View allAll Photos Tagged generosity
Bagan 2 Light low key Photography Workshop
Be the first to kick start your generous support and fund my production with more amazing images!
Currently, I'm running a crowd funding activity to initiate my personal 2016 Flickr's Project. Here, I sincerely request each and every kind hearted souls to pay some effort and attention.
No limitation, Any Amount and your encouraging comments are welcome.
Crowd funding contribution can be simply direct to my PayPal account if you really appreciate and wish my forthcoming photography project to come alive.
Please PayPal your wish amount to : men4r@yahoo.com
Email me or public comments below your contribution amount for good records with your comments and at final day, at random, I shall sent out my well taken care canon 6D with full box n accessory during random draw to one thankful contributor as my token of appreciation.
Now, I cordially invite and look forward with eagerness a strong pool of unity zealous participants in this fundermental ideology yet sustainable crowd fund raising task.
Basically, the substantial gather amount is achievable with pure passion n love heart in photography and not necessary be filty rich nor famous to help me accomplish raising my long yearning photography career, a sucking heavy expense that been schedules down my photography making journey had inevitably, some circumstances had badly fall short behind racing with time and inability to fulfill as quickly in near future consolidating good fund .
Honestly, with aspiration and hope, I appeal to urge on this media for a strong humanity mandate through good faith of sharing and giving generously on this particular crowd funding excercise to achieve my desire n is not just purely a dread dream , is also flickers first starter own crowds funding strength turning impossible into reality through this pratical raising method that I confidently trust it will turn fruitful from all your small effort participation, every single persistency will result consolidating piling up every little tiny bricks into an ultimate huge strong living castle.
In reality, I have trust and never look down on every single peny efforts that been contributed as helpful means, turning unrealistic dream alive is the goal in crowd funding excercise, No reason any single amount is regard to be too small when the strength of all individual wish gather to fulfill my little desire to make exist and keep alive. .
I sincerely look forward each and every participants who think alike crowds funding methodlogy works here no matter who come forwards with regardless any capital amount input be big or small , please help gather and pool raise my objective target amount as close to USD$10K or either acquisition from donation item list below:
1- ideally a high mega pixel Canon 5DS ( can be either new or use ok)
2- Canon 70-200mm F2.8 L IS lens ( can be either new or use ok)
Last but not least, a photography journey of life time for a trip to explore South Island of New Zealand and Africa.
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My intended schedule may estimate about 1 month round trip self drive traveling down scenic Southern Island of New Zealand for completing the most captivating landscape photography and wander into the big five, the wilderness of untamed Africa nature for my project 2016 before my physical body stamina eventually drain off.
During the course, I also welcome sponsor's to provide daily lodging/accommodation, car rental/transportation, Fox Glacier helicopter ride and other logistic funding expenses, provide photographic camera equipments or related accessories .
Kindly forward all sponsors request terms of condition n collaboration details for discussion soon.
Great Ocean Drive- the 12 Apostle's
Please Click Auto Slide show for ultimate viewing pleasure in Super Large Display .to enjoy my photostream . ..
Due to copyright issue, I cannot afford to offer any free image request. Pls kindly consult my sole permission to purchase n use any of my images.You can email me at : men4r@yahoo.com.
Don't use this image on Websites/Blog or any other media
without my explicit permission.
For Business, You can find me here at linkedin..
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Generosity & kindness have a name : The sixt day
Thank you for all your kind words and for your presence
Ray Conniff Singers - Stranger in Paradise
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEzO0X_6lbU
Mantovani - Stranger in paradise
After the generous and beneficial rains we've been enjoying since March, Madrid's countryside has turned very green, and the precipitation has brought very clean air to the city.
In this view from Monte El Pardo, on the northwestern outskirts of the capital, you can see the Cinco Torres from a different perspective than the one I usually show you. In it, the west facade of the skyscrapers appears under a sky that threatened a storm, but which finally materialized.
Happy Easter, friends!
Click on the "L" to enlarge the image if you wish.
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Línea del cielo de Madrid desde el Monte de El Pardo, Madrid, España
Después de las beneficiosas y generosas lluvias que venimos disfrutando desde el pasado mes de Marzo, el campo alrededor de Madrid ha reverdecido y se ha aportado un aire muy limpio sobre la ciudad.
En esta vista desde el Monte de El Pardo, en las afueras al noroeste de la capital, puedes ver las Cinco Torres desde una perspectiva diferente a la que suelo mostraros. En ella, la fachada oeste de los rascacielos luce así bajo un cielo que amenazaba tormenta, y que se hizo realidad.
Feliz Semana Santa, amig@s!
Pulsa "L" para ampliar la imagen si lo deseas.
With the help of two very generous flickr members (you know who you are), I was able to raise the entry/framing fees for the American Society of Media Photographer's juried fine art exhibition at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
The three submissions that I chose were "Jeff Goldblum Gets Lucky," "I Am A God, Myself, At Night," and "My Heart Shall Bleed."
There is an opening reception this Sunday where I'll find out if any of them made the cut for inclusion in the show. If so, the work will be on display until June 30th, and there's an opportunity for a cash prize. If not, then I gobble down a few wheat crackers covered in Cheez Whiz, smile, grab my pics and leave.
I'll let you know what happens. Either this photography thing takes off for me, or I have getting employee discounts at Radio Shack to look forward to.
Keep those fingers crossed, peeps.
[+]
As a way of returning the extraordinary generosity and support you
have all shown me in this great community, whenever I upload a new
pic or series of shots this year, I'll provide a link to another flickr
photog whose work, personality, or spirit I feel you should discover.
Visit and introduce yourself. Make a friend. Share the love.
Open your eyes to honeyisland today.
"The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions. "
~Marcus Tullius Cicero
Resolutely forward-looking thousand-year-old city(estate), La Rochelle is a beautiful and generous city which conjugates the conservation of an exceptional natural and architectural heritage and an innovative, reasoned and harmonious development of its territory.
Nested at the heart of the Atlantic facade, she(it) knew how to make of her(its) maritime anchoring a great(tremendous) asset(trump card) of economic, tourist and cultural development.
Capital of Charente-Maritime, with her 79 521 inhabitants, her matters(counts) among the most attractive and the most dynamic cities of France.
Cité millénaire résolument tournée vers l’avenir, La Rochelle est une ville belle et généreuse qui conjugue la préservation d’un patrimoine naturel et architectural exceptionnel et un développement innovant, raisonné et harmonieux de son territoire.
Nichée au cœur de la façade atlantique, elle a su faire de son ancrage maritime un formidable atout de développement économique, touristique et culturel.
Capitale de la Charente-Maritime, avec ses 79 521 habitants, elle compte parmi les villes les plus attractives et les plus dynamiques de France.
With Christmas just around the corner, good old Saint Nick is preparing to visit people all across the world. But of all people, he loves us Belgians (and Dutchmen too) the most. Why? Because here he doesn't just come once on Christmas eve but two times a year. He also already came earlier this year, between the fifth and sixth of December.
On that day, we celebrate the anniversary of Saint Nicholas' passing in 343. He had been an early Christian bishop in what we now call Turkey and became a saint both because of the miracles he pulled off and because of his legendary generosity. The legend goes that he once heared talking of a man who had lost all of his money and soon wouldn't be able anymore to support his three daughters, leaving them to the worst of fates... Moved by this situation, that night under the cover of darkness Saint Nicholas silently went to the poor man's house. Through an opening, he threw a bag of gold in the house, which landed in a shoe of one of the three daughters. The next night, a bag of gold appeared in the second daughter's shoe. The next night, also the third daughter's shoe was filled with enough gold to support her for a lifetime and save her from a horrible fate.
Every year, here in Belgium and in the Netherlands we commemorate this feat of generosity by placing our shoes on the most inconvenient of places, only to find them filled with gold chocolate coins, mandarins (symbols of wealth and gold) as well as chocolate, marzipan, speculoos and toys in the morning. Saint Nicholas, we call him Sinterklaas, also rides his horse in every town to make children happy, and still does that in his episcopal attire, complete with his robes, staff and miter. In fact, his arrival is more anticipated that that of Santa Claus in this time of year and I'm sure he gets more drawings. Very close to where I live, there's even a city named after him!
Anyway, Santa Claus and our Sinterklaas clearly are closely related. However, my feeling is that Santa Claus has been stripped from a lot of meaning as his image has been commercialized more and more. Our Sinterklaas is still clearly the Saint Nicholas who performed such inspiring deeds of charity. He doesn't just set the example to give money to those who need it, but also shows us to keep our eyes and ears open to see and hear people around us in need. The poor man didn't go begging in the street, he tried to keep it behind closed doors. But Saint-Nicholas perceived his distress and had both the modesty and respect to lend a hand in secret. His point is not that he gives you presents, but that he listens to what you really need. That's a person worth celebrating twice!
So let's celebrate him, with songs, drawings and even Lego creations. But most of all, by keeping his example in mind in these cold days and throughout the year. That's why I wish you an ear- and eye-opening Christmas and new year!
Generous Electric B39’s and a Burlington Northern B30-7A rumble upgrade near Crawford, Nebraska on 06-03-1988 with freight bound for Lincoln, NE on the old Chicago Burlington and Quincy. It’s sparse country out here where the antelopes roam and coal trains dominate, and during this time frame a west-bound freight also plied this line. 1018
Please write to ricseet@gmail.com if you like a FREE copy of this picture. In return please donate any amount and to any charity of your choice. Just trying to do the little we can help to the needy. Thank you for your generosity!
Thank you for viewing and have a happy day.
Explore #4, May 10 2012
When I visited my daughter on March 20 2011, my grandson, Aidan, was telling me about this bird with babies. I was excited and asked him to show me. He took me outside his home and pointed up - "there they are".
Wow - I saw how cute they were and grab my cam from the car.
Thank you Aidan!
Update: May10 2012
This pic is sold to Nat Geo for their coming book. Proceeds is going to charity.
The lady who bought the pic had a hard time tracking me down becos the person who downloaded this pic from my Flickr account without my knowledge, plastered this all over the internet and change my name from Ric Seet to Rik Seet. So no one can track the originator down. Now others are profiteering from this scam and here is the link to one such websites. You pay them to download my stolen pic:
pixdaus.com/under-her-wings-by-rik-seet-birds-aves-fauna-...
When I did a Rik Seet goggle search there are about 4 full pages of links to such websites !
www.google.com.sg/search?q=Rik Seet&ie=utf-8&oe=u...
This is one of the downside of the internet. To prevent such future mishaps, I have since disabled the download feature under Privacy & Settings. Base on the feedback this is not even safe. Additional advises is to add Watermarks and reduce file size to 800X800. From what I am hearing nothing is save on the net.
Thank you friends for your kind advise. .
Update: May13 2012
I managed to write to a few websites/blogs via email and FB.
1. A friend responded on FB and apologize for posting the pic on FB for Mother Day.
2. An Australian cyclist by the name of Craig plaster the pic for 2012 Mother Day. I wrote to inform him that the pic is my and he blocked me off immi'ly. Isn't that just great, steals your pic and ignores you!
3. What's even more interesting is Pixdaus.com has an option for you to complain if your are the owner of the intellectual property. Isn't this a laugh. I presume they believe they excuse themselves of any legal obligation in the eyes of the law by having this feature on their website! I have written to them and waiting for their reply.
Update June 1 2012
Today a caring Flickr friend brought to my attention that the above pic was stolen again and this pic was posted on Flickr. Wrote to the person to delete my picture which was done. Not a word of apology.
These people have no shame - steal other pictures and post it like theirs. Even took part in invites and participated at the various levels of award to claim credit for themselves.
here is the link if this shameful person and I have seen another couple of stolen pics as well becos they are too skillful for him. Even wrote to advise that these be remove. I am contacting the legal department of Yahoo in Singapore and making a few suggesting to them to apprehend such people.
by Pasckal2011
www.flickr.com/photos/69511790@N07/7293622534/
Since then more Flickr friends have alerted me. I am now no more angry becos I have learnt to share and come to realized this picture brings great memories & joy to others. One guy wrote to request for a print becos he wanted to place it next to his Bible.
He said that it is "God's Gift To Nature"
Update June 4 2012
Great to see that couple of my Flickr friends have added water mark to their pic. Very creative as they take the trouble to strategically position the watermark . I will borrow this idea. Thanks guys!
Update Dec 17 2012
Nat Geo is now printing double the number of copies and has agreed to denote US$300/ to charity of my grandson choice - SPCA. Thank you Nat Geo.
Update Dec 25 2012
Today I received a very touching letter from a mother who requested this print. I am glad that a picture is worth a thousand words and holds special meaning and brings great joy.
So if you need a print please drop me a Flickr mail and your mailing address. Thank you.
My heart goes out to this special lady and this picture is my gift to her. Some of you are aware that my daughter was critically ill. In her own works she told me she nearly died in Oct. Now I rejoice becos she is making slow recovery ----. A small step at a time!
Hi Ric,
I have been searching for the photographer who took the absolutely beautiful photo of the colorful momma bird with it's babies under its wings. I've actually been praying I would find the original photographer. I won't get into the details, but for the last almost 2 years, I've been going through a really hard time with my health due to a horrible medical mistake that I suffered at the hands of a doctor. I will not let anyone tell me I am not going to get better. My husband and my son need me back. This picture holds such meaning for me...I've found it on other websites, which I am so sorry that people are stealing your work, and I have gone back to look at it a lot over the last several months. It brings me great comfort and the colors are just so beautiful and bright. I was wondering if it would be possible to buy a large print of it from you so that I can frame it and have it matted with a verse so I can look at it every day in my house. Would you mind letting me know if it's possible to buy a print from you? If so, what are the size proportions that you could print out for me? The place I want to hang it could handle an overall size of 24"x24" or 24"x28", which would be framed and matted with an inscription matted under it. Hopefully that description makes sense. Would you mind contacting back?
Update April 11 2016
Today i received a very comforting email from this lady and I thank her for helping mereach out to others who may need this pic becos of the sentimental/special meaning this pic means to them. For me this pic means a world to me bcos I am a dad to two precious daughters that I love dearly. No matter what -- I will always be there for them as long as I am on this good earth.
Hi Ric,
I must confess I posted your beautiful picture of the bird shielding her babies under her wings on a tweet and my FB page. I didn't take it from Flickr, I (wrongly) assumed it was in the public domain. Would you like me to remove it or would it be mutually agreeable to post a link to you for your credit and publicity? I am a solicitor working from home writing wills and trusts, hence the family theme, I have not tried to profit directly from the photo, just thought it was a nice image of caring. Sorry.
Kind regards,
Elizabeth
Thank you Elizabeth. There are lots of caring people on this good earth.
Can you feel it ?
The power from Mother Nature....she give us light ,energy and power so we can move forward....
And she never ask you for giving something back to her .....
MOL Generosity (IMO: 953216) is a container ship registered and sailing under the flag of Liberia. Her gross tonnage is 59,176. She was built in 2012 by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries, Samho. Her overall length (loa) is 275.07 m, and her beam is 40.04 m. Her container capacity is 5,605 teu. She is operated by Peter Doehle Schiffahrts-KG of Hamburg.
I photographed the MOL Generosity on her approach to berth at Fremantle Port on 12 September 2016.
[Fr] Nous sommes généreux alors nous vous offrons 🎁 un deuxième coucher de soleil sur la Loire. 🌄 Il vous plaît celui ci ? 😍 [En] We are too generous today so we offer you a second amazing sunset 🎆 ! Do you like it 😘 ? . #igersfrance #france #ig_france #instapics #loire #jaimelafrance #hello_france #france_photolovers #photodujour #super_france #loves_france_ #ilovefrance #picoftheday #nature_perfection #naturelover #landscapes #sunsets #igersanjou #anjou #sunset #amazing #love
Macromondays: Theme is Generosity
I wanted to include something of a far more generous size than you would normally find in a macro, and the admins will have to show some generousity not to delete this picture ;).
Although the truth is this is far more of a macro (the fingers) than many that will be posted.
I find I often have ideas that stretch my ability in Photoshop. Decided to share this one as have nothing else to go with this week....
"Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment." ~ Jean de la Bruyere
In the wake of the earthquake in Haiti, an even bigger quake has also hit Chile. It was even stronger (at 8.8 magnitude) than that of the Haiti tremor and was reported to have actually shifted the Earth's axis. And yet one wonders why the news on Chile has been sporadic and shortlived. We may not fully realize the extent of devastation this quake has wrought but it is a fact that many were affected. And many need help. Aftershocks are still felt even at this time.
Donations from various sources to Chile has not been forthcoming, if not slow. If you are moved to help a brother in need, please remember Chile in your prayers. Maybe even forego a cup of espresso or latte and share with those who need it more. The cost of a cup may just be a blessing for someone in Chile today.
If you would like more information on Chile's tragedy, you can contact: ldeep dreamsI beg your solidarity to Chile ¡¡¡¡ here on flickr
Photos of Chile can be found here
Suecia - Göteborg - Sörhallskajen
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ENGLISH
Gothenburg (Swedish: Göteborg) is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and part of Västra Götaland County. It is situated by Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has a population of approximately 570,000 in the city center and about 1 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area.
Gothenburg was founded as a heavily fortified, primarily Dutch, trading colony, by royal charter in 1621 by King Gustavus Adolphus. In addition to the generous privileges (e.g. tax relaxation) given to his Dutch allies from the then-ongoing Thirty Years' War, the king also attracted significant numbers of his German and Scottish allies to populate his only town on the western coast. At a key strategic location at the mouth of the Göta älv, where Scandinavia's largest drainage basin enters the sea, the Port of Gothenburg is now the largest port in the Nordic countries.
Gothenburg is home to many students, as the city includes the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology. Volvo was founded in Gothenburg in 1927. The original parent Volvo Group and the now separate Volvo Car Corporation are still headquartered on the island of Hisingen in the city. Other key companies are SKF and Astra Zeneca.
Remarkable buildings:
The Gothenburg Central Station is in the centre of the city, next to Nordstan and Drottningtorget. The building has been renovated and expanded numerous times since the grand opening in October 1858. In 2003, a major reconstruction was finished which brought the 19th-century building into the 21st century expanding the capacity for trains, travellers, and shopping. Not far from the central station is the Skanskaskrapan, or more commonly known as "The Lipstick". It is 86 m (282 ft) high with 22 floors and coloured in red-white stripes. The skyscraper was designed by Ralph Erskine and built by Skanska in the late 1980s as the headquarters for the company.
By the shore of the Göta Älv at Lilla Bommen is The Göteborg Opera. It was completed in 1994. The architect Jan Izikowitz was inspired by the landscape and described his vision as "Something that makes your mind float over the squiggling landscape like the wings of a seagull."
Feskekörka, or Fiskhallen, is an indoor fishmarket by the Rosenlundskanalen in central Gothenburg. Feskekörkan was opened on 1 November 1874 and its name from the building's resemblance to a Gothic church. The Gothenburg city hall is in the Beaux-Arts architectural style. The Gothenburg Synagogue at Stora Nygatan, near Drottningtorget, was built in 1855 according to the designs of the German architect August Krüger.
The Gunnebo House is a country house located to the south of Gothenburg, in Mölndal. It was built in a neoclassical architecture towards the end of the 18th century. Created in the early 1900s was the Vasa Church. It is located in Vasastan and is built of granite in a neo-Romanesque style.
Another noted construction is Brudaremossen TV Tower, one of the few partially guyed towers in the world.
***
ESPAÑOL
Gotemburgo (en sueco, Göteborg) es la segunda ciudad en importancia y tamaño de Suecia, después de la capital, Estocolmo. Ubicada en la provincia de Västra Götaland en la costa oeste del país, en la desembocadura del río Göta älv en el estrecho de Kattegat.
Su puerto es el más grande entre los países nórdicos ya que tiene sus aguas descongeladas durante todo el año. Es el lugar de tránsito de la mayor parte de las exportaciones e importaciones de Suecia.
Grandes industrias como SKF y AB Volvo tienen sus oficinas principales en esta ciudad. Sede de dos universidades, tiene la población universitaria más numerosa de Escandinavia. En las últimas décadas se ha desarrollado el turismo y los eventos culturales.
Fue fundada y fortificada en 1621 por el rey Gustavo II Adolfo, después de varios intentos fallidos de fundación debido a los ataques de daneses y noruegos.
So generous of this critter to sit for a portrait. It looks ready to take on some Japanese city in a science fiction film with lots of fx.
People ask me, "What's going on in that prehistoric reptile brain?" Then I realize they're not talking about the animal in the photo...
I don’t hold grudges. I kick butt and keep moving.
— Dorothy Allison’s Aunt Dot
Journalism grade image.
Source: 3,500x1,500 8-bit JPeG file.
Please do not copy this image for any purpose.
To the most generous and loving person I know... we all love you and wish you a million sweet besitos...
Happy Birthday ~ Juney
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Thanks to the amazing generosity of Michael Tompkins I have had much enjoyment recommissioning a gorgeous Retina IIIC Type 028 with a little drop damage. Michael described it as a 'little extra' something sent to me with an equally lovely Retina IIF box and matching camera that I will share a separate post when I have it sorted.
The camera details are:
S/N. 57596
L/N. 5298818
Shut. 3017735
So the symptoms were that the shutter button didn't return properly and the camera locked out not allowing the camera to be wound on again without pressing the film release. I was hoping it might simply be that the little indent/shaft actuated by the shutter button might not be fully depressing... this proved not to be the case.
With regard to the drop damage there was minimal cosmetic evidence, just a little bit of deformation in the bottom of the front door, a visible bend in the bottom hinge plate and a bit of deformation in the black surround that the shutter/front plate lock buttons act against (it looks as though the button was forced backward into the housing) other than that everything appeared to be in good shape.
With the top housing off I discovered that the camera must have taken a direct hit on the shutter button (perhaps it had an extension or soft release button in place?). The little screw in the top of the release shaft below the shutter button was bent right over?! - I have never seen this before (see pics). I hoped that simply replacing the screw might sort it, but no...
I stripped the camera down further and found the following:
=============================================
1) The release shaft was also bent and to add to that the spring on its base was not correctly located.
2) The screw in the top of the wind shaft was sitting loose (I have seen this a number of times) - I don't think this had anything to do with the issue.
3) The screws in the bottom chrome trim plate were all sitting loose. I wonder if it had been that way from new as there was no evidence of new adhesive on the bottom leatherette.
4) The top housing, although not obviously dented, was distorted causing it to lift upward and backward fractionally and in turn bind on the shutter button.
5) The shutter shaft itself while not apparently bent was binding slightly in its bush down the side of the shutter and as a result not easily returning.
Fixes as follows:
=============
1) Removed the wind lever, bottom leatherette and plate and replaced release shaft, screw and spring
2) Tightened the wind shaft main screw.
3) Removed the front door and straightened the hinge plates.
4) Replaced the bottom hinge screw as the thread and head were in poor condition.
5) Straightened out the bottom edge of the front door and reattached.
6) Lubricated and exercised the shutter button/shaft until it moved freely.
7) Twisted the top housing until it sat flush on a flat surface before refitting.
8) cleaned inner viewfinder surfaces and lubricated as required and then reassembled base and top of camera.
All now working nicely!
There are couple of minor things left to look-at at some point:
===============================================
1) The bottom closing button on the front plate doesn't snap into place quite as positively as I would have liked. It is better than it was but I suspect the little locating pin on the back of the button is slightly bent.
2) The slower shutter speeds are a bit too slow - I will give it a shutter CLA at some point when I'm feeling so inclined but not right now.
3) The position '1' lockout isn't locking out. I have a suspicion this might be due to the shaft top being slightly distorted from the drop and not quite engaging with the cut-out in the underside of the film counter. I have absolutely ZERO intention of fixing this as I consider it a 'happy accident' and functional improvement!
Surely I missed Everest at this trip but our pilot was generous enough to flew close enough to him,,,for saying goodbye... So long...until we meet you again...
Thank you for being such good friend accompanying me for this journey... appreciated much.
Paul generously tackled the task of editing photos, so I thought I'd share the fruits of his labor too! Here's an upload for anyone interested who might've missed Paul's original post (same picture). I'd also like to take a moment to thank Paul and Max! Paul was a real trooper in heading this collaborative. I was initially quite hesitant to commit (as I don't usually build Sci-fi), but Paul convinced me it'd be fun and boy was he right! Watching this SHIP evolve was truly a fantastic experience. And I have both Max and Paul to thank for being patient with me. Building the middle section and attempting to mesh their two styles, while maintaining my own, was a fun challenge! They were good sports, putting up with my bazillions of questions, confusions, and sending me helpful sketches/pictures!
As was stated in our initial posts, you can plan on seeing this at BW 2014 if we don't get too ambitious about swooshing it. We considered throwing it off a roof, sky diving with it (yeah, that wasn't realistically gonna' happen), and we actually had a video planned too, but this chap somehow entered our minds and extracted our idea!! As the saying goes, great minds think alike. Good show Jacob, you beat us to it!
Thanks for stopping by and Soli Deo Gloria!
[EDIT]: SWOOSH!!!
Smoky with toasty oak warmth and generousity on the nose and palate. Black fruit and tarry goodness right up the centre of this heavy-hitter from South Africa made from the classic Cabernet Sauvignon grape. Pair with hearty meat dishes.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife, Arabella. Lettice has been summoned to her old family home after an abrupt morning telephone call from her father, following the publication of an article in the publication, Country Life* featuring her interior designs for friends Margot and Dickie Channon’s Cornwall Regency country house ‘Chi an Treth’.
As Lettice elegantly alighted from the London train at Glynes village railway station, there on the platform amid the dissipating steam of the departing train and the smattering of visitors or return travellers to the village, stood Harris, the Chetwynd’s family chauffer. Dressed in his smart grey uniform, he took Lettice’s portmanteau, hastily packed in London by Edith her maid, and umbrella and walked out through the station’s small waiting room and booking office, leading Lettice to where the Chetwynd’s 1912 Daimler awaited her on the village’s main thoroughfare. As they drove through the centre of the village, Harris told Lettice through the glass partition from the front seat, that her article in Country Life* had caused quite a sensation below stairs. Quietly, Lettice smiled proudly to herself as she settled back more comfortably into the car’s maroon upholstery. Lettice is undeniably her father’s favourite child, but she has a strained relationship with her mother at the best of times as the two have differing views about the world and the role that women have to play in it. She only hopes as she nears her family home, that Lady Sadie, who does not particularly approve of her venture into interior design, will be proud of her achievement this time.
As the Daimler purrs up the gravel driveway and stops out the front of Glynes, Bramley, the Chetwynd’s butler, steps through the front door followed by Marsen, the liveried first footman. Marsden silently opens the door of the Daimler for Lettice and helps her step out before fetching her luggage.
“Welcome home, My Lady,” Bramley greets her with an open smile. “What a pleasure it is to see you looking so well.”
“Thank you Bramley,” she replies with a satisfied smile as she looks up at the classical columned portico of her beloved childhood home basking in the spring sunshine. “It’s always good to be home.”
“How was the train journey from London, My Lady?” Bramley asks Lettice as he falls in step a few paces behind her.
“Oh, quite pleasant, thank you Bramley. I have my novel to while away the time.”
“We were all pleased and proud to see your name in print in Her Ladyship’s copy of Country Life.”
“Oh, thank you, Bramley. That’s very kind of you to say. I take it that is why I have been summoned here today.”
The butler clears his throat a little awkwardly and looks seriously at Lettice. “I couldn’t say, My Lady, however they are expecting you, in the drawing room.” The statement is said with the gravitas that befits one of the country house’s finest rooms.
Lettice’s face falls. “Do I have time to refresh myself.” She peels off her gloves as she walks through the marble floored vestibule and into the lofty Adam style hall of Glynes. The familiar scent of old wood, tapestries and carpets welcomes her home.
“I was asked to show you into the drawing room immediately upon your arrival, My Lady,” Bramley says as Marsden closes the front doors and then the vestibule doors behind them. “Her Ladyship insisted, and His Lordship didn’t contradict her.”
“Oh. Do I sense an air of disquiet, Bramley?” Lettice asks, handing the butler her red fox collar and then shrugging off her russet three quarter length coat into his waiting white glove clad hands.
“Well My Lady, may I just say that your article caused somewhat of a stir both above and below stairs.” He accepts Lettice’s elegant picture hat of russet felt ornamented with pheasant feathers.
“Yes, so Harris told me. Good or bad above stairs, Bramley?”
“I think,” the older manservant contemplates. “Mixed, might be the best answer to that, My Lady.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, His Lordship, and Master Leslie were thrilled, as was the young Mrs. Chetwynd. However, as you know, My Lady, Her Ladyship has particular ideas as to your future.” He cocks an eyebrow and gives her a knowing look. “She’s had them planned since the day you were born, and you know she dislikes it when her plans go awry.”
“Oh.” Lettice says with a disappointed lilt in her answer. “Well, thank you Bramley,” she gives him a sad, yet grateful smile. “You are a brick for warning me.” She brushes down the front of her flounced floral sprigged spring frock, sighs and says with a sigh, “Then I best get this over with, hadn’t I?”
“I don’t see an alternative, My Lady.”
“Then don’t worry, I’ll show myself into the drawing room. I should imagine this will only be an overnight stay.”
Without waiting for a reply, Lettice turns on her heel and walks down the corridor, her louis heels clicking along the parquetry flooring, echoing off the walls decorated with gilt framed portraits of the Chetwynd ancestors, their dogs, horses and paintings of views of the estate. She stops before the pair of beautiful walnut double doors that open onto the drawing room, grasps one of the gilded foliate handles, turns it and steps in.
The very grand and elegant drawing room of Glynes with its grand dimensions, high ceiling and gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings has always been one of Lettice’s favourite rooms in the house. It is from here that she developed her love for collecting fine Limoges porcelain to emulate the collection amassed by her great, great paternal grandmother Lady Georgiana Chetwynd. No matter what time of day, the room is always light and airy thanks to its large full-length windows and beautiful golden yellow Georgian wallpaper decorated in a pattern of delicate blossoms and paper lanterns which seems almost to exude warmth and golden illumination. Whilst decorated with many generations of conspicuous consumption, it is not overly cluttered and it does not have the suffocating feel of Lady Sadie’s morning room, which she loathes, and it smells familiarly of a mixture of fresh air, bees wax polish and just a waft of roses. Glancing around, Lettice can see the latter comes from two vases of roses – one white bunch and one golden yellow cluster – both in elegant porcelain vases. The room is silent, save for the quiet ticking of several clocks set about polished surfaces, the hiss of dusty wood as it burns and the muffled twitter of birds in the bushes outside the drawing room windows. And there, by the grand crackling fire, her parents sit in what she hopes to be companionable silence.
Lady Sadie sits in her usual armchair next to the fire, dressed in a grey woollen skirt, a burnt orange silk blouse and a matching cardigan with her everyday double strand pearls about her neck. With her wavy white hair framing her face in an old fashioned style she looks not unlike Queen Mary, as she sips tea from one of the floral tea cups from her favourite Royal Doulton set, lost in her own thoughts as she stares out through the satin brocade curtain framed windows. The Viscount on the other hand is sitting opposite his wife in the high backed gilded salon chair embroidered in petit point tapestry by his mother. Dressed in his usual country tweeds worn when going about the estate, Lettice notices that he is immersed in the very copy of Country Life that her interiors feature. Between them, tea and coffee in silver pots stand on a small black japanned chinoiserie occasional table along with the round silver biscuit sachet that has once been Lady Sadie’s mother’s.
“Well, here I am.” Lettice announces with false joviality, alerting both her parents to her presence as she closes the door behind her.
“Lettice!” the Viscount exclaims, jumping up from his seat, slightly crumpling the pages of the Country Life between his right fingers as he lets his hands fall to his side. “My dear girl!” He beams at her proudly. Thrusting out the magazine in front of him as if trying to prove a point, he continues. “What a surprise, eh?” He indicates to the article about ‘Chai an Treth’, which he was reading, as Lettice suspected.
“Pappa!”
Lettice hurries into the room, steps between the gilt upholstered chairs that are part of the Louis Quartzose salon suite that had been included in her mother’s dowery when she married her father and falls happily into the loving arms of the Viscount who smells comfortingly of fresh air and grass as he envelopes her.
“Don’t gush, Cosmo!” Lady Sadie chides, giving her husband a withering look of distain as she sips her tea with a crispness, passing judgement like usual over her husband and youngest daughter’s emotional relationship, which she unable to fathom.
“Hullo Mamma.” Lettice reluctantly removes herself from her father’s welcoming embrace and walks over to her mother, who places her teacup aside and tilts her head so that Lettice can give her an air kiss on both cheeks, their skin barely touching in the transaction.
“Help yourself to tea and biscuits.” Lady Sadie pronounces, indicating with a sharp nod to the low tea table upon which sits a third, unused, teacup and saucer nestled amongst the other tea things. “Mrs. Casterton has made her custard creams this week.”
“Thank you, Mamma.” Lettice sees a selection of vanilla and chocolate cream biscuits on a plate already as she helps herself to tea from the small round sterling silver pot, polished to a gleaming sheen by Bramley or the head parlour maid. She takes up one each of the two varieties of custard creams, ignoring the look of criticism from her mother by doing so, depositing them onto her saucer. She then settles down on the settee, closest to her father and puts her cup on the table next to her.
“My dear girl! My dear girl!” the Viscount repeats in a delighted voice as he tosses the copy of Country Life with the crumpling sound of paper onto the top of a pile of newspapers and periodicals atop a petite point footstool. “Exemplifying a comfortable mixture of old and new to create a welcoming and contemporary room, sympathetic to the original features.” he paraphrases one of Lettice’s favourite lines in Henry Tipping’s** article, giving away that this was hardly the first time he has read the article since the magazine arrived at Glynes. “What wonderful praise from Mr. Tipping.”
“Oh, do stop, Cosmo!” pleads Lady Sadie from her seat on the other side of the fireplace, toying with the pearls at her throat. “Gushing is so unbecoming,” She glares critically at her husband. “Especially from a man of your age. It’s emasculating.”
Lettice gives her mother a wounded glance before quickly looking at her father, however he bares a steeliness in his jaw.
“Why shouldn’t I gush, Sadie?” he replies in defence of himself and his daughter, looking over his shoulder at Lady Sadie, determination giving his voice strength. “This is our child we are talking about,” He turns back and smiles with unbridled delight at Lettice, his eyes glittering with pride. “And I’m damn proud that Lettice has her name in print in a periodical such as Country Life, even if you are less so.”
“I don’t know whether I am pleased at all, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie eyes her daughter. “I’d rather see your name printed in the society pages next to a certain eligible duke’s son’s name, Lettice.” she adds dryly as she picks up a custard cream and gingerly nibbles at it as though it might contain rat bait. “Then, I’d gush.”
“Mamma!” Lettice manages to utter in a strangulated fashion as disappointment at her mother’s reaction to the article grips her like a cold pair of hands around her throat.
“It’s your duty to marry, Lettice, and marry well. You know this.” Lady Sadie lectures in reply haughtily. “We’ve had this conversation time and time again. You don’t want to be a burden on poor Leslie when your father dies, do you?” She nibbles some more at the biscuit clutched between her fingers.
“Oh Sadie!” the Viscount gasps. “Don’t be crabby. You must concede that you are proud that one of the leading authorities on architecture and interior design in Britain has spoken so highly of our daughter’s work.”
The older woman pulls a face, cleaning mushy biscuit remains from her gums, but doesn’t dignify the statement with an answer.
“Can’t you be just a little happy for me, Mamma?” Lettice pleads as she reaches out and grasps her father’s bigger hand for comfort and support. “Just this once?”
“I’ll be happy when I see you married off.” She picks up her cup and saucer and takes a sip of tea. “Is it not bad enough that I have one wayward child? Perhaps I had better pack you off to British East Africa too.”
“Tipping said Lettice is a very capable interior designer.” the Viscount defends his favourite child. “And the photos prove that.”
“Capable!” Lady Sadie scoffs with a nod of disgusted acknowledgement of the magazine lying beyond the tea table. “The room looks barren – positively starved of furnishings and character. How can that be capable interior design? There is practically nothing in it, to design!”
“But paired back is the new style now, Mamma. People don’t want…”
“What?” Lady Sadie snaps, the fine bone china cup clattering in its saucer.
“Well they don’t necessarily want all this.” Lettice gesticulates around her, almost apologetically, to the furnishings around them. “People want cleaner lines these days, to better reflect their more modern lives.”
“So your father and I are old hat?” Lady Sadie quips. “Is that what you’re saying, Lettice?”
“No, of course not Mamma. I love you and Pappa, and Glynes is classically beautiful. You do a wonderful job at maintaining the elegance of the house. I did retain some of the original décor of Margot and Dickie’s house as part of my refurbishment, even though Margot told me to fling it all out. Mr. Tipping calls it ‘Modern Classical Revival Style’. You and Pappa taught me to always respect a house’s history, and that is what I did, whilst giving Margot the more modern look she wants.”
“Pshaw! That girl hasn’t an ounce of taste. Her family have always been new money.” remarks Lady Sadie dismissively. “You can always tell the difference between the old and the new. True breeding will always win out.”
“Margot is my friend Mamma! Please don’t say such hurtful things.”
“Well, whatever you may think of Lettice’s choice in friends, Sadie, you cannot deny the credit she has brought to the family name by being associated with the Marquis of Taunton.” retorts the Viscount.
“Only by association with this interior design folly nonsense of hers, Cosmo.” She flaps her bejewelled hand at her daughter, the lace trimmed handkerchief partially stuffed up the left sleeve of her knitted silk cardigan dancing about wildly with every movement. “At least you were good enough to have your name and business published in a respectable periodical, Lettice.” she concedes begrudgingly.
“Well, I’m proud of you, Lettice my girl, and there’s a fact.” He turns again and stares with a hard look at his wife before pronouncing, “And so too is your brother and Arabella, and the Tyrwhitts. Your mother is just bitter because she wasn’t the one who was able to announce the news to the whole village.”
“You had no right not to tell me about this article, Lettice!” Lady Sadie grumbles as she cradles her cup and saucer in her lap in a wounded fashion, whilst foisting angry and resentful looks at her daughter. “None at all! I hadn’t even had an opportunity to open the magazine and peruse it before I had the Miss Evanses up here, unannounced, crowing about your name in print in Country Life and how proud I must feel.”
Lettice cannot help but smile at the thought of her mother being assailed by the two twittering spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house in the village. The pair are known for their love of gossip, and even more for their voracity at spreading it, as they attempt to fill their lives which they obviously feel are lacking in drama and excitement. The chagrin Lady Sadie must have felt would have been palpable.
“Don’t you dare smile at my humiliation, you wicked girl! I had to pretend, Lettice! Pretend to those two awful old women, fawning and toadying the way they do, that I had read the article, and there it sat, unopened on my bonheur de jour***, completely untouched.”
“I only wanted it to be a surprise, Mamma.”
“Well, it certainly was that.” The woman’s eyes flame with anger. “I had feign that I was only being a tease when I showed such surprise to the Miss Evanses about your name in that article. Luckily the two were more interested in their own delight at their association to you than my genuine surprise that they believed me.” She turns her head away from her husband and daughter and adds uncharitably, “Stupid creatures.”
“Now don’t be bitter, Sadie.” the Viscount chides his wife. “Bitterness doesn’t become a lady of any age.”
“I’m not bitter!” spits Lady Sadie hotly with a harsh laugh of disbelief.
“Yes, you are.” her husband retorts with a gentle laugh of his own. “The more you defend yourself, the more evident it is, Sadie. You are just upset that the Miss Evanses had done a successful job of spreading the news through the village before you had the chance to do so yourself. They took the wind out of your sails. Lettice meant it to be a delightful surprise, and it was, my dear girl.”
“She didn’t consider the consequences.”
“The petty rivalry between her somewhat misguided mother, who should know better, and two old village crones, should hardly be a concern of one of London’s newest and brightest interior designers, Sadie.”
“Well, shouldn’t I have the opportunity to boast about my own daughter, Cosmo?”
“Aha! There!” the Viscount crows triumphantly. “So, you are proud of Lettice then.”
Lady Sadie thrusts her cup noisily onto the side table and stands up, brushing biscuit crumbs from her lap with angry sweeps onto the Chinese silk carpet at her feet. “You do talk a lot of nonsense, Cosmo.” She mutters brittlely. “I need to go and attend to something. So, if you will please excuse me.” She prepares to leave, but then adds as an afterthought, “But when I come back, I hope you two will have finished your character assassination of me.”
Lettice and her father watch Lady Sadie stalk towards the door with her nose in the air.
“I just hope that the Duchess doesn’t read that article, Lettice.” Lady Sadie says with a meanness in her angry voice. “I very much doubt she would like a daughter in trade. I hope you realise that this little stunt of yours could have ruined the best match you’ll ever get.”
The older woman opens the door and walks out into the corridor.
“Just ignore your mother.” the Viscount waves his hand before his wife as if erasing her presence as the door slams behind her, making both he and his youngest daughter wince. “She really is just jealous of those two silly old spinsters because they were gossiping about you in the village before she was able to do so.”
“I just wanted it to be a lovely surprise for you and her, Pappa.” Lettice pleads with wide and concerned eyes welling with tears.
“I know, my girl. I know.” He takes his handkerchief from his inside pocket and passes it to Lettice, who dabs at her eyes.
“I even organised with Mr. Tipping for Mamma to get her edition early,” Lettice sniffs. “But I suppose the mail delivery let me down.”
“Well,” her father shrugs. “Any general worth his wait in salt**** will tell you that the very best laid plans can go awry.” He smiles at her consolingly. “Your mother is contrary at the best of times. She’ll never admit that she is happy with any success that isn’t of her own making. Why on earth you seek her approval, I don’t know.” he adds in exasperation. “Do you deliberately wish to punish yourself, dear girl?”
Lettice sighs and sniffs. “I just hope that one day she will be proud of me. I feel like I’ve always disappointed her.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three, Pappa.”
“Then you are old enough to know that no matter how hard you try, your mother will never admit to you that she is proud of you. If you do end up marring young Spencely, I doubt even then that she will willingly admit to being proud of you.”
“You’re right, Pappa. I should know better. You know that Lally told me the Christmas before last that Mamma lords the perfection of her married life over me, whilst lording the glamour of my life over her.”
“Quite so.” the Viscount admits. “I always told your mother that playing that game would do her no god in the end.” He laughs sadly. “But you know your mother. She won’t be told anything. I’m glad that your sister told you what’s what. Sadie hasn’t that power over you any more, now that you know the truth, Lettice.”
“But why does she do it?”
“Like I said, your mother is sadly misguided. Whether you believe me or not, it isn’t done out of spite.”
“Then what?”
“She does it to try and get you to both emulate the good things in the other. She wants Lally to be ambitious like you. The truth is I don’t think she ever really approved of the match between Lally and Lanchenbury.”
“But Lally and Charles are very happy together.”
“I know, Lettice. I know.” He pats her hands. “I think she considers him to be a little below the expectations she had for her eldest daughter, coming from a good and wealthy, but relatively socially insignificant family. That’s why she aspires for you through the marriage bed, dear girl.”
“But marriage isn’t all I aspire to, Pappa.”
“I know that too, and both your mother and I know how decimated the options are for young ladies in the wake of the war, your mother probably far better than I. But you must forgive us for wanting you to fill the role we expect you to fill, and for us hoping that it is a financial and socially ambitious match you make.” He sighs wearily. “Although with the way the world is changing, that seems to be becoming a less likely thing. I’m only grateful your brother made me modernise the estate. Goodness knows if we would have survived this post-war world of ours, and even now, I wonder whether we actually will.”
“Don’t say that Pappa.”
“Whatever happens, don’t let your mother upset you, and don’t let her spoil your triumph. I repeat, your brother, Arabella, the whole district is so proud of you, and I’m sure that all your friends, and young Spencely are equally proud to know you.”
“Alright Pappa,” Lettice sighs as her father places a consoling hand on her shoulder and rubs it lovingly. “I won’t.”
“That’s my girl. Now, I’m sure your mother has gone to arrange luncheon for Lady Edgar, the vicar and any number of other members of the great and good of the county, all of whom she will be singing your praises to – not that she will tell you that.” The Viscount winks conspiratorially at Lettice. “So, what’s say you and I go and have luncheon at the Dower House with Leslie and Arabella? I know they would love to see you and congratulate you.”
“Thank you Pappa!”
Lettice and her father embrace, and the pair remain in position for a few minutes, enjoying the intimacy without the criticism of Lady Sadie.
*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.
**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.
***A bonheur de jour is a type of lady's writing desk. It was introduced in Paris by one of the interior decorators and purveyors of fashionable novelties called marchands-merciers around 1760, and speedily became intensely fashionable. Decorated on all sides, it was designed to sit in the middle of a room so that it could be admired from any angle.
****Although these days we commonly say that someone is worth their weight in gold, to say that someone is “worth one’s salt,” is the more traditional saying. Its meaning is the same. It’s a statement that acknowledges that they are competent, deserving, and – to put it simply – worthwhile. The phrase itself is thought to be rooted in Ancient Rome where soldiers were sometimes paid with salt or given an allowance to purchase salt. Similarly, if a person uses the phrase “worth its weight in salt,” to describe an object, they are expressing that they think the item is worth the price they paid or that it otherwise holds immense value to them.
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 from my childhood, as well as those I have collected as an adult.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The gilt Louis Quatorze chair and sofa, the black japanned chinoiserie tea table and the gilt swan round tables table are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.
The gilt high backed salon chair 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.
The Palladian console tables at the back to either side of the fireplace, with their golden caryatids and marble was commissioned by me from American miniature artisan Peter Cluff. Peter specialises in making authentic and very realistic high quality 1:12 miniatures that reflect his interest in Georgian interior design. His work is highly sought after by miniature collectors worldwide. This pair of tables are one-of-a-kind and very special to me.
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 centre of the mantlepiece stands a Rococo carriage clock that has been hand painted and gilded with incredible attention to detail by British 1:12 miniature artisan, Victoria Fasken. The clock is flanked by a porcelain pots of yellow, white and blue petunias which have been hand made and painted by 1:12 miniature ceramicist Ann Dalton. At either end of mantle stand a pair of Staffordshire sheep which have been hand made, painted and gilded by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys. If you look closely, you will see that the sheep actually have smiles on their faces!
Two more larger example of Ann Dalton’s petunia posies stand on the Peter Cluff Palladian console tables. The one on the left is flanked by two mid Victorian (circa 1850) hand painted child’s tea set pieces. The sugar bowl and milk jug have been painted to imitate Sèvres porcelain. The right table features examples of pieces from a 1950s Limoges miniature tea set which I have had since I was a teenager. Each piece is individually stamped on its base with a green Limoges stamp. The vase containing the yellow roses is also a Limoges miniature from the 1950s.
The silver tea and coffee set and silver biscuit sachet on the central chinoiserie tea table, have been made with great attention to detail, and come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The wonderful selection of biscuits on offer were made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The gilt edged floral teacups and plate on the table come from a miniatures specialist stockist on E-Bay. The blue and white vase the white roses stand in comes from Melody Jane’s Dolls House Suppliers in the United Kingdom.
The white and yellow roses are also made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The copy of Country Life sitting on the footstool which is a lynchpin of this chapter was made by me to scale using the cover of a real 1923 edition of Country Life. The 1:12 miniature copy of ‘The Mirror’ beneath it is made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
The hand embroidered pedestal fire screen may be adjusted up or down and was acquired through Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.
All the paintings around the Glynes drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States, and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper of Chinese lanterns from the 1770s.
The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster.
The Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Lettice is visiting her family home after receiving an invitation to motor down to Wiltshire from 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. His family, the Brutons, are neighbours to the Cheywynds with their properties sharing boundaries. That is how Gerald and Lettice came to be such good friends. However, whilst both families are landed gentry with lineage going back centuries, unlike Lettice’s family, Gerald’s live in a much smaller baronial manor house and are in much more straitened circumstances. Whilst he visits his mother, who has caught a chill in the cold winter weather, Lettice is playing the part of a dutiful daughter and visiting her parents too, even though both are in excellent health. This is her last visit to Glynes before coming down to stay over the Christmas and New Year period.
We find ourselves in the very grand and elegant drawing room of Glynes with its gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings where the family Christmas tree is being decorated by Lettice and her elder sister Lally’s two children. Alerted to her younger sister’s visit, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), who is heavily pregnant and due to give birth in a few months, has come down to stay with her parents and eldest brother Leslie to coincide with Lettice’s visit. Although they have never been particularly close, with six years difference between them, Lally is filled with the Christmas spirit this year and has arrived with a conciliatory approach as she tries to build more of a relationship with Lettice now that she is older.
Lally finds it too difficult at this advanced stage in her pregnancy to join her children and Lettice decorating the tall fir tree cut from the Chetwynd estate, so she reclines on the Louis settee, toying with a fold-out family photograph album draped across her pregnant belly and watches the others as they unpack beautiful glass baubles, satin bows, garlands and glittering tinsel from old boxes.
“You always were the artistic one Lettice,” Lally remarks as her sister hangs a golden glass bauble on an upper bough of the tree where the children can’t reach with the aid of Viscount Wrexham’s library steps. “You have the knack for decorating the tree and making it look so beautiful.”
“That’s very kind of you to say so, Lally.” Lettice smiles thinly. “Oh no Harrold, not that bauble,” she directs her seven year old nephew as he tries to hand her a shiny red glass ball. “Grandmamma always likes the tree in here to be decorated with gold to match the furniture.”
“She only insists on that because she is so proud of the furnishings in here.” Lally pipes up from the settee. “Having been given as part of her marriage settlement by Grandfather Piers.”
“I didn’t know that, Lally!” Lettice gasps.
“Oh yes. She told me that when she and I sat in here the day that Pappa settled my dowery with Lord Lanchenbury in the library.”
“No wonder she was always scolding us if it even looked like a stray shoe was going to work its way onto the upholstery.”
“Yes,” Lally chuckles looking down over the photo album and her protuberant belly wrapped tightly in russet georgette with Art Nouveau embroidery, to her silk lisle clad feet resting on the settee’s cushioned seat. “At least I’ve taken my wretched shoes off.” She wriggles her toes as she glances down at her louis heeled deep red slippers standing on the carpet. “Not that I may be able to get them back on again. Pregnancy always makes my feet swell.”
Harrold looks thoughtfully at the red bauble in his hand and then glances with excitement at its matching decorations still in the dusty and battered old boxes. “Does that mean there is going to be a second Christmas tree this year, Auntie Tice?”
Lettice chuckles and leans down, tousling Harrold’s blonde hair. “No darling, but we used to have two trees decorated every year before the war. One in here like this, and a much bigger one in the entrance hall. That’s why there are so many decorations in these boxes.” She looks thoughtfully at the boxes and their contents strewn about on the carpet. “Poor Bramley. I should really have told him only to unpack the gold decorations. He has so much to do as it is these days.”
“Yes, poor Bramley. It’s not easy managing a house like this on reduced staff numbers. Mind you, it looks like the decorations are all jumbled together anyway.” Lally muses, looking at the photograph album resting on her stomach as her mind drifts away to the past. “Do you remember those wonderful pre-war Christmases we used to have, Lettice?”
“Oh yes, when we had more servants to help decorate both trees.”
“And all of us too. You were always the one who knew best when it came to decorating, but Leslie, Lionel and I tried to do our bit.”
“However did you cope before I was born?” Lettice asks cheekily.
Lally looks at the photos of past Chetwynds, gazing out from prettily decorated round and square holes with sepia eyes. “I wonder,” she asks as she looks. “Who this one will look like when they are born.” She glances up at her son, sifting through a Gossages Dry Soap crate looking for a correctly coloured Christmas ball to give to his aunt. “Harrold looks so much like Pappa.”
“Well,” Lettice says thoughtfully, tugging at a recalcitrant piece of tinsel. “He or she may look more like his or her father than a Chetwynd.”
“Like Charles!” Lally scoffs. “Oh, I don’t think so, Lettice. I’m convinced that the Lanchenbury genes are recessive.”
“Who do I look like Auntie Tice?” Annabelle, Lettice’s five year old niece, asks from her place decorating the boughs around the foot of the Christmas tree.
“You look like a beautiful princess, darling,” Lettice confirms bountifully, giving her an earnest look.
“Oh!” the little girl exclaims and smiles proudly. “Did you hear that, Harrold? You look like old Grandpappa, and I look like a pretty princess!” She pirouettes prettily about on the spot, her fuchsia coloured skirts billowing around her.
“I don’t look like an old man!” Harrold counters angrily as he reaches up to his aunt clutching two gold baubles.
“No Harrold, you don’t,” Lally placates from the settee. “But you look like Grandpappa did when he was young, and he was very handsome when he was young.”
Harrold smiles, pleased that he doesn’t look like an old white haired man with a beard, and he turns his back on his teasing sister, who is still spinning about gleefully as she imagines herself to be a fine lady.
“Remember when the villagers used to come up to the front door singing carols on Christmas Eve,” Lally continues on her nostalgic journey of pre-war Christmases. “Mamma and Pappa would invite them in to warm themselves by the fire in the entrance hall and enjoy the big Christmas tree all covered in tinsel, baubles and lighted candles.”
“Pappa still gets Bramley to bring out snifters of brandy for them whilst they warm themselves by the fire,” Lettice accepts an appropriately gold bauble from her nephew. “But you’re right, some of magic has gone out of that now that there is no longer a Christmas tree in the hall.”
“Do you think we could ask Grandpappa to get us one this year, Auntie Tice?” Harrold asks, looking up at Lettice hopefully.
“Oh I think it’s a bit late now, darling.” Lettice explains kindly. “There is a heavy snow outside and ground his hard. We don’t want the gardeners all catching colds for Christmas, now do we?” Harrold shakes his head solemnly and Lettice tousles his hair again good naturedly before suggesting, “Maybe next year. We’ll ask Grandpappa later. Alright?”
“Alright Auntie.” he replies.
“Good boy.” Lettice whispers with a gentle smile, accepting the second bauble from her nephew.
“Remember the fun we always had as children getting dressed up for Mamma and Pappa’s fancy dress Hunt Ball?” Lally asks her sister. “Mamma was always the queen of the ball. And you used to like being a faerie with a tinsel crown and a silver wand.”
“I’m going as a faerie this year,” pipes up Annabelle proudly.
“Is that so, darling?” Lettice asks her with a munificent smile.
She nods emphatically. “Nanny is making my dress.”
“Yes,” Lettice chuckles wistfully. “Nanny Webb must have spent hours making our outfits, sewing stars onto my dress and making me gossamer wings. You liked to go as Columbine*, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but my outfit was bought from Clarkson’s** London. So was Lionel’s Pierrot*** costume.”
“What did Leslie go as? For the moment I don’t remember.”
“Leslie is just like Pappa. He hated fancy dress. Being older than us, he told me that fancy dress was for children, and he used to go in his hunting pinks****, just like Pappa.”
“Oh yes. Now I remember. I still love fancy dress parties.” Lettice responds. “I’m coming as Cinderella to the Hunt Ball this year, which is most apt considering that Mamma wants to marry me off.”
“Who’s on the offing?”
“Jonty Hastings,”
“Not Howling Hastings?”
Lettice nods. “The very one!” She and her sister both giggle childishly.
“Who else?” Lally asks with bated breath.
“Tarquin Howard, Sir John Nettleford-Hughes,”
“He’s an old man!” Lally laughs.
“Nicholas Ayers.” Lettice continues to list.
“He’s an invert*****!” Lally scoffs, then quickly raises her hand to her mouth as she glances with alarm at the children. She heaves a sigh of relief as they seem too involved in decorating the lower branches of the tree to pay attention to her and ask her what an invert is. “Mamma may as well marry you to Gerald Bruton then.”
“Ah, but Gerald is the spare you see, not that Mamma knows what we do about him, and anyway, the Brutons don’t have the money that the Ayres do.”
“True.” Lally hurries on. “Who else, Lettice?”
“Selwyn Spencely, Edward Lambley, Septimius Faversham and Oliver Edgars. I know there are others, but I can’t for the life of me think whom.”
“Goodness! Mamma really is pulling out all the stops this year to make the ball a grand occasion. I don’t think we’ve had that many eligible men in attendance since 1912!”
Lettice gives her elder sister a withering look.
“Will one of those men be your prince, Auntie Tice?” asks Annabelle seriously, gazing up at her aunt. “You are coming as Cinderella to the ball after all, and Cinderella met her prince there.”
“Only if I lose a slipper at the ball, darling.”
“Oh,” Lally huffs as she glances at the baby Jesus statue in the manger from the nativity scene to stand beneath the tree with all the Christmas gifts. “I think I shall be glad to be in confinement for this year’s ball. I could only come dressed as a whale thanks to this one.” She lays a hand caringly upon her swollen stomach.
“A whale!” giggles Annabelle.
“Now that would be funny, Mummy.” chuckles Harrold as he walks over to his mother and places his hand on top of hers. “I should like to see you dance with Daddy dressed as a whale.”
“You must suggest it to him when we go home at the end of the week, darling. Shall I wear a grey satin tea gown then?” Lally smiles as Harrold nods enthusiastically. Looking back to Lettice as she affixes a shimmering bow to the tree she says to her, “I don’t know how you do it, Lettice. After children, and the war, I just don’t have the energy for fancy dress any more.”
“Oh, don’t you start lording your happy marriage to Charles and your children over me, Lally!” Lettice’s footsteps clatter angrily as she descends the library steps and stalks forcefully across the carpet to look for a particular decoration in one of the boxes. Thrusting her hands violently through the contents of one particular box she continues, “I won’t have it! Mamma has been insufferable since I got here, reminding me at every opportunity that I’m not getting any younger, and that you were married by the time you were my age. And then there is all her scheming, inviting every eligible gentleman of good breeding and money to the Hunt Ball for me to be paraded before!”
Sensing the change in mood in the room, Annabelle scuttles away from Lettice and the Christmas tree and cowers by her mother’s side, whilst Harrold places both hands on top of this mother’s instinctively protecting her and the baby from his aunt’s sudden displeasure.
“Please don’t be angry, Aunty Tice,” Annabelle says, her voice cracking as tears well in her eyes. “I don’t like it when you’re angry with Mummy.”
“And it is Christmas,” Harrold adds, looking in concern at Lettice on her knees, scattering colourful glass balls across the drawing room carpet angrily. “No-one should be cross or upset at Christmas, Auntie Tice.”
“Oh!” Lettice looks up from where she is with sad tears, that moments ago had been angry ones, brimming in her eyes. “Oh how clumsy of me. Auntie Tice is sorry my darlings. You’re quite right Harrold. No-one should be cross at Christmas.” She holds out her arms to them and pouts. “Forgive me? Please?”
Harrold walks cautiously over and falls into her arms, which wrap around him tightly as she closes her eyes and puts her head on his shoulders.
“See,” Lally whispers to Annabelle standing at her shoulder. “Auntie Tice isn’t cross anymore. Don’t you think you might go and give her a cuddle?” She looks back to her sister and son embracing and adds more loudly, even though she knows and intends that Lettice should hear every word. “I’m sure that would make her feel even better.”
Tentatively, and with a gentle push from her mother, Anabelle totters forward to where Lettice embraces her too.
“I know, Lettice,” Lally remarks softly. “That when you were a teenager, we really didn’t get along very well.” Lettice looks up defensively, but Lally raises a finger to her lips to silence her sister’s protests so she can continue. “And we have probably never really been that close because of the difference in years between us. However, contrary to what your opinion of me may be, I’m not your enemy, you know?”
“I know,” Lettice murmurs. “It’s just Mamma and her attitudes towards the decisions I’ve made. They make me so cross, Lally.”
“Well, you might not know this,” Lally continues. “In fact, in view of your sudden outburst, I’m quite certain you don’t.”
“Know what, Lally?”
“Mamma always lords your glamorous life in London over me whenever she can, telling me who of this country’s great and good you’ve been socialising with or decorating for, and showing me photos of you in the Tattler, not that I haven’t already seen them for myself.”
“She doesn’t!” Lettice bursts in shock.
“She does,” Lally concurs with a nod. “And she does it because both of us are closer to Pappa than to her.”
“No!”
“Of course that’s the reason. Mamma has always had a jealous streak in her.”
“Well, I never.” Lettice gasps.
“Now you know that her criticism goes both ways. She thinks her secret is safe because she enjoys playing us off against one another, and what’s worse is, I think she actually enjoys creating a divide between us.”
“Lally!”
“It’s true, Lettice. I think in her own perverse way, she hopes that one of us will turn to her one day, rather than Pappa.” She lowers her lids and shakes her head in resigned disbelief. “I don’t quite know why.”
“Oh I’m sorry, Lally.”
“I’m sorry too Lettice.” Lally acknowledges warmly. “So, what say you and I, with this knowledge, ignore Mamma’s criticisms this Christmas, and maybe get to be better friends as adults than we perhaps were as children.”
“Just to spite Mamma?”
“Well, no,” Lally explains. “To help us better understand and support one another. Of course, if it happens to irritate Mamma, then all the better. Truth be told, I’m actually quite proud to have such a successful and glamourous sister.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Lettice says humbly as she blushes with embarrassment and pride.
“A thank you is usual when one is paid a compliment.” Lally adds helpfully with a smile.
“Thank you, Lally.” Lettice says.
“You’re welcome, my glamorous little sister.” Lally answers.
*Columbine is a theatrical character that originated about 1530 in Italian commedia dell'arte as a saucy and adroit servant girl; her Italian name means “Little Dove.”
**Clarkson’s Theatrical Costumier and Wig Maker was located at 41 to 43 Wardour Street in Leicester Square. As theatrical costumier to the Royal Family, Willy Clarkson was born in 1861. He took over his father’s business in 1878 and became highly successful. He provided costumes and wigs for famous actors and actresses of the Victorian and Edwardian era, including Sir Henry Irving, Lillie Langtry and Sarah Bernhardt and for productions by Queen Victoria's family. It was claimed that Will Clarkson created a disguise for the murderer Doctor Crippen. Rumoured to be homosexual, a public lavatory in Soho was known as 'Clarkson's Cottage'.
***Pierrot is a character from the Italian commedia dell'arte. A simpleminded and honest servant, he is usually a young and personable valet. One of the comic servants, or zanni, Pierrot functioned in the commedia as an unsuccessful lover of Columbine and a victim of the pranks of his fellow comedians.
****Hunting pinks is the name given to the traditional scarlet jacket and related attire worn by fox-hunters.
*****An invert is a term coined and popularly used in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries to describe a homosexual.
This year the Flickr Friends Melbourne Group have decided to have a monthly challenge which is submitted on the 5th of every month. This month’s theme is “Christmas”, which was chosen by Beverley. Both Beverley and I share a common love of Christmas, which is a magical time that brings us both great joy, so this scene, using a selection of my large miniatures collection including some very special pieces was a delight for me to spend a few hours creating and photographing.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The Chetwynd Christmas tree, beautifully decorated by Lettice, Harold and Annabelle with garlands, tinsel, bows golden baubles and topped by a sparking gold star is a 1:12 artisan piece. It was hand made by husband and wife artististic team Margie and Mike Balough who own Serendipity Miniatures in Newcomerstown, Ohio.
The gold Christmas garland that graces the fireplace to the right of the photo is a hand made artisan miniature also, and was supplied by the Doll House Shoppe in Tinley Park, Illinois.
The red and green boxes containing hand painted Christmas ornaments were hand made and decorated by artists of Crooked Mile Cottage in America. The silver, red and gold tinsel garlands, and the painted red, yellow, green, gold and silver single baubles that litter the floor, tumble from the boxes and the single one left on the library steps come from various online miniature stockists in Australia and England through E-Bay. The miniature nativity pieces of Jesus in the manger, Mary, Joseph and the Christmas star standing on the carpet in front of the Gossages Dry Soap crate come from an E-Bay stockist of miniatures in Sydney.
The pair of louis heel red slippers comes from Melody Jane’s Doll House in the United Kingdom. They are made of metal.
The fold out concertina Edwardian photo album draped across the gilt Louis settee, the brown photo album with gilt lettering on the end table to the left of the settee and the pile of photos stacked on top of the red photo album are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. Therefore, it is a pleasure to give you a glimpse inside a photo album that he has made. To give you an idea of the work that has gone into the album, it has a front and back cover and a concertina of ten coloured pages, and it measure twenty millimetres in height and ten millimetres in width and is only three millimetres thick. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books and photo albums are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter. I hope that you enjoy this peek at just one of hundreds of his books that I own, and that it makes you smile with its sheer whimsy!
The red and the blue photo albums also open and contain black pages suitable to stick miniature photographs to. They are fastened closed with a ribbon. They came from Shepherd’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
The Palladian console table behind the library steps, with its two golden caryatids and marble top, is one of a pair that were commissioned by me from American miniature artisan Peter Cluff. Peter specialises in making authentic and very realistic high quality 1:12 miniatures that reflect his interest in Georgian interior design. His work is highly sought after by miniature collectors worldwide. This pair of tables are one-of-a-kind and very special to me.
The gilt footstool upon which the red photo album and pile of photographs sit is 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 also 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.
To the left of the photo stands an artisan bonheur de jour (French lady's writing desk). A gift from my Mother when I was in my twenties, she had obtained this beautiful piece from an antique auction. Made in the 1950s of brass it is very heavy. It is set with hand-painted enamel panels featuring Rococo images. Originally part of a larger set featuring a table and chairs, or maybe a settee as well, individual pieces from these hand-painted sets are highly collectable and much sought after. I never knew this until the advent of E-Bay!
The 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 centre of the mantlepiece stands a Rococo carriage clock that has been hand painted and gilded with incredible attention to detail by British 1:12 miniature artisan, Victoria Fasken. To the left of the clock is a porcelain pot of yellow and blue petunias which has been hand made and painted by 1:12 miniature ceramicist Ann Dalton. To the left of the vase of petunias is a Staffordshire sheep – one of a pair – which have been hand made, painted and gilded by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys. If you look closely, you will see that the sheep actually has a smile on its face!
Another, larger example of Ann Dalton’s petunia posies stands on the Peter Cluff Palladian console table and is flanked by two mid Victorian (circa 1850) hand painted child’s tea set pieces. The sugar bowl and milk jug have been painted to imitate Sèvres porcelain.
On the bombe chest behind the Louis settee stand a selection of 1950s Limoges miniature tea set pieces which I have had since I was a teenager. Each piece is individually stamped on its base with a green Limoges stamp. Also on the bombe chest sit two Georgian tea caddies which come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. In the centre of these pieces stands a sterling silver three prong candelabra made by an unknown artisan. They have actually fashioned a putti (cherub) holding the stem of the candelabra. The candles that came with it are also 1:12 artisan pieces and are actually made of wax.
The three piece Louis XV suite of settee and two armchairs was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, JBM.
The library steps are made by an unknown artisan, but have been hand made and was supplied by Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in the United Kingdom.
The Hepplewhite chair with the lemon satin upholstery you can just see behind the Christmas tree was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.
All the paintings around the Glynes drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper of Chinese lanterns from the 1770s.
The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster.
The Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.
Generously hopped with Amarillo, Ella and NZ Motueka hops, this hard hitting powerhouse boasts lively lemon and lime tones, floral and spicy notes and background hints of peach and apricot.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not in Lettice’s flat. Instead, we have followed Lettice south-west, through the neighbouring borough of Belgravia to the smart London suburb of Pimlico and its rows of cream and white painted Regency terraces. There, in a smart red brick Edwardian set of three storey flats on Rochester Row, is the residence of Lettice’s latest client, recently arrived American film actress Wanetta Ward. It is here that Lettice adds the remaining finishing touches to her redecoration of what was once a tired and dated interior.
Knocking loudly on the front door of the flat, Gerald turns the knob and finds the door opens, just as Lettice said it would. “Lettice?” he calls.
“Gerald, is that you?” comes Lettice’s voice from somewhere deep within the flat.
Gerald gasps as he steps across the threshold into the central hallway of the Pimlico flat. He looks about in delight at the beautiful gilded Japanese inspired wallpaper, stylish oriental furniture and sparking chandeliers, all of which are reflected in several long, bevelled mirrors which trick the eye into thinking the vestibule is more spacious than it actually is. “I say, Lettuce Leaf,” he utters in a rapturous voice. “This is divine!”
A soft thump against his thigh breaks his reverie. Looking down he finds the culprit: a long round white embossed satin bolster lies at his feet on the carpet. He stoops to pick it up.
“Stop calling me that, Gerald!” Lettice stands in the doorway to his right, her arms stretched across the frame, arrayed in a smart pale yellow day dress with a lowered waist and handkerchief point hem of his own making. “You know I don’t like it.”
“I know, but I just can’t help it darling! You always rise to the bait.”
“You’re just lucky I only hit you with a bolster, Gerald!” She wags her lightly bejewelled finger at him in a mock warning as she smiles at her old childhood friend.
“And you’re just lucky I didn’t drop the parcel you asked me to pick up from your flat.” He holds up a parcel wrapped up in brown paper, tied with string. “By the way, you look as divine as your interiors, darling.”
“In your design, of course, Gerald.”
“Of course! That’s why you look so divine, Lettice darling!”
“Of course!” She saunters over, her louis heels sinking into the luxurious oriental rug that covers most of the vestibule floor. “May I have my parcel, please Gerald?” She holds out her hands towards the package.
With a sigh of mock frustration, he hands it to her. “Anything else, milady?” He makes an exaggerated bow before her, like a toadying courtier or servant.
“Yes, you can make yourself useful by picking up that errant bolster and follow me.”
“You deserve this and a good deal more for bossing me about!” Gerald playfully picks up the bolster and thwacks it through the air before it lightly connects with Lettice’s lower back, making her squeal. “I come to your aid yet again, as you forget a vital finishing touch for your interior designs.”
Lettice giggles as she turns back to her friend and kittenishly tugs on the bolster, which he tussles back. “I know Gerald! I can’t believe how scatterbrained I was to leave this,” She holds the parcel aloft, hanging from her elegant fingers by the bow of string on the top. “Behind at Cavendish Mews! There has just been so much to organise with this interior design. I’m so pleased that there was a telephone booth I could use on the corner. The telephone has arrived here but hasn’t been collected to the exchange yet.”
“And isn’t it lucky that my fortunes seem to be changing with the orders from Mrs. Middle-of-the-Road-Middle-Class Hatchett and her friends paying for the installation of a telephone, finally, in my frock shop.”
“All the more reason not to deride Mrs. Hatchett, or her friends.”
“And,” Gerald speaks over his friend, determined not to be scolded again about his names for Mrs. Hatchett by her. “Wasn’t it lucky that I was in Grosvenor Street to take your urgent call.”
“It was!” she enthuses in a joking way.
“And the fact that I just happen to have the Morris*…”
She cuts his sentence off by saying with a broad smile, “Is the icing on the cake, Gerald darling! You are such a brick! Now, be honest, you’ve been longing to see this interior. You’ve been dropping hints like briquettes for the last week!”
Gerald ignores her good-natured dig at his nosiness. “Of course! I’m always interested in what my dearest friend is doing to build up her business.” Looking around again, a feeling of concern clouds his face. “I just hope this one pays, unlike some duchesses I could mention. This looks rather luxurious and therefore, costly I suspect.”
“Don’t worry Gerald, this nouveau riche parvenu is far more forthcoming with regular cheques to cover the costs, and never a quibble over price.”
“That’s a mercy! I suppose there is that reliability about the middle-classes. Mr. Hatchett always settles my account without complaint, or procrastination. Indeed, all her friends’ husbands do.” He looks again at the brown paper parcel in Lettice’s hand. “I see that comes from Ada May Wong. What’s inside.”
“Come with me, darling Gerald, on the beginning of your tour of Miss Ward’s flat,” she beckons to her friend with a seductive, curling finger and a smile. “And all will be revealed.”
Gerald follows Lettice through a boudoir, which true to her designs was a fantasy of oriental brocade and gilded black japanned furniture, and into a smaller anti-room off it.
“Miss Wanetta Ward’s dressing room.” Lettice announces, depositing the box on a small rosewood side table and spreading her arms expansively.
“Oh darling!” Gerald enthuses breathlessly as she looks about the small room.
Beautiful gold wallpaper embossed with large flowers and leaves entwining cover the walls, whilst a thick Chinese rug covers the parquetry floor. Around the room are furnishings of different eras and cultures, which in the wrong arrangement might jar, but under Lettice’s deft hand fit elegantly together. Chinese Screens and oriental furniture sit alongside select black japanned French chinoiserie pieces from the Eighteenth Century. White French brocade that matches the bolster Gerald holds are draped across a Japanese chaise lounge. Satsuma and cloisonné vases stand atop early Nineteenth Century papier-mâché tables and stands.
“So, you like it then?” Lettice asks her friend.
“It’s like being in some sort of divine genie’s bottle!” Gerald exclaims as he places the bolster on the daybed where it obviously belongs and clasps his hands in ecstasies, his eyes illuminated by exhilaration at the sight. “This is wonderful!”
“And not too gauche or showy?”
Gerald walks up to the chinoiserie dressing table and runs his hands along its slightly raised pie crust edge, admiring the fine painting of oriental scenes beneath the crystal perfume bottles and the gold dressing table set. “You know, when you suggested using gold wallpaper, I must confess I did cringe a little inside. It sounds rather gauche, but I also thought that might suit an up-and-coming film actress.”
“I remember you telling me so.” Lettice acknowledges.
“However, I must now admit that this is not at all what I was expecting. It’s decadent yes, but not showy. It’s elegant and ever so luxurious.” He traces a pattern of a large daisy’s petal in the raised embossing of the wallpaper. “This must have cost a fortune, Lettice!”
“There is a reason why this is the only room decorated with this paper, Gerald.”
“So, what’s in the box that is the finishing touch for in here?” Gerald asks, looking around. “As far as I can tell, there isn’t anything lacking.” He looks at the silvered statue of a Chinese woman holding a child on the right-hand back corner of the dressing table, her face and the child’s head nuzzled into his mother’s neck reflected in the black and gilt looking glass. “It seems you’re even providing Miss Ward with dressing table accessories.”
“Ah, yes,” Lettice remarks as she takes a pair of scissors and cuts the string on the parcel. “Well, that was Miss Ward’s request, not mine. She wanted a dressing table set to match the dressing room. She says that she will keep her existing set in her dressing room at Islington Studios**. The bottles of perfume she had sent over the other day. Which brings me to what’s in the parcel!”
Lettice removed the brown paper wrapping, the paper tearing noisily. Opening the box inside, she rummages through layers of soft whispering tissue paper and withdraws a large, lidded bowl with an exotic bird on the lid and a pattern of flowers around the bowl.
“It’s Cantonese Famille Rose,” she explains to her friend. “And it will serve as Miss Ward’s new container for her trademark bead and pearl necklaces.”
She walks across the small space to the dressing table and places it on the back left-hand corner. Standing back, she sighs with satisfaction, pleased with her placement of it.
“Now, let me give you a tour of the rest of the flat, Gerald.” Lettice says happily.
“Oh!” her companion remarks suddenly, a hand rising to his mouth anxiously. “I almost forgot!”
“Forgot what, Gerald?”
“This.” Gerald reaches into the pocket of his black coat and withdraws a small buff coloured envelope which he hands over to Lettice. “Edith gave it to me to give to you since I was coming over here. She thought it might be important.”
Lettice looks quizzically at the envelope. “A telegram?”
“Apparently, it arrived a quarter of an hour after you left this morning.”
Lettice uses the sharp blade of the scissors to slice the thin paper of the envelope. Her face changes first to concentration as she reads the message inside, and then a look of concern clouds her pretty features as she digests what it says.
“Not bad news, I trust.”
“It’s from the Pater.” Lettice replies simply as she holds it out for Gerald to read.
“Lettice,” Gerald reads. “Come to Glynes*** without delay. Prepare to stay overnight. Do not procrastinate. Father…”
“I wonder what he wants?” Lettice ponders, gnawing on her painted thumbnail as she accepts the telegram back with her free hand.
“Only your father would use a word like procrastinate in a telegram. It must be important if he wants you to go down without delay.” Gerald ruminates.
“And we were going to the Café Royal**** for dinner tonight!” Lettice whines.
“I’m the one who should be complaining, darling. After all you are my meal ticket there! Don’t worry, the Café Royal will still be here when you get back from Wiltshire, whatever happens down there. I’ll be waiting here too. I’d offer to drive you down tomorrow, but I have several dress fittings booked for tomorrow, including one for Margot’s wedding dress.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Lettice flaps Gerald’s offer away with her hand. “I’ll take the train and have Harris pick me up from the railway station in the village.” She folds the telegram back up again and slips it back into the envelope before depositing it into one of the discreet pockets Gerald had designed on the front of her dress. “Come, let’s not let this spoil the occasion.” She smiles bravely at her friend, although he can still see the concern clouding her eyes. “Let me give you a guided tour of the rest of the flat.”
“Lead the way!” Gerald replies, adding extra joviality to his statement, even though he knows that it sounds false.
The pair leave Miss Ward’s dressing room as Lettice begins to show Gerald around the other rooms.
*Morris Motors Limited was a privately owned British motor vehicle manufacturing company established in 1919. With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris's business continued to grow and increase its share of the British market. By 1926 its production represented forty-two per cent of British car manufacturing. Amongst their more popular range was the Morris Cowley which included a four-seat tourer which was first released in 1920.
**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.
***Glynes is the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie.
****The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.
Luxurious it may be, but this upper-class interior is not all that it seems, for it is made up entirely of items from my 1:12 miniatures collection. Some of the pieces I have had since I was a child, whilst others I have acquired in the subsequent years from specialist doll house stockists and online artisans and retailers.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The beautiful black japanned and gilded chinoiserie dressing table which is hand decorated with on its surface with an oriental scene, was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.
On the dressing table’s surface there is a gilt pewter dressing table set consisting of comb, hairbrushes and hand mirror, the latter featuring a real piece of mirror set into it. This set was given to me as a gift one Christmas when I was around seven years old. These small pieces have survived the tests of time and survived without being lost, even though they are tiny.
There is a selection of sparkling perfume bottles on Wanetta’s dressing table too, which are handmade by an English artisan for the Little Green Workshop. Made of cut coloured crystals set in a gilt metal frames or using vintage cut glass beads they look so elegant and terribly luxurious.
The Cantonese Famille Rose export ware lidded jar I have had since I was a teenager. I bought it from a high street dolls house specialty shop. It has been hand painted and decorated, although I am not sure as to whom the artist is that created it. Famille rose, (French: “rose family”) group of Chinese porcelain wares characterized by decoration painted in opaque overglaze rose colours, chiefly shades of pink and carmine. These colours were known to the Chinese as yangcai (“foreign colours”) because they were first introduced from Europe (about 1685).
The stylised silvered statue of a Chinese woman carrying her child is an unusual 1:12 artisan figurine, which I acquired along with a range of other metal statues from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in the United Kingdom.
The looking glass hanging on the wall, whilst appearing to be joined to the Bespaq chinoiserie table, is another piece from my childhood. It is actually a small pink plastic framed looking glass. The handle broke off long ago, and I painted in black and gilded it to give it a Regency look. I think it matches the table very nicely, as I’m sure Lettice would have thought too!
The blue and gold vase featuring lilac coloured wisteria on the far left of the photo is really a small Satsuma export ware vase from the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century. It is four centimetres in height and was the first piece of Satsuma ware I ever owned. I have had it since I was eight. Satsuma ware (薩摩焼, Satsuma-yaki) is a type of Japanese pottery originally from Satsuma Province, southern Kyūshū. Today, it can be divided into two distinct categories: the original plain dark clay early Satsuma (古薩摩, Ko-Satsuma) made in Satsuma from around 1600, and the elaborately decorated export Satsuma (京薩摩, Kyō-Satsuma) ivory-bodied pieces which began to be produced in the nineteenth century in various Japanese cities. By adapting their gilded polychromatic enamel overglaze designs to appeal to the tastes of western consumers, manufacturers of the latter made Satsuma ware one of the most recognized and profitable export products of the Meiji period.
The oxblood cloisonné vase with floral panels to the left of the dressing table I bought, along with its pair, from the Camberwell Market in Melbourne many years ago. The elderly woman who sold them to me said that her father had bought them in Peking before he left there in the 1920s. She believed they were containers for opium. The stoppers with tiny, long spoons which she said she remembered as a child had long since gone missing. Cloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects. In recent centuries, vitreous enamel has been used, and inlays of cut gemstones, glass and other materials were also used during older periods. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné. The decoration is formed by first adding compartments (cloisons in French) to the metal object by soldering or affixing silver or gold wires or thin strips placed on their edges. These remain visible in the finished piece, separating the different compartments of the enamel or inlays, which are often of several colours. Cloisonné enamel objects are worked on with enamel powder made into a paste, which then needs to be fired in a kiln. The Japanese produced large quantities from the mid Nineteenth Century, of very high technical quality cloisonné. In Japan cloisonné enamels are known as shippō-yaki (七宝焼). Early centres of cloisonné were Nagoya during the Owari Domain. Companies of renown were the Ando Cloisonné Company. Later centres of renown were Edo and Kyoto. In Kyoto Namikawa became one of the leading companies of Japanese cloisonné.
The Chinese folding screen to the left of the photo I bought at an antiques and junk market when I was about ten. I was with my grandparents and a friend of the family and their three children, who were around my age. They all bought toys to bring home and play with, and I bought a Chinese folding screen to add to my miniatures collection in my curio cabinet at home! It shows you what a unique child I was. Reflected in the mirror is a matching screen with different patterns on it, in this case vases of stylised Japanese flowers, which I recently acquired through a seller on E-Bay.
Also reflected in the mirror is a wooden Chinese dragon chair. It is one of a pair, which together with their matching low table I found in a little shop in Singapore whilst I was holiday there. They are beautifully carved from cherrywood.
The gold embossed wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend who encouraged me to use it as wallpaper for my 1:12 miniature tableaux.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however, we have travelled twenty-five miles west of London into Berkshire to the picturesque town of Ascot, where the Ascot Racecourse is. The town, built up along meandering roads, is made up mostly of large red brick mansions nestled discreetly amidst well established manicured gardens behind trimmed hedges and closed gates. It is here that Lettice has come to meet a prospective new client: Mrs. Evelyn Hawarden, wife of fabric manufacturer Joseph Hawarden. Hawarden Fabrics have been embraced by the British public since first appearing on the market in 1919, for their quality and affordability, and have proved especially popular amidst the working classes who want colour and something better than what they have had in the post-war boom of optimism, including Lettice’s maid, Edith, who made her friend Hilda a new dance frock using some Hawarden Fabrics russet art silk*. This has raised the Hawarden’s expectations and Mr. Hawarden has recently acquired ‘The Briars’, a red brick Georgian mansion in Ascot that is more suitable for he and his wife’s new social standing.
Against her usual practices, Lettice has foregone the initial meeting she would have had at Cavendish Mews after Mrs. Hawarden explained that she was simply too busy with her new house to come down to Mayfair, and implored Lettice to consider coming up to Ascot for the day. As she rides the train through the rolling green countryside of Berkshire, Lettice cannot help but wonder whether her agreement to Mrs. Hawarden’s demands is against her better judgement. Since the publication of the interiors she completed for her friends and fellow members of her Embassy Club coterie, Dickie and Margot Channon, in the magazine, Country Life**, Lettice’s expertise as an interior designer has suddenly been in great demand after Henry Tipping*** described her as having a “tasteful Modern Classical Revival Style”. She has already had to decline several hopeful clients whose wishes for new interiors do not appeal to her own sense of design. Yet here she is, travelling to see a woman who has shown to be somewhat bombastic at her insistence that Lettice visit her, rather than the other way around, at a house that she knows nothing about beyond the fact that it is a recent acquisition of Mr. Hawarden. As she distractedly turns the page of “Whose Body?”**** in her lap, having only taken in half of Dorothy L. Sayers words as she contemplates her journey, Lettice feels an unease in her stomach.
As requested, when the steam of the train carrying Lettice and a great number of people attending the Ascot Races from London to Ascot railway station cleared, there stood Mrs. Hawarden’s chauffer, dressed in a smart grey uniform and cap, ready to take her to ‘The Briars’. As the Worsley drove up the long and slightly rutted driveway boarded by clipped yew hedges, she prepared for the worst, but was pleasantly surprised when the car pulled into a wide carriage turning circle before a rather lovely two-storey red brick Georgian mansion with two white painted sash windows either side of a porticoed front door and five matching windows spread evenly across the façade of the upper floor. Assisted to alight by the chauffer, Lettice notes looking up at the façade before her that whilst the house is nowhere near as large or as fine as her own palatial Georgian childhood home of Glynes*****, it does have graceful and elegant country charm which makes her feel more at ease with what may lie within its walls.
Striding across the crunching white gravel driveway with the footsteps of the daughter of a Viscount to the front door, it is opened by a maid dressed in her black moire afternoon uniform accessorised with an ornamental lace apron, cuffs and matching cap. Whilst she may look the part, Lettice notes critically that the maid only takes her pea green travelling coat, leaving her holding her matching green stub ended parasol as she shows her into the drawing room, where Lettice is told by the maid that she is expected.
Entering the room Lettice is greeted by a fug of greyish blue cigarette smoke that hangs like a pall in the atmosphere. Beneath a round table in the middle of the room, a small whorl of reddish brown fur in a plaited basket bares its teeth and growls.
“Yat-See! Don’t growl at the guest! My dear Miss Chetwynd!” enthusiastically exclaims a female voice with a thick Mancunian accent Lettice recognises as Mrs. Hawarden’s. “Here you are at last!”
Rising from her place nestled into a very comfortable white upholstered sofa, Mrs Evelyn Hawarden appears to be in her mid thirties, and therefore much younger than her voice portrayed when she telephoned Lettice’s flat. With red hennaed hair set about her rounded face in soft Marcel waves****** she looks quite pert and pretty. Although dressed in a similar style to her mother, Lady Sadie, in a tweed calf length skirt, a flounced white silk blouse and a silk cardigan – the classic uniform of a relaxed country lady – Mrs. Hawarden cannot disguise her more aspiring middle-class origins, for she wears a little too much powder on her nose and sports a pair of round rouge marks on her cheeks that Lady Sadie would never entertain on her own face. Mrs. Hawarden’s hair is perhaps a little too obviously coloured, and she wears four strands of creamy white pearls about her neck, rather than the customary two worn informally. Even as she stands, she tugs awkwardly at her skirt, implying that this is not what she is used to wearing. Nevertheless, she has a pleasant smile and the sparkle in her brown eyes is a jolly one.
“How do you do, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice replies.
“Please pardon my pet Pekingese, Yat-See, for growling.” The hostess indicates to the bristling bundle of fur with wary black currant eyes. “He’s rather protective of his Mummy, don’t you know.” Mrs. Hawarden’s painted face falls when she notices Lettice still clutching her parasol. She glances between it and Lettice’s face. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss Chetwynd!” she exclaims apologetically. “Please just put your things down there.” She indicates with an open hand to the corner of a second cream sofa opposite the one she has been sitting on. “Barbara is new to being a maid. The house didn’t come with staff I’m afraid, and being new to the area ourselves, well, I think we’re seen as a rather unknown quantity, so getting help hasn’t been all that easy.”
“Oh it’s quite alright,” Lettice assures her hostess, gingerly lowering her parasol as Yat-See starts to growl again from his basket, and leans it against the soft edge of the sofa and deposits her handbag onto its seat. “I know how hard it can be to find good servants. I’m only grateful that I live in a flat and have requirements only for one maid.”
“Oh yes, I spoke to her the first time I telephoned you at Cavendish Mews. She seemed very efficient and was quick to get my details so that you could return my telephone call.”
“Thankfully Edith is a very capable maid, although I think you may have mistaken her efficiency for haste. Sadly, she has no love of the telephone and thinks it quite an unnatural contraption.” Lettice chuckles indulgently.
“What a load of rot!” blusters a burbling male Mancunian voice from behind a wall of newspaper, the utterance accompanied by clouds and curlicues of white cigarette smoke.
Yat-See immediately starts to bark in answer to the voice.
“Yat-see!” scolds Mrs. Hawarden. “Hush, or I’ll get Barbara to come and take you to the kitchen, which is where naughty boys go!”
Silently Lettice wishes her hostess would do just that. The dog seems to understand that he is being scolded and falls silent, but he continues to watch Lettice with his dark and suspicious eyes. Taking her gaze away from the pampered Pekingese and looking to the sofa behind her hostess, Lettice is suddenly made aware that she and Mrs. Hawarden are not the only two people in the room. The newspaper lowers to reveal a middle aged man, probably a little bit older than his wife, in a smart London suit, with slick black hair and a handsome mature face.
“Miss Chetwynd, may I present my husband, Mr. Joseph Hawarden, proprietor of Hawarden’s Fabrics.” Mrs. Hawarden says proudly, clasping her hands together.
“I say, how do you do, Miss Chetwynd!” Mr. Hawarden says, not getting up from his seat, but reaching forward and extending his hand to his guest. “Jolly glad to have you here. Evelyn’s done nothing but talk about your skills and what she wants you to do here, for the last few weeks. She was most impressed with your interiors in ‘Country Life’.” he adds, glancing across to the inlaid round top of the table between the two sofas upon which sit a collection of newspapers, magazines and periodicals, including the copy of ‘Country Life’ featuring the interiors for ‘Chi an Treth’.
Lettice extends her own hand and allows it to be shaken in a rather heavy and businesslike fashion by the industrialist. “How do you do, Mr. Hawarden. I’m delighted to be here,” She glances at Mrs. Hawarden. “Although I wasn’t expecting you to be here for this meeting.”
“Oh, Joseph just happens to be home this afternoon, Miss Chetwynd.” laughs Mrs. Hawarden a little awkwardly. “It isn’t by design. I’ll be the one making the decisions.”
“Yes,” agrees Mr. Hawarden, leaning forward and snatching a dainty teacup decorated with blue roses from the table and taking a rather large gulp from it, the cup’s rim disappearing beneath his finely manicured thick black moustache. “This interiors business is more Evelyn’s department than mine. My fabrics are fashion, not furniture fabrics.” He chortles good-naturedly. “But since I’ll be the one footing the bills, you should give me an estimate of your costs.”
“Oh,” Lettice begins a little nervously. “I shouldn’t think we’ll be discussing that today, Mr. Hawarden.”
“What?” he scoffs. “No costs today?”
“I shouldn’t think so.” Lettice assures him. “Today is really, just about consultation. I would usually have conducted it at my premises in Mayfair,” She momentarily looks at Mrs. Hawarden again before returning to the industrialist. “However, your wife was insistent that she didn’t have the time to come down. Today is about discussing what Mrs. Hawarden hopes to do with the interiors of ‘The Briars’.”
“I see,” Mr. Hawarden replies, tapping his nose knowingly with his right hand, still clutching the smoking end of his cigarette. “You’re a smart businesswoman, Miss Chetwynd. Best lull Evelyn into a sense of security, so then you can unleash the bills on me, eh?”
“Oh no…” stammers Lettice. “I don’t mean… I mean it would…”
The man bursts out laughing, his fulsome guffaws intermixing with the slightly more timid and higher pitched giggle of his wife.
“Don’t listen to Joseph, Miss Chetwynd,” Mrs. Hawarden assures her guest. “He’s just trying to be funny, within his limited ability of being a boring businessman.” She rolls her eyes at her husband, who smiles back sheepishly at her before putting up the paper again. “He doesn’t mean what he says, Miss Chetwynd.” Indicating to the sofa again she continues, “Please have a seat, won’t you.” She walks up to the table. “Barbara may not know what to do with an umbrella, Miss Chetwynd, but she does make a fine cup of tea. When Johnston went to pick you up from the railway station, I had her brew us up a pot. May I interest you?” She picks up third, as of yet unused, china teacup and a pretty sleek silver Art Deco teapot. “Or would you prefer coffee?”
“Oh no, tea will be most satisfactory,” Lettice replies as she sinks into the comfortable enveloping upholstery of the sofa next to her handbag. “Thank you, Mrs. Hawarden.”
As Mrs. Hawarden fixes her tea, Lettice tries to ignore the hostile stare of Yat-See and glances around the well lit drawing room flooded with light from one of the ground floor windows she had spied upon her arrival. Tastefully appointed, the room features what looks like original Eighteenth Century hand painted wallpaper, which whilst dulled somewhat from many decades of warm wood fires, and perhaps more recently cigarette smoke – she glances at Mr. Hawarden as he sits, absorbed in his newspaper once more, his cigarette smouldering between his right index and middle finger poking around the edge of the newsprint – it still shows off lovely rich hues. Some of the furnishings are possibly original to the room too, such as a small demilune table to the left of the fireplace and the inlaid round table between the two sofas, but the room has been overlaid with other styles over time. The cream damask sofas are obviously pre-war, but perhaps not much more than a decade old. Paintings of different eras and styles hang on the walls in an easy comfort of familiarity. The objects scattered about the surfaces of the room suggest an eclectic, yet restrained hand: silver candlesticks, tall vases, decorative bowls, Meissen figurines and two pretty ‘cottage orneé’ pastille burners******* on the mantle.
Lettice gratefully accepts the cup of tea proffered by her hostess. “So, you were saying that you are newcomers to Ascot, Mrs. Hawarden?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Hawarden replies, subconsciously reaching up to her strands of pearls and worrying them at the mention of them being newly arrived. “My husband and I are from Manchester originally, as I’m sure you can tell from our accents.” Lettice politely sips her tea and doesn’t remark upon either of their thick accents which are so different to those born in the south of England. “We only recently acquired ‘The Briars’ so that my husband can be closer to his new fabric factory in Croydon and to his London office, and I have been craving the space and fresh air of the south.” The woman opens a small silver cigarette case on the table, offers one to Lettice, who politely declines with s small shake of her head, and then takes out a thin cigarette for herself and lights it. Walking across the carpet she tosses the spent match into the grate as she leans against the fireplace.
“Indeed.” muses Lettice as she watches Mrs. Hawarden take a long drag on her cigarette before blowing out a plume of bluish grey acrid smoke into the air between she and Lettice.
Yat-See suddenly picks himself out of his basket, making Lettice flinch and her cup rattle in its saucer as she fears he is about to attack her legs. Yet he pads across the Chinese rug and sits in front of his mistress protectively keeping guard to protect her from the stranger in the drawing room.
“And this place was up for sale, and I fell in love with it instantly, didn’t I Joseph?”
“Indeed, you did, Evelyn.” agrees her husband without looking up from his newspaper.
“So, we bought it: lock, stock and barrel.”
“Then the furnishings aren’t yours, Mrs. Hawarden?” Lettice asks, gesturing to their surrounds as she places her teacup on the small Georgian pedestal table at her right.
“No. Oh no!” Mrs, Hawarden replies, evidently wishing to distance herself from the elegant, yet comfortably lived in country house style. “Not at all Miss Chetwynd! That’s why I couldn’t come down to Mayfair to meet you like you had originally suggested. We’re only freshly moved in, and I’m still trying to find my feet here. I haven’t even had time to unpack my photos from our Manchester house yet.”
“Yet you already know that you want to redecorate, Mrs. Hawarden,” Lettice queries. “Even though you are only newly minted here?”
“Goodness yes, Miss Chetwynd!” exclaims the hostess, blowing out another cloud of smoke as she speaks. She bends down and strokes her dog on the head, his black eyes closing in pleasure ar her touch. With a slight groan she stretches back into an upright position. “These,” she gesticulates with a languid hand around her. “Are the interiors of a dead woman.”
“A dead woman?” Lettice queries again in concern.
“Yes. You see we bought ‘The Briars’ from the descendants of the last occupier. Alice… Alice… Oh, what was her name, Joseph? Moynahan?”
“Mainwaring, Evelyn my dear.” Mr. Hawarden looks up from his paper to his wife. “Alice Mainwaring.”
“Yes!” Mrs. Hawarden claps her hands, sending a tumble of ashes cascading through the air where they land in Yat-See’s red dioxide coat and on the dark slate hearth surrounding the fireplace. “That’s it! Alice Mainwaring. Her widowed aunt or some such lived here alone and died a few years ago, and she didn’t want to hold onto the place.”
“Humph!” mutters Mr. Hawarden. “More like she couldn’t afford to hold onto the place, owing to these bloody awful rates of Income Tax******** the Government dare to charge us all now. Mind you, she put a good face on it, I’ll say that.”
Yat-See starts barking again.
“Yat-See!” scolds Mrs. Hawarden again. “She didn’t even want the old family paintings.”
“I doubt she could afford to keep them, Evelyn my dear, even if she’d wanted to.” Her husband counters. “I would have offered her less for the place if she’d taken them.”
“Anyway, whatever the circumstances, I felt the house could do with a little,” Mrs. Hawarden weaves her hand dramatically through the air as if holding a magic wand. “Sprucing up********.”
“Sprucing up?” Lettice queries again, looking uncertainly at Mrs. Hawarden.
“Yes!” Mrs. Hawarden says with a sigh, sending two plumes of smoke rushing from her nostrils. “Brighten it up a bit and make it a bit more,” She pauses whilst she thinks of the right word she is seeking. “Modern.”
“And you are expecting furnishings from Manchester, Mrs. Hawarden?” Lettice asks.
“Good lord no!” the hostess exclaims. “The furniture from our Audenshaw house is even worse than these bits of sticks. Yat-See, our clothes, my photos and a few bits and bobs are about all we wanted to bring from there. Isn’t that right, Joseph?”
“Quite, my dear Evelyn. Quite.”
“No.” She smiles with smug pleasure. “We’ve left that life behind, and now we plan to make a new start here.”
“You do know,” Lettice remarks tentatively. “That some people would be quite happy, if acquiring a country house and its contents in its entirety, to leave it all in situ.”
“Ahh.” Mrs. Hawarden says with a wagging bejewelled finger and a knowing smile at Lettice. “But Joseph and I aren’t just anyone. That’s why as soon as I saw your article, I knew I wanted your expertise to help me bring life back into this poor old house.” She slaps the mantlepiece with the palm of her hand. “I read in Country Life that the rooms of the Channon’s house were a bit dark, so you lightened it.”
“Well, yes,” Lettice agrees hesitantly. “I did, but the house really was rather damp being built by the sea, and awfully neglected after having stood empty for many years. This house appears to be in much better condition and is far cosier than ‘Chi an Treth’ was, Mrs. Hawarden.”
“And,” Mrs. Hawarden continues, appearing not to have heard Lettice’s protestations. “I also read that some of the statues you used to furnish the house came from the Portland Gallery in Mayfair.”
“They did, Mrs. Hawarden, but I…”
“And I just love the modernity of some of the art in there. I’m currently in the process of acquiring some nice new modern artworks from several London galleries, although not The Portland, to hang in place of some of these rather drab daubs.” she indicates to the classical oil painting of a landscape hanging above the fireplace behind her.
Lettice glances sadly at the small, rather pretty late Nineteenth Century oil painting of a mother and daughter gathering flowers just to the right of the fireplace, silently apologising to the possible former owner of the house.
“Actually, Evelyn my dear, I think you’ll find, I’m acquiring them.” remarks Mr. Hawarden rather definitely.
“Don’t be bore, dear Joseph.” Mrs. Hawarden retorts kindly. “Yes, it’s true, you may be putting up the money for them, but we both know that of the two of us, I’m the one with the real artistic vision.”
“If you say so, Evelyn.” Mr. Hawarden returns to his paper.
Lettice looks sadly around her at the well appointed and comfortable room. In her mind, she can’t see anything wrong with it, other than perhaps the hostile presence of Yat-See, and sadly he cannot be papered over. The room’s décor has grown with the house, mellowed and softened into a comfortable semi-formal Edwardian country house interior over the decades since its original construction, not entirely dissimilar to that of her brother Leslie’s new home with his wife in the Dower House at Glynes, only not quite so old, it having been built in the 1850s. A queasiness begins to roil about in the pit of her stomach. Yat-See seems to pick up on it and quietly growls at Lettice again, until he receives a small nudge on the bottom by the dainty toe of Mrs. Hawarden’s brown leather shoe.
“You do know that my style is Modern Classical Revival, don’t you, Mrs, Hawarden?” Lettice explains politely. “I do not believe in flinging everything out and replacing it with something new.”
“Yes of course I know, Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs, Hawarden smiles. “I’m not suggesting we ‘fling it all out’ as you say. I’d be happy if you felt it worth repurposing a few sticks of furniture. I believe you did repaint a demilune table, not unlike this one,” She reaches behind her and pats the surface of the table Lettice had noticed before. “For Mrs. Channon. You could do the same here, if you like. I’m happy to be led by you, Miss Chetwynd.”
“Well,” Lettice says. “Really, I should be the one who is led by you, Mrs. Hawarden. Perhaps you could suggest to me what you were thinking and we’ll… work from there. Shall we?” She takes a small sip of her tea. “What do you envisage, Mrs. Hawarden?”
The woman looks around her, humming and hawing as she screws up her mouth in concentration.
“Well, for a start, if I’m going to have new paintings hanging in here, I’ll need new wallpaper. How old do you think this paper is, Miss Chetwynd?”
“I would say it is probably Eighteenth Century.” Lettice says with concern. “You do realise that it’s probably hand painted. My parents have similar at our home in Wilt…”
“Well there you go!” interrupts Mrs. Hawarden. “That explains why it’s so dull and dreary! No: new paper for new paintings. Definitely!” the Pekingese starts barking animatedly. “See, even my beloved little boy agrees, don’t you darling?” She blows him a kiss. “Maybe something geometric?” She looks questioningly at Lettice who simply smiles up politely at her from her place on the sofa but says nothing. She casts her eyes around the room. “And of course these dreadful settees will have to go!”
Lettice quietly cringes at the use of the word ‘settee’, giving away Mr. Hawarden’s aspiring middle-class origins**********.
“Pity Evelyn my dear,” her husband pipes up. “I quite like these. They really are rather nice and comfy.” He starts bouncing up and down slightly in his seat, making the springs inside the sofa protest quietly beneath the white damask upholstery which makes Yat-See start quietly growling again.
“No! I want something more streamlined,” Mrs, Hawarden insists. “Rather like Mrs. Channon’s settees I think.”
A discreet knock on the drawing room door interrupts Mrs. Hawarden’s thoughts and makes Yat-See yap loudly as he scurries over to the door.
“Yes.” she calls out imperiously.
Barbara, the maid who had opened the door to Lettice upon her arrival and shown her into the drawing room opens the door and steps in, almost stepping on the dog, who barks savagely at the poor domestic.
“Yat-See! Hush darling! Yes Barbara?”
“Begging your pardon, mum, but lunch is ready.” The maid bobs a curtsey. “You said I ought to tell you when it was ready, and Cook is serving up now.”
“Yes, yes,” mutters Mrs. Hawarden dismissively with a final puff of smoke, dropping her cigarette butt into the grate next to the spent match. “Thank you, Barbara.”
The maid bobs another curtsey and turns to go.
“Oh Barbara!” Mrs. Hawarden calls after her gaily.
“Yes, mum?” the maid asks.
“Barbara, next time we are receiving guests and they are carrying an umbrella,” Mrs. Hawarden adeptly snatches up Lettice’s green umbrella from the floor and holds it out to her maid in a smooth movement. “Make sure you put it in the receptacle that it was designed to be inserted into.”
“Mum?” the maid asks queryingly, reaching tentatively out and accepting the umbrella.
“Put it in the hallstand, Barbara, with the other umbrellas.”
“Oh, yes mum!” Barbara apologises and bobs another curtsey, first at her mistress and then at Lettice, before quickly withdrawing.
Lettice silently cringes slightly again at witnessing the public beration of the poor, inexperienced maid, however mild it was.
“Well!” gasps Mrs. Hawarden, snatching up her beloved dog from the floor with a swoop. “Shall we go through then, Miss Chetwynd? I’m sure after your trip up from London, you must be starving.”
“Oh, yes.” Lettice lies brightly, depositing the teacup and saucer back onto the small Georgian occasional pedestal table and standing up. She eyes the dog warily as he hangs from his owner’s left arm.
“Good! Good!” her hostess replies, clapping her hands with delight. “That’s just as well. I’ve asked Cook to prepare a lovely lamb roast. You love titbits from the table, don’t you Yat-See?” She rubs her dog’s forehead lovingly before she winds her right arm through Lettice’s left. “Please, let me show you the way. Just wait until you see the dining room! It’s yellow!” She cringes. “Positively gruesome! I shall be very keen to hear your thoughts around what we can do about that.”
Mrs. Hawarden gently, yet at the same time forcefully, guides Lettice to the door from whence the maid came.
“Are you coming my dear?” Mrs, Hawarden calls to her husband over her shoulder.
“Yes, of course Evelyn!” Mr. Hawarden deposits the newspaper on the sofa cushions and extinguishes his cigarette in the ashtray on the table and follows the figure of his wife and Lettice arm-in-arm. “I shouldn’t wish to miss one of Cook’s wonderful roasts!”
As Lettice is guided down the hallway by her hostess, she senses what feels like a boulder in the very pit of her stomach. For the first time ever, she has a potential client with whom she is completely at odds with aesthetically, and she isn’t quite sure how she is going to explain her difference in opinions to the insistent Mrs. Hawarden diplomatically.
*The first successful artificial silks were developed in the 1890s of cellulose fibre and marketed as art silk or viscose, a trade name for a specific manufacturer. In 1924, the name of the fibre was officially changed in the U.S. to rayon, although the term viscose continued to be used in Europe.
**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.
***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.
****Whose Body? is a 1923 mystery novel by English crime writer and poet Dorothy L. Sayers. It was her debut novel, and the book in which she introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey.
*****Glynes is the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella.
******Marcelling is a hair styling technique in which hot curling tongs are used to induce a curl into the hair. Its appearance was similar to that of a finger wave but it is created using a different method. Marcelled hair was a popular style for women's hair in the 1920s, often in conjunction with a bob cut. For those women who had longer hair, it was common to tie the hair at the nape of the neck and pin it above the ear with a stylish hair pin or flower. One famous wearer was American entertainer, Josephine Baker.
*******The Industrial Revolution in England caused a migration of people into the big cities in search of better wages and better working conditions. For the working class often this resulted in overcrowding in their housing conditions. There was poor sanitation and smells could be appalling. Pastille burners, sometimes called ‘cottage orneés’ were a way of combating these odours by burning pastilles of aromatic substances, which emitted sweet scented perfume into the room. They were made of porcelain or silver for the upper classes and by the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries, pottery burners were bought by the middle and lower classes. They were modelled as cottages with a removable thatched roof, tollhouses, dovecotes decorated with flowers and by the 1830s the cottages had open windows so they became night lights as well. By 1840 designs for pastille burners included Chinese temples, Swiss cottages and turreted castles, all of which appealed to the Victorian taste. Pastille burners remained popular for all classes until 1870 when improvements to sanitary conditions were made.
*******In order to repay the expenditures made by the British during the Great War, like had been occurring since the Napoleonic Wars, the government increased Income Tax. The standard rate of income tax, which was six per cent in 1914, stood at thirty per cent in 1918. As a result of this, income tax rates amongst the wealthy were maintained at a high level, far in excess of those charged in the years before the war, making the management of estates very difficult if they were not productive, and many properties with stately homes left the ownership of their original families for the first time in generations, sold more often to wealthy industrialists or in the post-war era, wealthy Americans wishing for their own slice of British aristocratic history.
*********The verb spruce up means “to make neat or smart in appearance,” and it first appeared in English around the end of the 1500s.
**********Before, and even after the Second World War, a great deal could be attained about a person’s social origins by what language and terminology they used in class-conscious Britain by the use of ‘”U and non-U English” as popularised by upper class English author, Nancy Mitford when she published a glossary of terms in an article “The English Aristocracy” published by Stephen Spender in his magazine “encounter” in 1954. There are many examples in her glossary, amongst which are the word “sofa” which is a U (upper class) word, versus “settee” or “couch” which are a non-U (aspiring middle-class) words. Whilst quite outdated today, it gives an insight into how easily someone could betray their humbler origins by something as simple as a single word.
This comfortable country house drawing room interior may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, or a copy of ‘Country Life’, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection and includes items from my childhood, as well as those I have collected as an adult.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster. The peacock fire screen and gilt fire tools I bought at the same time as the fireplace. Standing on the mantlepiece of the fireplace are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, manufactured by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. They have been hand painted by me. Next to them on the mantlepiece are two silver candlesticks from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Also on the mantlepiece are two pottery cottage orneé pastille burners which have been hand made, painted and gilded by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys. The dainty gilded clock is also made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland.
The two tall vases of flowers on the demilune tables flanking the fireplace are made by Falcon Miniatures, who are renown for the realism and detail in their miniatures.
The bowl decorated with fruit on the table on the left hand side of the fireplace was hand decorated by British artisan Rachael Maundy. The one on the right is a hand painted artisan miniature fluted bowl.
The two white damask sofas were supplied by Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The round table, an artisan miniature with a marquetry inlaid top, also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop, as did the small pedestal table next to the right hand sofa.
Lettice’s green handbag is also a hand-made artisan piece of soft green leather, made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures. Her furled umbrella is a 1:12 artisan piece made of hand painted wood, metal and satin.
The silver Art Deco tea and coffee pots and square tray on the round table were made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland. The blue rose tea set came from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay. The Elite Styles magazine from 1923 sitting on the table was made by hand by Petite Gite Miniatures in the United States. The 1:12 miniature copies of ‘The Times’, ‘The Mirror’ and the ‘Daily Express’, are made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The copy of ‘Country Life’ sitting on the table was made by me to scale using the cover of a real 1923 edition of ‘Country Life’. The vase of red roses in the foreground was made by Falcon Miniatures.
All the paintings around ‘The Briars’ drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces acquired through Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today it is Tuesday, and we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. Lettice is hosting a luncheon for her future sister-in-law Arabella Tyrwhitt who will soon marry her eldest brother Leslie. As Arabella has no sisters, and her mother is too unwell at present to travel up to London from Wiltshire, Lettice has taken it upon herself to help Arabella select a suitable trousseau. So, she has brought her to London to stay in Cavendish Mews, so from there she can take Arabella shopping in all the best shops in the West End, and take her to her best friend Gerald Bruton’s couturier in Grosvenor Street for her wedding dress. Edith is busy, rushing about the room between the stove and the deal kitchen table in the centre of the room, banging copper pots and porcelain serving dishes alike as she starts to serve the luncheon of a roast beef with vegetables and gravy.
“Lawd!” exclaims Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman* who comes on Tuesdays and every third Thursday to do the hard jobs. Her eyes drifting to the white painted ceiling above as she struggles through the door leading from the kitchen to the hallway carrying her tin bucket and mop, she asks, “Ow many’s in there to make that kinda racket?”
“Shh!” Edith gasps, raising her left index finger to her lips whilst she holds a cleaver in her right. “Mrs. Boothby please.” she hisses. “They’ll hear you.”
As a raucous peal of girlish laughter erupts from behind the green baize door that leads from the kitchen to the dining room, the old Cockney looks sceptically at Edith. “I doubt that deary. All they ‘ear is their bloody selves.”
“Here, let me help you with that,” Edith says kindly as she takes a few steps over to Mrs. Boothby and grasps the handle of the bucket, her skin brushing against the far more careworn hands of the older woman.
“Ta dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says in relief.
The pair awkwardly manoeuvre the bucket of dirty water over to the white enamel sink and hoist it up onto the draining board with a concerted effort.
“I can take it from ‘ere, dearie.” the old woman says thankfully.
Edith steps back to the deal kitchen table where she starts to slice the roast beef she has just taken from the oven into thick medallions. As the cleaver cuts into the juicy browned flesh, revealing the soft pink inside, steam arises from it, teasing the maid with its delicious smell. She sighs quietly as she closes her eyes for a moment and hopes that there will be some remnants of the been from the noisy luncheon going in in the dining room.
“There are four of them, Mrs. Boothby: Miss Lettice, Miss Tyrwhitt, Mrs. Palmerston and Mrs. Channon, so hopefully there will be some leftover beef for us. If there is, I can pack half up for you to take home if you like.”
The old woman sniffs the delicious aroma drifting about the kitchen appreciatively as she tips the dirty grey water down the sink. “Oh ta, dearie!” she says enthusiastically. “I’d like that. I can ‘ave beef sandwiches when I go to Lady Landscome’s tomorra.”
“Doesn’t Lady Landscome feed you, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith looks across the kitchen at the old woman in shock.
“Well, she tells ‘er cook Mrs. Appleby to feed me, but the old trout’s so snooty like ‘er mistress that she don’t fink I deserve much more than bread ‘n drippin’, rather than the real food she serves ovvers on the staff. I’s just the old char what comes up from Poplar to do all the dirty and ‘ard jobs she and the over maid won’t do.”
“That’s awful, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says in outrage.
“Your old mistress, Mrs. Plaistow’s cook is no better to my friend Jackie.”
“Yes, but Mrs. Plaistow’s a mean old thing who keeps a close eye on the accounts, Mrs. Boothby. Cook only served meat to us once a week, occasionally twice if we were lucky, and it was never good stuff. I got a better feed at home with Mum and Dad than I ever did at Mrs. Plaistow’s.” She sighs as she begins to transfer the medallions of beef onto the white porcelain serving platter. “I feel very lucky to work for a lady like Miss Lettice.”
“She’s not a bad ‘un, far as mistresses go.” Mrs. Boothby agrees. “Certainly, compared to the likes of your Mrs. Plaistow.”
“I can’t say I’ve had a lot of experience of mistresses, Mrs. Boothby, but I think just about anyone would be better than her!”
“Oh I wouldn’t bet on that, Edith dearie. There’s plenty as bad as ‘er, or worse, let me tell you. An’ that Miss Tyrwhitt ain’t too bad neither.” She nods sagely. “She said ta to me today for washin’ the floors when she walked into the ‘allway, and she apologised for walkin’ across the clean floor. Nice surprise that was. What she stayin’ ‘ere for anyway?”
“Miss Tyrwhitt has come up from Wiltshire, Mrs. Boothby.”
“Ain’t Wiltshire where Miss Lettice is from?”
“Yes. Miss Tyrwhitt lives on the neighbouring estate to Miss Lettice. They grew up together, and she’s going to marry Miss Lettice’s eldest brother, the future Viscount Wrexham. That’s why she’s here. Miss Tyrwhitt doesn’t have any sisters, only brothers, so Miss Lettice has brought her up to London to take her to Mr. Bruton’s frock shop in Soho to get a wedding dress and other things for her trousseau.”
“If the girl comes from a good family like Miss Lettice, shouldn’t she ‘ave ‘er own ‘ouse to stay in?”
“I think her parents have a house in Curzon Street**, but I think they might think it a bit of a waste to open it up and engage servants just for Miss Tyrwhitt for a few weeks. Apparently, her mother is poorly, so she hasn’t come up to London. Besides, I think Miss Lettice enjoys having a house guest, especially one as nice as Miss Tyrwhitt.”
“Well, I ‘ope she don’t become a snooty up-‘erself woman when she becomes viscountess or whatever and lose ‘er nice manners.”
“Yes, she apologised to me too last night when she and Miss Lettice went out to the Embassy Club and she left clothes strewn across the bed which I had to put back in the wardrobe.” Edith smiles to herself as she places the last medallion on the platter. “Not that I mind. Those dresses of hers are so beautiful, all covered in lace and beads.”
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Boothby says with a cocked eyebrow as she rests her left arm on the edge of the bucket as she rights it. “Did you try any of ‘em on then, dearie?”
“Good heavens no!” Edith blushes before falling silent.
“But?” the old Cockney presses.
“But I must confess, I did hold one or two up against me as I stood in front of the mirror, before I put them back in the wardrobe.”
“I see.” chuckles the old woman knowingly.
“Well, a girl has a right to dream, doesn’t she Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks as she turns from the table and steps over to the stove where she withdraws a pot from its top.
“Course you do, Edith dearie!” Mrs. Boothby assures her younger friend as she steps aside, making room for Edith as she uses the lid of the copper saucepan to drain the sliced green beans inside. “A pretty girl like you, what’s steppin’ out wiv a nice chap like Frank Leadbetter deserves to know what ‘er weddin’ dress might look like.”
Bustling back to the table, Edith begins scooping the beans onto the platter beside the beef, just as another burst of female laughter emanates from the dining room. “Oh it’s hardly a dream of a wedding dress, Mrs. Boothby.” She lowers the saucepan onto the cutting board as she thinks. “At least not yet. We’ve only been walking out together for a little while now.”
“Don’t cha want to marry ‘im?”
“Well, I hardly know yet, do I? Once I get to know Frank a bit better, then I’ll decide whether I marry him or not, Mrs. Boothby.”
“So, what was you thinkin’ as you paraded before the mirror like a princess, then?” Mrs. Boothby asks. “If you wasn’t thinkin’ about your weddin’ dress.”
Edith turns and puts the empty saucepan back on the stove and picks up a copper skillet in which mushrooms are frying in butter. “Well, I was just thinking about how beautiful it would be to wear one of those dresses to the Hammersmith Palais***.”
“Ahh, so you was bein’ Cinderella then, was you?”
Edith nods a little guiltily.
“You’d look quite a picture, I’d imagine, dearie. But I fink you’d look a picture in your own frocks. Your Ma taught you well. Youse quite good wiv the needle ‘n thread.”
Edith scatters mushrooms and butter sauce atop the beans. “Compared with those dresses, my frocks are so ordinary, Mrs. Boothby. It’s a wonder Frank wants to take me dancing.”
“Nah! Don’t talk such rubbish!” Mrs. Boothby strides across the room and grasps Edith by the shoulders. “There’s an old sayin’ that clothes make the man.”
“Yes, I’ve heard it.” Edith says, her head downcast.
“But it don’t say nuffink ‘bout a woman though, do it?”
“What do you mean, Mrs. Boothby?”
“What I mean is, youse as pretty as a picture in your maid’s uniform, so just imagine ‘ow much more beautiful you look in one of your own frocks. You wear the frock: it don’t wear you! ‘Old your ‘ead ‘igh my girl, just like what I do when that nasty Mrs. Appleby feed me bread ‘n drippin’ ‘cause she finks I ain’t worth more than that. You are beautiful, just like Cinderella was, and if I know Frank even a little bit, I know ‘e’d be proud to take you dancin’ at the ‘Ammersmith Palais no matter what cha was wearin’!”
“Oh you’re right, Mrs. Boothby. I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself. I have a lot to be thankful for.” She steps away from Mrs. Boothby and turns her back on her, busying herself stirring a small pot on the stove before removing it from the flame gas ring.
“Course you do, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby watches Edith pour thick brown gravy into a blue and white gravy boat. “An’ youse as much right to dream as what anyone else does, but just remember to ‘ang onto reality, cos dreams we wake up from, but reality’s ‘ere to stay.” She smiles at Edith, who looks her in the eye and smiles back.
“You’re right Mrs. Boothby.”
“Course I am, dearie. I’s always right, even if others don’t fink I am. Youse got some ideas from Miss Tyrwhitt’s frocks, and as I said youse a dab ‘and wiv a needle ‘n thread. Why don’t cha make your own frock to go dancin’ in. Frank’d be mighty proud to go dancin’ wiv a girl what made ‘er own fashionable fancy dancin’ frock.”
“That’s a good idea, Mrs. Boothby. I might just do that.”
“That’s my girl!” Mrs. Boothby says, grasping Edith’s chin between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand lovingly.
Another volley of laughter breaks into their friendly moment.
“Well, thinking of reality, I’d best serve luncheon before Miss Lettice thinks to poke her nose in here.” Edith sighs. “I have enough trouble keeping her out of my kitchen as it is.”
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**Curzon Street is a beautiful street lined with Georgian houses in Mayfair, where amongst other famous people, novelist Nancy Mitford (then Mrs. Peter Rodd) lived.
***The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Edith’s deal table is a panoply of things as she readies luncheon for Lettice and her guests. The mahogany stained serving tray, the gravy boat of gravy, the chopping board, napkins and cutlery all came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. The sliced roast beef, beans and mushrooms on a white platter, which look almost good enough to eat, I have had since I was a teenager. I bought it from a high street shop that specialised in dolls, doll houses and doll house miniatures. The cleaver comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures Shop in the United Kingdom. The jars of herbs are also 1:12 miniatures, made of real glass with real cork stoppers in them. I have had them since I was a teenager too.
To the left of the tray is a box of Queen’s Gravy Salt. Queen’s Gravy Salt is a British brand, and this box is an Edwardian design. Gravy Salt is a simple product it is solid gravy browning and is used to add colour and flavour to soups stews and gravy - and has been used by generations of cooks and caterers. It is an artisan miniature made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England
In front of the Queen’s Gravy Salt to the far bottom left of the picture is one of Edith’s Cornishware cannisters. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
The Deftware cups, saucers and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot. Also on the dresser sits a rolling pin, and some more pieces of Cornishware including bowls and another canister.
Of course, no kitchen would be complete without some kitchen pantry staples of the 1920s, so also on the dresser you will see a tin of Lyall’s Golden Treacle, a tin of Peter Leech and Sons Golden Syrup and a box of Lyon’s Tea. All three were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. In 1859 Henry Tate went into partnership with John Wright, a sugar refiner based at Manesty Lane, Liverpool. Their partnership ended in 1869 and John’s two sons, Alfred and Edwin joined the business forming Henry Tate and Sons. A new refinery in Love Lane, Liverpool was opened in 1872. In 1921 Henry Tate and Sons and Abram Lyle and Sons merged, between them refining around fifty percent of the UK’s sugar. A tactical merger, this new company would then become a coherent force on the sugar market in anticipation of competition from foreign sugar returning to its pre-war strength. Tate and Lyle are perhaps best known for producing Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Lyle’s Golden Treacle. Peter Leech and Sons was a grocers that operated out of Lowther Street in Whitehaven from the 1880s. They had a large range of tinned goods that they sold including coffee, tea, tinned salmon and golden syrup. They were admired for their particularly attractive labelling. I do not know exactly when they ceased production, but I believe it may have happened just before the Second World War. Lyons Tea was first produced by J. Lyons and Co., a catering empire created and built by the Salmons and Glucksteins, a German-Jewish immigrant family based in London. Starting in 1904, J. Lyons began selling packaged tea through its network of teashops. Soon after, they began selling their own brand Lyons Tea through retailers in Britain, Ireland and around the world. In 1918, Lyons purchased Hornimans and in 1921 they moved their tea factory to J. Lyons and Co., Greenford at that time, the largest tea factory in Europe. In 1962, J. Lyons and Company (Ireland) became Lyons Irish Holdings. After a merger with Allied Breweries in 1978, Lyons Irish Holdings became part of Allied Lyons (later Allied Domecq) who then sold the company to Unilever in 1996. Today, Lyons Tea is produced in England.
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.
Yet we are far from London, returning to Wiltshire, where Lettice grew up at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Tonight however, we are not at Glynes, but rather on the neighbouring property adjoining the Glynes estate to the south and are at Garstanton Park, the grand Gothic Victorian home of the Tyrwhitts. Whilst not as old, or as noble a family as the Chetwynds, the Tyrwhitts have been part of the Wiltshire landed gentry for several generations and Lord and Lady Tyrwhitt are as much a part of county society as the Viscount and Countess of Wrexham. The current generation of the two families have grown up as friends with the Viscount and Countess of Wrexham often visiting Lord and Lady Tyrwhitt and conversely. In fact, the families have become so close that Leslie has become engaged to Lord and Lady Tyrwhitt’s only daughter, Arabella, thus guaranteeing a joining of the two great county families.
We find ourselves in the library cum music room of Garstanton Park, the preserve of Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt who has always had a voracious appetite for reading, and a great passion for music. In fact, his love of music was how he and his wife, Lady Isobel, met, after attending a piano concert at the newly opened Bechstein Hall* in London in 1899. The library cum music room’s walls are lined with floor to ceiling shelves full of Lord Tyrwhitt’s pride and joy, his enormous library, whilst on the rug covered floor stands his beloved Bechstein** piano covered with photos of his other pride and joy, his family. With the families now officially joined with the forthcoming nuptials of Leslie and Arabella formally announced, Lettice has been invited to a musical evening at Garstanton Park which she has happily agreed to, as she loves the company of Nigel, the Tyrwhitt’s eldest son and Arabella, as well as Lord and Lady Tyrwhitt, who like Gerald’s parents Lord and Lady Bruton, have been honourary uncles and aunts to her. The party is in full swing with cocktails, fortified wine and champagne aiding the high spirits as Nigel plays amusing music hall tunes on his father’s grand piano, accompanied by Arabella, Leslie and Lettice who stand about the piano, all taking turns to choose songs and be Nigel’s page turner as well as singing enthusiastically. The Bright Young Things*** can even occasionally get Lord Tyrwhitt, Lady Isobel and Lettice’s mother Lady Sadie to join in with a few of the less raucous songs.
“What shall we play next?” Arabella asks excitedly as she takes a drains her champagne flute.
“It’s your turn, old boy.” Nigel says to Leslie as he begins to limber up his fingers to play again.
“No, it’s not, Nigel! It’s mine!” cries Lettice.
“No it isn’t, Tice!” retorts her brother. “You chose ‘It's a Bit of a Ruin That Cromwell Knocked About a Bit.****’. It’s mine!”
“Oh, that was ages ago, Leslie.” Lettice pouts, snatching up her own glass of champagne and taking a sip from it.
Always the gentle adjudicator ever since they were children, Arabella says in a soothing purr, “Ages ago or not, Nigel’s right, it’s Leslie’s turn Tice.”
“You’re just standing up for him, Bella, because he is your intended now,” Lettice replies playfully.
“That’s not true!” laughs Arabella. “That’s jolly unfair!”
The two giggle together whilst Leslie shuffles through a pile of music sheets that lie in disarray across one of the comfortable gold striped armchairs next to the piano.
“It’s good to see your Leslie and our Bella looking so happy together,” Lady Isobel remarks with a wistfulness to her voice as she sits on the gold sofa that she shares with Lady Sadie. “I’m just sorry Cosmo couldn’t bear witness to it too this evening.”
“Oh now! Come, come my lamb,” Lord Tyrwhitt remarks kindly from his favourite reading chair in the corner of the room, reaching over his glass of rich burgundy and Lady Isobel’s champagne flute, gently squeezing his wife’s delicate hand with paper thin, almost translucent skin, comfortingly. “You mustn’t be sorry that our Bella is getting married. As the old adage goes, we aren’t losing a daughter, but gaining a son.”
“Oh I know Sherbourne. I’m not. I’m very happy for Arabella, oh, and Leslie too,” she adds quickly, looking across at Lady Sadie. “It’s just…”
“I know my dear Isobel,” Lady Sadie assures her friend, patting her on the other hand. “I felt the same when Lally married Charles. You don’t regret your daughters marrying, but you miss having them around the house.”
“Yes, that’s it, exactly Sadie. I shall miss her when she isn’t here any longer.” She sniffs and withdraws her hands from Sadie’s and her husband’s grasps, pulling a lace handkerchief from the long sleeve of her deep blue evening gown, hurriedly shoving it beneath her nose as she sobs, looking at Arabella leaning into Leslie as he lovingly drapes a protective arm around her whilst he fossicks through the sheet music with his free right hand.
“She won’t be far away, Isobel,” Lady Sadie assures her. “She’ll only be across the way in the Glynes Dower House. You can practically walk there.”
“It’s good of you to give them that to live in, Sadie.” Lord Tyrwhitt picks up his glass and cradles it thoughtfully in his hand.
“Oh, it’s a pleasure, Sherbourne. It’s only sitting there idol for now, and it will suit the two lovebirds to have a home of their own to begin with, before they inherit Glynes. Besides, it will be good to have someone living in the house until it’s ready for me.”
“Oh you mustn’t talk like that, Sadie!” Isobel gasps. “Cosmo is well, isn’t he?”
“Aside from the head cold that has kept him in bed for tonight, yes perfectly, Isobel. I’m just being pragmatic is all. It may happen one day. Besides, if Cosmo is to precede me and I am to become the Dowager Countess, I’d rather move into a house that isn’t decorated with his sister’s dreadful daubs!”
“But I thought Eglantine was quite an accomplished artist,” Lord Tyrwhitt remarks.
“It depends on your interpretation of art, Sherbourne” quips Lady Sadie.
“I always quite liked her watercolours of flowers when we were young.” he adds thoughtfully.
“You haven’t seen her work inspired by those Modernists at the Slade School of Art***** daubed all over the walls of the room she used as a studio during the war.” humphs Lady Sadie, screwing up her nose in distaste. “Sunset filled landscapes featuring twee characters dancing across it, supposedly influenced by the landscapes and folklore of Wiltshire. Morris Dancers, Stonehenge druids and white chalk horses.”
“Sounds rather intriguing to me,” Lord Tyrwhitt replies kindly.
“Naïve is what I call it!” retorts Lady Sadie with a snort of derision. “The liberties that woman took when she lived there during the war. Do you know that she brought her German staff with her and hid them in the Dower House?”
“They were Swiss-German, Sadie,” Lady Isobel corrects her friend. “And yes, I did know because I visited her at the Dower House.”
“They still spoke German,” argues Sadie. “She could have brought shame to the family, bringing potential German spies to Glynes like that.”
“And she only brought them to Glynes with her because she was afraid they would be, incorrectly,” Lady Isobel puts emphasis on the final word, pausing for effect, before continuing, “Labled as German spies, when in fact they were just simple Swiss domestics. Really Sadie! Next you’ll be saying there was a German recording device in Sherbourne’s Bechstein between 1914 and 1918! I’m surprised at your hostility to them.”
Lady Sadie’s eyes grow wide as she splutters in an unsuccessful defence, “They could have been spies, Isobel.”
“Well, I always liked Eglantine’s work,” Lord Tyrwhitt concludes, determined to change the subject. “Even if it isn’t to your taste, Sadie my dear.”
“You always had a soft spot for her Sherbourne, just like Cosmo did, and still does.” Lady Sadie scoffs. She turns to Lady Isobel. “She always was a beguiling creature with her Titian hair and green eyes. You’re lucky Sherbourne only had eyes for you, dear Isobel.”
“Sounds like someone else has green eyes,” remarks Lady Isobel under her breath with a secret smile, shared quietly with a loving glance at her husband.
“Aha!” Leslie cries triumphantly. “I have it!” He withdraws a sheet of music from amongst the pile. He hands it to Nigel.
“The Wibbly Wobbly Walk!******” laughs Nigel as he looks at the bright yellow and blue printed cover of the well worn sheet music. “Grand choice old boy! Bravo!” He opens the pages on the music stand in front of him. “Bella, will you do the honours?”
“Of course Nigel,” Arabella replies as she slips alongside him.
With a trill, Nigel gathers everyone’s attention and begins to play the piano as he sings the opening to the song.
“Now, have you ever heard about the Wibbley, Wobbley Walk?
Well, just in case you've not, I'll tell you on the spot!
The Wibbley, Wobbley Walk is just another kind of way,
Of saying that the b'hoys are out upon their holiday.
And note that half a dozen fellas out upon the spree,
In half a dozen minutes, they're full of jollity.”
Then with loud and carefree abandon, Lettice, Leslie and Arabella all join in on the chorus,
“So they all walk the Wibbley Wobbley Walk,
And they all talk the Wibbley Wobbley talk.
And they all wear Wibbley Wobbley ties,
And wink at all the pretty girls with Wibbley Wobbley eyes!
They all smile the Wibbley Wobbley Smile,
When the day is dawning!
Then all through the Wibbley Wobbley Walk,
They get a wibbley wobbley feeling in the morning.”
As they sing, Lady Isobel starts to cough, muffling her throaty gasps with her handkerchief so as not to disturb the fun and frivolity of the young people who stand oblivious about the piano. Quickly putting her hock and seltzer aside on the edge of the table being used for drinks, Lady Sadie wraps her arm around her friend, whilst Lord Tyrwhitt leans forward and takes her outstretched hand.
“Isobel!” Sadie gasps.
“Just try and catch your breath, my lamb.” Lord Tyrwhitt encourages his wife with a serious and steady gaze as he squeezes her fingers whilst her cough gets heavier and stronger.
“At the seaside health resort you see some gay old…” Nigel begins the first line of the next stanza of the song, but his voice falls away quickly and his fingers pause over the piano keys as he, Arabella, Lettice and Leslie all suddenly become aware of Lady Isobel’s coughing fit.
“Mummy!” gasps Arabella in horror, dropping the page of the music sheet and leaving Leslie’s and Nigel’s sides as she drops to her knees on the carpet before her mother. “Mummy!”
“It’s just another of your mother’s coughing fits, Bella my dear.” her father assures her. “Just give her a minute and she’ll be right as rain again.”
“Here Father, give her this!” Nigel hands a quickly poured glass of water to his father, which he gives to his wife.
Taking it gratefully in her shaking hand, Isobel takes a few gulps and sits back in her seat on the sofa, wheezing and still coughing, but less severely. She presses her free slender bejewelled hand to the beaded chest of her dress and gasps for air.
“Stand back everyone,” Leslie says urgently, gently pulling his fiancée away from the feet of her mother, backing away with Nigel and Lettice. “Let’s give Auntie Isobel some air.”
After a few tense moments, Lady Isobel has enough air in her lungs to wheeze weakly, “You’ll have to… get used… to calling me your mother-in-law… Leslie dear. People will… think it odd that… your aunt is… also your… mother-in-law.”
The party release a combined held breath and laugh with a mixture of nervous and relieved chuckles and titters at her remark.
“I told you she would be alright,” Lord Tyrwhitt says, smiling at his wife.
“I am,” she concurs, taking a larger mouthful of water. “But I think it is my signal to retire for the evening.” She swallows a few times. “I’m sorry to spoil the frivolity, but I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Oh don’t be sorry, Mummy.” Arabella says, coming forward again and kneeling before her mother.
“You’re a good girl, Bella,” she pats her daughter’s hand with her own as the young girl’s rests on her knee. “You’ll make Leslie a very fine wife.”
“And don’t we know it,” Lady Sadie says with a rare broad smile. “If we don’t hear it enough from Leslie when we are at Glynes,” She looks to her son, who blushes at the remark. “Then we hear of your virtues from his father. You’ve won the hearts of the two most important men on the Glynes estate, my dear.” She reaches out and caresses Isobella’s chin lovingly with her fingers, gazing at her future daughter-in-law with genuine affection. “And mine.”
Lettice feels as though she has just been stung by a hot poker as she witnesses the gaze and gentle touch her mother lavishes upon her future daughter-in-law: such affection never bestowed upon her. Whilst she doesn’t resent Arabella, for she is a genuinely kind person and Lettice firmly believes her mother’s words that she will make a good wife for Leslie, it still hurts her that Arabella should be granted the approval she has so sorely sought from her mother throughout all her life.
“Now,” Lady Isobel announces. “Before I retire, I should very much like to hear you sing, dear Lettice. You have such a pretty voice, and I should like to hear something a little less irreverent played on your father’s beloved Bechstein, Nigel.”
“Yes Mummy!” Nigel laughs good naturedly.
“Come on Bella,” Lettice says, reaching out her hand to her friend. “Come help me pick out something that your mother will like.”
Whilst the two girls return to the piles of sheet music, Nigel to the piano and Leslie by his side, Lady Sadie and Lord Tyrwhitt look on with concern at Lady Isobel as she settles back into the pile of cushions at her back.
“It’s just a result of the radiotherapy******* Sadie, nothing to worry about.” Lady Isobel says with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Is it helping with the cancer?” she asks.
“Who knows?” the other woman shrugs and lifts her hands, the sequined lace shawl falling from about her shoulders as she does so. “It makes me feel sick enough, and don’t they say that things you don’t like are good for you?” Looking over at her children and those of Lady Sadie, she continues, “I’d just like to live long enough to see Arabella, and Nigel married. I’m just thankful Lettice has offered to help Arabella shop for her trousseau up in London. I’m not well enough to make the journey up to town.”
“I don’t know if I’d be too happy that my youngest is helping her shop. Goodness knows what her trousseau will look like.” Lady Sadie remarks disparagingly.
“Something modern and young, I should imagine Sadie dear,” Lady Isobel replies. “Just as it should be.”
“Here we are!” Lettice announces as Arabella takes a book of music with a prettily decorated cover over to her brother at the piano. “Something a little less irreverent for Uncle Sherbourne’s piano and Aunt Isobel’s ears.”
There are conspiratorial whispers at the piano between brother and sister as Lettice comes to stand beside Nigel, resting her hand lightly on the piano’s surface before he begins playing the opening to ‘I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls’********.
With her beautiful singing voice, Lettice begins the opening stanza of the song.
“I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls
With vassals and serfs at my side.
And of all who assembled within those walls,
That I was the hope and the pride.
I had riches all too great to count,
And a high ancestral name.”
As she sings, Arabella nestles back into Leslie’s arms, Lord Tyrwhitt cradles his glass of wine without drinking it and Lady Sadie leans forward in her seat, proud of her daughter’s musical accomplishment, although she would never admit it to her.
Shrewdly observing Nigel’s occasional gaze at Lettice as he plays and she sings, Lady Isobel leans forward and whispers discreetly to Lady Sadie, “I don’t suppose there is any chance that your Lettice might take a shine to our Nigel?”
“If that ship was to sail, it would have happened long before now, Isobel, and well you know it.” Lady Sadie turns to her friend, a consoling look in her eyes, “I’m sorry my dear, but as you saw at the Hunt Ball, Lettice seems to have turned her attentions to the Duke of Walmsford’s eldest, Selwyn Spencely, and I’m not unhappy about that.” Turning back to her daughter, her mouth twists with disapproval. “Even if she insists on managing her romantic attentions herself, rather than leaving it to me. Marriages are made by mothers, you silly girl.”
“Yes,” sighs Lady Isobel heavily. “I did notice where here attentions went that night. I’m pleased for you Sadie, and hope that it all works out. Imagine your youngest one day, a duchess. I on the other hand, would just like to see Nigel settled to some nice young lady of any respectable rank or station before I die.”
“And you will, Isobel. I’m sure of it. Perhaps another Season in London might help now that the Season is back in full swing after the war.”
The two women turn back as Lettice as she finishes the song.
“But I also dreamt which charmed me most
That you loved me still the same
That you loved me
You loved me still the same,
That you loved me
You loved me still the same.”
*Wigmore Hall is a concert hall located at 36 Wigmore Street, London. Originally called Bechstein Hall, it specialises in performances of chamber music, early music, vocal music and song recitals. It is widely regarded as one of the world's leading centres for this type of music and an essential port of call for many of the classical music world's leading stars. With near-perfect acoustic, the Hall quickly became celebrated across Europe and featured many of the great artists of the 20th century. Today, the Hall promotes 550 concerts a year and broadcasts a weekly concert on BBC Radio 3. The Hall also promotes an extensive education programme throughout London and beyond and has a huge digital broadcasting arm, which includes the Wigmore Hall Live Label and many live streams of concerts.
**C. Bechstein Pianoforte AG (also known as Bechstein), is a German manufacturer of pianos, established in 1853 by Carl Bechstein (1826 – 1900).
***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.
****’It's a Bit of a Ruin That Cromwell Knocked About a Bit’ is a song written by Harry Bedford and Terry Sullivan sung by the famous British music hall performer Marie Lloyd in the early 1900s.
*****Established by lawyers and philanthropist Felix Slade in 1868, Slade School of Fine Art is the art school of University College London and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the United Kingdom’s top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as a department of University College London's Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Two of its most important periods were immediately before, and immediately after, the turn of the twentieth century. It had such students as Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, C.R.W. Nevinson and Stanley Spencer.
******’They All Walk the Wibbly Wobbly Walk’ is a song written by Paul Pelham and J. P. Long sung by the famous British music hall performer Mark Sheridan in 1912. It was a song often sung during the Great War, and associated by the British general public with the survivors of the conflict who trembled due to shell shock or had misshapen walks thanks to injuries inflicted upon them.
*******By the 1920s radiotherapy was well developed with the use of X-rays and radium. There was an increasing realisation of the importance of accurately measuring the dose of radiation and this was hampered by the lack of good apparatus. The science of radiobiology was still in its infancy and increasing knowledge of the biology of cancer and the effects of radiation on normal and pathological tissues made an enormous difference to treatment. Treatment planning began in this period with the use of multiple external beams. The X-ray tubes were also developing with replacement of the earlier gas tubes with the modern Coolidge hot-cathode vacuum tubes. The voltage that the tubes operated at also increased and it became possible to practice ‘deep X-ray treatment’ at 250 kV. Sir Stanford Cade published his influential book “Treatment of Cancer by Radium” in 1928 and this was one of the last major books on radiotherapy that was written by a surgeon.
********"I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls", or "The Gipsy Girl's Dream", is a popular aria from The Bohemian Girl, an 1843 opera by Michael William Balfe, with lyrics by Alfred Bunn. It is sung in the opera by the character Arline, who is in love with Thaddeus, a Polish nobleman and political exile. It became a stalwart in the repertoire of young Victorian and Edwardian girls who often learned to play the piece on the piano and to sing it, if they had the aptitude for the latter.
Cluttered with books and with art on the walls, Garstanton Park’s library cum music room with its typical English country house furnishings is different from what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection, including pieces from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The majority of the books that you see lining the shelves of the library cum music room are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. However, he did not make books exclusively. He also made other small pieces like the sheet music you see scattered on the carpeted floor and across the arm and seat of the armchair closest to the camera. The book that rests upright against the armchair is a book of romantic ballads published in 1805. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make these miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The grand piano and matching stool appearing in the midground is a 1:12 miniature piece I have had since I was a teenager. It is covered in family photos, all of which are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frames are from various suppliers, but all are metal. The very lifelike daffodils are made of polymer clay they are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. They are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany. The empty champagne and wine glasses all of which are made of hand blown glass were made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The full glasses of champagne and red wine were made by Karen Lady Bug Miniatures in England.
The soda siphons on the silver tray to the left of the photo were made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, whilst the container of ice and tongs is made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. The silver champagne bucket is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The bottle of Deutz and Geldermann champagne. It is an artisan miniatures and made of glass and has real foil wrapped around its neck. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
The chairs and sofa in the library cum music room are made by the high-quality miniature furniture manufacturer, Bespaq. The ebonised ornate occasional table I acquired Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom as I did the table in the foreground on which the drinks tray stands.
The carpet beneath the furniture is hand made by Mackay and Gerrish in Sydney, Australia.
In the background you can see the book lined shelves as well as a Renaissance portrait of a young nobleman in a gold frame from Marie Makes in the United Kingdom, and a hand painted blue and white ginger jar from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom which stands on a Bespaq plant stand.
The gold flocked Edwardian wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.