,

To me, that’s what it’s for.

To take what God has given me

And make it so much more

To live a life that matters,

To be someone of great worth.

To love and be loved in return

And make my mark on Earth."

As Blythe Bridge was the first station I ever caught a train from as a young child (to Meir), I thought it my duty to up-load a photo (poor quality admittedly and taken at a much later date), just for the record.

I suppose you could say there's two sides to every story, the platform the train is arriving at has lost it's original waiting room in favour of a bus shelter, whilst the Stoke bound platform appears still to have its original canopy (although it might have been slightly modified) and buildings (including the medieval toilet block on this end with decency wall, albeit boarded up).

Photo was taken 17th September 1979, the signal box has since vanished and no doubt the main station building and the lampost in the foreground too.

The Swindon cross-country unit (arriving on a Crewe to Derby service) was probably one of the most cosiest DMU's I've travelled on....and great if you were sitting at the front for a panoramic view of the line ahead.

La Tomba di Dante fu costruita tra il 1780 e il 1782 per volontà del cardinal legato Luigi Valenti Gonzaga e su progetto dell'architetto ravennate Camillo Morigia, secondo i contemporanei dettami neoclassici, nell'intento di restituire nobiltà e decoro alla sepoltura dantesca, fino ad allora ospitata all'interno di una semplice cappellina, più volte ristrutturata nel corso dei secoli. Le spoglie del poeta, dopo essere state a lungo nascoste dai frati francescani, per essere sottratte ai Fiorentini che le avevano richieste, furono rinvenute nel 1865 e da quel momento riposano nella Tomba.

L'interno fu rivestito di marmi policromi per il Centenario dantesco del 1921: sulla parete di fronte all'entrata è collocato il bel bassorilievo con il ritratto di Dante, scolpito da Pietro Lombardo nel 1483; ai piedi dell’arca sepolcrale è posta una ghirlanda in bronzo e argento offerta nel 1921 dall’esercito vittorioso nella Prima Guerra Mondiale e sul lato destro si trova la raffinata ampolla realizzata da Giovanni Mayer e donata dalle città giuliano-dalmate nel 1908.

 

Built between 1780 and 1782, Dante's Tomb was commissioned by the cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga, from a project by the architect Camillo Morigia from Ravenna, who followed the neoclassical norms of that time. The cardinal's aim was to restore the nobility and decency of Dante's burial. Up until then, the remains of the poet had been preserved in a little chapel that underwent several restorations over the centuries. After being kept hidden by the Franciscan friars for a long time, in order to protect them from the Florentines who had claimed them, Dante's remains were found in 1865 and they have been resting in the new tomb ever since.

In occasion of the 600th anniversary (Centenario dantesco) of Dante's death in 1921, the interior was covered with polichrome marbles; a beautiful low relief portraying the poet was carved in 1483 by Pietro Lombardo and placed onto the wall in front of the tomb's entrance; a bronze and silver wreath lies at the foot of the sepulchral ark, it was donated to Ravenna by the victorious army after the First World War; on the right side you find the refined ampoule by Giovanni Mayer, donated by the Istrian cities in 1908.

 

(Fonte: www.turismo.ra.it)

A few months ago, I read somewhere that a local Colombian politician wanted to cover this breasts' statue as a matter of both 'urgency' and 'decency.'

I didn't think much of it until a few days later, when I read again that this highly intelligent person might actually get it her way...

So, with all the problems this country has, they decided to give this a priority... Oh wait, that makes sense. Go figure.

 

(1951) Rolleiflex 3.5 Automat MX + Ilford PF4+ (@ ISO 250)

Minolta Autometer IVF

Epson Perfection 4490 / No Photoshop

Agfa Rodinal 1+50 - Development details on FilmDev

Bogotá (COL)

 

© 2015 Prezioso PH

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Don't tell me you didn't know that my street work can now be seen at my secondary Tumblr blog, www.tumblr.com/blog/smilefromthestreetsyoushoot. Amazing, isn't it? Enjoy it then, why not? Of course you will. I know it, you know it.

I'm not one for confrontation. As much as anything else, I just can't be arsed with it. Too much else to waste time on, you know?

 

I accept that sometimes, you're gonna get people in your masterpieces. Grumble under your breath and get on with.

 

But I so nearly started at this poxy lot...

 

I can see the target approaching and they appeared from under the bridge. Now, if I see someone with their camera cocked, the common decency bit of my brain sends the impulse to get out of the way sharpish. Not this lot, oh no. That irritating little 'oh look at me aren't I silly' chuckle from her. Yeah, you know. The one that is guaranteed to stir up the primal instinct to... Well, you know.

 

I threw them one of my looks on the way out. I've frozen peoples blood with that look before now. It didn't cure anything, but at least they knew what I thought of them and their snot-nosed offspring.

 

And why was I so pissed?

 

Well, that F59, Metrolink #873, is on it's last legs. I'm actually surprised that any are still running with Metrolink's new F125's out and about. I certainly don't expect them to be here next time I happen this way. And this picture had it's own page in a forthcoming publication. Scrub that, I'm thinking out loud.

 

And I'm hoping that a certain pal in the Welshpool area might be able to use his jiggery pokery and get rid of them period...

 

The vignette treatment sort of solves the problem in an absolutely not kinda way. I just hate that on the odd occasion I take a halfway decent pic of something that isn't going to be around much longer, something or someone has to trash it for me.

 

Rant over.

 

San Clemente Beach, 30 January 2019.

A fool can ask questions faster than the wisest man can answer them.

 

Why would you want to be anywhere else?

 

When I set out this morning it was a delightful -4⁰C. At a guess, it's a few degrees warmer now. There is no wind to speak of, and a crystal clear sky. I'm in good company, we have topics to discuss, and as it would turn out, even on Saturday, we have this trail entirely to ourselves. Why would you want to be indoors?

 

Starting out in the valley of the Gudgenby River at close enough to 890m ASL we're climbing here to cross the ridge and descend to the tributary Reedy Creek. It's been a gentle 60m ascent, or so, to this point — a heart starter. We don't need a rest, except to look back and ask: how good is that, and isn't it a shame this has all been burnt again? Neither wants to admit we'll not live long enough to see it recover.

 

After Reedy Creek, the real climbing starts, those poles we're carrying aren't for decoration, and the final layer will come off; bar the last one for sun protection and decency. We'll top out at just under 1100m before we drop down into the valley of Gudgenby Creek and on to Brandy Flat. Neither of us asks why. The ground is frozen for much of this way, the soil is lined by frost heaving and the remnants of the last snow crunches beneath boots. We agree that if anyone asks why, they don't get it. We are each and both in a happy place!

 

Ahead, the Booth Range rears up behind Gudgenby Creek. It's grey with the ghosts of dead, fire-killed snow gums; dotted with the unnatural fawn of heat-spalled granite and things that we agree would be better unseen. How can this happen over and over with such frequency? Why? Normally this scene would be at our backs as we walk to the northwest. But not today. Why? Over that way's a bit boggy, the days are short, and the risk of hitting a kangaroo in an afternoon extraction is too high. We make informed decisions; ones that come with age and experience.

 

Why walk this way, and not towards Bandy Flat from the south? Because that way is really steep, in and out. Here the return path is more down than up. That's why. By the end we'll have more than 11¼km in our legs, almost 400m of up and down, and maybe for the first time ever, my pace has got my companion panting! If you have to ask why…

 

I think this building looks wildly out of place - as if it's just landed here. I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted this photo to come out, and spent a long time processing this in Photoshop to get it looking how I imagined. This teeters on the edge of over-saturation, but is - to me at least - still within the bounds of decency...

 

Best viewed large on black

This image is copyright, all rights reserved, and not part of the public domain. Any use, linking to, or posting of this image is prohibited without my consent. If you want to use this image in any fashion, please have the common courtesy and decency to ask.

 

Rocky Butte, Portland, Oregon

 

I went up to Rocky Butte on Saturday with the idea of photographing storm clouds and rain bands with my big Sigma lens. Being there was a mixture of heavy rain and sunshine, I was on the lookout for occasional rainbows. I was not disappointed because I was in for a treat with this light show that lasted several minutes as the heavy rain bands made their way east.

"For a real bargain, while you're making a living, you should make also a life." —Aaron Bronson

 

In 1920, in small-town America, the ubiquitous dry goods store—suits and coats, shoes and hats, work clothes and school clothes, yard goods and notions—was usually owned by Jews and often referred to as "the Jew store." That's how Stella Suberman's father's store, Bronson's Low-Priced Store, in Concordia, Tennessee, was known locally. The Bronsons were the first Jews to ever live in that tiny town (1920 population: 5,318) of one main street, one bank, one drugstore, one picture show, one feed and seed, one hardware, one barber shop, one beauty parlor, one blacksmith, and many Christian churches. Aaron Bronson moved his family all the way from New York City to that remote corner of northwest Tennessee to prove himself a born salesman—and much more. Told by Aaron's youngest child, The Jew Store is that rare thing—an intimate family story that sheds new light on a piece of American history. Here is One Man's Family with a twist—a Jew, born into poverty in prerevolutionary Russia and orphaned from birth, finds his way to America, finds a trade, finds a wife, and sets out to find his fortune in a place where Jews are unwelcome. With a novelist's sense of scene, suspense, and above all, characterization, Stella Suberman turns the clock back to a time when rural America was more peaceful but no less prejudiced, when educated liberals were suspect, and when the Klan was threatening to outsiders. In that setting, she brings her remarkable father to life, a man whose own brand of success proves that intelligence, empathy, liberality, and decency can build a home anywhere. The Jew Store is a heartwarming—even inspiring—story.

 

P.S. When I started middle school in 1995, I was one of the few students from the former Soviet Union in the 90s who spoke Russian. Saying my school was unwelcome is an understatement. To American students, I (and a few other students) were “The Russians"... They never got in trouble for that and bullying was completely ignored! I always thought that after being “A Jew” in Ukraine, I would be more accepted here. I was wrong. Maybe that’s what led to my dislike of the American public school system. And to be clear my dislike of the system is not a dislike of the teachers. I've had some amazing teachers who believed in me and inspired me greatly—inspired me in a way no teacher in Ukraine did (I came from a stringent school system). To say I love them and they made my teenager years much brighter is not to say anything! It’s always a choice what kind of person you choose to be!

The grackle seemed extremely annoyed that I was taking its picture while it was having a bath....

" Have you no decency sir?"

We are the world...Sarawakians practice a variety of religions, including Islam, Christianity, Chinese folk religion (a fusion of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and ancestor worship) and animism. Christianity is the largest religion in culturally and religiously diverse Sarawak. Religion plays a significant role in nurturing the culture of decency and modesty among Sarawakians. It also reflects and strengthens the identity among various ethnics. For example, Islam reflects the identity of Malay, Chinese religions, Buddha reflects the identity of Chinese, Hinduism reflects the identity of the Indians and Christianity reflects the identity of most Dayaks, while some still practising animism.

 

And the best thing about Sarawak people is that we are all living as one harmonious family. Generally, we are all friends, stuck in a big island called, earth, thanks to flickr !...

 

Happy weekend to my friends and visitors all over. PEACE

Belgian postcard by Victoria Biscuits Chocolats, no. 16. Photo: M.G.M. Gene Kelly and Lana Turner in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.

 

The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.

 

As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.

 

Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”

 

Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 107. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Filmpress Zürich.

 

Voluptuous American actress Mamie Van Doren (1931) was a sex symbol of the 1950s and 1960s. Van Doren starred in several exploitation films such as Untamed Youth (1957), loaded with rock 'n' roll and juvenile delinquency. Her onscreen wardrobe usually consisted of tight sweaters, low-cut blouses, form-fitting dresses, and daring swimsuits. Mamie and her colleague blonde bombshells Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield were known as 'The Three M's.'

 

Mamie Van Doren was born Joan Lucille Olander in Rowena, South Dakota, in 1931. She was the daughter of Warner Carl Olander and Lucille Harriet Bennett. In 1942 the family moved to Los Angeles. In early 1946, Van Doren began working as an usher at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The following year, she had a bit part on an early television show. She also sang with Ted Fio Rito's band and entered several beauty contests. She was married for a brief time at seventeen when Van Doren and her first husband, Jack Newman, eloped to Santa Barbara. The marriage was dissolved quickly, upon her discovery of his abusive nature. In the summer of 1949, at age 18, she won the titles Miss Eight Ball and Miss Palm Springs. Van Doren was discovered by producer Howard Hughes the night she was crowned Miss Palm Springs. The pair dated for five years. Hughes provided her with a bit role in Jet Pilot at RKO Radio Pictures. Her line of dialogue inconsisted of one word, "Look!". The following year, 1951, she posed for famous pin-up girl artist Alberto Vargas, the painter of the glamorous Vargas Girls. His painting of Van Doren was on the July 1951 cover of Esquire magazine. Van Doren did a few more bit parts in RKO films, including His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, 1951) starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. Van Doren then began working on the stage. She was a showgirl in New York in Monte Proser's nightclub version of Billion Dollar Baby. Songwriter Jimmy McHugh discovered her for his musicals, then decided she was too good for the chorus line and should have dramatic training. She studied with Ben Bard and Bliss-Hayden. While appearing in the role of Marie in a showcase production of Come Back, Little Sheba, Van Doren was seen by Phil Benjamin, a casting director at Universal International. In 1953, Van Doren signed a contract with Universal Studios. They had big plans for her, hoping she would bring the same kind of success that 20th Century Fox had with Marilyn Monroe. Van Doren, whose signing day coincided with the inauguration of President Eisenhower, was given the first name Mamie for Ike's wife, Mamie Eisenhower. Universal first cast Van Doren in a minor role as a singer in Forbidden (Rudolph Maté, 1953), starring Tony Curtis. Interested in Van Doren's allure, Universal then cast her again opposite Curtis in The All American (Jesse Hibbs, 1953), playing her first major role as Susie Ward, a wayward girl who is the man-trap at a campus beer joint. In Yankee Pasha (Joseph Pevney, 1954), starring Jeff Chandler and Rhonda Fleming, she played a slave girl, Lilith. In 1955, she had a supporting role in the musical Ain't Misbehavin' (Edward Buzzell, 1955) and starred in the crime-drama, Running Wild (Abner Biberman, 1955). Soon thereafter, Van Doren turned down a Broadway role in the play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and was replaced by newcomer Jayne Mansfield. In 1956, Van Doren appeared in the Western Star in the Dust (Charles F. Haas, 1956). Though Van Doren garnered prominent billing alongside John Agar and Richard Boone, she appears rather briefly, as the daughter of a ranch owner. By this time, Van Doren had grown tired of Universal, which was only casting her in non-breakthrough roles. Therefore, Van Doren began accepting bigger roles in better movies from other studios, such as Teacher's Pet (George Seaton, 1958) with Doris Day and Clark Gable. She appeared in some of the first movies to feature rock 'n' roll music, such as Untamed Youth (Howard W. Koch, 1957). The film was originally condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, but that only served to enhance the curiosity factor, resulting in it being a big moneymaker for the studio. Van Doren became identified with this rebellious style, and made some rock records. She went to star in several bad girl movies that later became cult films. These include Born Reckless (Howard W. Koch, 1958), High School Confidential (Jack Arnold, 1958), and The Beat Generation (Charles F. Haas, 1959). After Universal Studios chose not to renew her contract in 1959, Van Doren was now a free agent and had to struggle to find work.

 

Mamie Van Doren became known for her provocative roles. She was in prison for Girls Town (Charles F. Haas, 1959), which provoked censors with a shower scene where audiences could see Van Doren's naked back. As Eve in The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (Mickey Rooney, Albert Zugsmith, 1960) she wore only fig leaves, and in other films, like Vice Raid (Edward L. Cahn, 1960) audiences were clued in as to the nature of the films from the titles. Many of these productions were low-budget B-movies which sometimes gained a cult following for their high camp value. An example is Sex Kittens Go to College (Albert Zugsmith, 1960), which co-starred Tuesday Weld and Mijanou Bardot - Brigitte's sister. Mamie also appeared in foreign productions, such as the Italian crime comedy Le bellissime gambe di Sabrina/The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1959) with Antonio Cifariello, and the Argentine film Una americana en Buenos Aires/The Blonde from Buenos Aires (George Cahan, 1961) with Jean-Pierre Aumont. Van Doren took some time off from her career and came back to the screen in 1964. That year she played in the German Western musical Freddy und das Lied der Prärie/In the Wild West (Sobey Martin, 1964), starring Freddy Quinn and Rik Battaglia. Tommy Noonan convinced Van Doren to appear in 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt (Tommy Noonan, 1964). Van Doren had turned down Noonan's previous offer to star in Promises! Promises!, in which she would have to do nude scenes. She was replaced by Jayne Mansfield. In 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt, Mamie did a beer-bath scene, but is not seen nude. She posed for Playboy to promote the film. Van Doren next appeared in The Las Vegas Hillbillys (Arthur C. Pierce, 1966) which co-starred Jayne Mansfield. It was the only time two of 'The Three M's' appeared together in a film. A sequel was titled Hillbillys in a Haunted House, but Van Doren turned this role down, and was replaced by Joi Lansing. She appeared in You've Got to Be Smart (Ellis Kadison, 1967), and the sci-fi film, Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), directed by the young Peter Bogdanovich (as Derek Thomas). In this film astronauts land on Venus and encounter dangerous creatures and meet sexy Venusian women who like to sun-bathe in hip-hugging skin-tight pants and seashell brassieres. In 1968, she was offered the role of a murder victim in the independent horror film The Ice House as a replacement for Mansfield, who died the previous year. She turned the offer down, however, and was replaced by Sabrina. During the Vietnam War, she did tours for U.S. troops in Vietnam for three months in 1968, and again in 1970. Van Doren also developed a nightclub act and did live theater. She performed in stage productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dames at Sea at the Drury Lane Theater, Chicago, and appeared in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and The Tender Trap at the Arlington Park Theater. In the 1970s, Van Doren performed a nightclub act in Las Vegas as well. Van Doren had a supporting role in the Western The Arizona Kid (Luciano B. Carlos, 1970). Since then, Van Doren has appeared only in cameo appearances in low-budgeted films. To this date Van Doren's last film appearance was a cameo role in the comedy Slackers (Dewey Nicks, 2002). Van Doren's guest appearances on television include Jukebox Jury, What's My Line, The Bob Cummings Show, The Jack Benny Show, Fantasy Island, Burke's Law, Vega$, and L.A. Law. Van Doren released her autobiography, Playing the Field, in 1987 which brought much new attention and proved to be her biggest media splash in over 25 years. Since the book's publication she has often been interviewed and profiled and has occasionally returned to acting. Van Doren has been married five times. Her first marriage was to sportswear manufacturer Jack Newman whom she married and divorced in 1950. Her second marriage was to bandleader, composer and actor Ray Anthony whom she married in 1955. They had one son, Perry Ray Anthony (1956). The couple later divorced in 1961. When Van Doren's early 1960s, highly publicized, on-again off-again engagement to baseball player Bo Belinsky ended in 1964, she married baseball player Lee Meyers in 1966. They were divorced in 1967. Her fourth marriage was to businessman Ross McClintock in 1972. They met while working on President Nixon's reelection campaign; the marriage was annulled in 1973. Since 1979 she has been married to Thomas Dixon, an actor and dentist.

 

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., offered by Corvisart, Epinal, no. 264. Photo: Sam Lévin.

 

French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she became an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.

 

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying to launch a modelling career and found herself on the cover of the French magazine Elle in May 1949. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.

 

Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the shooting of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at that time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.

 

Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.

 

Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career

Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.

 

Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.

 

Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."

 

Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

I was lucky enough to watch this stunning Barn owl in decent light on an evening on the Somerset levels recently. it even had the decency to come fairly close.

The American President continues to violate basic notions of decency while failing to handle the Coronavirus with any kind of skill, compassion or understanding. His stumbling, incompetent response amounts to negligent homicide. And this week he commuted the criminal sentence of his buddy, Roger Stone. Lawbreakers, grifters and incompetents abound.

 

Some regimes need changing

 

Some regimes

Just like diapers

Trash

Or dirty laundry

Need changing

From time to time

Smelling bad

And reeking of corruption

 

They should be impeached

Voted out of office

Sent packing

And banned from Twitter

Fox News

And Fake News of all kinds

 

They should be sent into exile

Like Napoleon

Or stranded on some desert island

Like Robinson Crusoe

Unplugged

And deprived of all pleasures

Like golf and cheeseburgers

Strippers and porn stars

Silenced

Once and for all

Muzzled

Gagged

And muted

Put out of commission

And hushed

Finally

 

Or jailed

 

© Jamie McKenzie, all rights reserved

You will find more of my poems and songs here

and in The Storm in Its Passing and Flights of Fancy.

 

My songs are at

www.youtube.com/user/edtech2008/videos

“Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people [have] refused to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness. We will have a different future, a brighter future rooted in democracy and principle, hope and light, of decency and dignity of freedom and possibilities,”

 

“For God’s sake, Putin cannot remain in power,” Biden said.

So, this isn't a great picture or anything, but I had to share one of the giant spiders we saw in the mountains of Taiwan. Amy wanted me to point out that they don't have these all over the place, just in the mountains, so don't be too afraid to visit. :)

 

It might be a bit hard to tell scale, even though I tried to give an idea by including my hand in the photo...I was too afraid to get it too close to the spider though. His body was about the size of my thumb (in length and thickness), and with his legs, he was about the size of my hand. At the time of this photo, he was happily munching away on a giant wasp. So, I guess they aren't all bad if they eat the wasps.

 

This is a golden silk orb weaver, a cousin to the much smaller orb weavers we have all over Washington state. And this one had the decency to stay outdoors in his web, where he belongs.

 

The one we saw in the bathroom was a whole different beast entirely. That one was a brown huntsman or "laya" spider. It was about this same size, but they don't use webs to catch food. They out run and out jump them. Fun thing to run across in the shower. Luckily it was Amy who ran into it first. :) She came running out of the shower (after battling it with the shower head for several minutes), telling me to go kill the big spider. I, of course, had to be the man, and go strutting into the bathroom with Amy's cousin's boyfriend to take it out, not believing her tales of a spider the size of her hand. We couldn't find it though, so we figured the little guy had scampered off into some little crack or something. So, we gave up and Amy's cousin's boyfriend went to use the shower. A few minutes later, I hear him yell "Oh hell no!" or something and he comes running back out. That's when I spotted it....and started yelling and possibly crying a little...Luckily, Amy's uncle came to the rescue and squashed the spider...otherwise I might not have lived to tell the tale and share the photos. :)

This friendly little starfish was smiling (you have to look under the belly to see that) and waving.

 

There are two main reasons I've not been posting photos recently:

 

1) I've been struggling with feeling inadequate as a photographer, now that there are so many fine, extraordinary photographers on flickr. So I decided (for now) to just post because I like to take photos, and like your visits. It's hard to for me to strive for the best expression of my art and avoid comparing my work to that of others. Not an easy task to put blinders on. . .

 

2) It has always been an embarrassment for me when I post and don't have time to visit other people's photostreams. I feel guilty, and my sense of decency and fair play is tarnished. But I just don't want that guilt to keep me from posting. . . .

 

_DSC0567 ps 1k

Catching up on some back shots from the beginning of the year

 

On a walk around the Addington Cemetery with a wonderful Flickr friend. February 13, 2016 Christchurch New Zealand.

 

There is so much damaged in the cemetery because of the earthquake we have had. It is such a pity as I don' think it will ever be fully repaired.

 

The Addington Cemetery was established in 1858 when the Scottish Presbyterians of St Andrew’s Church purchased land for a cemetery in Selwyn Street. Although not the first cemetery in Christchurch, Addington was in fact the first “public” cemetery, “being open to all persons of any religious community” and allowing the performance of any religious service “not contrary to public decency”.

 

The first burial took place on the 10th of November 1858. The cemetery has several persons of note buried within its grounds including activist Kate Sheppard, Christchurch Mayor Tommy Taylor and members of the pioneer family, the Deans.

For More Info:http://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/addington-cemetery/

Well what a week this has been. Work is manic just now, we are so busy I hardly have time to do any of my own work. I still have a huge backload of images for bands needing doing and I am lacking some serious motivation.

 

My notice has been handed in at work and I have agreed to work up until the end of February, and then I am gone.Although I have upset people by leaving I need to if I have any chance left of saving my marriage. I move back home in less than 8 weeks and it isn't as exciting as I thought or hoped it was gonna be. Christmas and New Year were strained and my wife and I found it hard to get on for more than a couple of hours, so we will see if I really am making the right choice. If I move back and it is not the right thing to do then I guess there is only one more thing I can do, and that is to have the decency to walk away, although I hope it doesn't come to that, I hope we both find ourselves again and start enjoying each others company, but I am more and more doubtfull as time moves on. But I owe it myself, my wife and my kids to make a go of things. That's why I am moving back I guess. This way we can either make things work or move on, but a year in limbo is too long.

 

I also handed my D3 back this week as I only had it for a 2 month trial hire. But I have to say that I just loved it and will be getting myself one. I am waiting until I move back home and then I am gonna look at getting myself a long term hire of one or open a pro account with Calumet and rent all my kit.

 

I am having bad dreams at night too, not nightmares, but uncomfortable dreams all the same and I want them to stop. Really bizzare dreams that I don't want to describe in here, but they are upsetting and keep on repeating themselves. Maybe I am going mad.

 

Anyway, I will leave you with some furniture breaking music! (Warning, bad words in the lyrics!)

 

Limp Bizkit ~ Break Stuff (Live Uncensored)

Limp Bizkit ~ Break Stuff (Video Censored)

 

Its just one of those days

When you don't wanna wake up

Everything is fucked

Everybody sux

You don't really know why

But you want justify

Rippin' someone's head off

No human contact

And if you interact

Your life is on contract

Your best bet is to stay away motherfucker

It's just one of those days!!

  

Its all about the he says she says bullshit

I think you better quit

Lettin' shit slip

Or you'll be leavin with a fat lip

Its all about the he says she says bullshit

I think you better quit talkin that shit

(Punk, so come and get it)

Its just one of those days

Feelin' like a freight train

First one to complain

Leaves with a blood stain

Damn right I'm a maniac

You better watch your back

Cuz I'm fuckin' up your program

And if your stuck up

You just lucked up

Next in line to get fucked up

Your best bet is to stay away motherfucker

Its just one of those days!!

 

I feel like shit

My suggestion is to keep your distance cuz right now im dangerous

We've all felt like shit

And been treated like shit

All those motherfuckers that want to step up

I hope you know I pack a chain saw

I'll skin your ass raw

And if my day keeps goin' this way I just might break somethin' tonight...

I hope you know I pack a chain saw

I'll skin your ass raw

And if my day keeps goin' this way I just might break somethin' tonight...

I hope you know I pack a chain saw

I'll skin your ass raw

And if my day keeps goin' this way I just might break your fuckin' face tonight!!

Give me somethin' to break

Give me somethin' to break

Just give me somethin' to break

How bout your fuckin' face

I hope you know I pack a chain saw, what!!...

A chain saw, what!!...

A motherfucking chain saw, what!!...

So come and get it

  

Dutch postcard by Foto archief Film en Toneel. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

 

American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement(1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).

 

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948) and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.

 

With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946) and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.

 

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

This caught me by surprise especially as I should have been aware that these facilities existed having gone to school in Leeson Street and college in Kevin Street. There are two separate entities - a small park and an underground public toilet.

 

When I saw it today I thought that it was an old monument or memorial but upon seeing the entrance I realised that it was an underground public toilet block.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s there were about seventy public toilets in Dublin but all of them have been closed.

 

The underground public toilet block at the junction of Kevin Street and New Street was one of a number that were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in response to an increasing demand for public facilities in the city. Underground facilities such as this were partially hidden from general view in order to satisfy Victorian perceptions of decency. It retains many of its historic features including railings, gates and decorative ventilation shaft.

Catching up on some back shots from the beginning of the year

 

On a walk around the Addington Cemetery with a wonderful Flickr friend. February 13, 2016 Christchurch New Zealand.

 

There is so much damaged in the cemetery because of the earthquake we have had. It is such a pity as I don' think it will ever be fully repaired.

 

The Addington Cemetery was established in 1858 when the Scottish Presbyterians of St Andrew’s Church purchased land for a cemetery in Selwyn Street. Although not the first cemetery in Christchurch, Addington was in fact the first “public” cemetery, “being open to all persons of any religious community” and allowing the performance of any religious service “not contrary to public decency”.

 

The first burial took place on the 10th of November 1858. The cemetery has several persons of note buried within its grounds including activist Kate Sheppard, Christchurch Mayor Tommy Taylor and members of the pioneer family, the Deans.

For More Info:http://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/addington-cemetery/

Belgian postcard by Victoria Biscuits Chocolats, no. 18. Photo: M.G.M. Van Heflin and Lana Turner in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.

 

The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.

 

As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.

 

Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”

 

Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

The Sevington Shoebox railtour was supposed to have a pair of Class 73s on it however disappointingly, no 73s made it up to Nottingham... Typical Southerners getting all the interesting allocations!

 

At least GBRf had the decency to put a special livery 66 on although they seem to have a lot of those anyways...

 

What you're actually looking at isn't even the real 66734 as the original was written off in an accident, so this one was ordered as a replacement instead.

Back in the good ole days, whoever got stuck on duty for the holiday could still make Thanksgiving dinner as long as they answered the radio, or the phone, if i wasn't working.

 

From what I hear, people round these parts had the decency to refrain from committing any crimes on Turkey Day.

 

1:64 Greenlight Collectibles

1967 Ford Custom 500

New Hampton Police Department

Town of New Hampton, New Hampshire, USA

Hot Pursuit Series 20

 

For more info about the dioramas, check out the FAQ: 1stPix FAQ

Tirukalukundram

And they were in their best saris, going to another village marriage as poongal months, rice-harvesting, means at the same that the dowry is saved from the crop.

 

Often, when people are invited, half of the village here on the countryside goes as many are related and to preserve their cultural decency, women goes along women by transport, on busses and here on a local farmer's lorry, still waiting for some more to join ?

 

Taken at a small village in between Thirukalikundram and Mamallapuram, the youngest spot in the center, surrounded by the whole generation from young to old.

 

(PS no way that a Tamil would even think at taking of photo of women as he is supposed to know the cultural rule not to bother other women ... a white stranger can, he is innocent :), maybe a very common sight for Tamiliens but not for the outer world in the West).

 

2006-12-12

Canon EOS 5D, 16-35mm f/2.8L USM, RAW, ISO-200

Exposure: f/10.0, 1/160 seconds, 21mm

oochappan ©®

Please, no logo's in your comment

Yugoslav postcard by Studio Sombor, no. 202.

 

French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she became an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.

 

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying to launch a modelling career and found herself on the cover of the French magazine Elle in May 1949. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.

 

Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the filming of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at the time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.

 

Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped elevate Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.

 

Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career

Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.

 

Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.

 

Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."

 

Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

ABOVE GRAPHIC (PHOTO, TEXT & PROCESSING) BY JILL GREENBERG

AWESOME!

 

It shows a laughing John McCain below the phrase "I called my wife a cunt in front of reporters."

....

 

And yes, McCain actually DID call his wife a cunt in front of reporters.

 

FUNNY VIDEO: Yes We Cunt!

 

But that's not really what you should be worried about. THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT:

 

NOT EVEN REMOTELY FUNNY VIDEO: MCcAIN ANNOUNCES HIS PRESIDENCY WILL BE A HOLY WAR AGAINST 1 BILLION MUSLIMS, AND REPUBLICANS STAND UP AND CLAP

 

Watch it. Really. Watch it.

 

The video above was played at the Republic National Convention in conjunction with McCain's acceptance of the party's official endorsement. The White House actually asked all the cable networks to interrupt their broadcasting to air this "9/11 Memorial" video. Watch through the commentary on the end to see Keith Olberman's horrified response - words for which he was promptly FIRED, despite being one of the most wildly popular political commentators in America.

 

Afterwards, Olbermann described McCain's obscene racist filth as "sociological pornography, a virtual snuff film."

 

the weather has been preventing training for weeks now. i knew something had to be done when i put on an oven mitt the other day and got bit in the hand. she realized her mistake pretty quick and had the decency to look rather abashed about it. however, i made a point of asking my friend to bring a bite sleeve along for our hike later that day. i rarely get pictures of my girl working, so here's one of her having a little nibble.