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

 

Two of Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie of bright young things are getting married: Dickie Channon, eldest surviving son of the Marquess of Taunton, and Margot de Virre, only daughter of Lord Charles and Lady Lucie de Virre. Lettice is hosting an exclusive buffet supper party in their honour this evening, which is turning out to be one of the events of the 1921 London Season. Over the last few days, Lettice’s flat has been in upheaval as Edith. Lettice’s maid, and Lettice’s charwoman* Mrs. Boothby have been cleaning the flat thoroughly in preparation for the occasion. Earlier today with the help of a few hired men they moved some of the furnishings in Lettice’s drawing room into the spare bedroom to make space for the hired dance band and for the guests to dance and mingle. Edith’s preserve of the kitchen has been overrun by delivery men, florists and caterers. Yet it has finally all fallen into place perfectly just as a red and white striped marquee is erected by Gunter and Company** over the entrance and the pavement outside.

 

Now we find ourselves in Lettice’s dining room, which has become the focal point for half the party guests as her dining table is given over to a magnificent buffet created by Harrods catering, whilst Dickie stands at one corner, thoroughly enjoying playing the part of barman as he makes cocktails for all his friends.

 

Lettice sighs with satisfaction as she looks around the drawing room and dining room of her flat. Both rooms have a golden glow about them created by a mixture of electric light and candlelight and the fug of cigarette smoke. The rooms are populated with London society’s glittering young people, nicknamed “bright young things” by the newspapers. Men in white tie and tails with a smattering of daring souls wearing dinner jackets chatter animatedly and dance with ladies in beautifully coloured evening gowns with loose bodices, sashes and irregular and handkerchief hems. Jewels wink at throats, on fingers, dangling from ears and in carefully coiffed and finger waved hair, illuminated by the brilliant lighting. Bugle beads glitter as gowns gently wash about the figures of their wearers as they move. Everywhere gay chatter about the Season and the upcoming wedding of Margot and Dickie fills the air, the joyous sound mixing with the lively jazz quartet who play syncopated tunes lustily in a corner of Lettice’s drawing room.

 

“Dubonnet and gin?” Dickie asks Lettice as she stands by the buffet and picks up a biscuit lightly smeared with salmon mousse.

 

“Oh you are a brick, Dickie!” Lettice enthuses, popping the dainty morsel into her mouth. Accepting the reddish gold cocktail from him she adds, “But really, this is your party. You should be out there, socialising with Margot, not standing here making cocktails for everyone.”

 

“Why should I bother going out there to socialise,” he waves his hand across the crowded room to the edge of the makeshift dancefloor where his fiancée stands in a beautiful ankle length silver georgette gown studded in silver sequins, surrounded by a small clutch of equally elegant young guests. “When they all have to come to me for drinks.”

 

“Ahhh,” Lettice titters as she sips her cocktail. “So there is method in your madness, Dickie.”

 

“Isn’t there always, Lettice?” he laughs. “Now, you are technically hostess of this bash. Go out there and dazzle everyone.” Then he stops and adds, “Well, not quite everyone.” And he blows a kiss to his fiancée whose eye he has caught from across the crowded room.

 

“Alright Dickie,” Lettice laughs and she saunters off into the crowd, pausing to smile and say hullo and accept the compliments of her many guests.

 

Suddenly she spots a beautiful woman in a pale pink beaded gown with dark finger waved hair framing her peaches and cream complexion standing docilely by the dancefloor watching the stream of passing couples dancing past in each other’s arms. She seems distant and remote, even a little sad, and far removed from the frenetic energy and jolly bonhomie about her. Excusing herself from the couple who are addressing her, Lettice slips over to her.

 

“Hullo Elizabeth***!” Lettice embraces her warmly. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to come along tonight considering everything that’s happened.”

 

“I wasn’t sure myself, Lettice.” Elizabeth replies, a warm smile revealing a slightly crooked set of teeth. “But I couldn’t let Dickie and Margot down.” Then she adds quickly as an afterthought, “Or you, darling Lettice.”

 

“Well, I’m glad you’ve come. How are you feeling?”

 

“A little battered and bruised emotionally.” Elizabeth admits with a lilt of sadness. “But one mustn’t complain.”

 

“I still don’t understand why you said no to his marriage proposal. I thought you loved Bertie****.”

 

“I did.” Elizabeth remarks before correcting herself. “I do! But I’m afraid that if I said yes to him, I’d never, never again be able to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to. Besides,” she adds conspiratorially, glancing about her before continuing. “His mother terrifies me.”

 

“She terrifies all of us,” Lettice laughs lighty as she waves her hand gaily about the room. “Now, what you need to pick you up and forget your heartache is one of these.” She points to the glass in her hand.

 

“What is it?” Elizabeth asks, eyeing Lettice’s glass and sniffing its contents with suspicion.

 

“A Dubonnet and gin. Dickie will make you one. Go and ask him.” Lettice grasps Elizabeth by the shoulder and sends her toddling across to Dickie as he stands behind a line of bottles and a beautiful arrangement of roses.

 

“Lettice!” Margot suddenly calls from across the room, beckoning her over enthusiastically. “Lettice, darling!”

 

Squeezing between small clusters of well-dressed guests drinking and eating or leaving the dance floor, Lettice makes her way over to her friend.

 

“Hullo Margot, darling! Are you having a fabulous time?”

 

“Fabulous isn’t enough of a word to describe it, darling!” she replies with eyes shimmering with excitement and joy. “Such a thrilling bash! I can’t thank you enough!”

 

“Yes Lettice,” a deep male voice adds from behind her. “You certainly do know how to throw a party!”

 

“Lord de Virre!” Lettice exclaims, spinning around. “Oh! I didn’t know you’d arrived. Now, who can I introduce you to?”

 

“No-one my dear. My beautiful daughter has been doing an ample job of introducing me to so many people that already this old man cannot remember who is whom.”

 

“Never old!” Lettice scolds, hitting his arm playfully as she curls her own through the crook in his. “Then if I can’t introduce to anyone, perhaps I can entreat you into eating something.”

 

“Now that I won’t refuse, Lettice.”

 

Lettice and Margot guide Lord de Virre across the crowded dining room to the buffet table weighed down with delicious savoury petit fours, vol-au-vents, caviar, dips, cheese and pâte and pasties. Glasses full, partially drained and empty are scattered amidst the silver trays and china plates.

 

“Champagne, Sir?” Dickie calls out.

 

“Good show Dickie!” laughs Lord de Virre over the noise of the party. “Playing barman tonight, are we?”

 

“It’s the best role to play at a party, Sir.” He passes Lord de Virre a flute of sparkling champagne poured from the bottle wedged into a silver ice bucket.

 

Behind him Lettice spies Elizabeth with a Dubonnet and gin in her glove clad hand. Lettice catches her eye and discreetly raises her glass, which Elizabeth returns with a gentle smile.

 

“Now Lettice, darling,” Margot enthuses as she selects a dainty petit four. “Daddy has just reminded me of an idea we had a few weeks ago, which I meant to ask you about, but between all Gerald’s dress fittings and other arrangements for the wedding,” She flaps her hand about, the diamonds in her engagement ring sparkling in the light. “Well, I completely forgot.”

 

Lettice tries not to smile as she feels the gentlest of squeezes from Lord de Virre’s arm and remembers the conversation that she and he had some weeks ago in his study. “What is it?” She glances between Margot and her father, pretending not to know what is coming.

 

“Well, Daddy suggested… I mean… I was wondering…”

 

“Yes, Margot darling?”

 

“Well, you know how the Marquess is giving us that house in Cornwall?”

 

“Yes! Chi an… an…?”

 

“Chi an Treth!” Dickie calls out helpfully.

 

“Yes!” Margot concurs. “Beach House! Well, it hasn’t been lived in for ever such a long time, and it’s a bit old fashioned. Daddy is kindly organising for it to be electrified, re-plumbed and have it connected to the Penzance telephone exchange for us.” Margot pauses. “And… well he and… we… that is to say that I thought…”

 

“Yes?” Lettice coaxes with lowered lids as she takes a gentle sip of her Dubonnet and gin.

 

“Well, we… Dickie and I that is… well we rather hoped that you might consider fixing up a couple of rooms for us. Would you? I would just so dearly love a room or two decorated by you! Dickie even thinks that his father can pull some strings and get you an article in Country Life if you do?”

 

“Oh Margot!” Lettice exclaims, releasing her grip on Lord de Virre and depositing her glass on the table she flings her arms about her friend’s neck. “I’d love to!”

 

Lettice suddenly feels a gentle poking of fingers into the small of her back. Letting go of Margot, she stands back and looks at her, remembering the lines Lord de Virre asked her to come up with and rehearse upon agreeing to Margot’s request.

 

“Of course, I can’t do it straight away, you understand. You know I’m currently mid-way through Miss Ward’s flat in Pimlico.”

 

“Oh that’s alright,” Margot beams. “The modernisation isn’t finished yet, so we won’t even be going down there to inspect the place until after our honeymoon.”

 

Lettice feels Lord de Virre’s prodding in her back again.

 

“And I won’t do it for free, Margot. I have already given you a wedding gift. I’m a businesswoman now.”

 

“Oh, well that’s just the thing,” Margot exclaims, clasping her hands in delight. “Daddy has kindly agreed to pay for it all.”

 

Lettice looks up at Lord de Virre. He looks back at her seriously, but she can see a smile tweaking the edges of his mouth, trying to create a cheeky smile. She tries to keep up the pretence that she didn’t already know that Margot was going to ask her to redecorate for her and Dickie as she says, “Really Lord de Virre? All of it? That’s very generous of you.”

 

“Not a bit of it, Lettice. This is a good, sound business transaction. You may send your quotes to me for consideration,” He ennunciates the last word carefully to stress its importance, more for Margot’s sake than Lettice’s. “Once you have seen the rooms as they are now.”

 

“Thank you Lord de Virre,” Lettice replies. “Well Margot, I suppose that settles it then!”

 

“Oh Dickie!” Margot exclaims, scuttling over to her fiancée. “She said yes!”

 

“Who did, darling?” Dickie asks as he adds crème de menthe to colour his Fallen Angel cocktail a pale green.

 

“What do you mean, who?” Margot hits his arm jokingly as she sways excitedly from side to side. “Lettice of course!” She looks back over to her friend standing alongside her father. “She’s agreed to decorate for us.”

 

“Oh, jolly good show!” Dickie smiles. “Thanks awfully Lettice, darling! Now you’re the brick!”

 

“Always Dickie!” Lettice laughs back.

 

“Listen Dickie!” Margot gasps. “The band is playing ‘Dancing Time’*****! Come away from the bar and dance with me.”

 

“You’d best not refuse her, my boy!” teases Lord de Virre. “It’s madness if you try. I never could!”

 

The happily engaged couple hurry across the room, hand in hand, slipping between clusters of guests before disappearing into the crowd on the dancefloor as the music from the band soars above the burble of the crowd and the clink of glasses.

 

“So, we finally have an official arrangement, Miss Chetwynd?” Lord de Virre says discreetly as he raises his glass towards Lettice.

 

“I think we do, Lord de Virre.” Lettice smiles and clinks her glass with his as they toast their arrangement formally. “Your offer is simply too good to refuse.”

 

*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.

 

**Gunter and Company were London caterers and ball furnishers with shops in Berkley Square, Sloane Street, Lowndes Street and New Bond Street. They began as Gunter’s Tea Shop at 7 and 8 Berley Square 1757 where it remained until 1956 as the business grew and opened different premises. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets. Gunter's was considered to be the wedding cake makers du jour and in 1889, made the bride cake for the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Louise of Wales. Even after the tea shop finally closed, the catering business carried on until the mid 1970s.

 

***Elizabeth Bowes Lyon as she was known in 1921 went on to become Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from 1936 to 1952 as the wife of King George VI. Whilst still Duke of York, Prince Albert initially proposed to Elizabeth in 1921, but she turned him down, being "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to"

 

****Prince Albert, Duke of York, known by the diminutive “Bertie” to the family and close friends, was the second son of George V. Not only did Bertie propose to Elizabeth in 1921, but also in March 1922 after she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Albert’s sister, Princess Mary to Viscount Lascelles. Elizabeth refused him a second time, yet undaunted Bertie pursued the girl who had stolen his heart. Finally, in January 1923 she agreed to marry him in spite of her misgivings about royal life.

 

*****’Dancing Time’ was a popular song in Britain in 1921 with words by George Grossmith Jr. and music by Jerome Kern.

 

This rather splendid buffet of delicious savoury treats might look real to you, but in fact the whole scene is made up on 1:12 scale miniatures from my miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

On Lettice’s black japanned dining table delicious canapés are ready to be consumed by party guests. The plate of sandwiches, the silver tray of biscuits and the bowls of dips, most of the savoury petite fours on the silver tray furthest from the camera and the silver tray of Cornish pasties were made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The cheese selection on the tray closest to the camera were made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, as are the empty champagne glasses all of which are made of hand blown glass. The bowl of caviar was made by Karen Lady Bug Miniatures in England.

 

The tray that the caviar is sitting on and the champagne bucket are 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. Several of the other bottles of mixers in the foreground are also made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The bottle of Gordon’s Dry Gin, the bottle of Crème de Menthe, Cinzano, Campari and Martini are also 1:12 artisan miniatures, made of real glass, and came from a specialist stockist in Sydney. Gordon's London Dry Gin was developed by Alexander Gordon, a Londoner of Scots descent. He opened a distillery in the Southwark area in 1769, later moving in 1786 to Clerkenwell. The Special London Dry Gin he developed proved successful, and its recipe remains unchanged to this day. The top markets for Gordon's are (in descending order) the United Kingdom, the United States and Greece. Gordon's has been the United Kingdom’s number one gin since the late Nineteenth century. It is the world's best-selling London dry gin. Crème de menthe (French for "mint cream") is a sweet, mint-flavored alcoholic beverage. Crème de menthe is an ingredient in several cocktails popular in the 1920s, such as the Grasshopper and the Stinger. It is also served as a digestif. Cinzano vermouths date back to 1757 and the Turin herbal shop of two brothers, Giovanni Giacomo and Carlo Stefano Cinzano, who created a new "vermouth rosso" (red vermouth) using "aromatic plants from the Italian Alps in a recipe which is still secret to this day. Campari is an Italian alcoholic liqueur, considered an apéritif. It is obtained from the infusion of herbs and fruit (including chinotto and cascarilla) in alcohol and water. It is a bitters, characterised by its dark red colour.

 

The vase of red roses on the dining table and the vase of yellow lilies on the Art Deco console are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium. Also on the console table stand some of Lettice’s precious artisan purchases from the Portland Gallery in Soho. The pair of candelabra at either end of the sideboard are sterling silver artisan miniatures from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. The silver drinks set, made by artisan Clare Bell at the Clare Bell Brass Works in Maine, in the United States. Each goblet is only one centimetre in height and the decanter at the far end is two- and three-quarter centimetres with the stopper inserted. Lettice’s Art Deco ‘Modern Woman’ figure is actually called ‘Christianne’ and was made and hand painted by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland. ‘Christianne’ is based on several Art Deco statues and is typical of bronze and marble statues created at that time for the luxury market in the buoyant 1920s.

 

Lettice’s dining room is furnished with Town Hall Miniatures furniture, which is renown for their quality. The only exceptions to the room is the Chippendale chinoiserie carver chair and the Art Deco cocktail cabinet (the edge of which just visible on the far right-hand side of the photo) which were made by J.B.M. Miniatures.

 

The paintings on the walls are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States. The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

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 headed north-west from Cavendish Mews, across Marylebone, past Regent’s Park, the London Zoo and Lords Cricket Ground to the affluent and leafy residential streets of nearby St. John’s Wood. It is here that Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie friends Minnie Palmerston and her husband Charles reside in a neatly painted two storey early Victorian townhouse on Acacia Road that formerly belonged to Charles Palmerston’s maternal grandparents, Lord and Lady Arundel.

 

Having taken her future sister-in-law, Arabella Tyrwhitt, to her old childhood chum and best friend Gerald Bruton’s couturier in Grosvenor Street Soho for her initial wedding dress consultation, Lettice has left the two together to discuss designs whilst she visits Minnie in St John’s Wood. Minnie, a highly strung socialite, has redecorated her dining room in a style not to her husband’s taste, or so she was told by Minnie over a luncheon Lettice hosted for Arabella last week. Known for her melodrama, Lettice quietly ponders whether it really is as awful as Minnie implies as she pays the taxi driver the fare from Soho to St John’s Wood and alights the blue vehicle onto the street.

 

The day is bright and sunny, and the street is quiet with only the occasional bark of a dog and the distant rumble of traffic from busy Finchley Road in the distance as Lettice strides across the road and walks up the eight steps that lead up to Minnie’s black painted front door. She depresses the doorbell which echoes through the long hallway inside and waits. Moments later, there is the thud of Minnie’s hurried footsteps as she flings open the door dramatically.

 

“Lettice darling!” she cries, standing in the doorway in a beautiful may green day dress which compliments her red hair and green eyes, with cascades of green and black bugle beads tumbling down the front. “Come in! Come in!” she beckons her friend with enthusiastic waves which make the green, black and gold bangles on her wrist jangle noisily.

 

“Minnie.” Lettice leans in for a whispery kiss on the cheek as she steps across the threshold and follows Minnie’s indications and steps into a drawing room off the hallway, the room filled with diffused light from a large twelve pane window that looks out onto the street. Looking around her, she quickly takes in the overstuffed cream satin settees, nests of occasional tables, clusters of pictures in gilt frames in every conceivable space on the William Morris style papered walls and the potted parlour palms. “Oh yes,” she remarks as she removes her green gloves. “I do see what you mean. Very Edwardian.”

 

“Isn’t it ghastly, Lettice darling?” Minnie asks as she steps into the drawing room. “Here let me take your, umbrella, coat and hat.” She helps her friend shrug off her forest green coat and takes her rather artistic beret with its long tassel. “I think Lady Arundel could walk in here and not find a thing out of place!”

 

“It could be worse,” Lettice remarks, looking up at the crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling high above. “It could be decorated in high Victorian style and lit with gasoliers*.”

 

“True darling.” Minnie calls from the hallway where she hangs up Lettice’s things on a heavy Victorian coatrack. “But you have yet to see my dining room faux pas.”

 

“Now Minnie, no matter what I say, I want no histrionics today like we had over luncheon last week,” Lettice chides her friend with a wagging finger. “Poor Bella didn’t know where to look.”

 

“Oh I am sorry.” Minnie apologises. “Coming from the country, she probably isn’t used to our London ways.”

 

“Your emotional outbursts have nothing whatsoever to do with London ways, so don’t go foisting it off.” Lettice replies, cocking one of her delicately plucked eyebrows at her friend.

 

“You sound just like Gladys.” Minnie says.

 

“Well, I hope I’m not as shrill sounding as her,” Lettice replies with a chuckle.

 

“And how is the beautiful bride-to-be?”

 

“Happily ensconced with Gerald in his Soho atelier, no doubt talking about all the finer details of the dream wedding frock I have already heard about from dear Bella.”

 

“She seems quite lovely, Lettice darling.”

 

“Oh, I adore Bella.” Lettice agrees with a wave of her hand. “Given we grew up running in and out of each other’s houses, living on neighbouring properties, it was inevitable that she would marry one of my brothers, or Lally or I marry one of Bella’s brothers. I’m just glad that it wasn’t the latter. All Bella’s brothers, whilst charming, take after their grandfather, and he was not a handsome man. Bella has her mother’s delicate and pretty genes and she and Leslie are well suited. They both love the country, and as you know from luncheon last week, Bella likes the county social round. As Pater says, Bella will one day make a wonderful chatelaine of Glynes**, supporting Leslie as a dutiful wife, hosting important county social functions like the Hunt Ball, opening fetes and awarding prizes at cattle shows.”

 

“How does Lady Sadie feel about her usurper?”

 

“Oh Mater loves Bella as much as we all do.” Lettice replies breezily. “Of course, Pater doesn’t dare express his appreciation quite so volubly in front of Mater, but I’m sure she is silently thinking the same thing, not that she would ever share that with any of us. No, the problem will be if Pater decides to pop his mortal clogs before she does. I don’t know how happy she will be to hand over the mantle of lady of the manor to her daughter-in-law, even if she does love her.”

 

“Well, let’s hope we don’t have to worry about that for a good while yet.” Minnie says soothingly.

 

“Indeed yes!” agrees Lettice. “Now, show me this dread dining room of yours, Minnie darling. I’m famished, and I’m intrigued to see just how much of a faux pas it really is.”

 

“Come right this way, interior decorator to all the great and good of this great country of ours,” Minnie says rather grandly as she walks towards a door that leads from the drawing room to the next room. Suddenly she pauses, clasping the brass doorknob in her hand and turns back to Lettice who has trailed behind her. “Prepare yourself my dear for l’horreur!” And she flings the door open.

 

Minnie and Lettice walk into the townhouse’s dining room, which like the adjoining drawing room has a high ceiling. Lettice is surprised that after the grandeur of the drawing room, it’s a much smaller room, perhaps more suited for intimate dining rather than a large banquet. She glances around and quickly takes in the mixture of old and new. An Edwardian dining setting in Queen Anne style fills the majority of the space, whilst a late Victorian sideboard and spare carver chairs press against the wall. To either side of the new Art Deco gas fireplace stand two modern stands on which sit rather old fashioned urns. Modernist paintings in bold colours hang on the walls, but Lettice can barely see them for the bold wallpaper of red poppies against a black background with green and white geometric patterns.

 

“Oh I see.” Lettice remarks, neither enthusiastically nor critically, but in a rather neutral way.

 

Lettice walks around the dining table on which stands a Georgian Revival tea set with steam snaking from the spot of the pot, a small carafe of water and glassware, crockery and cutlery for two at the head of the table. She stands before the Streamline Moderne fireplace surround and runs an elegant hand over one of the bold red blooms, feeling the slightly raised pattern. She sighs as she contemplates what she sees.

 

“Do you think it looks like something out of Maida Vale, Lettice darling?” Minnie asks hesitantly.

 

For a moment, Lettice doesn’t answer as she traces one of the green lines towards the gilt edge of a frame holding a painting of a tiger. “Tyger Tyger burning bright***,” she murmurs the beginning of the William Blake poem.

 

“Yes,” Minnie acknowledges her friend with a sigh of pleasure. “He’s rather glorious, isn’t he?”

 

“He is,” Lettice agrees. “However his gloriousness is diminished somewhat by the wallpaper which draws away attention from him, and the red fox.” She points to a larger canvas hanging over the sideboard.

 

“So you do think it’s middle-class Maida Vale then.” Minnie pronounces in a downhearted fashion.

 

“No, I don’t.” Lettice clarifies, turning around and placing a comforting hand on the slumped left shoulder of her friend. “And I think it was very unkind of Charles to say so. The wallpaper is beautiful, Minnie. It just doesn’t suit this room.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well, this is quite an intimate room: taller with these high ceilings, rather than wide. This wallpaper would suit a longer room with low ceilings, where expanses of this pattern could be exposed uninterrupted.”

 

“Like a mansion flat?”

 

“Exactly, Minnie! I did something similar for the moving picture actress, Wanetta Ward last year. She had a long, exposed wall and the bold pattern I used worked beautifully. And this wallpaer does nothing to show off yours and Charles’ beautiful paintings. It detracts rather than enhances. The paintings and the wallpaper vie for attention. Think about the National Gallery, or the Tate Gallery****. When you see pictures hanging on the wall, what do you notice about the surrounding to the painting?”

 

Minnie thinks for a moment, screwing up her pert nose with its dusting of freckles. “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever actually noticed the walls, Lettice darling.”

 

“Correct again, Minnie. No-one thinks about the walls because you’re not meant to. Your focus is meant to be on the paintings.”

 

“So you think I should strip the walls and paint them? Is that what you’re saying?”

 

“Well, you could, Minnie.” Lettice replies. “Or you could paint the walls and decorate the upper edge with a nice frieze paper.”

 

“Then it really would look like Maida Vale.” Minnie argues. “Only people who can’t afford wallpaper get friezes hung.”

 

Lettice considers her friend’s remark for a moment. “Mmm… yes, you’re quite right Minnie. Well, Jeffrey and Company***** do stock a range of beautiful papers in vibrant colours with pattern embossed into them. They look very luxurious.”

 

“Oh!” Minnie clasps her hands in delight. “I do like the sound of that! What colour would suit this room do you think?”

 

“Oh I should imagine a nice warm red or orange to go with this.” Lettice taps the top of the tiled fireplace surround. “And that colour range would also compliment your polished floors.”

 

“And I could get black japanned furniture like you, Lettice darling! I do like your chairs.”

 

“Oh no.” Lettice shakes her head. “Black japanned furniture is fine, but not my chairs. They are far too low for this room. You need an equivalent high backed chair.” She reaches out and pats one of the dining chairs. “Lady Arundel chose these well as they echo the height of the room. Perhaps if you had something high backed padded with a complimentary fabric to the paper: say red or orange.”

 

“Oh Lettice you are so clever!” enthuses Minnie. “When can you start.”

 

“Don’t you want to ask Charles before you go spending his money on redecorating, Minnie?” Lettice laughs. “Surely he’ll want a say.”

 

“Oh Charles told me today when I reminded him that you were coming for luncheon before he left for the office, that he’ll happily pay for anything you recommend, or better yet your services. So you don’t need to worry on that account.”

 

“Well, I would have to finish Dickie and Margot’s.” Lettice tempers.

 

“Oh, of course.” Minnie agrees.

 

“Well, I don’t have another redecorating assignment after them, so let me contemplate it.”

 

“I’ll go and get luncheon whilst you contemplate.” Minnie exclaims with a clap of her hands before scuttling away through a second door to the left of the fireplace.

 

With her exuberant friend gone, Lettice looks around the dining room, contemplating what she has suggested, picturing what embossed wallpaper in a rich red or vibrant orange would look like as a backdrop for the paintings. “Pity.” she muses as she again runs her hands over the stylised poppies in the pattern on the wall. Turning around she looks across the room. “Sorry Lady Arundel,” she remarks, tapping the top of the nearest dining chair again. “But it looks like your granddaughter-in-law wants to modernise.

 

“I’m afraid it’s Cook’s afternoon off today,” Minnie says apologetically as she walks back through the door through which she went, carrying a tray of tomato, ham and cucumber sandwiches. “So we’ll have to settle for these.” Looking down at the plate of appetising sandwich triangles as she places them on the dining table’s surface she adds. “I do hope she remembered not to make tongue****** ones. She should remember that I can’t stand cold tongue.”

 

Lettice peers at the fillings of bright red tomato, vivid green cucumber, and pink ham. “I think we’ll be safe.”

 

“Well, there’s half a trifle left over for dessert just in case they aren’t nice.” Minnie adds hopefully.

 

Lettice is suddenly struck by something. “Minnie?” she asks. “Minnie, why are you carrying the tray? And come to think of it, why did you answer the door? Where is Gladys?”

 

Minnie blushes, her pale skin and smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose reddening. “She handed in her immediate notice the week before last.”

 

“Oh no! Not another one Minnie?”

 

“She said she couldn’t work for a woman who had such histrionics as I do, and she’s gone back to Manchester.”

 

“Oh Minnie!” Lettice shakes her head dolefully.

 

“See! I told you, you sounded like Gladys, Lettice. I’ve been getting by with the tweeny*******, but Cook grumbles, so I can’t keep pinching her. That’s why I’m so grateful you gave me that telephone number for that domestic employment agency in Westminster. I’ve a new maid starting next week. Her name’s Siobhan, so I figured that she can’t complain about my histrionics as she’d be used to them, being Irish.”

 

“Well, let’s hope so Minnie.” Lettice chuckles as she pulls out her dining chair and takes her seat. “I can’t keep up with the revolving door of maids that come in and out of this house. How long have you been here for now?”

 

“Seven months or thereabout.” Minnie replies vaguely as she takes her own seat in the chair at the head of the dining table.

 

“And how many maids have you had in that time?”

 

“Nine.” Minnie replies with a guilty gulp.

 

“No wonder Charles feels his club is better suited to entertain prospective business associates.” Lettice shakes her head disapprovingly. “A tweeny waiting table.”

 

“Well hopefully, with Siobhan starting next week, and you agreeing to redecorate my dining room faux pas,” She looks around the room with glittering, excited eyes, as she imagines the possibilities. “Charles will be happy to start entertaining here.” She pauses and thinks for a moment. “You will won’t you?”

 

“Will I what, Minnie?”

 

“You will redecorate my dining room, won’t you?”

 

Lettice reaches around Minnie’s teacup and squeezes her friend’s hand comfortingly. “Of course I will. I’ll come up with some ideas of what I think might suit this room and then I’ll show you and Charles. Charles has to have some input, even if he has told you that you that I have carte blanche when it comes to redecorating.”

 

*A gasolier is a chandelier with gas burners rather than light bulbs or candles.

 

**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 Tyger” is a poem by English poet William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his “Songs of Experience” collection and rising to prominence in the romantic period of the mid Nineteenth Century. The poem explores and questions Christian religious paradigms prevalent in late 18th century and early 19th century England, discussing God's intention and motivation for creating both the tiger and the lamb. Tiger is written as Tyger in the poem as William Blake favoured old English spellings.

  

****In 1892 the site of a former prison, the Millbank Penitentiary, was chosen for the new National Gallery of British Art, which would be under the Directorship of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. The prison, used as the departure point for sending convicts to Australia, had been demolished in 1890. Sidney R.J. Smith was chosen as the architect for the new gallery. His design is the core building that we see today, a grand porticoed entranceway and central dome which resembles a temple. The statue of Britannia with a lion and a unicorn on top of the pediment at the Millbank entrance emphasised its function as a gallery of British art. The gallery opened its doors to the public in 1897, displaying 245 works in eight rooms from British artists dating back to 1790. In 1932, the gallery officially adopted the name Tate Gallery, by which it had popularly been known as since its opening. In 1937, the new Duveen Sculpture Galleries opened. Funded by Lord Duveen and designed by John Russell Pope, Romaine-Walker and Gilbert Jenkins, these two 300 feet long barrel-vaulted galleries were the first public galleries in England designed specifically for the display of sculpture. By this point, electric lighting had also been installed in all the rooms enabling the gallery to stay open until 5pm whatever the weather. In 1955, Tate Gallery became wholly independent from the National Gallery.

  

*****Jeffrey and Company was an English producer of fine wallpapers that operated between 1836 and the mid 1930s. Based at 64 Essex Road in London, the firm worked with a variety of designers who were active in the aesthetic and arts and crafts movements, such as E.W. Godwin, William Morris, and Walter Crane. Jeffrey and Cmpany’s success is often credited to Metford Warner, who became the company’s chief proprietor in 1871. Under his direction the firm became one of the most lucrative and influential wallpaper manufacturers in Europe. The company clarified that wallpaper should not be reserved for use solely in mansions, but should be available for rooms in the homes of the emerging upper-middle class.

  

******Beef tongue (also known as neat's tongue or ox tongue) is a cut of beef made of the tongue of a cow. It can be boiled, pickled, roasted or braised in sauce. It is found in many national cuisines, and is used for taco fillings in Mexico and for open-faced sandwiches in the United States.

 

*******A tweeny is a between maid, who works in the kitchen as well as above stairs, assisting at least two other members of a domestic staff.

 

This rather bright dining room is perhaps a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of pieces from my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection, some pieces from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Queen Anne dining table, chairs and sideboard were all given to me as birthday and Christmas presents when I was a child.

 

The three prong Art Deco style candelabra in the sideboard is an artisan piece made of sterling silver. Although unsigned, the piece was made in England by an unknown artist. The vase of flowers to the left of the candelabra is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium. The carafe to the right of the candelabra is another artisan piece made of hand spun glass. I acquired it as a teenager from a high street dollhouse stockist.

 

The ornately hand painted ginger jar is one of a pair and comes from Melody Jane Dollhouse Suppliers in Britain. The tall stand on which the ginger jar stands was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

The paintings on the walls are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States. The stylised floral and geometric shape Art Deco wallpaper is a real Art Deco design which I have sourced and had printed in high quality onto A3 sheets of paper.

 

On the dining table the tray of sandwiches are made of polymer clay. Made in England by hand by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight they are very realistic with even the bread slices having a bread like consistency look. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The water carafe came from the same high street stockist as the carafe on the sideboard. The Art Deco dinner set is part of a much larger set I acquired from a dollhouse suppliers in Shanghai. The Georgian Revival silver tea set on its tray I acquired from Smallskale Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The Streamline Moderne pottery tile fireplace surround I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop 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.

 

Tonight 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 as her parents host their first Hunt Ball since 1914. Lady Sadie has been completely consumed over the last month by the planning and preparation of the occasion, determined that not only will it be the event of the 1922 county season, but also that it will be a successful entrée for her youngest daughter, still single at twenty-one years of age, to meet a number of eligible and marriageable men. Letters and invitations have flown from Lady Sadie’s bonheur de jour* to the families of eligible bachelors, some perhaps a little too old to be considered before the war, achieving more than modest success. Whilst Lettice enjoys dancing, parties and balls, she is less enthusiastic about the idea of the ball being used as a marriage market than her parents are.

 

The fancy dress Hunt Ball is now in full swing. The band hired by the Viscount plays waltzes, foxtrots, and polkas, as well as a smattering of novelty dances like the Grizzly Bear and the Bunny Hug to amuse the younger set of party-goers. Their sound carries over the general hubbub of voices chattering punctuated by laughter and the clinking of glasses. The Georgian style ballroom of Glynes with its golden yellow wallpaper and gilt Louis Quatorze furnishings is alive with colour and movement as pirates dance with nursery rhyme dames, maharajas foxtrot with princesses and clowns waltz with ladies in Georgian dress. Around the perimeter of the ballroom’s parquet dance floor, guest mill about, sharing county and London gossip, or admire and remark on the fancy dress attired couples taking to the floor. In their midst, Lettice, dressed as Cinderella in an Eighteenth Century gown and pomaded wig, dances, or rather tries to dance, a foxtrot with eligible bachelor and heir to several large estates, Jonty Hastings.

 

“Oh, do push off Howley, there’s a good chap!” Gerald says rudely as he tries to cut in and sweep Lettice away from Jonty’s rather stiff and awkward arms. “I don’t think Lettice’s feet can survive any more of your hopeless, uncoordinated trotting.”

 

“Don’t call me that, Gerald,” Jonty replies rather wetly, his face taking on the appearance of a petulant child as it reddens in embarrassment. “I’ve not been called that for years, thankfully, after you christened me with that awful nickname. You always were the mean one.” He glances at Lettice who is holding Gerald’s gaze imploringly. “Except to your favourites, of course.”

 

“I’m sorry Howley,” Gerald continues, deliberately ignoring Jonty’s request not to use the nickname given him. “But you can’t seriously expect me to stand back and watch you try unsuccessfully to sweep the most eligible and beautiful girl in the place into your arms. It’s simply too preposterous for words. Try one of the Miss Evanses instead.” Gerald nods in the direction of the two elderly spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house in Glynes village. “They seem to be more to your standards, and they aren’t as picky as Lettice is.”

 

As Jonty pauses to look in the direction of the two elderly women, one dressed as Little Bo-Peep and the other as Miss Muffett, both looking like macabre versions of their nursery rhyme characters, Gerald seizes his chance and cuts firmly in, casting Jonty aside with an adept movement and sweeping Lettice quickly away.

 

“Oh you really are awful, Gerald!” Lettice says with a serious look, gazing at her friend dressed in a Tudor courtier’s outfit made from the brocades and laces left over from his clients’ commissioned frocks.

 

“Well, I’m the second son of an insignificant and impoverished family, so it’s my prerogative to despise someone like Howley Howling Hastings with all his wealth and good connections.”

 

“I don’t think it suits you to be so cruel, Gerald. You may not have Jonty’s family bank vault, but you have grace, charm and handsomeness that he doesn’t possess, and I think that makes you about even. Poor Jonty.”

 

“What?” Gerald replies. “Would you rather I left you with him, Lettice?”

 

“Well, no.“ Lettice admits with a downwards glance as her cheeks fill with an embarrassed flush.

 

“Exactly! We can’t have our Cinderella of the ball being monopolised by such a wet blanket as Howley! You’ll never marry him anyway.”

 

“I think Mater would like it if I did.” Lettice admits. “By your own admission, he’s very wealthy, and very eligible.”

 

“So is Nicholas Ayers,” Gerald counters. “In fact, he’s richer, but you aren’t going to marry him. I think if he has his way, he won’t marry anyone, and I stand a far better chance with him than you do. Doesn’t your mother know he is a lost cause?”

 

“No, she doesn’t,” she cautions Gerald. “And you mustn’t tell her, Gerald. She’d be horrified, parading him before me if she knew. Thinking of my mother, where is she?” Lettice asks, glancing around at the sweeping couples that glide about them.

 

Gerald cranes his neck to try and see over the top of the sea of bobbing wigs, turbans, pirate hats and clown cones. “She’s over there,” He glances with concern at Lettice.

 

“What is it Gerald?”

 

“She’s talking with Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, no doubt about you. Lucky I’ve saved you, my dear! Now, just follow my lead.”

 

And with that, Gerald begins to move Lettice around the floor, away from the watchful eyes of her mother and other party guests to the door leading out into the antechamber adjoining the ballroom. As they reach the edge of the floor, Gerald sweeps Lettice out, bows and offers her his arm as he escorts her off the floor and through the doors of the antechamber.

 

“Come. I think you’re in need of refreshments, Cinderella,” Gerald says with a smile. “After all your exertions on the dancefloor.”

 

Gerald escorts Lettice through the guests milling about in the antechamber, the pair smiling and imparting passing greetings with nods to friends and acquaintances they meet along the way.

 

“Where are you taking me?” Lettice asks.

 

Gerald doesn’t answer her, until finally they walk out into the great Adam style hall of Glynes. The sound of chatter from the room behind them takes on a ghostly air, as do the refrains of the band as they strike up a waltz.

 

“Oh dear. I should be dancing this with Nicholas Ayres.” Lettice remarks.

 

“Oh pooh, Nicholas!” Gerald scoffs. “He’ll be as grateful to be off the hook as you are, darling. Here!” He stops before one of the gilt Palladian console tables that flank the entrance to the ballroom antechamber and indicates to its surface next to an ostentatious floral arrangement of soft pink hot house roses, white asters and frothy Queen Anne’s lace. “I managed to steal a few petit-fours from the buffet being set up in the dining room, and get u a fresh glass of champagne each.” He picks up a glass of bubbling golden liquid and passes it to Lettice. “Cin cin, darling!”

 

“Oh Gerald!” Lettice gasps, happily accepting the glass which she clinks with his. “How did you manage to do it?”

 

“Well, as you said so yourself just moments ago, I have grace, charm and handsomeness: traits that come in useful from time to time.”

 

“How?”

 

“There was a rather gullible girl I remember from the village who is helping the caterers set up the dining room table. She was happy to fetch a couple of little deadlies for the young man from the Big House, especially when I begged and cast her a mock look of sadness and misty eyes.”

 

“Oh, you are wicked, Gerald. You do know how to make an evening more pleasurable.”

 

Gerald smiles proudly, his eyes glinting with mischief.

 

“I do hope you’re happy with the selection. I managed to get a caviar, a lettuce and egg and a tuna and cucumber.” He glances down at the gilt edged white plate on the console table’s surface standing next to a porcelain figurine of a girl playing a lute.

 

“Rather!” Lettice concurs, removing her right glove and taking up the caviar petit-four. She sighs as she takes a small bite from it. “Oh! I was so busy dancing with eligible bachelor after eligible bachelor that I hadn’t noticed how hungry I was.” She smiles and takes another bite and then a third, consuming the whole thing.

 

“Pleased to be of service, my lady!” Gerald makes a sweeping bow before her.

 

“You know I could get into terrible trouble being out here with you, you know.” Lettice giggles, taking another sip of cool champagne.

 

“How so?” Gerald asks. “You know you are perfectly safe with me.”

 

“Oh it’s not that. Mamma gave me a stern talking to before the commencement of this evening’s ceremonies. She warned me that your acerbic tongue is a bad influence on me.”

 

“Acerbic tongue?” Gerald cries, looking aghast, albeit not seriously, at Lettice. “Moi? Acerbic! The nerve of her saying that!”

 

“And she told me that it would be a waste of my time an energy spending time with you, when you are so frightfully unsuitable, being the spare, rather than the heir.”

 

“Not to mention my family’s somewhat questionable finances.”

 

“Well, “ Lettice blushes, casting her eyes down to the face of the statue of the lute player. “She did mention that too.”

 

“Did she also mention I’d rather take off with Leslie than you?” Gerald asks her in a whisper. When Lettice shakes her head, he sighs and then continues in a slightly higher volume, yet still not much more than a whisper. “Well at least some things about my life still remain private. I suppose our money troubles were bound to reach Lady Sadie’s ears at some stage. I just hope she doesn’t mention it to Mamma.”

 

“Surely if your father is in financial difficulties, your mother would know about it, Gerald.”

 

“I don’t think so. He has always done his best to protect Mamma from having to worry about such things. When she mentions going up to London for the Season, or buying a new hat, he always manages to placate her with some story or other. So, as far as I’m aware, she has no idea and lives in blissful ignorance.”

 

Suddenly, the door leading from the driveway clatters open and a gentleman in a long cloak and top hat appears in silhouette against the lights overhead. With all the guests having arrived some time before, the front door is no longer manned by the Chetwynd’s first footman, Marsden, who is now occupied with serving champagne in the ballroom, so the gentleman opens the glass vestibule door himself and walks in unannounced into the hall, which is empty except for a few couples trying to find a moment of privacy in the shadow of a pillar and Lettice and Gerald enjoying a few minutes of elicit peace.

 

“I say, can I help you?” Lettice asks, placing her glass on the marble tabletop and walking across the hall.

 

“Oh I say,” the gentleman remarks in a clipped, well-bred voice as he removes his cloak and shakes it out noisily. “I am sorry. I’m awfully late. Can you point me in the direction of one of…” He stops abruptly as he gazes down at Lettice’s face looking up at him.

 

“One of?” Lettice asks, looking up expectantly into a pair of rather striking deep brown eyes.

 

“Goodness! Can it?” the stranger stammers. “No! No, it… no it can’t be! Can it?”

 

Lettice continues to look up in bewilderment at the man as he now removes his hat, revealing a head of neatly coiffed brown hair that frames his handsome face. “I’m afraid you’ll have to finish your sentence if you wish me to help you, sir.” she remarks prettily.

 

“I’m so sorry,” the stranger apologises again. “But are you the Honourable Miss Lettice Chetwynd by any chance?”

 

Lettice shakes her head slightly in disbelief, her eyes squinting. “Yes, yes I am. Have we met, sir?”

 

“Oh not for many years. The last time I saw you was at Queen Charlotte’s Ball** in 1919, but I haven’t actually spoken to you since we were about six, yet I’d know your face anywhere.”

 

“Not since we were six?” Lettice giggles, her laugh echoing about the mostly deserted entrance hall. “You have a good memory for faces if you remember mine so well. Who are you?”

 

“I wouldn’t expect you to recognise me, dear Lettice, but I’m Selwyn: Selwyn Spencely.”

 

Lettice’s eyes widen in disbelief. “Good heavens! Selwyn!” Lettice laughs loudly. “I say, how do you do!”

 

“I’m sorry I’m so unconscionably late!” Selwyn apologises again. “My mother has been unwell with a rather nasty cold. I was reading to her, and I tarried later with her than I perhaps should have. I just wanted to be sure she had dozed off before I left.”

 

“That’s quite alright, Selwyn.” Lettice continues to look up in surprise to Selwyn’s patrician face. “The last time I can remember seeing you was when we were around six and you were covered in hedgerow mud, being pulled away by your mother into a waiting carriage.”

 

“Yes,” chuckled Selwyn. “I remember that occasion well. She was furious!”

 

“I remember thinking it was at odds to her name, being a beautiful flower. Violet isn’t it?”

 

“Zinnia, actually.”

 

“Oh yes! Lady Zinnia!” Lettice giggles self-consciously. Then, looking down she notices her newest guest’s hands are full. “Oh here, let me take your cape and hat, Selwyn.” She reaches out and takes them from him. “I’ll find Bromley or another servant to take them away.”

 

A gentle, yet deliberate clearing of his throat alerts both Selwyn and Lettice, who had forgotten all about him momentarily, to Gerald’s presence behind them, lolling against the console table. “Hullo Selwyn.” he greets the newcomer crisply.

 

“Gerald! How do you do, old chap!” Selwyn smiles over at Gerald.

 

“I didn’t know you two knew each other.” Lettice remarks.

 

“Oh yes,” Selwyn replies jovially. “Gerald and I are members of the same club. Aren’t we Gerald? I haven’t seen much of you lately.”

 

“Well, I’ve been too busy to spend much time at the club lately.” Gerald excuses himself offhandedly.

 

“Ahh.” Selwyn acknowledges non-committally, yet with an air of knowing something unspoken as he cocks an eyebrow. “Frocks, isn’t it?”

 

“Oh yes!” Lettice enthuses. “He’s made my wardrobe for more stylish and modish, haven’t you Gerald?”

 

Gerald blushes at the compliment, but says nothing.

 

“Well, come along Selwyn,” Lettice says with delight as she hooks her arm into his. “Let’s go find Mamma and Pappa. They’ll be pleased to see you here, even if your mother couldn’t be here.”

 

“Shall I take those?” Gerald asks helpfully, reaching out for Selwyn’s cape, hat and gloves. “You can’t very well go back into the ballroom holding them.”

 

“Oh would you, Gerald?” Lettice exclaims. “Oh that would be a wonderful help.”

 

“I’m practically a member of the family, so I’ll have no difficulty finding Bramley.” He takes the items in his hands. “Now, you two run along.” He flaps his hands at them. “Shoo.”

 

The pair give Gerald appreciative smiles, and then walk off slowly, arm in arm, back into the ballroom antechamber, Lettice’s giggling and their quite chatting quickly enveloped into the general burble of voices.

 

Gerald looks back at the two unfinished glasses of champagne and the canapes and sighs, suddenly acutely aware of how empty the cavernous hallway is without his beloved friend.

 

*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.

 

**The Queen Charlotte's Ball is an annual British debutante ball. The ball was founded in 1780 by George III as a birthday celebration in honour of his wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, for whom the ball is named. The Queen Charlotte's Ball originally served as a fundraiser for the Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital. The annual ball continued after Queen Charlotte's death in 1818, but was criticised by the British Royal Family in the 1950s and 1960s and folded in 1976. It was revived in the Twenty First Century by Jenny Hallam-Peel, a former debutante, who shifted its focus from entering high society to teaching business skills, networking, and etiquette, and fundraising for charities. Debutantes being presented curtsey to a large birthday cake in honour of Queen Charlotte.

 

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 floral arrangement in urn on top of the console table consists of pink roses, white asters and white Queen Anne’s Lace. Although unmarked, it was made by an American miniature artisan with incredible attention to detail. The Seventeenth Century musical statue of the lady playing a lute to the right of the flower arrangement was made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. It was hand painted by me. The floral arrangement and the statue are both one of a pair.

 

The savoury petite fours on the gilt white porcelain plate have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. Each petit four is only five millimetres in diameter and between five and eight millimetres in height! The selection includes egg and lettuce, Beluga caviar and salmon and cucumber. The two glasses of sparkling champagne are made of real glass and were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The Palladian console table on which the items stand is one of a pair. With their golden caryatids and marble tops, they 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 Louis Quatorze chairs and the gilt swan pedestals in the background are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

All the paintings around the Glynes ballroom antechamber in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and the wallpaper of the ballroom antechamber is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s.

 

The marquetry floor of the room is in fact a wooden chessboard. The chessboard was made by my Grandfather, a skilful and creative man in 1952. Two chess sets, a draughts set and three chess boards made by my Grandfather were bequeathed to me as part of his estate when he died a few years ago.

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.

Sir Winston Churchill

British politician (1874 - 1965)

  

Fox Lake, Wisconsin

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© Copyright 2013 MEA Images, Merle E. Arbeen, All Rights Reserved. If you would like to copy this, please feel free to contact me through my FlickrMail, Facebook, or Yahoo email account. Thank you.

 

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This photograph has achieved the following highest awards:

 

Super Six, The Academy

 

InfiniteXposure, Level 7 VIOLET, (19)

 

Frame It! Level 5 (5)

 

Challenge Club Champion

 

DSLR Autofocus, Hall of Fame (5)

 

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

 

Today we are in Lettice’s chic, dining room, which stands adjunct to her equally stylish drawing room. She has decorated it in a restrained Art Deco style with a smattering of antique pieces including a rather fine Chippendale cabinet.

 

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 shop and select a suitable trousseau. So, she has brought her to London to stay in Cavendish Mews, rather than opening up the Tyrwhitt’s Georgian townhouse in Curzon Street for a week, so from there she can take Arabella shopping in all the best shops in the West End, and take her to her old childhood chum and best friend Gerald Bruton’s couturier in Grosvenor Street for her wedding dress. Lettice has invited a few of her friends from her Embassy Club coterie whom Arabella met there the other night. Lettice has asked her best girlfriend, the recently married Margot Channon and one of her other dear friends Minnie Palmerston. As both ladies are married, Lettice is hoping they may be able to shed some light on what life is like as a married woman with Arabella whilst also sharing in an afternoon of delicious food and delightful gossip.

 

Now luncheon is over, and the ladies have adjourned to Lettice’s drawing room where they carry on their high spirited conversations over digestives, and raucous laughter echoes across into the dining room where Edith, Lettice’s maid, is putting some of the glassware and fine china used at luncheon back into the Chippendale cabinet where they belong after having washed them. A consummate maid, Edith is very discreet and unlike other domestics she isn’t particularly interested in gossip, so she doesn’t pay attention to the conversations being had in the drawing room as she quietly stacks the gilded Art Deco patterned dinner plates onto the second shelf of the cabinet. She hums ‘Toot Toot Tootsie’* to herself as she does so. She smiles as she does, thinking of how she and her beau Frank Leadbetter danced cheek to cheek at the Hammersmith Palais** to the tune on her day off last Sunday, so she doesn’t notice the approach of a pair of footsteps.

 

“Excuse me, Edith,” Margot begins.

 

Edith releases a startled gasp as she leaps into the air in fright, almost dropping the silver gravy boat in her hands as she does. “Oh Miss de Virre, err, I mean, Mrs. Channon.” Edith is still adjusting, like most everyone else, to Margot’s newly married status. She grasps at her chest as she breathes heavily. “You didn’t half scare me!”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry Edith. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Margot says kindly, stepping back slightly on her gold louis heel.

 

Edith looks at her mistress’ best lady friend. She is very beautiful with dark eyes and dark hair framing her pale face. Her hair is swept into a smart chignon at the nape of her neck where it is held in place by an ornate tortoiseshell comb. She is dressed in an afternoon frock of burnt orange silk de chiné with a boat neckline and a handkerchief hemline that swishes softly around her figure when she moves. Edith wonders if it was made by their friend Gerald Bruton the couturier. Edith remembers he made Margot’s wedding dress and several other pieces of her trousseau. The colour of the gown is enhanced by her dark hair and by a long bright green bugle bead necklace that cascades down the front of it and her matching chandelier earrings that swing and tremble from her dainty lobes.

 

“Can I help you, Mrs. Channon?” Edith asks. “Was everything at luncheon to your satisfaction?”

 

“Oh quite! Quite, Edith. Your roast was delicious, as were the tarts for dessert.” Margot falls silent but doesn’t turn or attempt to walk away.

 

“Is there something you need?” Edith queries.

 

“Actually, there is, Edith.” Margot says after a moment. She turns and looks over her left shoulder, down the length of the dining room into the drawing room where Lettice and Minnie are entertaining Bella with an amusing story about their escapades as they sip their digestives. She turns back to the maid. “May I ask for your discretion?”

 

“Of course, Mrs. Channon.”

 

“Good. Because I don’t want Minnie to hear us, so I’ll be quick.” Margot pronounces lowering her voice.

 

“Very good Mrs. Channon.” She moves the right-hand door of the Chippendale cabinet so that it obscures the view of Lettice, Minnie and Bella, and affords the two ladies a modicum of privacy behind it. “That’s better.” she says. “Now, how can I help?”

 

“You know how Dickie… err, Mr. Channon and I have moved around the corner from here and taken a flat in Hill Street.”

 

“Yes Mrs. Channon.”

 

“Well, you see, I need a competent maid to come and manage my household. It’s all in a bit of a muddle. I’ve borrowed one of Mummy’s maids, Pegeen, but she really isn’t suitable.” Margot shakes her head sadly as she toys with the rings on her fingers abstractedly.

 

Edith’s eyes grow wide, and her mouth starts to gape with incredulity as she takes a sharp intake of breath after hearing Margot’s words.

 

“Oh no! No, Edith!” Margot hisses. “You misunderstand me.” She shakes her head, making the chandelier earrings swing about, catching and reflecting the light from the pendant light overhead prettily. “I’d never try and poach you from Lettice.” She raises her elegantly manicured hands in defence. “Lettice is one of my oldest and dearest friends. I’d never be so beastly as to steal you away from her.”

 

Edith lets out a sigh of relief as she cradles the silver gravy boat in her arms.

 

“No,” Margot continues in an assuring tone. “I just thought, well, that you might know of someone looking for a position. Lettice told me that you weren’t very happy in your last position, and I wondered whether perhaps there might have been others you’ve worked with who might be dissatisfied with their current employer.”

 

Edith turns away from Margot and places the gleaming gravy boat on the second shelf of the Chippendale cabinet next to a salt shaker. She runs her finger along its foot thoughtfully and smiles to herself before turning back around again to see Margot’s expectant face.

 

“As it happens, I do know of someone, Mrs. Channon.” the maid replies confidently. “Who is currently looking for a new position in these parts.”

 

“Oh hoorah!” Margot clasps her hands. “Well, I don’t really know how this is done, Edith. Can you give me her details? Or perhaps if I give you mine? You could pass them on for me?”

 

“Now just wait a moment, Mrs. Channon.” Edith cautions her, holding up her careworn palms. “Not quite so fast, if you please. This is my very good friend, Hilda. I’ll not recommend anything to her until you’ve given me a few more specifics.”

 

“Of course, Edith.” Margot sighs. “What would you like to know?”

 

“Firstly, this is a live-in position, isn’t it?”

 

“Oh yes Edith. The flat has a lovely little maid’s bedroom off the kitchen, just like here.”

 

“And your flat is how big?” Edith asks.

 

“Well, it’s a trifle bigger than here, as there are two of us.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“There is a drawing room and dining room, obviously. It has two bedrooms like here, but the second one is a guest bedroom so she wouldn’t have to clean it every week, just air and clean it before we have house guests.”

 

“And how often is that?”

 

“Well, I don’t really know.” Margot considers. “We haven’t been there all that long, but I don’t suppose it will all that often. There are two dressing rooms, oh, and there’s Mr. Channon’s study as well.”

 

“And would my friend be required to cook for you, like I do for Miss Lettice?”

 

“Well, Mr. Channon and I dine out quite a lot. We’re barely home really. We also have our little house in Cornwall where we will spend some time once Lettice has finished redecorating, so breakfasts for both of us when we are home, the occasional luncheon and dinner.”

 

“What about sewing?”

 

“Sewing, Edith?” Margot gazes at Edith, a look of confusion on her face. “I need a maid, not a lady’s maid.”

 

“Will my friend be required to do any mending of linens, embroidery or the like.” Edith clarifies.

 

Margot looks perplexed. “I shouldn’t think so, Edith. If anything like that needs doing, I’ll get one of Dickie… er, Mr. Cannon’s parent’s maids to do it.”

 

“That’s good because Hilda doesn’t sew. Her mother didn’t like sewing, so she never learnt like I did. I tried to teach her a few basic skills, but she’s got no real aptitude for it.”

 

“I have the laundry sent out, like you do here, and I’ve engaged Mrs. Boothby to come twice a week to do the harder jobs.”

 

“Very good Mrs. Channon.” Edith acknowledges coolly, not giving away her thrill that this might be the perfect job for her friend Hilda to get her away from the mean Mrs. Plaistow.

 

“And I’ll happily pay a wage commensurate to your own, Edith.”

 

“Miss Lettice doesn’t pay me board wages*** when she goes away for weekends in the country, only at Christmas time.”

 

“Oh, I don’t even know what board wages are, Edith.” Margot assures the maid with a shrug of her shoulders.

 

Edith ruminates for a moment, her gaze drifting around the dining room: anywhere but Margot’s anxious face.

 

“If you don’t mind me asking, Mrs. Channon, if this is such a splendid position, and if you’re such a good mistress, why isn’t this Pegeen you’ve got working for you currently, suitable?” Edith glances at the inside of the black japanned door of the Chippendale cabinet, as if she can see Lettice, Minnie and Bella through it. She lowers her voice to even more of a whisper. “And why don’t you want Mrs. Palmerston knowing you’re looking for a new maid?”

 

“Well, you saw Minnie at luncheon today.” Margot replies. “She is rather,” She chews the inside of her cheek as she considers what adjective to use to describe Minnie Palmerston. “Highly strung shall we say.”

 

“Yes, I did notice that, Mrs. Channon.” Edith replies with a quick nod of acknowledgement.

 

“Well, her histrionics mean that she has some difficulty keeping maids for any length of time. I don’t want her to pilfer and squander any potential candidates you might send my way. After all, you really are such a brick, Edith.” Margot reaches out and places a hand on Edith’s forearm, which the maid finds overfamiliar and rather discomforting. “I’m sure anyone whom you recommend to me would be a brick too.”

 

“Thank you, Mrs. Channon.” Edith smiles proudly, blushing at the compliment and lowering her gaze demurely. “And why is Pegeen not a suitable candidate?”

 

“Well, for a start she is my mother’s maid, and I only have Pegeen under a grace-and-favour arrangement for a short time.” She pauses.

 

“And?” Edith presses her for her unfinished thoughts.

 

“And I caught her going through Mr. Channon’s desk drawers.’ Margot sighs. “I don’t want a prying maid. I also found her trying on my dresses twice and I caught a definite note of my La Jacinthe**** scent on her yesterday. I want a maid I can trust, like Lettice trusts you. Pegeen is definitely not to be trusted.”

 

Edith takes only a moment to decide whether this opportunity is good enough to pass on to Hilda.

 

“If you’d please supply me with your details, Mrs. Channon, I’ll be sure to pass them on to my friend Hilda. She can then choose if she wishes to pursue your offer of employment. That’s how it’s done.”

 

“Oh Edith!” Margot exclaims. “Lettice is right! You really are such a brick!”

 

“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Channon.” Edith demurs. “Now, hadn’t you best go back to the rest of the company before you are missed?”

 

“Oh yes, you’re right Edith.” Margot agrees, and so saying, she turns on her heel and walks away.

 

Edith carefully closes the beautifully decorated Chippendale cabinet with its ornate hinges and walks towards the green baize doors that lead back into the service area of the flat, barely able to contain her excitement. Only last week as they stood in Mrs. Minkin’s haberdashery shop, Hilda was complaining about how awful it was working under Mrs. Plaistow and how she was looking for a new position. Pushing open the doors and slipping through it she is thrilled that she may have the solution to her dear friend’s problems.

 

*Toot Toot Tootsie (Goobye) was one of the most popular songs of 1922, written by Gus Kahn, Ernie Erdman and Dan Russo, made popular by Al Jolson.

 

**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.

 

***Board wages were monies paid in lieu of meals and were paid in addition to a servant’s normal salary. Often servants were paid board wages when their employer went on holiday, or to London for the season, leaving them behind with no cook t prepare their meals. Some employers paid their servants fair board wages, however most didn’t, and servants often found themselves out of pocket fending for themselves, rather than having meals provided within the household.

 

****La Jacinthe is a scent created by French perfumier François Coty that was launched in 1914. With a fragrance of hyacinth as the name suggests, it was promoted as being "A tribute to stately radiant beauty that recalls the goddesses of Ancient Greece - the scent of classic hyacinths." It ceased production around 1933

 

This elegant domestic scene may not be all you consider it to be, for it is made up entirely with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my teenage years.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Made by high-end miniature manufacturer, J.B.M. the black japanned Chippendale cabinet has been decorated with chinoiserie designs. It also features very ornate metalwork hinges and locks. The Chippendale black japanned chairs are also made by J. B. M.

 

The top shelf features white wine glasses all of which are artisan pieces, spun from real glass, that I acquired as a teenager from a high street shop that specialised in dolls and doll house miniatures. The red wine glasses on the right are also hand spun glass pieces from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The Georgian water jug between the glasses comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.

 

The middle shelf contains pieces of Lettice’s gilt edged dinner set featuring highly stylised blue Art Deco patterns. The gravy boat in the middle, like the water jug above, comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland.

 

The linen on the bottom shelf has been trimmed by hand with some dainty pieces of lace and was made for me by a miniature artisan sewer in Sydney.

 

The paintings on the walls are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States. The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Oh?” Edith queries.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Oh Edith! Mrs. Hounslow’s a widow.”

 

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

 

“Bishop’s in the High Street.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“You think she’d know better.”

 

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

 

“So much grander than here, Edith.”

 

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

 

“Contrary indeed!” Ada snorts derisively.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.

 

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

 

***A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.

 

****A Brown Betty is a type of teapot, round and with a manganese brown glaze known as Rockingham glaze. In the Victorian era, when tea was at its peak of popularity, tea brewed in the Brown Betty was considered excellent. This was attributed to the design of the pot which allowed the tea leaves more freedom to swirl around as the water was poured into the pot, releasing more flavour with less bitterness.

 

***** The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The central focus of our story, sitting on Ada’s table, is the cottage ware teapot. Made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson, it has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched rood and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics.

 

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

 

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

 

Sitting on the table in the foreground is a McVitie and Price’s Small Petite Beurre Biscuits tin, containing a selection of different biscuits. The biscuits were made by hand of polymer clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. McVitie's (Originally McVitie and Price) is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie and Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Harlesden, London (where Edith’s father works). McVitie and Price's first major biscuit was the McVitie's Digestive, created in 1892 by a new young employee at the company named Alexander Grant, who later became the managing director of the company. The biscuit was given its name because it was thought that its high baking soda content served as an aid to food digestion. The McVitie's Chocolate Homewheat Digestive was created in 1925. Although not their core operation, McVitie's were commissioned in 1893 to create a wedding cake for the royal wedding between the Duke of York and Princess Mary, who subsequently became King George V and Queen Mary. This cake was over two metres high and cost one hundred and forty guineas. It was viewed by 14,000 and was a wonderful publicity for the company. They received many commissions for royal wedding cakes and christening cakes, including the wedding cake for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip and Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Under United Biscuits McVitie's holds a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.

 

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

 

Sunlight Soap was first introduced in 1884 by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.

 

Before the invention of aerosol spray starch, the product of choice in many homes of all classes was Robin starch. Robin Starch was a stiff white powder like cornflour to which water had to be added. When you made up the solution, it was gloopy, sticky with powdery lumps, just like wallpaper paste or grout. The garment was immersed evenly in that mixture and then it had to be smoothed out. All the stubborn starchy lumps had to be dissolved until they were eliminated – a metal spoon was good for bashing at the lumps to break them down. Robins Starch was produced by Reckitt and Sons who were a leading British manufacturer of household products, notably starch, black lead, laundry blue, and household polish. They also produced Jumbo Blue, which was a whitener added to a wash to help delay the yellowing effect of older cotton. Rekitt and Sons were based in Kingston upon Hull. Isaac Reckitt began business in Hull in 1840, and his business became a private company Isaac Reckitt and Sons in 1879, and a public company in 1888. The company expanded through the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. It merged with a major competitor in the starch market J. and J. Colman in 1938 to form Reckitt and Colman.

 

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

 

Edith’s black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers was made by an unknown artisan. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. This hat is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.

 

In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table, the Windsor chair and the ladderback chair to the left of the photo, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. There are also some rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and a bread tin in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces I recently acquired from The Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a tin of Macfie’s Finest Black Treacle, two jars of P.C. Flett and Company jam, a tin of Heinz marinated apricots, a jar of Marmite and some Oxo stock cubes. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.

 

Robert Andrew Macfie sugar refiner was the first person to use the term term Golden Syrup in 1840, a product made by his factory, the Macfie sugar refinery, in Liverpool. He also produced black treacle.

 

P.C. Flett and Company was established in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands by Peter Copeland Flett. He had inherited a small family owned ironmongers in Albert Street Kirkwall, which he inherited from his maternal family. He had a shed in the back of the shop where he made ginger ale, lemonade, jams and preserves from local produce. By the 1920s they had an office in Liverpool, and travelling representatives selling jams and preserves around Great Britain. I am not sure when the business ceased trading.

 

The American based Heinz food processing company, famous for its Baked Beans, 57 varieties of soups and tinend spaghetti opened a factory in Harlesden in 1919, providing a great deal of employment for the locals who were not already employed at McVitie and Price.

 

Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.

 

Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.

 

The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).

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

 

Today we are in Lettice’s chic, dining room, which stands adjunct to her equally stylish drawing room. She has decorated it in a restrained Art Deco style with a smattering of antique pieces. It is also a place where she has showcased some prized pieces from the Portman Gallery in Soho including paintings, her silver drinks set and her beloved statue of the ‘Modern Woman’ who presides over the proceedings from the sideboard.

 

“Luncheon is served, Miss.” Edith, Lettice’s maid, announces in a brave voice, disguising her nerves cooking for Lettice’s father the Sixth Viscount of Wrexham as she drops a respectful curtsey on the threshold between the dining room and the drawing room.

 

“What’s that?” Viscount Wrexham pipes as he sits up in the Art Deco tub chair by the fire that he has been comfortably installed in for the last hour and a half.

 

“Luncheon, Pappa.” Lettice replies. “Thank you, Edith.”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith replies. She bobs another quick curtsey and wastes no time scurrying back through the green baize door into the relative safety of the kitchen.

 

“Shall we go through, Pappa?” Lettice asks with a happy smile and an indicating gesture.

 

The Viscount and his daughter stand up and stroll into the dining room, leaving their empty aperitif glasses on the low coffee table. Lettice takes her place as hostess at the head of the table, whilst her father takes his place to her left.

 

“What’s this?” the Viscount burbles discontentedly as he looks across the black japanned Art Deco table.

 

“It looks like luncheon to me, Pappa.” Lettice replies sweetly, aware that her answer will irritate her father. “Edith’s roast chicken. How delicious.”

 

“I can see that Lettice.” Viscount Wrexham growls. “Don’t be obtuse!”

 

“Then be more specific, Pappa.”

 

“To be more specific. Why did that lazy girl just leave it in the middle of the table. Girl! Girl!” he bellows towards the door. “Come here, girl!”

 

“Pappa!” Lettice exclaims.

 

Edith hurries back through the door with a harried look on her face. “Yes, Your Lordship?” She makes a quick bob curtsey and gazes down at her fingers folded neatly in front of her.

 

The Viscount glares firstly at her, then turns silently to glare at the food causing offence on the table.

 

“Thank you Edith,” Lettice says apologetically in a soothing tone. “His Lordship was mistaken. You may return to your duties.”

 

“What? I…” the older man splutters, turning his offended gaze to his daughter.

 

“Pappa.” Lettice places her elegant hand with its manicured nails over her father’s bigger hand and waits until Edith has slipped back through the green baize door like a shadow. “Papa. You’re in London now, not in Wiltshire: in my flat, not in Glynes*. This is luncheon, à la London. And in London, in my flat, we serve ourselves luncheon on informal occasions. Would you carve?” She proffers the carving cutlery to her disgruntled father.

 

“Well, I suppose someone must, since you see fit to deprive us of a butler,” he mutters.

 

“Pappa, look around you. I live in a flat, not a mansion. I don’t need a butler. Edith does very well as a cook and maid-of-all-work. And I’d like to keep her, so please stop terrorising her by bellowing at her.”

 

“What about for a dinner party! Don’t tell me you insult your guests as you do your poor Father by forcing them to serve themselves. You’ll never have a single client if you do.”

 

“No Pappa,” Lettice sighs in an exasperated fashion. “Edith can wait table as good as any butler.”

 

“Ptah! What nonsense! A girl waiting table. It’s like the war all over again.”

 

“Or,” Lettice speaks over her father forcefully to prevent a tirade coming from his lips. “If needs be, I hire extra staff from a domestic agency in Westminster Mamma put me in touch with. It’s the same agency she uses when you both come up to London from Glynes.” She spoons some boiled vegetables onto her plate next to the piece of roast chicken her father placed on it. “Thinking of which, it was lovely of Mamma to send up some orange roses from Glynes.”

 

“Yes, your Mother has done particularly well with the roses in the greenhouses at Glynes this year. They have protected the blooms from the Wiltshire cold and provided a profusion of flowers.”

 

“They are beautiful.” Lettice smiles as she looks at the fiery orange blooms in the tall cut crystal vase on the table before her.

 

“Well, your Mother and I both agree that this London flat of yours, like so much of London, lacks colour. It’s all black and white, just like those Bioscopes** you young people so adore.”

 

“Nonsense Pappa! My flat has lots of colour. Just look at the art on my walls.”

 

“Finger paintings!” he snorts derisively as he takes a bite of his chicken. “Your Mother and I agree about that too. Not to mention,” the Viscount pauses, deposits his cutlery onto his plate and turns in his seat to look behind him at the statue of the bronze woman reclining, yet gazing straight at him with a steely gaze. “Ahem.”

 

“It’s called modern art, Pappa. And she is divine: the embodiment of the New Woman in bronze. Anyway, thankfully my clients happen to like my choice of ‘finger paintings’ and modern sculpture from the Portland Gallery.”

 

“Aah, yes well,” the Viscount clears his throat and dabs the edges of his mouth with his blue linen napkin. “Thinking of clients. That brings me to the purpose of my visit.”

 

“Of course. There has to be a reason beyond visiting your beloved youngest daughter just to see to her welfare.”

 

“Now, don’t be like that Lettice.” He wags a finger admonishingly at her. “Many is the time I’ve come up to town just to have the pleasure of your company over luncheon at Claridge’s. No. No, your Mother, heard from… a friend, ahem.” The older man clears his throat awkwardly. “That you designed some interiors for the wife of that banker, Hatchett: the chorus girl.”

 

Lettice purposefully lowers her fork. Picking up her glass of red wine she replies, “I did Pappa. What of it?”

 

“Oh Lettice! Your poor mother and I were hoping that it was just a rumour.”

 

“Well why shouldn’t I design interiors for her? I’m an interior designer and she needed some rooms redesigning.”

 

“Lettice! You know perfectly well why. I shouldn’t have to spell it out for you. You aren’t a child anymore. You know your position in society. Be an interior designer by all means, but at least stick to your own class and be a society interior designer, my dear.”

 

“That doesn’t pay the bills, Pappa.”

 

The Viscount looks askance at his daughter. “For shame, Lettice!”

 

“Pappa, I’m a businesswoman now. I must talk about money. At least the Hatchett’s paid for my services.”

 

“You’re of age now Lettice, and I pay you a damn good allowance that should more than cover your expenses, and maybe even extend to getting a decent butler rather than a maid. Frocks, even the ones you like, can’t be that costly, surely.”

 

“Pappa, it’s not so much about the money. It’s about the success of my business. I want to do something with my life. I can’t be a successful interior designer if I provide my services at no fee. I’d be a sham!”

 

“Well what about that cousin of your Mother’s in Fitzroy Square? Cousin Gwendolyn wasn’t it?”

 

“Pappa, the Duchess of Whitby still hasn’t paid me a third of what she owes for the redesign of her small reception room. I’ve sent her two reminders which she has politely ignored. She is never at home when I visit, and she is evasive to say the least over the telephone.”

 

“Oh.” the Viscount looks down at his plate. “Well… well, I’ll talk to your Mother about talking to Gwendolyn about that.”

 

“It would be even better if you did Pappa.” Lettice raises her glass of claret. “She is more inclined to listen to you, as head of the Chetwynd household.”

 

“Oh, very well Lettice.” he sighs and clinks glasses with his daughter.

 

“Thank you Pappa!” She leans over and pecks her father on the cheek, sending a flush of colour across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “You are a brick!”

 

The two continue to eat their luncheon from Lettice’s gilt blue and white Royal Doulton dinner set in an avant garde Art Deco pattern. For a short while the companionable silence is only broken by the sound of cutlery against crockery.

 

“Your Mother is right. I never could say no to you, Lettice.”

 

“You have to have a favourite Pappa.” Lettice smiles happily. “Why shouldn’t it be me?”

 

“It should be Leslie, as my son and heir.”

 

“Oh, he’s Mamma’s favourite.” Lettice flaps the remark away with a flick of her left hand. “We all know that. We’ve always known that.”

 

“Well Lettice, as I said before. Just remember your position in society. Your Mother and I, we’re prepared to tolerate your wish to dabble in this business folly of yours before you settle down and get married, but please be a society interior designer and design for your own class. Be discerning with your choice of clients. Hmmm?” He smiles hopefully at his daughter.

 

“We’ll see Pappa.” Lettice replies, a smile dancing on her lips as she sips her glass of claret.

 

*Glynes is the home of the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire.

 

** The Bioscope is an early term for what became by the mid 1920s a motion-picture theatre or cinema. The Bioscope was a hand-driven projector with a low-watt bulb placed behind the reel. Originally a Bioscope show was a music hall and fairground attraction. Mary Pickford was the original Bioscope Girl, so named because of the Bioscope films she starred in during the Great War and early 1920s.

 

Lettice’s fashionable Mayfair flat dining room is perhaps a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures I have collected over time.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:

 

The roast chicken, tureens of vegetables and the gravy boat of gravy on the table all came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. They all look almost good enough to eat. The 1:12 artisan bottle of Pinot Noir is made from glass and the winery on the label is a real winery in France. The bottle was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The wine and water glasses, carafe of water and the vase are all 1:12 artisan miniatures too, made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England. The vase is especially fine. If you look closely you will see that it is decorated with lattices of fine threads of glass to give it a faceted Art Deco look. The orange roses in the vase were also hand made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The Art Deco dinner set is part of a much larger set I acquired from a dollhouse suppliers in Shanghai.

 

In the background on the console table stand some of Lettice’s precious artisan purchases from the Portland Gallery in Soho. The pair of candelabra at either end of the sideboard are sterling silver artisan miniatures from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. The silver drinks set, made by artisan Clare Bell at the Clare Bell Brass Works in Maine, in the United States. Each goblet is only one centimetre in height and the decanter at the far end is two- and three-quarter centimetres with the stopper inserted. Lettice’s Art Deco ‘Modern Woman’ figure is actually called ‘Christianne’ and was made and hand painted by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. ‘Christianne’ is based on several Art Deco statues and is typical of bronze and marble statues created at that time for the luxury market in the buoyant 1920s.

 

Lettice’s dining room is furnished with Town Hall Miniatures furniture, which is renown for their quality. The only exceptions to the room is the Chippendale chinoiserie carver chair and the Art Deco cocktail cabinet (the edge of which just visible on the far right-hand side of the photo) which were made by J.B.M. Miniatures.

 

The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug hand made by Mackay and Gerrish in Sydney, Australia. The paintings on the walls are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States. The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

Boy coming back home at sunset hour

 

A rather low-income village, where despite the demoralizing effect of life lived in the poverty line, with few prospects and marred by economic conflicts, people are kind and generous, with that kind simplicity of being strangers to the stress and pressure of those residing in the big cities seeking ways to improve their living conditions and opportunities, pursuing a "better quality of life".

  

As in any small community, everybody knows each other. And by know I mean individual backgrounds, histories, and family situations. Even if you are a stranger to them or spent enough time away to become one, they´ll bow down to you whenever you walk past them (and it´s considered rude to not greet back). That creates an environment in which kids can wander around on their own, absolutely free and all safe from harm to play, explore and discover their "world".

 

Its modest infrastructure turnes into something like a large amusement park where the theme is nature, devoid of the trappings and accessories imbuing our daily life in the city. Children benefit from the opportunity to create their own fun using whatever it is the surrounding environment provides them with. I think this entertainment experience tends to promote the potential talents and resources of each child.

 

Yet, whether they are fully aware of it or not, they have their own concerns: isolation, lack of development and economic possibilities, almost forgotten and not representing priority concern for people who make decisions that will affect their present and future.

 

After spending great moments of my childhood in this quiet place, I think of myself as a small town spirit but undeniably hooked on the benefits of urban life.

 

This kid is my grandmother´s neighbor. He´s coming back home, I assumed after a long day playing in those dirt quiet streets.

 

As soon as I saw him walking towards me this question came to my mind, the dichotomy that exists in me between my preference for the calmness and peace of mind such places can provide on the one hand, and the city offer of easier access to the comforts money can buy on the other.

 

So what "better quality of life" really is?

  

Vivoratá

Buenos Aires

Argentina

 

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/ Terminé de jugar [sólo por hoy] /

 

Niño volviendo a casa al atardecer

  

Este es un pueblo de bajos recursos, donde a pesar del efecto desmoralizador de la vida vivida en el umbral de la pobreza, con pocas perspectivas y empañada por conflictos económicos, la gente es cálida y generosa, con esa simplicidad de ser extraños a la tensión y la presión de los que residen en las grandes ciudades buscando mejorar sus condiciones y oportunidades, persiguiendo una "mejor calidad de vida".

 

Como en cualquier comunidad pequeña, todo el mundo se conoce. Y me refiero a conocerce individualmente, conocer las historias y situaciones familiares. Incluso si se es un extraño para ellos o se ha pasado el suficiente tiempo lejos para convertirse en uno, los locales inclinarán su cabeza en un saludo cada vez que se pase junto a ellos (y se considera de mala educación no devolver la cordialidad recibida). Eso crea un ambiente en el que los niños pueden vagar por su cuenta, absolutamente libres y a salvo de cualquier daño, jugar, explorar y descubrir su "mundo".

 

La modesta infraestructura convierte a éste lugar en algo así como un gran parque de atracciones donde el tema es la naturaleza, desprovista de los adornos y accesorios que impregnan nuestra vida cotidiana en la ciudad. Los niños se benefician de la oportunidad de crear su propia diversión usando lo que sea que éste entorno les proporcione. Creo que esta experiencia de entretenimiento tiende a promover el talento y los recursos de cada niño.

 

Esto, sin embargo, implica otros costos, sean plenamente conscientes de ello o no: el aislamiento, la falta de posibilidades de desarrollo personal y económico, casi olvidados y no representando interés prioritario para las personas que toman las decisiones que afectan a su presente y futuro.

 

Después de pasar grandeiosos momentos de mi infancia aquí, me considero como con un espíritu pueblerino, pero sin lugar a dudas atrapada por los beneficios de la vida urbana.

 

Este chico es mi vecino de mi abuela. Regresaba a casa después de un largo día jugando en esas tranquilas calles de tierra.

 

Tan pronto como lo vi caminando hacia mí esta pregunta vino a la mente, la dicotomía que existe en mí entre mi preferencia por la calma y la tranquilidad que este entorno puede proporcionar por un lado, y la oferta citadina que facilita el acceso a las comodidades que dinero puede comprar, por el otro.

 

Así qué es "mejor calidad de vida" en realidad?

  

State Road 2

Main Street, Vivorata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

  

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

 

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

 

Edith is sitting at her usual perch on a tall ladderback chair drawn up to the round table, worn and scarred by years of heavy use, that dominates the cluttered, old fashioned kitchen, as Ada prepares a Christmas cake whilst her daughter regales her with tales from Cavendish Mews, her unusually liberated upper-class employer and her eccentric coterie of friends.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Yes Mum.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“But you promised, Mum!” Edith whines.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Porky pies is Cockney rhyming slang for lies.

 

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

 

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

 

**** The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

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

 

The bowl of Christmas cake batter, complete with red cherries, was made by hand of polymer clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

The tin of My Lady red cherries came from Shepherds Miniatures in the United Kingdom, as does the tin of Bird’s Golden Raising Powder (an old name for baking powder). Bird’s were best known for making custard and Bird’s Custard is still a common household name, although they produced other desserts beyond custard, including the blancmange. Bird’s Custard was first formulated and first cooked by Alfred Bird in 1837 at his chemist shop in Birmingham. He developed the recipe because his wife was allergic to eggs, the key ingredient used to thicken traditional custard. The Birds continued to serve real custard to dinner guests, until one evening when the egg-free custard was served instead, either by accident or design. The dessert was so well received by the other diners that Alfred Bird put the recipe into wider production. John Monkhouse (1862–1938) was a prosperous Methodist businessman who co-founded Monk and Glass, which made custard powder and jelly. Monk and Glass custard was made in Clerkenwell and sold in the home market, and exported to the Empire and to America. They acquired by its rival Bird’s Custard in the early Twentieth Century.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table and the Windsor chair, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom and the worn Art Deco tea canister and bread box that match the canisters on the table. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a box of Typhoo Tea, a box of Bisto Gravy, a jar of Marmite, a jar of Bovril and some Oxo stock cubes. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.

 

In 1863, William Sumner published ‘A Popular Treatise on Tea’ as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He named in Typhoo Tea. The name Typhoo comes from the Chinese word for "doctor". Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral peninsula of Cheshire. Typhoo Tea is still a household name in Britain to this day.

 

The first Bisto product, in 1908, was a meat-flavoured gravy powder, which rapidly became a bestseller in Britain. It was added to gravies to give a richer taste and aroma. Invented by Messrs Roberts and Patterson, it was named "Bisto" because it "Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One". Bisto Gravy is still a household name in Britain and Ireland today, and the brand is currently owned by Premier Foods.

 

Bovril is the trademarked name of a thick and salty meat extract paste similar to a yeast extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston. It is sold in a distinctive bulbous jar, and as cubes and granules. Bovril is owned and distributed by Unilever UK. Its appearance is similar to Marmite and Vegemite. Bovril can be made into a drink ("beef tea") by diluting with hot water or, less commonly, with milk. It can be used as a flavouring for soups, broth, stews or porridge, or as a spread, especially on toast in a similar fashion to Marmite and Vegemite

 

Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.

 

Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.

 

The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).

Deep and generous Arturo. For the Julia Kay Portrait Party.

watercolor 7.5" by 11"

source: www.flickr.com/photos/espinosa_rosique/5343711162/in/fave...

2017 one photo each day

2017 weekly alphabet challenge - generous. These lovely flowers are always generous with the way they keep flowering.

Flickr Lounge weekly theme photographer's choice.

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 headed north across London, away from Cavendish Mews and Mayfair, past Primrose Hill, Chalk Farm and Belsize Park to the leafy green surrounds of Hampstead Heath*, for today it is Easter Monday, and every Easter Monday or Bank Holiday a fair** is held on the Heath. The beautiful green space in northern London has been transformed from its usual lush and quiet self and it is now alive with a throng of London’s citizenry: rich and poor, young and old, lower-class and middle-class all intermingling and enjoying themselves on fairground rides, laughing at free entertainments, having their fortunes told and eating delicious holiday treats.

 

Seated on a park bench in a relatively quiet part of the Heath, Edith sits in the dappled sunlight of Autumn beneath a Cypress pine. The weather has been remarkably warm for this time of year, and much to her delight, today is no exception. She sighs contentedly as she removes her purple rose and black feather hand decorated straw hat from her head and allows the sun to fall upon her glossy chestnut tresses, which she has washed and tried to style in a modish way with her long hair held in a loose chignon at the back of her neck, curling softly around her ears, giving the impression of a pageboy bob. Patting the loose bun at the back of her neck where she can feel a small amount of perspiration gathering, she ponders again whether she should have her girlish length cut off in favour of the cropped style that seems to have gripped so many young women around London. Then she pictures her mother’s disappointed and disapproving face and quickly puts the idea at the back of her mind. She listens to the distant screams and cries of joyful people riding the mechanical swinging gondolas, the Ferris wheel and the merry-go-round, and to the closer sounds of leaves crushed under foot and giggled intimacies as young couples find a private place in the bushes to kiss and embrace, away from the prying eyes of the throng.

 

“Here we are then, Edith,” comes the familiar voice of Willison’s the Grocer’s delivery boy and Edith’s new beau, Frank Leadbetter, resounding happily over the hubbub of human chatter, laughter and the distant trill of fairground music. “One serving of the best quality chips that Hampstead Heath has to offer!”

 

Opening her eyes, Edith looks up at her young man’s happy face smiling down at her, as he hands her a crumpled bundle of newspaper, already showing little greasy spots where the oil from the chips held within the parcel is seeping through.

 

“Oh, thanks Frank!” Edith replies gratefully, reaching up and taking her parcel eagerly from his outstretched hand.

 

Moving over on the bench to make room for him, Edith heart leaps a little in her chest as Frank slips in next to her, his thigh pressed in his Sunday best suit trousers pressed up against hers clad in her plum coloured frock. The newspaper crumples noisily as they both pull at the pages of yesterday’s London tabloids to reveal nests of golden yellow hot chips, sending forth aromatic steam that quickly permeates the air around them.

 

“We better eat these quick,” Frank says with a chuckle, a cheeky smile and a wink as he adjusts his straw boater with its natty striped grosgrain ribbon on his head. “Or else we’ll find ourselves with a hundred new friends we didn’t know we had.”

 

“You don’t have to tell me twice, Frank,” Edith replies happily. “I’m famished after all the rides we’ve been on.”

 

“Which was your favourite, Edith?” Frank asks, preparing to make a mental note of it as he bites into a crisp hot chip, gasping as the fluffy hot potato inside burns his tongue.

 

Edith doesn’t reply at first, chewing her first hot chip blissfully as she contemplates her answer. “The merry-go-round, I think.” she answers at length.

 

“What? Not the swinging gondola?”

 

“Oh no, Frank!” Edith puts her hand to her chest and quickly swallows her mouthful of hot chip. “They ride up so high! I think if I’d ever been on a boat in my life, I should be sick from it. I don’t know how my brother does it.”

 

“Big boats don’t ride up and down on the waves like that you know, Edith.”

 

“How’d you know that, Frank Leadbetter? Have you ever been on one before?”

 

“Well, no,” Frank admits awkwardly. “But I have been on a rowboat on the Crystal Palace boating lake.***” he adds hurriedly in an effort to defend himself. “And that didn’t ride the waves like the mechanical gondola did.”

 

“A rowboat’s not a big boat, Frank!” Edith scoffs with a gentle smile. “Not like the ones I’m talking about that my brother sails to Australia on. He says that for the most part they are pretty smooth, but that if they get caught in stormy weather the boat rolls about like toy boats do on a pond. They have the tables and chairs nailed down to the floor so they don’t fly about everywhere in bad weather.”

 

“Well, I guess he’d know better than me then.” Frank concedes. “What does your brother do on his big boat, Edith?”

 

“He’s a dining saloon steward.” Edith replies proudly before greedily eating another long golden hot chip. “He got promoted to first class dining steward two voyages ago. So, what with him being promoted and my Dad becoming a line manager at McVities, the Watsfords seem to be going up in the world.”

 

“You’ll be too fancy for the likes of me soon, Edith,” Frank laughs good naturedly.

 

“Oh get away with you, Frank Leadbetter!” Edith giggles, sticking him playfully in the ribs with her elbow.

 

The pair eat some more of their hot chips in the beautiful spring sunshine before Frank asks, “Would you ever want to go on one of those big boats, Edith?”

 

“Why would I, Frank?” She looks at him thoughtfully.

 

“Well, you know, go places.” he elucidates as he chews contemplatively on a few chips.

 

“Where would I go?”

 

“I don’t know, Paris maybe.”

 

“Why on earth would I go to Paris, Frank?” Edith asks, giving him a doubtful glance before eating another chip.

 

“Well, don’t all you girls want to go to Paris?”

 

Edith looks at Frank earnestly. “I don’t know about all girls, Frank, but this girl is perfectly happy keeping her feet firmly in England!” She nods emphatically. “No Paris for me, thank you very much.” She rubs her greasy fingers on the edge of her newspaper parcel. “There isn’t anything I can’t find or buy here that I should need to go to Paris to get.”

 

“Well, I’m glad to hear that Edith, because I don’t want to be anywhere but where you are.”

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith blushes, raising her hand to her flushed cheek. “I think that’s the nicest thing a chap’s ever said to me before.”

 

“Oh,” Frank utters disappointedly. “Had a few chaps vie for your affections before, have you?” Then he smiles broadly to show that he is only teasing her.

 

Sticking her chin upwards in an aloof way that is as equally teasing as Frank’s cheeky smile, the young girl replies, “A lady is entitled to her secrets. Don’t go fishing for what you shouldn’t be asking for, Frank Leadbetter!”

 

The pair fall into silence again as they continue to eat their hot chip feast. Through the trees they hear the distant smattering of far away applause as a free entertainment of some kind comes to an end. A bell rings out indicating that someone has hit the strongman’s bell and won a prize. A child screams unhappily, no doubt as a result of either a smack for being naughty or for being pulled away begrudgingly from the entertainments by their parents. Behind them, the leaves on the Cypress pine shiver and rustle in the sunlight and a muffled pair of giggles break out, indicating the presence of young lovers in the undergrowth. Frank glances awkwardly at Edith and finds her glancing at him equally uncomfortably, yet when they see one another’s looks and lock eyes, they start laughing.

 

“Where would you want to go, Frank?” Edith asks at length.

 

“You mean, aside from the bushes with you, Edith?” he laughs in reply.

 

“Oh, you are awful, Frank!” Edith snatches up her green leather handbag and hits his arm playfully with it, before returning it to where it hangs from the bench’s arm beneath the brim of her straw hat. “I’m being serious.”

 

“So was I.” Frank retorts, blushing.

 

Edith smirks. “You’ll just have to wait for that, won’t you Frank? You know I’m not that kind of girl. When you’ve got a ring on my finger, then we can…” She doesn’t complete her sentence, but nods knowingly to the slightly trembling bushes about them.

 

“Steady on Edith! We’ve only just started walking out together.”

 

“Well, don’t suggest anything else then Frank, if you aren’t prepared to wait.” Edith smiles. “No, I meant where would you like to travel? Do you want to go to Paris?”

 

“Not me, Edith. Paris isn’t my sort of place, I don’t think.”

 

“Well how do you know that, if you’ve never been there?”

 

“Well, I know it’s full of foreigners, and I don’t hold with foreigners****. No, a nice holiday to the Lake District will suit me just fine. I told you, the only place I want to be is with you.”

 

“Well that suits me just fine, Frank.” Edith replies as she picks up her black straw hat and puts it back on her head. Looking down in her lap she glances at the newspaper spread out across it, now devoid of any chips, with only crumbs of batter and traces of oil smearing the print. She looks at Frank’s lap and sees that he has also finished his chip feast. “Because now that we’ve eaten our chips, I’d like to go for a stroll to walk them off. Shall we?”

 

Frank leans over and takes the newspaper from her lap and screws it up with his own. Standing up and doffing his straw boater with one hand, he bows and offers his hand to Edith with a winning smile. “Shall we then, Miss Watsford?”

 

Taking his hand and rising up, she replies, “With pleasure Mr. Leadbetter.”

 

“Hhhmmm…” Frank ruminates aloud. “Edith Leadbetter. That has quite a nice ring to it.”

 

Edith smiles at the thought as she snuggles into Frank’s side.

 

And leaving the newspaper balled on the seat of the wooden bench, the pair walk away arm in arm as happily as two young lovers walking out together could be, meandering back towards the fun of the Easter Monday fair on Hampstead Heath.

 

*Hampstead Heath (locally known simply as the Heath) is a large, ancient London heath, covering 320 hectares (790 acres). This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London Clay. The heath is rambling and hilly, embracing ponds, recent and ancient woodlands, a lido, playgrounds, and a training track, and it adjoins the former stately home of Kenwood House and its estate. The south-east part of the heath is Parliament Hill, from which the view over London is protected by law.

 

**Fairs have been held on Hampstead Heath since the mid 1800s, covering vast areas of East Heath to Spaniard’s Road. Before that, there had been fairs at Flask Walk in Hampstead since the 17th century, and another flourished in West End until it was shut down for rowdiness in 1820. The popularity of the fairs on the Heath exploded after 1871 when, just after the Hampstead Heath Act, the Bank Holidays Act created four public days’ rest. The Heath’s Bank Holiday fairs regularly attracted upward of 30,000 people at the August holiday, and 50,000 on Whit Mondays. Attendance records were broken when an estimated 200,000 people descended on the Heath one Easter Monday!

 

***Crystal Palace is an area in south London, named after the Crystal Palace Exhibition building, which stood in the area from 1854 until it was destroyed by fire in 1936. Approximately seven miles south-east of Charing Cross, it includes one of the highest points in London, at 367 feet, offering views over the capital. In the 1922 when this story is set, the Crystal Palace complex was used for exhibitions and entertainments and was still surrounded by a public park. Alongside the great wrought iron and glass structure was a large boating lake.

 

****The idea of being suspicious about foreigners was not an uncommon thing by people of all classes in England before the Second World War. Being the centre of the British Empire that ruled a quarter of the globe, the common ethos amongst the British people was that no-one was better than the English and foreigners with their different foods, ways of dress, customs and ideas were to be taught the British way and were viewed with suspicion and in some cases, hostility.

 

Although it may look life-sized to you, this idyllic scene is in fact comprised of pieces from my miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Edith’s black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers was made by an unknown artisan. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. This hat is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. The green handbag, handmade from soft leather I also from her collection.

 

Made of polymer clay glazed to look oily and stuck to miniature newspaper print, the two servings of golden hot chips on the bench were made in England by hand by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.

 

The setting for this scene is my front garden, and the tree behind the bench is a slow growing miniature conifer. I am not sure what variety it is, but it is a Cypress pine.

The single most generous financial donor to the St. Louis Gender Foundation (StLGF) recently asked that I have dinner with her to discuss the future of the organization. The pandemic related decline in member participation as well as likely leadership changes were of concern to her.

 

Of course, the most pressing initial question on my mind was, “What to wear?” ! !

 

The weather forecast predicted seasonably high temperatures near 70 F degrees, for this mid-March day. So, for the dinner meeting I chose this sleeveless black & white checkered pattern dress that I last wore for a monthly membership meeting back in May of 2019.

 

This particular view was recorded just after getting dressed and when checking my appearance in the guest bedroom’s floor standing mirror.

  

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

 

Today is the 11th of November: Armistice Day*, and like so many of the citizenry of London, both Lettice and her maid, Edith, have addended the remembrance service at the Cenotaph** on Whitehall in Westminster. Only three years since the cessation of hostilities, the service caused an outpouring of grief amongst those who lost someone in the Great War. As the pair enter through the front door of Lettice’s flat together, Edith goes to walk through the service door back to the kitchen.

 

“Do you mind awfully, Edith,” Lettice asks quietly. “If we don’t stand on ceremony just at the moment?”

 

“Miss?” Edith queries, looking oddly at her mistress who looks a father forlorn figure standing in the vestibule in spite of her stylish black sheath coat with fur trim and elegant purple felt hat adorned with flowers.

 

Lettice looks up at Edith, her eyes red from having shed tears for the lost. “I know it isn’t conventional, but would you care to join me in the drawing room for a glass of sherry?” She smiles hopefully. “I could do with the company.”

 

“Of course, Miss,” Edith replies awkwardly, obviously uncomfortable at the idea of being treated as an equal by her mistress. “If that’s what you wish.”

 

Lettice leads the way into the drawing room. “Please sit.” She indicates, like the gracious society hostess she has been raised to be, to one of her white upholstered Art Deco tub chairs with a vague wave before walking into the adjoining dining room where she opens the black japanned cocktail cabinet and withdraws a faceted decanter of sherry and two small sherry glasses. Returning to the drawing room she places them on the low table between the two chairs and pours a little golden amber liquid first into Edith’s glass and then her own.

 

Edith perches nervously upon the edge of her seat, self-conscious about her second hand Petticoat Lane*** three quarter length coat and self-decorated black straw hat, which look smart when she is in her parent’s kitchen in Harlesden, but feel shabby to her amidst the refined elegance of Lettice’s Mayfair drawing room. As Lettice shrugs off her own coat and throws it carelessly onto the Chippendale chair by the china cabinet, Edith smooths her coat across her knees nervously.

 

“Please do feel free to take your hat off, Edith.” Lettice remarks as she unpins her own from her head and places it on the black japanned table next to the sherry decanter.

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith replies deferentially, withdrawing the long hat pin from her own hat, allowing her to remove it and place it upon the stool next to her.

 

Lettice takes up her glass and quietly sips her beverage before remarking, “It was so sad, wasn’t it Edith?”

 

“Well, it wasn’t that long ago that we were still at war with the Kaiser, Miss.” Edith gently picks up her glass and takes a very small sip.

 

“Yes, only three years.” Lettice muses. “Although in some ways I feel like the pre-war world was a lifetime ago. Don’t you Edith?”

 

“Me Miss?” Edith nearly chokes on her mouthful of sherry, surprised to be asked her opinion by her employer. She ponders the question for a moment before replying, “Not really Miss. Days like today make me feel like I’m still living in the shadow of the war.”

 

“But the world is moving on, and things are different. The world seems to move at a faster pace.”

 

“It certainly does, Miss.”

 

“And is perhaps more unsettled than its pre-war self was.” Lettice muses, licking her lips.

 

“The war shook down the order of things, Miss.”

 

“Yes,” Lettice agrees. “As women, we have more emancipation now than we did before the war. Even you, Edith, with your more conservative views of our place in the world, cannot complain about your new-found freedoms.”

 

Edith feels a blush fill her cheeks. “Well, I must confess, that’s true to a degree. My friend Hilda and I can go to the Palais de Danse**** without a chaperone now.”

 

“We proved that we’re not the weaker sex, taking men’s jobs and doing difficult work like nursing during the war.”

 

“Did you nurse during the war, Miss?”

 

“Yes. Part of Glynes***** was converted to a convalescent home for soldiers injured on the front, whilst we lived in the remainder.”

 

“Oh, you must have seen some terrible things, Miss.” Edith gasps.

 

“I suppose so.” Lettice says dismissively. Her face clouds for a moment as she contemplates the maimed men wheeled around the hallways and gardens of her childhood home over those few terrible years of the war, missing arms, legs, even part of their faces. Then she remembers the men who looked perfectly healthy and normal, but who screamed like banshees in the night or cowered beneath their beds like babies at the slamming of a door. Shellshock was what the Glynes village doctor and the matron from London had called it. She blinks the memories away quickly before she starts to cry. She takes another sip of her sherry and then smiles across at Edith. “I try not to think about it now.”

 

“These were a good idea.” Edith tugs at the bright red cotton poppy****** pinned to her lapel, a blue ribbon trailing from it upon which is written ‘British Legion Remembrance Day’. “I feel like I’m doing my bit for the veterans, widows and orphans of the war, even if it only cost a few pence.”

 

“Yes,” Lettice smiles at her maid. “Wasn’t that so poignant and moving?”

 

“The men and women queuing up to leave floral tributes at the Cenotaph, do you mean, Miss?”

 

“Yes.” Lettice replies wistfully. “The women especially. So many women.” Her voice trails off.

 

“So many people lost someone.” Edith says, falling silent for a moment as she sips some more of her sherry. “Did you lose anyone, Miss?”

 

“Me?” Lettice asks. “No. My eldest brother, Leslie, held a desk job here in Whitehall during the war, and my other brother, Lionel, was involved in strategic movements in France, or some such, which kept him well away from the front.” She puts her glass down on the coffee table. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my father didn’t have something to do with that.”

 

“But you lost friends?”

 

“Oh yes Edith, so many friends. My mother is hosting her first Hunt Ball since before the war after Christmas, and I suspect she is finding it much more difficult to fill the room with eligible young men for me than she did when my elder sister had come out into society.” She studies her maid for a moment. “Did you?”

 

“Lose friends, Miss? Yes, ever so many.” She nods sagely.

 

“No. I mean, did you lose someone special?”

 

“Well my brother Bert served in the navy, but he came home alright,” Edith pauses and takes a larger sip of sherry in an effort to quell the emotions building within her chest. “But now you mention it Miss, yes, there was someone special I lost.”

 

“A beau?” Lettice asks. She quietly feels ashamed that she knows so little about her maid’s personal life. She knows she has parents who live in Harlesden, but this is the first that she has heard of a brother, and she never considered that Edith might have had a sweetheart at some stage in her life.

 

Edith drains her glass before placing it down with a slightly shaky hand on the table. “His name was Bert too.”

 

“Oh! I’m so sorry Edith!” Lettice gasps, her eyes widening. “I… I had no idea.”

 

“Oh, you weren’t to know, Miss.” Edith assures her employer as she blinks to keep her tears at bay. “My mum says I shouldn’t talk about him as there’s no point crying over the past. What’s done is done.” She sniffs. “Perhaps she’s right.”

 

“Do you have a photo of him?” Lettice asks, intrigued by her discovery about Edith’s past.

 

“Yes, I carried it with me today. I carry him wherever I go.” Edith reaches down and picks up her small green handbag off the floor and opens it. She fumbles through its contents, finally settling on what she is looking for. “This is Bert.”

 

Edith hands a slightly dog-eared sepia studio portrait of a rather handsome looking young man in a suit to Lettice. Carefully taking the photograph between her elegant fingers, Lettice stares down at the image before her. Although he is sitting stiffly and was possibly ill at ease dressed in his Sunday best when the photograph was taken, it cannot hide the kindness in his eyes, or the cheeky smirk that plays at the corners of his mouth. She suspects he might have been what Bramley, her father’s butler, would call “rather a lad”. His youthful face implies that he was no more than twenty when his likeness was taken. She chews the inside of her cheek as she tries to imagine what he must have sounded like.

 

“Bert was a postman. That’s how I met him.” Edith smiles sadly as she looks over at the photograph of Bert in Lettice’s hands. “He used to deliver mail in our street. We never had much post, but he’d find an excuse to stop if he saw me. This was before I had my first live-in post as a maid, so I was still at home.” She chuckles. “He even confessed to me that he used to come down our street even if he had no letters to deliver, just in the hope that he’d catch a glimpse of me and stop for a chat.”

 

“How old were you?” Lettice fills Edith’s glass again and then tops up her own.

 

Edith takes up her glass. “I was fourteen and he was eighteen. Mum said we were both too young to be tethering ourselves to one another, what with all our lives ahead of us, especially as Mum had started making enquiries about live-in posts for me after I’d cut my teeth skivvying for mean old Widow Hounslow for a year. His mum wasn’t too keen on him courting me either. She had expectations of Bert. She always felt that being employed in a steady job with the post office, he could make a successful career for himself, and could do better than a local girl with a dad who baked biscuits and a mum who laundered clothes. But we didn’t care. Bert fancied me, and I fancied him, and that was all that mattered to us.” She blinks back more tears, but cannot stop a few from spilling from her eyes and running down her cheeks. She opens her handbag again and withdraws a small white handkerchief, neatly embroidered with her initials in violet thread, and dabs her cheeks. “Then the war came, and Bert took the King’s shilling*******, like so many young men his age,” Edith sighs and sniffs again. “So that was that.”

 

Lettice pauses a moment, glass to her lips, before she asks, “How…er… how did…?”

 

“He died at the Battle of Passchendaele, Miss. He only had another year of the war to go, silly blighter. I always told him to keep his head down, but I suppose he was only following his captain’s orders. They all were.”

 

The pair of women fall silent, the air thick between them with unspoken words and unanswered questions.

 

“I read his name on the list of casualties posted up outside the post office,” Edith continues. “There’s irony for you.” She pauses and then looks directly into Lettice’s face. “His mother didn’t even have the courtesy to come and tell me herself. She disliked me so much, she let me read it on the high street where I broke down in tears and made a scene of myself in public, to my shame.”

 

“No, not to your shame, Edith!” Lettice assuages. “It’s only natural that you should cry over the loss of your sweetheart.”

 

“I just wish she’d told me. I would have cried in private at home. I could have maintained my dignity.” Edith blushes red with shame. “All those women and girls around me, looking piteously at me, whispering “she’s one… she’s lost someone” before turning away.”

 

“Didn’t any of them help you?”

 

“Mrs. Carraway, our neighbour two doors down, had just been at the fishmongers, having heard a roumour that there was some plaice to be had, and she saw me all distraught. She took me home to Mum.”

 

“Oh that’s awful, Edith.” Lettice reaches out her hand to her maid’s, but Edith withdraws it out of reach, uncomfortable with the familiarity and the sense of pity. Lettice pretends to have been reaching for her hat to cover her clumsy faux pas and toys distractedly with a lavender silk flower on its brim, tugging at the petals. “What a terrible thing to go through.”

 

Lettice pushes the photograph back across the table to Edith, who reaches down and picks it up. Without looking at it, she slips it back into her purse.

 

“Don’t you have a frame for that?” Lettice asks kindly. “It’s a shame to see the edges getting tattered.

 

“I wanted one, but like I said, Mum said there is no point carrying on about the past, so even though I wanted to, I never did.” She pats her handbag. “Still, it’s safe enough in here.”

 

Lettice nods and takes up her glass again.

 

“Now if you don’t mind, Miss,” Edith remarks, clearing her throat and sniffing once more. “I should really get on with my work.” She stands and picks up her hat, mustering her dignity. “I have lunch to prepare, and it won’t make itself.”

 

“Yes,” Lettice replies, looking up. “Yes of course. Well, thank you for sitting with me, Edith. And thank you for…”

 

Her sentence is cut short by Edith as she replies. “Oh, that’s quite alright, Miss. I hope you are feeling better.”

 

“I feel a little better now, Edith. I think I might just sit here and read for a little, recollect my thoughts, before luncheon.”

 

“Then I best be getting back to the kitchen, Miss.”

 

Lettice watches as Edith walks quickly around the tub chairs, following her with her eyes as she makes her way through the dining room and through the green baize door into the servery and the kitchen. She sighs as she sinks back into her chair, quite stunned by the revelations of her maid. The silence of the room is only broken by the gentle ticking of the clock on the mantle and the distant thrum of London traffic along Regent Street. And then she hears it: the quiet sobs of her poor maid, maintaining her dignity by crying for her lost love in private.

 

Lettice picks up her glass again and takes another sip. How lucky she considers herself to be to not have been engaged either before, or during the war, for it saved her so much heartache.

 

*Armistice Day or Remembrance Day is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces members who have died in the line of duty. It falls on the 11th of November every year. Remembrance Day is marked at eleven o’clock (the time that the armistice was declared) with a minute’s silence to honour the fallen. Following a tradition inaugurated by King George V in 1919, the day is also marked by war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries.

 

**The Cenotaph is a war memorial on Whitehall in London. Its origin is in a temporary structure erected for a peace parade following the end of the First World War, and after an outpouring of national sentiment it was replaced in 1920 by a permanent structure designed by famous British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1969 – 1944) and designated the United Kingdom's official national war memorial.

 

***Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.

 

****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.

 

*****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 remembrance poppy is an artificial flower worn in some countries to commemorate their military personnel who died in war. Veterans' associations exchange poppies for charitable donations used to give financial, social and emotional support to members and veterans of the armed forces. Inspired by the war poem "In Flanders Fields", and promoted by Moina Michael, they were first used near the end of Great War to commemorate British Empire and United States military casualties of the war. French national Madame Guérin (1878 – 1961), known fondly as “The Poppy Lady from France”, established the first "Poppy Days" in 1921 to raise funds for veterans, widows, orphans, liberty bonds, and charities such as the Red Cross. Today, the remembrance poppy is mainly used in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, where it has been trademarked by veterans' associations for fundraising. In these countries, small remembrance poppies are often worn on clothing leading up to Remembrance Day/Armistice Day, and poppy wreaths are often laid at war memorials. In Australia and New Zealand, they are also worn on Anzac Day.

 

*******To take the King’s shilling means to enlist in the army. The saying derives from a shilling whose acceptance by a recruit from a recruiting officer constituted until 1879 a binding enlistment in the British army —used when the British monarch is a king.

 

This upper-class domestic scene is different to what you may think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Lettice’s purple toque covered in silk flowers and lace, which sits on the coffee table is made by Miss Amelia’s Miniatures in the Canary Islands. It is an artisan miniature made just like a real hat, right down to a tag in the inside of the crown to show where the back of the hat is! 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. Miss Amelia is an exception to the rule coming from Spain, but like her American counterparts, her millinery creations are superb. Like a real fashion house, all her hats have names. This hat is called “Shona”. Edith’s black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers was made by an unknown artisan. I acquired it as part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector, Marilyn Bickel.

 

The photograph of Bert on the table was produced by Little Things of Interest Miniatures in America. It is a 1:12 miniature replica of a real photograph, printed on photographic quality paper and remarkably detailed for something so small.

 

The vase of red roses on the Art Deco occasional table are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium. The vase on the mantlepiece was made by Limoges porcelain in 1950s. It is stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. I found it along with two others in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. The vase is filled with hand made pink roses produced by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. Beautifully Handmade Miniatures also produced the hand made green glass comport on the coffee table, which is made from genuinely hand blown glass.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

On the left hand side of the mantle is an Art Deco metal clock hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken.

 

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

 

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

Disclaimer: The contents of this chapter include very sensitive subject matter involving of death of family and the PTSD that comes with it and may be triggering to some individuals.

 

...

 

Vincent lifted his gaze from the picture and leaned his head back against the pillow propped up behind him and closed his eyes. Right now, he was very grateful to his cousin and her bhang concoctions. If not for that, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to get through this today. Honestly he was still uncertain if he still actually could do this.

But as Vincent settled in, a slight smile drew upon his lips as he began to speak as he let him go back four years ago. And as he did, Aiden relaxed more beside him and listened to his story.

"I suppose this story began with my promotion to Captaincy. My uncle is very much a generous man as much as he is proud. He threw a ball to celebrate me. After all, I was the son he never had and it was expected of us. I was to greet and receive endless congratulations by many Captains and their wives, several Lords and Ladies and the worst ones of all." There was a dramatic pause. "Marriage-minded mothers and their daughters."

Vincent actually shuddered which made Aiden laugh softly. But at the same time, it put Vincent in a somewhat new perspective for him: Vincent was not just any ship's captain. He came from a wealthy family; perhaps even possibly related to a Lord or Lady! He supposed he should have realized that last week when Vincent mentioned being required to attend a huge event such as the coming masquerade ball.

"So a couple of hours into my endless parade of greetings and congratulations I happened upon a conversation of a small group discussing horror novels."

"Sounds like something you could get into."

"Indeed. Shh."

"Sorry."

"As I approached, the main speaker turned out to be a woman elaborating about a book she'd read. It turned out to be by the same author who wrote the book you gave me. Her audience had been quite shocked as she spun the summarized tale of how a scorned witch took bloody revenge on all those who'd wronged her. And trust me, it was absolutely tame compared to the novel itself. No one seemed to know what to say. And so when I announced that I knew the novel she was speaking of and that I'd enjoyed it, myself, she'd turned in excitement with such a brilliant smile. She promptly took my arm and, I quote, 'Now HERE'S someone worth talking to! Hello, good Sir, my name is Miss Emily Fenton. It's a pleasure to meet you. Shall we grab some lemonade together?' And as I escorted her away she mentioned the party had been dull until I arrived and that I was right on time."

Both men chuckled softly and Aiden thought to himself that Vincent's wife must have been a very interesting woman. He was very amused that Vincent imitated an enthusiastic young woman's voice quite well.

"She really turned my world upside down. I remember thinking to myself, how did I not notice her before? As it turned out, she was a visiting cousin of an acquaintance of the family. I remember the details of her eyes, those little flecks of green that encircled her iris. How she smelled of lilies which happened to be her favorite flower. She had this sly smile which was so full of mischief and had the most twisted sense of humor which I adored. But you'd never know the depth of her by looking at her. Oh, she would smile and act as a lady should be in public. Well....mostly. She was sharp, witty, and very well-read. She was a scholar and loved to delve into book after book. But her mind and the things that would come out of her mouth! And she'd do it with a straight face too! And you'd never see it coming!"

And Vincent was laughing! Aiden grinned and he listened, painting this picture in his head of the eventual Mrs. Emily Dubois. She seemed quite the character! She sounded like someone Vincent could easily get along with and clearly did.

Vincent's laughter quickly settled and he licked his lips before reaching for the cup of bhang tea beside him and drained the rest of it. He knew by the end of this, he was going to need it in his system. It had been a couple of years since he'd really talked about any of this. The last time had been to Damien and it hadn't given him as much closure as he'd have liked. Of course, Damien had been there to witness the majority of it all and hadn't needed explanations. He'd simply been there as a shoulder for Vincent to lean on. Sure, talking to Damien HAD helped and eventually he was able to get through each day again but...something about this time was different. He was able to let it flow differently this time as he got to tell the actual whole story to someone for the first time. It felt good to finally talk about it.

"You have to know something about me. Well, about who I was. I was married to my career. I loved everything about my life in the sky and had everything I wanted. I had no need for marriage at the time. I was young; only twenty-three. I wasn't expected to look for a wife for several years and even so I didn't have to. I was a captain! I could live my life completely in the air if I wanted to! And it was what I did want. My thirst for knowledge paired beautifully with my love of travel and I could chart any course and go anywhere and learn anything I wanted when I wanted. I knew what my life would be. That was until I met Emily.

"I hadn't realized how much sharing the joys of sharing one's life with another person could be until I found myself in her presence nearly every day. She was a fascinating woman and very knowledgeable and well read. She was always happy to hear about places and things I've seen. In turn, I was happy to listen to her talk about her novels and things she'd learned in her studies and we shared deep, intellectual conversations. We became fast friends, but I knew it was more than that. I found myself waking every day with her in my thoughts. She had quickly become someone I had to keep in my life and she seemed to fit perfectly somehow. I felt alive in a new, different way.

"Of course it was perfectly possible for me to have a wife and live my life too. After all, I had grown up watching the love between my uncle and aunt and they had married young as well. My uncle was gone most of the time; home during Summers and occasionally throughout the year for important holidays and still does it to this day. And every time they are together, you can see the love and happiness they share together. It's as clear as day. And they are more in love than the day they married. And even then, I knew it. So I knew I could make it work with Emily if she were willing. Of course, fate would have it that I found out that Emily was due to return home and would be leaving the capitol the following week. It would be a long time before we would see each other in person. After all, she didn't live in a major port and I was due to start my first trip as captain soon. I was expecting to subject myself to written correspondence with her. But when I saw that forlorn look in her eyes and how she admitted that she'd miss seeing my face? Well, what else could I do but ask her to marry me?"

Vincent blinked and tears slid down his cheeks in memory of Emily as he saw her in her bridal gown and how she'd glowed that day. "We were happy. I knew my life would be perfect. Emily understood me and the expectations of my life. No, we wouldn't be together every day but we'd see each other more often than if she was going back to her hometown. She was happy and eager to get our lives started together. She'd made friends with my cousins and had her own cousin in town as well. She'd have a happy life here and once we had children, her days would be more joyful. She was looking forward to becoming a mother one day."

How wonderful Vincent made it seem! Of course, Aiden knew how this story would end. But it was important, he realized, for Vincent to talk about this...about her and their life. Something told him he'd not told this story before. Not like this. Aiden felt his heart go out to Vincent and he continued to listen to Vincent's story.

"As you can imagine, it was a very short engagement and a small wedding. I'd gotten us a place big enough for us and a little one for when we were ready. With all the excitement of a ball held in my honor, wooing my lady, and becoming a husband, I'd taken time off from work for quite some time. But it was time for me to get back into the swing of life and provide for my wife and our home together. So the day finally came where Damien and I were to set off for our first cargo trip on Leon's Claw. And that's when she gave me this."

Vincent leaned over and reached for the compass and brought it to his lap and opened it up. He held it along with the picture frame and just stared for a long moment. Aiden gazed at the compass over Vincent's shoulder with new appreciation. He'd noticed the slight smoothness of the spots where Vincent's fingers had rubbed it when he'd repaired it a few months ago. It was a well loved piece to have so much wear in such a short amount of time. And he'd certainly not forgotten Vincent's distraught expression when it had broken.

"'Though pleas`d to see the dolphins play, I mind my compass and my way,'" * Vincent recited the inscription inside the compass. "She said that it was to help me remember to stay my course; to seek to enjoy life and all it has to offer and to always help me find my way home. She was worried I'd find it silly and corny but I loved her for it."

"It was a thoughtful gift."

"It really is. I was touched."

Vincent closed the compass and held it tight in his hand for a long moment. He licked his lips and then glanced up at Aiden who gave him a small encouraging smile. But Vincent saw that something was off about Aiden and how he was smiling. A small part of him wanted to turn and reassure Aiden...but what was there to reassure him about? He wasn't sure what was wrong but he just seemed a little...despondent. Perhaps it was because he knew it was a sad story? Or was there something else bothering him?

"So what happened next?" Aiden inquired softly, not realizing that Vincent was reading him so well. Vincent gazed at him for another long moment, blinking a couple of times as he allowed himself to tuck this mental inquiry about Aiden away to think about later.

"What happened next? Well, I started my new life as Captain. I felt like I was living my best life! I was having a grand time with one of my best friends and got to live my dream every day. It was everything I hoped it would be. Though, I admit that for somewhat selfish reasons, we didn't stray too far from home." Vincent chuckled slightly to himself which drew a small smirk from Aiden. "Damien was pretty annoyed with me, I think. I had made him wait and wait while I courted my wife and then we were only gone not even a full two months before we came home again. And that's when I found out that I was to become a father." Aiden could see the joy through the sadness and tears that were forming in Vincent's eyes.

"Six months or so later my daughter was born: Lily. She...she had my eyes and hair and her mother's nose and mouth. Lily was so small but she was healthy and perfect. She was my pride and joy." The tears spilled down Vincent's face as he let out a soft sob and yet he still managed a bittersweet smile as he gazed up at Aiden. "I wish I could show you...she was so beautiful and sweet. She never cried and loved being held. I never realized that I could be that happy. And then...then much too soon it was time for me to go."

And here Vincent's smile faded and he drew his knees up a little and his shoulders sunk. His gaze returned to the photograph. Aiden knew what was going to happen next. This was where Vincent's world would be ripped from him.

"There had been talk of illness in neighboring countries with major air and sea ports. In my line of work, I was at risk but it wasn't like I could stop with a family to provide for. And we lived in a city of massive commerce. She was scared of never seeing me again but I still chose to go."

Beside him, Aiden felt his heart suddenly clench even worse. He remembered all too well when that happened just over three years ago. There had been rumors and people were scared. But it never seemed to come and people began to wonder if maybe it was just a hoax. Then suddenly it hit with ferocity everywhere that had air and sea ports, rumored to have come thanks to commerce and the critters that resided on the ships. Aiden's hometown was a city of commerce and sure enough it had claimed many lives there including that of his own mother who was prone to illness more easily than others.

"It was the hardest farewell I'd ever had to make," Vincent continued painfully. "I kissed my wife and baby and went on my way." Vincent inhaled deeply and let it out sharply before swallowing hard and gave a small nod. Aiden had a feeling he was having to push himself to keep talking at this point.

"Then 'this,'" Vincent grumbled and gestured aggressively towards his blind and damaged eye, "happened." He inhaled slowly and deeply through his nostrils as fresh tears began to pool in his eyes. "While Damien and I were recovering, news came that the capitol had been ravaged by the illness; especially in the poorer parts of town. I prayed that my family would be safe, all of them. But then that's when I got the letter from Emily. Our little Lily was sick, but it had been dated a couple of weeks earlier! I wanted to get home right away but no one was flying or sailing out; especially to the capitol. And, of course, mail was not getting out nearly as quickly anymore.

"We weren't far from here but it wasn't close at all if you traveled on land. And, of course, Leon's Claw needed repairs and Damien had suffered a severe trauma with losing his arm saving me. I was stuck! It took a week to get the proper repairs done so I could fly home myself. Thankfully Damien was fitted for his arm and I could get home to my wife and daughter! I prayed to whatever powers may be that Lily would be okay. I STILL hadn't heard from anyone even though I'd sent letters! Not Emily, my cousins, nor my aunt. Nothing. All I knew was my baby was sick! And when we arrived at the capitol, my cousin Abigail was waiting for me. I knew it the moment I saw it was her waiting there for me; not Emily. I was too late!"

At this point, Vincent was just letting it all out. Now that he was talking and crying, he just couldn't seem to stop! Aiden felt like he couldn't breathe as his heart kept breaking more and more for Vincent.

"It wasn't only my little Lily that I'd lost! I'd lost Emily, too! Emily died the day before I arrived home and Lily three days before! It's not fair! I lost them BOTH!!! Lily and Emily died ALONE while I was stuck two cities away! I wasn't there with them! She asked me to stay but I didn't! What kind of a man am I?! I should have stayed!"

Aiden cried silently beside Vincent as he gazed at the distraught man. What could he say? What could he do? What could possibly console Vincent with something as heartbreaking as this?

So this was why Vincent had spoken to him the way he had when they had met, Aiden realized. He was remembering as he repaired the compass Vincent had spoken to him about Aiden's convictions and determination to leave home. Vincent had tried to convince him that it would be better to stay home with his family. But Aiden had been determined that he wanted this. The feelings and reasonings that Aiden had come back with that had apparently convinced Vincent to hire him seemed like they would be something the late Emily would have encouraged. And quite possibly, it seemed, Vincent had seen a bit of himself in Aiden at the time.

Aiden swallowed hard as the realizations hit him. It took him a minute but he finally got his thoughts together before he spoke softly.

"But at least you have that final memory of them. Of kissing them goodbye and-"

"NO! I DON'T! Just...don't even! You have NO idea!"

Aiden had jumped at Vincent's strangled, sudden outburst! Then Vincent suddenly gave a wrenched sob as he pressed his hands to his face and sobbed even harsher than Aiden had heard thus far. Seconds later, he wrapped his arms around his knees and pulled them quite painfully towards his chest. In his agonized state of being, as well as the intoxication from the bhang, Vincent didn't care about the physical pain flaring to life in his abdomen! Aiden wanted to stop him but right now he didn't dare say or do anything as he stared wide eyed at Vincent.

"You just don't know, Aiden!" Lifting his gaze, he stared up into Aiden's eyes desperately. Aiden had the impression that Vincent was almost pleading with him to understand.

"I wanted to remember them forever like that. Of my wife's smile and my daughter looking so perfect in her arms as I kissed them farewell. I would have that memory and all our happy memories to sustain me. I felt like I was in a daze as I made my way home. Then that's...that's when..."

Vincent closed his eyes and tears slid down his cheeks as the memory came back so painful and fresh as if it happened just yesterday. When he opened them, he was gazing back at Aiden and continued, this time his voice more calm but every bit as heart-wrenching as he said in a near whisper, "I came home as their bodies were being carried out of the building and tossed onto the cart with the other corpses. And the workers they...they just were talking so casually about them and the way they tossed their bodies onto the pile I- I just-"

And he cut himself off and buried his face in his knees and sobbed. He found that he just couldn't stop. Beside him, Aiden sat in shock as all this unfolded. Vincent was inconsolable, but he needed this. Who knew how long he'd kept this torment inside? Surely, he'd never broken down like this before! This seemed too fresh. Aiden wasn't sure what to say to any of that. What could someone say to that?

"And every time I sleep, the dreams always end the same way! I kiss them goodbye and then I see their corpses like that! EVERY! TIME! And I know how alone she was! How miserable and scared she must have been! I should have been there with them! What did I do to deserve this?! I don't want to do this anymore, Aiden! I should have died with them! I don't want to be here anymore! I want to die but I'm too much of a coward to end it all myself!"

And suddenly Vincent was wrapped in the warmth of Aiden's strong embrace before he was gently but firmly held close.

"Shh...shh..."

"Let go!"

At first Vincent started to push him off, but as he felt Aiden's hand come to cup the back of his head, he felt all his walls break down as he allowed himself to lean against Aiden's chest and actually clung to his shirt. The sobs came all over again, but this time they just did not stop coming. Aiden simply held him and pressed his nose and lips to the top of Vincent's head and closed his eyes. He didn't know what else to do but let him get it all out.

Some time had passed. Neither man had paid attention to the time, but eventually Vincent's sobs quieted and he hiccupped as he just leaned against Aiden in a quiet daze as he came down from all that. Aiden gently slid his hand down and rubbed Vincent's back. He wasn't in a hurry to let Vincent out of his arms right now. Once Vincent's breathing was back to normal, Aiden lifted his head and pressed his chin gently atop his head.

"I'm glad you're here, Vincent," he told him softly. "I'd miss you terribly if you were gone."

"Bet you wouldn't miss days like this."

"I'd not be anywhere else."

"You can't really mean that."

"Look at me."

And Vincent did. He sniffed and lifted his head from Aiden's chest and gazed up into his eyes. In a slightly bold move, Aiden reached up and gently brushed away Vincent's tears before stating calmly, "I'd not be anywhere else but here. I will always be here no matter what; whether that be a shoulder to lean on or-... or if you need a poking to lighten up and laugh once in a while. You are important to me, Vincent. You're my best friend."

Vincent's eyes widened and he felt his stomach flutter to life with butterflies. Aiden must truly feel strongly about their bond! Of course, Vincent knew of friendships like this. He had a small group of people he trusted and he was so thankful that Aiden was part of that circle now. And he had to admit that he loved that Aiden could speak his thoughts so freely with him and threw caution and vulnerability to the wind. And Vincent felt like he could as well and it felt liberating each and every time. He felt more free to do so around Aiden than...well, he couldn't even remember!

"You're one of my closest friends too. I'm lucky to have you in my corner, Aiden. I don't know what I did to deserve you. but thank you."

"Of course. I'll always have your back. Always."

Aiden wanted to tell Vincent the truth of his romantic feelings. He truly did. However, he knew that right now was not the time for it; especially not after Vincent's awful breakdown over his dearly missed wife. And as for Aiden, when he'd asked Vincent to talk about Emily, he hadn't expected to compare himself to her the way he unintentionally had. It was hard not to feel a touch of doubt considering he wanted to win Vincent's heart, himself. Aiden and Emily were quite different people. Would Vincent even want him, a man? Would he be open to finding love again to begin with?

Aiden still had every intention of wooing Vincent and telling him the truth one day. He just needed to go about things differently now that he understood how deeply Vincent was hurting.

However, Vincent still needed him as his friend, so romance was not an option right now, but perhaps one day, Aiden thought. He'd just have to be part of his life and hopefully one day things would work out so that Vincent would come to feel he needed Aiden the same way that Aiden needed him.

A very short time later once Vincent was more settled, Aiden released him from his arms and they moved back into the positions they had been in before Bernadette's departure. Vincent was grateful for Aiden's help shifting around before the young man settled in, himself. Vincent had wrenched his body around during his breakdown and now his ribs ached badly. Though thankfully soon after, he wasn't even paying attention to anything else but his new book as his body settled down from all the excitement and the pain became more bearable again.

When Bernadette returned from her errands, she found the men where she'd left them: content and happy beside each other with Vincent nose-deep into his book and Aiden scribbling in his notebook. And she thought silently to herself with a smile, 'Is it just me or are they sitting closer than before?'

At one point very soon after, Vincent needed a moment of privacy to use the bedpan. But as soon as he was done and the bedpan cleaned? Well Aiden was back on the bed beside his best friend and enjoying his company. But what really gave Aiden a reason to smile was when Vincent actually refrained from opening his book and turned to ask Aiden what he was doing in his notebook.

"I'm designing upgrades for Pete!"

"Pete?"

"Pete the Spider Lantern! You met him already."

"Wait. Are you talking about that lantern that came with you to find me?"

"That's the one!"

And that was when Aiden launched into an explanation about Pete and showed him the sketches he'd made of Pete with little added parts to enhance him. Vincent had almost forgotten about the lantern that had come to the tower with Aiden. He remembered now that Aiden had come back from one of his shopping trips a while back with the lantern and declared that he had a project he wanted to work on with it. That was the last Vincent had seen or heard of it until last week when Aiden came to rescue him with it as at his side.

A couple of minutes later there was a knock at the front door to which Bernadette went to answer it. She wasn't expecting anyone else today so who could it be? Surely, not Damien. It was Aiden's turn this evening to babysit Vincent with her tonight. However, it DID turn out to be Damien after all and in his arms were two bags of groceries!

"Damien! We weren't expecting you but thank you! You're spoiling us." She grinned up at him and closed the door behind him.

"You're welcome. And what do you mean? I'm helping out with dressings tonight, remember?"

"Oh!" She paused as she reached to help with the groceries as she thought about it, arms outstretched. "Wait...are you sure?"

At that second, there was a burst of laughter from the other room that belonged to Aiden. Damien glanced towards the room then looked back at Bernadette with a slight smirk and handed her both bags and replied, "Of course I am! You must be tired. Don't worry, Bernie. I'm sure you'll be able to catch up on rest soon." Damien patted her on the shoulder and turned to head towards the bedroom to see what was going on in there.

Bernadette blinked and stood there with the bags of groceries as she stared at his departing backside. She opened her mouth then closed it before looking at the weighty bags in her arms. Feeling a bit confused and a touch irritated, she turned and made her way towards the kitchen and grumbled, "Asshole."

Then a moment later...

"What do you think you're doing?!"

Aiden jumped and blinked as he looked up and around to see who shouted. It was Damien at the door and he looked pretty upset! Why was Damien here anyway? Today was his day off, wasn't it? Aiden opened his mouth but beside him, Vincent was faster to respond with a slightly stern tone, "What's the problem?"

Damien kept his eyes on Aiden and elaborated, "You shouldn't be on the bed! What if Vincent gets hurt worse because of your jostling!"

"Damien, I'm fine!" Vincent cut in before Aiden could even respond and rolled his eyes with a chuckle. "Relax! Here, have some bhang tea."

"I don't want tea!"

Damien scowled and folded his arms over his chest as he glared at the two of them. Vincent narrowed his eyes at Damien and sat up a bit straighter and gave him an even stare. Beside him, Aiden shrank where he sat. He wasn't going to get in the middle of this.

"What's really the problem?"

"I already told you!"

"No, you didn't but fine. Do you trust me?"

"Vincent-"

"Do. You. Trust. Me?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Then trust me when I say I am fine! I'm not fragile! And in case you haven't noticed, Damien, I can handle a little bit of jostling." Vincent sarcastically gestured towards his beaten body. Then after a moment his gaze softened and he smiled a bit as he gestured towards Aiden's notebook. "Besides, Aiden is showing me his sketches! And he brought me a present! See?"

Instead of looking at whatever Vincent was holding up, Damien's gaze shifted towards Aiden who went a deep shade of red and brought his hand up to run through his hair with a shy chuckle and smile. Damien stared at him for a long moment before turning to look at what Vincent was holding out to him impatiently. Upon seeing what it was, Damien scoffed and chuckled, "Another book. Heh. Well, isn't that nice of him?"

Aiden blinked and made a slight face as he was feeling a little offended. And honestly? A little surprised. 'Another book?' he wanted to ask. Did he not know his own supposed best friend enough to know how much he loved and valued books? Surely, he had to! But even Aiden (who didn't enjoy novels the way Vincent did either) understood and appreciated what it meant to the man. And thankfully, it seemed, Vincent was of the same mind and jumped in his defense!

"It is, in fact! Look at it! Look! See who it's by?!" Vincent exclaimed eagerly with a grin. "It just released today!" In his excitement, Vincent had already brushed aside the intensity of Damien's arrival. He was used to Damien's worrywart personality by now and wanted to show off his present!

Aiden however, hadn't brushed it off yet. He knew he'd get over it, but right now he was still feeling a little sour towards Damien. 'What's with this guy?' he wondered silently as he watched Damien approach and ruin their alone time.

Damien finally took a seat on the chair beside Vincent. Even though he was looking at Vincent and listening to what he was saying, his mind was processing what he'd happened upon and the realizations that came with it.

So, Vincent had a brand new book and he hadn't shoved Aiden out the door? Not only that, he wasn't nose deep into it like Damien was used to him doing. His experiences had always taught him that Vincent liked to be left alone while reading, especially with a new book. So, why the Hell was Aiden allowed to be here? Damien certainly wasn't allowed to be! And wasn't this the second time Aiden had brought him a gift?

...was there something else going on between them that he didn't know about?

  

* "Though pleas`d to see the dolphins play, I mind my compass and my way." - Matthew Green

 

Inscription on the 'Madpea Compass' by MadPea which you can find on Marketplace!

 

---

 

Shout out to Stephen King and his book 'Carrie' for inspiring the book that Emily and Vincent were discussing during their meet-cute!

 

...

NEXT PART:

www.flickr.com/photos/153660805@N05/52441785152/in/datepo...

 

To start from the beginning or to read another chapter, here's the album link:

www.flickr.com/photos/153660805@N05/albums/72157717075565127

 

***Please note this is a BOY LOVE (BL/yaoi/gay) series. It is a slow burn and rated PG13!***

 

***

Special thank you to Vin Aydin Raven-Mysterious for collaborating with me on this series and co-starring as The Captain!

And a special thank you to our guest star: Khetas Nova as our spunky Emily Dubois!

  

DISCORD SERVER:

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***NEW!!!!***

 

The Captain and the Engineer now has a FACEBOOK PAGE! Please come Like, Follow, and join the crew! Thank you so much for all your support!

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

 

Today however we have headed slightly north of Cavendish Mews to London’s busy shopping precinct along Oxford Street, where ladies flock to window shop, browse department stores and shops and to take tea with their friends. With the Christmas rush of 1921 behind them, the large plate glass windows have been stripped of their tinsel garlands and metallic cardboard stars, and displays are turning to the new fashions and must have possessions of 1922. Oxford Street is still busy with shoppers as Lettice walks up it dressed in a smart navy blue coat of velvet with a lustrous mink fur trim and matching hat, and the road congested with London’s signature red buses, taxis and private traffic. Yet neither the road nor the footpath are as crowded as they were when she found Edith, her maid’s, Christmas gift in Boots the Chemist, and for that she is grateful. Her louis heels click along the concrete footpath as she takes purposeful and measured footsteps towards her destination, the salon of her milliner Madame Gwendolyn which is situated above all the hubbub of shoppers and London office workers on the first floor of a tall and ornate Victorian building.

 

Lettice breathes a sigh of relief as she walks through the wood and plate glass door of the salon, simply marked with the name Gwendolyn in elegant gilt copperplate lettering, leaving behind the chug of belching double deckers, the toot of horns, the rumble of motorcar engines and the droning buzz of female chatter. The faint fragrance of a mixture of expensive scents from Madame Gewndolyn’s other clientele envelops her, dismissing the soot and fumes of the world outside as the quiet sinks in. Lettice always feels calmer in Madame’s salon, tastefully decked out in an Edwardian version of Regency with finely striped papers and upholstery.

 

“Good afternoon Miss Chetwynd,” the female receptionist greets Lettice politely in well enunciated tones, rising from her desk, showing off her smart outfit of a crisp white shirtwaister* with goffered lace detailing and a navy skirt. “Your timing, as ever, is perfect.” She smiles as she walks over and without asking, takes the coat from Lettice’s shirking shoulders.

 

“Thank you Roslyn,” Lettice acknowledges her assistance. As she goes to take Lettice’s white lace parasol, Lettice stops the young receptionist. “No thank you. I need this for my consultation.”

 

If taken aback by Lettice’s unusual refusal to relinquish her parasol, Roslyn doesn’t show it as she simply smiles politely and says, “Madame is expecting you. Please do come through.”

 

The two women walk across the polished floor of the foyer covered in expensive rugs that their feet sink into, until they stop before an inner set of double doors. Roslyn’s polite rap is greeted by a commanding “come” from the other side.

 

“Miss Chetwynd, Madame,” Roslyn announces as she opens the door inwards, leading Lettice into a salon, similarly furbished as the foyer which is filled with an array of beautiful hats elegantly on display.

 

“Ah, Miss Chetwynd,” Madame Gwendolyn says in the same clearly enunciated syllables as her receptionist, with a broad smile on her lips. “How do you do.”

 

“How do you do, Madame.” she replies as Roslyn retreats the way she came, closing the doors silently behind her.

 

Madame Gwendolyn smile broadens as she notices Lettice’s blue velvet toque with the mink trim which she made to match the coat now hanging in the wardrobe behind Roslyn’s desk in the foyer. Then it fades as her eye falls upon Lettice’s parasol in her client’s left hand. “Oh Miss Chetwynd, I’m so sorry Roslyn didn’t,” and she reaches out to take it from her hand.

 

“Oh no! No Madame,” Lettice assures the middle-aged milliner. “Roslyn went to take it from me, but I said no. We will need it for our appointment you see.”

 

“Oh,” Madame Gwendolyn’s expertly plucked and shaped brow arches ever so slightly. “Very well. Won’t you please take a seat, Miss Chetwynd.” She indicates to two Edwardian Arts and Crafts chairs carefully reupholstered in cream Regency stripe fabric to match the wallpaper hanging in the salon.

 

Lettice selects the one to her right and hangs the parasol over its arm before gracefully lowering herself into the seat and placing her snakeskin handbag at her side. As she does so, Roslyn slips back into the room bearing a tray on which sits tea making implements for one, which she carefully places on the small table next to a few recent fashion magazines, easily in Lettice’s range.

 

Once Roslyn obsequiously retreats again, Madame Gwendolyn says, “Now, I believe you may have come about a new hat for The Princess Royal’s wedding*. Is that so, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“You are well informed, Madame.” Lettice replies, glancing down at her knee as she speaks.

 

Madame Gwendolyn smiles again, taking up a leatherbound notebook. “How delightful for you to be in attendance.”

 

“Well, we are well acquainted, Madame,” Lettice answers dismissively.

 

“Of course! Of course.” the older woman replies, her back stiffening as she raises her pale and elegant hands in defence. “Now, might I enquire as to who will be making your frock for the occasion?”

 

“Yes. Mr. Gerald Bruton of Grosvenor Street.”

 

“Ah. Excellent! Excellent.” Madame replies like a toady as she jots Gerald’s name in her book. “And the fabrics, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“Oyster satin with pearl buttons and a guipure lace** Peter Pan collar***.”

 

“Excellent! Excellent!” Madame Gwendolyn repeats again, noting the details down. “White gloves, or grey?”

 

“Grey.”

 

The woman closes her notebook firmly, leaving it in her lap. “Well, I’m quite sure we can make something most suitable for the royal occasion to match your ensemble.”

 

The milliner rises and puts her notebook aside. Whilst she looks about her salon for possibilities, Lettice pours herself tea from the delicate hydrangea patterned pot on the table.

 

“Now, I could easily create something similar to this, in a soft grey, Miss Chetwynd.” Madame Gwendolyn returns with a beautiful picture hat of pale pink covered in a carefully crafted whorl of ostrich feathers.

 

“Hhhmmm…” Lettice considers.

 

“Or, this could easily be adapted to match your outfit, Miss Chetwynd,” she indicates to a more cloche shaped hat of white and black dyed straw with black ribboning. “By replacing the ribbon with a grey one. I also have some delightful pearl appliques that would add a beautiful touch of royal elegance to it.”

 

“Perhaps,” Lettice replies noncommittally with her head slightly cocked.

 

As she watches Madame Gwendolyn scurry across the salon and fetch a peach coloured wide brimmed hat with a band of silk flowers about the brim with an aigrette of cream lace, her thoughts drift back to the day the previous June when she and her dear Embassy Club coterie friend Margot were walking down Oxford Street, not too far from where she sits now. They had been discussing the Islington Studios**** moving picture starlet Wanetta Ward, whom Lettice had agreed to take on as a new customer, as well as Margot’s wedding plans. Ascot Week***** was fast approaching and Selfridges had a window display featuring four rather stylish hats, every bit as comparable in quality to those being shown to her by the toadying milliner before her at a fraction of the cost. Margot had laughed at Lettice when she had suggested that perhaps she should have worn a Selfridges hat to Royal Ascot, rather than the creation Madame Gwendolyn made her. Yet her hat from Madame Gwendolyn at twelve guineas was far from a roaring success in the fashion stakes. In fact, she had heard a fashion correspondent from the Tattler whispering a little too loudly that it might even have been a little old fashioned: a touch pre-war.

 

“Miss Chetwynd? Miss Chetwynd?” Madame Gwendolyn’s somewhat urgent calls press into her consciousness, breaking Lettice’s train of thought.

 

Lettice looks up into the face of the milliner with her upswept hairdo a mixture of pre-war Edwardian style mixed with modern Marcelling******. The woman is holding up a cream straw cloche decorated with pink silk flowers and an aigrette of ostrich plumes curled in on themselves.

 

“I think this one is most becoming. Don’t you think so, Miss Chetwynd? It would frame your face and hair so well. And, for you, because it is only the reworking of the decoration,” the older woman adds with a sly smile. “A bargain if I may say so, at only nine guineas.” She smiles in an oily way as she presses the hat closer to Lettice. “What do you think, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

Lettice looks blankly at Madame Gwendolyn for a moment before replying. “What I think, Madame, is I should like to give your suggestions some consideration.”

 

The milliner’s face drops, as do her arms as she lowers the hat until it hangs loosely in front of her knees in her defeated hands. “I… I don’t understand, Miss Chetwynd.” she manages to say in startled disbelief.

 

“Oh,” Lettice replies. “Haven’t I made myself clear, Madame? I’m not entirely convinced about any of the hats you have shown me. I don’t know if any of them will match my costume and parasol. I think they all look a little…”

 

“A little?” the older woman prompts.

 

“A little old fashioned. A little pre-war was how your hat for me for Royal Ascot last year was described. I want to look my very best. After all, this is a royal wedding.” She takes a final sip of her tea and then stands, picking up her purse and parasol. “So, I should like to consider my choices before deciding whether to accept one or not.”

 

As Lettice starts to walk across the salon floor, Madame Gwendolyn stutters, “Per… perhaps Miss Chetwynd… Perhaps you’d care to suggest your own ideas. I’m very open to a client’s ide…”

 

Lettice stops and turns abruptly to the milliner, cutting her sentence off. “Madame,” she says, a definite haughtiness growing in her gait, causing her shoulders to edge back almost imperceptibly and for her neck to arch. “If I had wanted to design my own hat, I would have made it myself, rather than come to you and pay you handsomely for it.”

 

“Oh, of course not Miss Chetwynd. How very careless of me to even suggest…. Such… such a gaffe! Please forgive me.”

 

“Really Madame, there is no need to apologise like some spineless, obsequious servant. I’d simply like time to consider what you’ve shown me, versus say, what Harry Selfridge has to offer.”

 

“Mr. Selfridge?” Madame Gwendolyn ponders, her eyes widening in surprise.

 

“Yes. He has a wonderful array of hats, many Paris models in the latest styles, in his millinery department, perhaps more suited to the more modern woman of today than the,” Lettice glances back at the hats on display in the salon. “The society matron. You really should take a look, Madame. You might see where the future of hats sits.”

 

Lettice pulls open the doors of the salon and walks purposefully out into the foyer, where Roslyn is busily scanning a copy of Elite Styles, cutting out images of hats with a pair of scissors behind her desk. She quickly gets up when she sees Lettice and her employer come out.

 

“Leaving so soon, Miss Chetwynd?” she asks, and without having to wait for an answer, turns to the white painted built in wardrobe behind her, opens it and withdraws Lettice’s coat.

 

As Lettice steps back into Oxford Street and is enveloped by its discordant cacophony of noise and potpourri of smells, she sighs and walks back the way she came with the measured steps of a viscount’s daughter. As she reaches the full length plate glass windows of Selfridge’s department store, she pauses when she sees two young women around her age, both obviously typists, secretaries or some other kind of office workers, scuttle up to the windows. Dressed in smart black coats and matching small brimmed straw hats with Marcelled hair in fashionable bobs, they look the epitome of the new and independent woman. They laugh lightly and point excitedly at things they see displayed in the department store window. Then, they agree and both scurry away and through the revolving doors of Selfridges.

 

“Why should I have my hats made at Madame Gwendolyn’s, just because Mamma does?” she asks no-one in particular, her quiet utterance smothered and swept away into the noisy hubbub around her.

 

She walks to the window, only to discover that it is full of hats, advertised as newly in from Paris.

 

“Oh, why not, then?” Lettice says, straightening her shoulders with conviction.

 

She follows the two office girls and steps through the revolving doors of Selfridges department store.

 

Contrary to popular belief, fashion at the beginning of the Roaring 20s did not feature the iconic cloche hat as a commonly worn head covering. Although invented by French milliner Caroline Reboux in 1908, the cloche hat did not start to gain popularity until 1922, so in early 1922 when this story is set, picture hats, a hangover from the pre-war years, were still de rigueur in fashionable society. Although nowhere near as wide, heavy, voluminous or as ornate as the hats worn by women between the turn of the Twentieth Century and the Great War, the picture hats of the 1920s were still wide brimmed, although they were generally made of straw or some lightweight fabric and were decorated with a more restrained touch. For somewhere as socially important as Princess Mary’s 1922 wedding, a matching hat, parasol, handbag or reticule and gloves to go with a lady’s chosen frock were essential.

 

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

 

**Guipure lace is a delicate fabric made by twisting and braiding the threads to craft incredible designs that wows the eye. Guipure lace fabrics distinguish themselves from other types of lace by connecting the designs using bars or subtle plaits instead of setting them on a net.

 

***A Peter Pan collar is a style of clothing collar, flat in design with rounded corners. It is named after the collar of Maude Adams's costume in her 1905 role as Peter Pan, although similar styles had been worn before this date. Peter Pan collars were particularly fashionable during the 1920s and 1930s.

 

****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.

 

*****Royal Ascot Week is the major social calendar event held in June every year at Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire. It was founded in 1711 by Queen Anne and is attended every year by the reigning British monarch and members of the Royal Family. The event is grand and showy, with men in grey morning dress and silk toppers and ladies in their best summer frocks and most elaborate hats.

 

******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.

 

This enclave of luxurious millinary may appear real to you, however it is fashioned entirely of 1:12 miniatures from my collection. Some of the items in this tableau are amongst the very first pieces I ever received as a young child.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The cream straw hat second from the left with pink roses has single stands of ostrich feathers adorning it that have been hand curled. The yellow straw hat on the far right of the photo is decorated with ornamental flowers and organza. The maker for these is unknown, but they are part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. The peach coloured hat with the flowers around the brim and the net aigrette second from the right, and the pink feather covered hat on the far left of the picture came from a seller on E-Bay. The black straw hat with the yellow trim and rose reflected in the mirror and the white straw hait with the black trim in the foreground were made by Mrs. Denton of Muffin Lodge in the United Kingdom. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable.

 

The wooden hat blocks on which the hats are displayed also came from American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.

 

The dressing table set, consisting of tray, mirror and two brushes were made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, but were hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken, sold through Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in England.

 

Lettice’s snakeskin handbag with its gold clasp and chain comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. Lettice’s umbrella is a 1:12 artisan piece made of white satin and lace with a tiny cream bow. It has a hooked metal handle.

 

The Elite Styles magazine from 1922 sitting on the table was made by hand by Petite Gite Miniatures in the United States.

 

The blue hydrangea tea set came from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay.

 

The two Edwardian fashion plates hanging on the wall come from Melody Jane’s Doll House Suppliers in England.

 

The vintage mirror with its hand carved wooden frame was acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in England.

 

The two chairs, the tea table and the stands upon which two of the hats are displayed are all made by the high-end miniature furniture manufacturer, Bespaq.

 

The Regency sideboard I have had since I was around six or seven, having been given it as either a birthday or Christmas gift.

 

The cream Georgian pattern carpet on the floor comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in England. The Regency stripe wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, with the purpose that it be used in the “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

Thank you to Barbara Carrillo for generously explaining the two altars which she, Tito Carrillo, and Roxanna Carrillo created at the reconstructed Presidio for the Day of the Dead to honor Carrillo Family members who have died. A large one was in honor of previous generations. This smaller one was in honor of young people of the present generation who have passed.

  

Members of the Carrillo Family have been in the Tucson area for over 200 years. (It was then part of Nueva España and under the control of Spain.) Juan Antonio Carrillo was born in 1741 in Valladolid, Mexico; he later enlisted in the Spanish army near Guaymas, Mexico, and, in 1782 was transferred to the Presidio (fort) San Agustín del Tucson with the rank of Alferez Segundo. He brought his wife and three small children with him to live in the Presidio. He died during an Apache raid in 1784 and his family was compensated by the Spanish crown for the loss of his horse.

  

There are many Carrillo descendants still in southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico today. Names of the extended family include Elias, Lara, Valenzuela, Crandall, Van Alstine, Telles, Saenz, McKay, Mills, Cordova, Quihuis, Nevarez, Leon, Linn, Castro, Ward, Villa, Grijalva, Bracamonte, Montiel, Marquez, and Bartlett.

  

The Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd in Mexico and throughout Latin America, and by Latinos in the U.S., by creating altars and visiting the cemetery to honor deceased loved ones. The altars display photos, candles, flowers (typically marigolds), sugar skulls, and items their loved ones used or liked (including food and drink). The intent is to invite the spirits of the loved ones to visit.

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.

 

Two of Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie of bright young things are getting married: Dickie Channon, eldest surviving son of the Marquess of Taunton, and Margot de Virre, only daughter of Lord Charles and Lady Lucie de Virre. Lettice is hosting an exclusive buffet supper party in their honour this evening, which is turning out to be one of the events of the 1921 London Season. Over the last few days, Lettice’s flat has been in upheaval as Edith, Lettice’s maid, and Lettice’s charwoman* Mrs. Boothby have been cleaning the flat thoroughly in preparation for the occasion. Earlier today with the help of a few hired men they moved some of the furnishings in Lettice’s drawing room into the spare bedroom to make space for a hired dance band and for the guests to dance and mingle. Edith’s preserve of the kitchen has been overrun by delivery men, florists and caterers. Throughout all of this upheaval, Lettice has fled to Margot’s parents’ house in Hans Crescent in nearby Belgravia, only returning just as a red and white striped marquee is erected by Gunter and Company** over the entrance and the pavement outside.

 

Now we find ourselves in Lettice’s dressing room where she and Margot sit at Lettice’s Regency dressing table making last minute adjustments and choices to their eveningwear. The surface of the dressing table is littered with jewellery and perfume bottles as the two excited girls chat, whilst Margot’s fiancée, Dickie, whips up the latest cocktails for them at the makeshift bar on Lettice’s dining table down the hall in the flat’s dining room.

 

“Oh Lettice, I’m so nervous!” Margot confides, clasping her friend’s hands.

 

“Good heavens why, darling?” Lettice looks across at her friend in concern as she feels the tremble in her dainty fingers wrapped around her own. She notices her pale face. “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”

 

“About the party?”

 

“About Dickie!”

 

“Goodness no, darling!” Margot clutches her bare throat with her hand, the diamonds in her engagement ring winking brightly. “About him I have never been so sure. He’s always been the one for me, darling. You of all people should know that!”

 

“Then what, Margot darling?”

 

“Well, this party!”

 

“What on earth do you mean? Its going to be a thrilling bash.” Lettice soothes. “I’ve hired this divine little jazz quartet to play dance music for us. All our friends are on the guest list, and they are all coming. It will be just like being at the Embassy Club, only it will be here instead.” She waves her arms generously around her. “What’s to be nervous about?”

 

“Oh, it just all seems so formal.”

 

“Formal?”

 

“Yes,” Margot goes on. “So grown up. I mean it’s one thing to see your names printed together in the papers, yet it’s quite another to have a party thrown in honour of your engagement as you step out into society as an engaged couple. I’m not used to being the centre of attention.”

 

“Well, you’ll have to get used to it, at least for a little while.” Lettice smiles as she hangs a necklace of sparkling diamonds from her jewellery casket about her neck, allowing them to cascade down the front of her powder blue silk georgette gown designed and made for her by Gerald. She sighs with satisfaction at the effect before addressing Margot again. “Think of this as a rehearsal for your wedding day.”

 

Margot gulps.

 

“Only tonight,” Lettice continues wagging a finger in the air. “You can drink as much as you like.”

 

The pair are interrupted by a loud knocking on the door before it suddenly opens, and Dickie pokes his head around it. The sound of the jazz band tuning up in Lettice’s drawing room pours into the room.

 

“Get out!” Lettice cries, jumping up from her seat and flapping her hands at Dickie. “You aren’t supposed to see the bride yet! It’s bad luck!”

 

“That’s on the wedding day you silly goose!” Dickie laughs.

 

“Don’t bother us now, Dickie,” Lettice continues, leaning against the doorframe and then glancing at Margot’s anxious face reflected in the looking glass of her dressing table. “We’re fixing something.”

 

“Oh, secret women’s business, is it?” he whispers conspiratorially with a cheeky smile.

 

“Something like that,” Lettice says breezily. “Margot just has a case of centre stage jitters.”

 

Dickie face clouds over. He frowns in concern and presses on the door.

 

“She’ll be fine.” Lettice assures him, pressing hard against the pressure she can feel from his side of the door. “I just need a few more minutes with her. Alright darling?”

 

“Well,” Dickie says a little doubtfully. “Only if you’re sure. But don’t be too long.” He glances at Lettice’s pretty green onyx Art Deco clock on her dressing table. “The guests will be arriving shortly.”

 

“We won’t be, Dickie.” she assures him as she presses a little more forcefully on the door.

 

“Well,” he remarks brightly in an effort to settle his fiancée’s nerves. “I’d only come down here to see if you two ladies fancied a special Dickie Channon pre-cocktail party cocktail?”

 

“Oh yes!” Lettice enthuses. “That sounds divine, darling! I’ll have a Dubonnet and gin. What will you have Margot, darling?”

 

“I’ll have a Bee’s Knees, thank you Dickie.” she replies with a less than enthusiastic lilt to her quiet voice.

 

The furrows on Dickie’s brow deepen as he glances between Margot and Lettice. Lettice raises a finger to silence the concerns he is about to express about Margot, and then she points back down the hallway to the dining room. Dickie’s mouth screws up in concern, and he shakes his head slightly as he withdraws.

 

“See you in a few minutes,” Lettice assures his retreating figure.

 

“He’s cross, isn’t he?” Margot asks as Lettice closes the door again.

 

“No, he’s just concerned is all,” she replies as she resumes her seat. “As am I.”

 

Margot’s stance of slumped shoulders displays her deflated feeling as much as the look in her dark eyes as she glances up at her friend.

 

“Look. How do you ever expect to be the Marchioness of Taunton one day, standing at the end of a long presentation line for a ball that you are hosting, if you can’t greet a few guests now?”

 

“I never wanted to be the future Marchioness of Taunton, just Mrs. Dickie Channon.”

 

“Well,” Lettice places a consoling hand on the bare shoulder of her friend. “The two come hand-in-hand, Margot darling, so you have to accept it, come what may.”

 

Lettice suddenly thinks of something and starts fossicking around in the drawers of her dressing table. She pulls open the right-hand drawer and pulls out some lemon yellow kid gloves and a pretty white bead necklace which sparkles in the light as she lays it on the dressing table top.

 

“What on earth are you doing, darling?” Margot asks Lettice.

 

Dropping a bright blue bead necklace on the surface of the dressing table next, Lettice makes a disgruntled noise and then reaches for the brass drawer pull of the left-hand drawer.

 

“I’m going to share something with you Margot. Something very special. I wasn’t going to, because it’s mine, and no-one else we know has it. However, it may give you the confidence you need for tonight to have something beautiful that nobody else does.”

 

She drags open the left hand drawer. Its runners protest loudly with a squeaking groan. Beads and chains spew forth as she does, spilling over the edge of the drawer.

 

“Ahh! Here it is!” Lettice cries triumphantly.

 

She withdraws a small eau-de-nil box with black writing on it. Opening it she takes out a stylish bevelled green glass Art Deco bottle which she places on the surface of her dressing table amidst pieces of her jewellery.

 

“What is it?” Margot looks on intrigued, a bemused smile playing upon her lips.

 

“I picked this up when I was last in Paris. I visited a little maison de couture on the rue Cambon. It was owned and run by a remarkable woman named Coco Chanel. She used to own a small boutique in Deauville and her clothes are remarkably simple and stylish. It’s simply called Chanel Number 5.***”

 

Margot picks up the scent bottle in both her elegant hands with undisguised reverence.

 

“Like her clothes, and even the perfume’s name, it is simple, yet unique. I’ve never smelt anything quite like it.”

 

“Oh its divine!” Margot enthuses as she removes the stopper and inhales deeply. ‘Like champagne and jasmine!”

 

“She wasn’t going to sell it to me as she only had the bottle on the counter for her own use, but I begged her after smelling it. No-one else at the party will be wearing this, so why don’t you Margot?”

 

“Really Lettice?”

 

“Yes,” Lettice smiles. “I’ll wear something else. It will be your scent of confidence for this evening.”

 

“Oh thank you darling.” Margot replies humbly. “This scent makes me feel better already.”

 

“Good!” Lettice sighs happily. “Then dab it on and let’s go. The first guests will be here soon, and it will be bad form not to be ready to greet them.”

 

“You’re right Lettice!” Margot agrees, sounding cheerier and more confident.

 

“Besides, Dickie will have made those cocktails for us now.”

 

Margot dabs her neck and wrists with scent from the Chanel Number 5. bottle with the round glass stopper whilst Lettice applies some Habanita****. The two gaze at themselves in Lettice’s looking glass, giving themselves a final check. Lettice with her blonde finger waved chignon and pale blue gown looks the opposite to Margot with her dark waves and silver gown, yet both look beautiful. Suitably satisfied with their appearances, they step away from the dressing table, walk out of Lettice’s dressing room and walk down the hallway to join Dickie who offers them both their cocktail of choice.

 

*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.

 

**Gunter and Company were London caterers and ball furnishers with shops in Berkley Square, Sloane Street, Lowndes Street and New Bond Street. They began as Gunter’s Tea Shop at 7 and 8 Berley Square 1757 where it remained until 1956 as the business grew and opened different premises. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets. Gunter's was considered to be the wedding cake makers du jour and in 1889, made the bride cake for the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Louise of Wales. Even after the tea shop finally closed, the catering business carried on until the mid 1970s.

 

***Chanel Number 5. was launched in 1921. Coco Chanel wanted to launch a scent for the new, modern woman she embodied. She loved the scent of soap and freshly-scrubbed skin; Chanel’s mother was a laundrywoman and market stall-holder, though when she died, the young Gabrielle was sent to live with Cistercian nuns at Aubazine. When it came to creating her signature scent, though, freshness was all-important. While holidaying with her lover, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, she heard tell of a Grasse-based perfumer called Ernest Beaux, who’d been the perfumer darling of the Russian royal family. Over several months, he produced a series of 10 samples to show to ‘Mademoiselle’. They were numbered one to five, and 20 to 24. She picked No. 5

 

****Molinard Habanita was launched in 1921. Molinard say that Habanita was the first women’s fragrance to strongly feature vetiver as an ingredient – something hitherto reserved for men, commenting that ‘Habanita’s innovative style was eagerly embraced by the garçonnes – France’s flappers – and soon became Molinard’s runaway success and an icon in the history of French perfume.’ Originaly conceived as a scent for cigarettes – inserted via glass rods or to sprinkle from a sachet – women had begun sprinkling themselves with it instead, and Molinard eventually released it as a personal fragrance.

 

This rather beautiful, if slightly messy boudoir scene may be a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection. Some pieces in this scene come from my own childhood, whilst other items in this tableau I acquired as a teenager and as an adult through specialist doll shops, online dealers and artists who specialise in making 1:12 miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Central to this story is the bottle of Chanel Number 5. which stands on the dressing table. It is made of very thinly cut green glass. It, and its accompanying box peeping out of the drawer were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

Lettice’s Regency dressing table was given to me as part of a Christmas present when I was around ten years old. Made of walnut, it features a real bevelled mirror, a central well for makeup, two working drawers and a faux marble column down each side below the drawers.

 

The same Christmas I was given the Regency dressing table, I was also given a three piece gilt pewter dressing table set consisting of comb, hairbrush and hand mirror, the latter featuring a real piece of mirror set into it. Like the dressing table, these small pieces have survived the tests of time and survived without being lost, even though they are tiny.

 

Even smaller than the gilt dressing table set pieces are the tiny pieces of jewellery on the left-hand side of the dressing table. Amongst the smallest pieces I have in my collection, the gold bangle, pearl and gold brooch and gold and amethyst brooch, along with the ‘diamond’ necklace behind the Chanel perfume bottle, the purple bead necklace hanging from the left-hand drawer and the blue bead necklace to the right of the dressing table’s well, I acquired as part of an artisan jewellery box from a specialist doll house supplier when I was a teenager. Amazingly, they too have not become lost over the passing years since I bought them.

 

Lettice’s Art Deco beaded jewellery casket on the left-hand side of the picture is a handmade artisan piece. All the peary pale blue beads are individually attached and the casket has a black velvet lining. It was made by Pat’s World of Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

To the right of Lettice’s jewellery casket is an ornamental green jar filled with hatpins. The jar is made from a single large glass Art Deco bead, whilst each hatpin is made from either a nickel or brass plate pin with beads for ornamental heads. They were made by Karen Lady Bug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

There is a selection of sparkling perfume bottles on Lettice’s dressing table and in its well 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 container of Snowfire Cold Cream standing next to the Chanel perfume bottle was supplied by Shepherd’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Exactly like its life size counterpart, it features a very Art Deco design on its lid with geometric patterns in traditionally popular colours of the 1920s with the silhouette of a woman at the top. It is only nine millimetres in diameter and three millimetres in depth. Snowfire was a brand created by F.W. Hampshire and Company, who had a works in Sinfin Lane in Derby. The firm manufactured Snowfire ointment, Zubes (cough sweets) ice cream powder, wafers and cornets; Jubes (fruit sweets covered in sugar). Later it made ointment (for burns) and sweetening tablets. The company was eventually merged with Reckitt Toiletry Products in the 1960s.

 

Lettice’s little green Art Deco boudoir clock is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Hall’s Miniature Clocks, supplied through Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniatures in England. Made of resin with a green onyx marble effect, it has been gilded by hand and contains a beautifully detailed face beneath a miniature glass cover.

 

Also from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in the United Kingdom are the pale yellow gloves sticking out of the right-hand drawer. Artisan pieces, they are made of kid leather with a fine white braid trim and are so light and soft.

 

The 1920s beaded headdress standing on the wooden hatstand was made by Mrs. Denton of Muffin Lodge in the United Kingdom. You might just notice that it has a single feather aigrette sticking out of it on the right-hand side, held in place by a faceted sequin.

 

The painting you can see hanging in the wall is an artisan miniature of an Elizabethan woman in a gilt frame, made my Marie Makes Miniatures.

 

The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

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. Being Tuesday, Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman* who comes on Tuesdays and every third Thursday to do the hard jobs is busy polishing the floors in Lettice’s bedroom, whilst Edith arranges tea things on the deal kitchen table in the middle of the room whilst she waits for the copper kettle on the stove to boil.

 

“Oh good!” Mrs. Boothby sighs as she slips into the kitchen via the door that leads from the flat’s entrance hall. “You’ve got the kettle on, dearie!” A fruity cough emanates from deep within her wiry little body as she deposits her polishing box beneath the sink and puts the dirty rags that require washing down the laundry chute. “Nah just I’ll just sit ‘ere for a few minutes and you can give me a reviving cup of Rosie-Lee** and I’ll ‘ave a fag before I get started on scrubbin’ the bathroom.”

 

“Oh no you don’t!” Edith says sharply as she places her own hand firmly over the opening of Mrs. Boothby’s blue beaded handbag before the old Cockney woman can grab her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut.

 

“What?” Mrs. Boothby looks up at Edith in surprise. “I’m only goin’ for me fags, dearie, not a pistol.”

 

“Miss Lettice has a guest and I’ve just made a Victoria sponge.” She indicates to the golden sponge cake with jam and cream oozing from its middle standing next to Lettice’s Art Deco tea service. “I don’t want it or the tea I’m making smelling of your foul cigarette smoke, Mrs. Boothby!”

 

“Me smoke ain’t foul!” the older woman snaps back.

 

“Yes, it is, Mrs. Boothby.”

 

How Edith hates the older woman’s habit of smoking indoors. When she lived with her parents, neither smoked in the house. Her mother didn’t smoke at all: it would have been unladylike to do so, and her father only smoked a pipe when he went down to the local pub.

 

“The stench comin’ from privy down the end of my rookery, now that’s foul, dearie.”

 

“It’s all relative Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says cheerily. “Now, I will make you a cup of tea since I’m boiling the kettle for Miss Lettice,”

 

“Oh, ta.” Mrs. Boothby says sarcastically.

 

“But if you want to smoke today,” Edith ignores her. “Please go and do so on the porch outside.”

 

Mrs. Boothby groans as she picks herself out of Edith’s comfortable Windsor chair. Grumbling quietly, but not so quietly that Edith can’t hear her muttering, the old woman fossicks through her capacious bag and snatches out a cigarette she had already rolled previously and her box of Swan Vesta matches. She mooches over to the kitchen door that leads to the tradesman’s stairs and lights her cigarette, folding her bony arms akimbo across her sagging chest.

 

“Thank you.” Edith says diplomatically, even though she doesn’t really want to thank the Cockney woman at all.

 

“So,” Mrs. Boothby blows a plume of blueish silver smoke out into the outer corridor. “An American, then.”

 

Edith knows Mrs. Boothby is fishing for gossip on Lettice’s guest, and she doesn’t like to gossip with the charwoman. Unlike her friend and fellow maid Hilda, Mrs. Boothby is not very discreet. “Mmn,” she says non-committally as she starts placing the tea things on a square silver tray, a new purchase by Lettice from Asprey’s.

 

“Oh come on, dearie,” Mrs. Boothby’s eyes roll as she speaks. “Don’t be prim and propa. Ooh is she then?”

 

“You know I don’t like to gossip, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies.

 

“Well, you’d be the only maid this side of St. James what don’t, dearie.”

 

“All I know is that Miss Lettice asked me to bake a Victoria sponge for her guest, and that’s what I’ve done.”

 

“Well ya know ‘er name anyroad, ‘cos ya let ‘er in. Ya can tell me that much at least.”

 

“Her name is Miss Ward.”

 

“Wanetta Ward,” Mrs. Boothby crows triumphantly. “I ‘eard Miss Lettice talkin’ to ‘er.”

 

“Well, if you’ve been listening at keyholes, Mrs. Boothby, I don’t suppose anything I told you would be news then.”

 

“Oh come on, dearie,” she cries. Knowing the chink in Edith’s armour she continues. “What’s she look like then?”

 

As soon as the words are out of Mrs. Boothby’s mouth, Edith’s eyes light up. She loves fashion and the glamourous people that Lettice mixes with. Not that Mrs. Boothby knows it, because she never goes into her room, but Edith has scrapbooks of cuttings of London’s rich and famous clipped from Lettice’s discarded newspapers and magazines in her drawers.

 

“Oh she’s very glamourous! Tall and statuesque.”

 

“Aah,” Mrs. Boothby says dismissively, but the cocked eyebrow that Edith can’t see gives away that her interest has been piqued.

 

“Her hair is a soft curly rich dark auburn set in girlish bob, and she has peaches and cream skin. She is wearing an orchid silk chiffon dress with a matching satin slip. It’s daringly short!” Edith gushes. “You can see the bottom of her calves even before sits down.”

 

“Well, she must be American for certain then, ta wear somethin’ so daring.” Mrs. Boothby coaxes carefully.

 

“She has a beautiful hat to match which is covered in silk flowers. She wouldn’t let me take it from her. Something about her luck? I didn’t really understand. She walks with a walking stick, just for show I think as she has a very elegant gait.”

 

“Oh. I wonder if she’s an actress on the stage?”

 

“Maybe. She certainly has the bearing of a person who commands attention.”

 

“Or maybe,” the charwoman continues, puffing out another cloud of smoke. “Maybe she’s one of them movin’ picture actresses, like what I’ve seen up at the Premier*** in East Ham.”

 

“Imagine!” Edith enthuses, her eyes sparking. “A real American moving picture star!” She looks to the green baize door that leads to the living areas of the flat.

 

“Yes, imagine.” Mrs. Boothby smiles wistfully as she takes a long drag on her cigarette.

 

“Oh, you are awful Mrs. Boothby!” Edith gasps, suddenly realising what she’s done. “You’ve made me gossip.”

 

“Oh, now don’t you worry your pretty ‘ead about it, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby soothes the young maid. “I’m only int’rested in ooh frequents the houses I clean for so I knows I’m in a respectable establishment. I won’t tell a soul. I promise!”

 

The charwoman smiles a yellow toothy grin that makes Edith regret her lack of discretion slightly.

 

“Per’aps she’s come ta be a film star in London. I read in the papers that they’s makin’ films ‘ere in London, over in ‘Oxton**** nah the war’s over!”

 

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that Mrs. Boothby.” she mutters, turning her back on the Cockney woman to hide the blush crossing her face after realising that she has been taken in by her.

 

Taking the kettle off the stove Edith fills the elegant gilded white porcelain pot and stirs it. She goes to the dresser and removes a pretty Delftware teacup and saucer and puts it on the table. She pours of little of the tea from Lettice’s pot into the cup, adds a splash of milk and some sugar. She refills Lettice’s pot.

 

“Tea, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith places the Delftware teacup and saucer into the Cockney woman’s empty right hand as it pokes out from beneath her left elbow.

 

“Oh, ta!” she replies gratefully. Lifting the cup to her lips she takes a sip, savouring the delicious hot beverage.

 

“I must take the tea in to Miss Lettice.” Edith says in as businesslike a fashion as she can manage.

 

“And yer want ta get annuva geezer at your beautiful star again.” Another fruity cough escapes her throat as she chuckles to herself. “Ain’t I right?” She taps her nose with her left hand, the glowing but of the cigarette nestled between her index and middle fingers. “I know a young girl’s heart. B’lieve it or not, I used ta be a young slip of a fing once too!”

 

“Just leave the cup in the sink before you clean the bathroom.” Edith blanches at being caught out as starstruck. “I will have these things to wash later.”

 

Edith smiles conspiratorially at Mrs. Boothby, picks up the tray of tea things, holds her head high and slips through the green baize door into the dining room of the flat to serve her mistress and her glamorous guest, American Wanetta Ward in the drawing room beyond.

 

*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.

 

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

 

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

 

****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.

 

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

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. It stands on a silver tray that is part of tea set that comes from Smallskale Miniatures in England. To see the whole set, please click on this link: www.flickr.com/photos/40262251@N03/51111056404/in/photost...

 

The Victoria sponge (named after Queen Victoria) is made by Polly’s Pantry Miniatures in America. The vase of flowers on the table is made of glass and it and the bouquet have been made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The box of Lyon’s tea has been made by Jonesey’s Miniatures in England.

 

On the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot stands a Cornishware cannister. 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.

dear friends!! as the new year begins, i offer this wish from the generous fishes: that you swim fearlessly in the ocean of this life, moving fluidly and spontaneously from moment to moment... that you find friendship, well-being, and meaning on your journeys...

 

may all travelers find joy!!

 

love and best wishes,

jeanne

 

scanned, assembled and altered image, december 31, 2006

  

Love shopping and looking elegant for a suitor who is looking to treat me nicely. Wolford tights, stiletto heels and leather jacket with an elegant short teasing dress. Hope you enjoy and it puts you in the mood for being generous :-) x

Song birds pause momentarily to scrunch on seeds left by another park patron.

Mandalay Fisherman Village- Myanmar

  

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.

.

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..

 

Follow me on www.facebook.com here

Beautiful Artist at Bagan

 

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.

.

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..

 

Follow me on www.facebook.com here

Silk Making Old Lady

 

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.

.

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..

 

Follow me on www.facebook.com here

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

 

Lettice is sitting at her Hepplewhite desk next to the fire in her drawing room. On its surface sits her diary and a ledger of accounts. Most of her clients are reasonable about settling their accounts promptly, or at least paying them off in instalments. However, it seems the more aristocratic the person, the more elusive payment is. The one glaringly overdue account on her ledger is for the Duchess of Whitby. Not a penny has been put towards the work Lettice did redecorating the small reception room of her Fitzroy Square townhouse, in spite of several polite reminders, two visits to the townhouse and several telephone calls..

 

Lettice looks at the black Bakelite and chrome telephone that she has dragged to her desk from across the room where it usually lives on a black japanned occasional table. She sighs. This is not a telephone call that she wants to make.

 

Suddenly Edith, Lettice’s maid, comes in with a cup of tea for her.

 

“Oh Edith, you are a brick!” Lettice exclaims as the maid places the cup of tea on the edge of her desk.

 

“Well Miss, you’ve hardly moved from that desk of yours for a good hour and a half, so I thought you’d be in need of a good cup of tea.”

 

“I’m gong through the accounts, Edith. And of course, who remains at the top of my unpaid accounts list, but the Duchess of Whitby.”

 

“That nasty old woman.” Edith spits with vehemence.

 

“Edith!” Lettice gasps and laughs at the same time.

 

“Oh I’m sorry to speak out of turn, Miss,” Edith says apologetically. “But that’s how I feel about her. She’s always rude and condescending towards me whenever she telephones and I answer when you are out, and it’s not right that she doesn’t pay her bills.”

 

“Your summation of her is quite apt, Edith. She is very rude, and she hasn’t paid her bill.”

 

“Imagine if I didn’t pay for things I’d ordered, Miss,” Edith continues. “Why, I’d be carted off to Holloway prison by a bobby!”

 

“Well, we can’t have that, Edith. I should be lost without you.”

 

“That’s very kind of you to say so, Miss.”

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

The telephone sitting on the desk starts ringing. Mistress and maid exchange surprised glances at one another.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“Perhaps it’s the Duchess now, Edith.” Lettice says jokingly.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“Realising she’s been spoken about, she is calling to apologise for the delay in payment.” she continues.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“It’s more likely to be the constabulary phoning to cart me away than it is the Duchess!” Edith scoffs.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“Mayfair 432,” Lettice answers in her very best telephone voice. A distant female voice speaks down the line. “Oh Margot! Margot darling, what a lovely surprise!”

 

Edith makes to go, but Lettice reaches out and clasps her hand, encouraging her to stay. She sighs. Looking around the room she feels awkward as she overhears whisps of the conversation. She would much rather return to the kitchen and start cleaning the cutlery with Silvo silver paste, which is what she would be doing if her mistress hadn’t grabbed her as if her life depended on it.

 

“No Margot darling! It isn’t bad timing at all. In fact, it’s perfect timing. You’ve just saved me from having to try and telephone my worst client.” The voice speaks at the other end of the telephone. “Yes, yes the ghastly Duchess.” Lettice’s laughter is joined in by girlish peals down the line. She listens intently. “Oh, oh really Margot darling? What is it?” Lettice looks to her maid, who tries not to look her in the eye and makes an effort of gazing anywhere but at her mistress. “No!” She squeezes Edith’s hand tightly. “No! No, really?” The voice increases pitch on the other end. “And what did you say?” More excited female voice burbles indistinctly from the other end of the call. “You did! Oh hoorah!” Lettice releases Edith’s hand and reaches for her throat in excitement. “Oh congratulations, dear Margot!” The chattering voice continues at the other end. “Yes, let me just have a look.” Lettice flips open her diary and runs her finger down the page for next week. “Yes, Wednesday is fine Margot! Yes, come around for tea, no, for cocktails and we’ll celebrate, and you can tell me all about it. Oh, I can hardly wait!” She listens. “Very good. Yes… yes, I shall see you then. Goodbye, darling Margot! And congratulations again.”

 

Lettice replaces the Bakelite receiver into the chrome cradle of the telephone.

 

“Well!” Lettice gasps with excitement. “You’ll never guess who that was, Edith!”

 

“I’m quite sure I couldn’t say, Miss.” Edith says dourly.

 

“It was dear Margot: Marguerite de Virre! You’ll never guess what’s she’s gone and done, Edith!”

 

“I’m positive I’d never guess, Miss.” Edith replies, casting her eyes to the white painted ceiling.

 

“She’s just become engaged to Dickie Channon!”

 

“Well that’s wonderful news, Miss.” Edith replies cheerily, pretending that wasn’t something she’d easily surmised for herself by being forced to eavesdrop by her mistress. “Well, that will be two less for Embassy Club now, won’t it Miss?”

 

“What an odd thing to say.” Lettice looks at her quizzically. “Why ever would it be Edith?”

 

“Well, it’s just that now they are getting married, they won’t have time for nightclubs and all your smart set. They’ll be too busy setting down to married life and having a family, won’t they?”

 

“You really do have some very odd ideas about marriage, Edith.” Lettice remarks with concern. “Of course they won’t let married life interfere with their social life. In fact being part of our set, we won’t have to worry about accepting some dreary chap or other into the group. How perfect!”

 

Edith looks in bewilderment at her mistress.

 

“I wonder if I’ll be asked to be a bridesmaid. Oh horror!” Edith clutches at her throat again. “Such ghastly dresses bridesmaids have to wear so they don’t outshine the bride.” She thinks. “No! She has far too many cousins who will be vying to hold her train. Excellent! Well, that’s settled then.”

 

Lettice sighs and looks at the telephone. “Well, I suppose I best ring the Duchess then.”

 

“Best you had, Miss.” Edith agrees as she leaves the room to return to the kitchen to clean the silver. The further removed she is from the Duchess of Whitby, the happier she will be, Edith thinks.

 

For anyone who follows my photostream, you will know that I collect and photograph 1:12 size miniatures, so even though Lettice’s cluttered desk look life size, both it and the clutter are in fact tiny artisan miniatures. There are some very tiny pieces here, which can be challenging for me to place, even with my adept fingers and fine motor skills!

 

Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:

 

Lettice’s Hepplewhite drop-drawer bureau and chair are beautifully and artfully made by J.B.M. miniatures. Both the bureau and chair are made of black japanned wood which have been hand painted with chinoiserie designs, even down the arms of the chair and inside the bureau. The chair set has a rattan seat, which has also been hand woven.

 

On the top of the Hepplewhite bureau stand three real miniature photos in frames including an Edwardian silver frame, a Victorian brass frame and an Art Deco blue Bakelite and glass frame. The latter comes from Doreen Jenkins’ Small Wonders Miniatures in England, whilst the other two come from Melody Jane Dolls’ House, also in England. The photos themselves are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

Also on the desk, are some 1:12 artisan miniature ink bottles, stamps, a blotter and letter rack, all made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures. The ink bottles are made from tiny faceted crystal beads and have sterling silver bottoms and lids. The ink blotter is sterling silver too and has a blotter made of real black felt, cut meticulously to size to fit snugly inside the frame. The letter opener is also made of silver. The roller is silver too, with carefully cut paper to go around the roll. The stamp is made of brass and so is the letter rack which contains some 1:12 size correspondence, also made by the Little Green Workshop, as is the black leather diary with the silver clasp, the ledger on the desktop and the silver pen with the pearl end.

 

The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature of a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling chord does stretch out.

 

The fireplace appearing just to the right of the photograph is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace on which stands an Art Deco metal clock hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken.

 

The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

Divided reverse. Letter generously translated by Nettenscheider, the author writes to his cousin and jokingly tells them he he and his baker-colleagues take cover behind the loaves of bread they bake.

 

Bakers from an unidentified Prussian formation in Brussels 1914.

 

Germany declared war on Belgium on 4 August 1914 after which it's armies crossed the border and attacked Liège. The Belgian army was forced to retreat and by August 20 the Germans entered Brussels on its way to France. The Belgians elected not to defend the city and the Germans marched through unhindered.

Would you believe all this arrived in my mailbox from ONE person?!?! Yet another surprise package from the astoundingly generous Melissa Allen of SnitchesGetStitches fame! This time landing on my doorstep in a box big enough to fit three Sadies and featuring a candy & carnival/circus theme!

 

My hubby damn near had to dig out the smelling salts to revive me! I could have practically filled a bathtub with the goodies that she sent! There was no way in the world it was all going to fit into one picture frame... there's so much missing here... a package of stylish serviettes, a delectable 'Parasite Pals' purse & darling plastic 'Teacups Ride' thingy, etc. This is just a taste of what the MONSTER-SIZED box contained!

 

This girl seriously MAKES ME CRY she is so endlessly thoughtful & sweet! I was just about weeping with joy reading the handwritten note that came with it. Such incredible sentiment expressed. It was the next best thing to receiving Melissa in the mail herself!

 

Melissa you have GOT to stop doing this or you will put me in the grave! :) I heart you so DANG much! You do not know how completely shell-shocked I am, nor how grateful I am to know the bottomless well of kindness that is YOU!

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you, with all my Missy-might! <3

The Generous Briton, Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire. I wonder if they offer free refillable beer?

 

24th January 2019

.

Thank you all for the generous feedback on the pics from my trip to Kenya. I still have a few left to work on.

 

The safari experience was wonderful.

 

There is one strict rule when on safari; "you do not step outside the vehicle"

 

This is a challenge when it comes to getting the shots you want. Your choices of POV are a bit limited, and if you like to "shoot low" it can be a little frustrating.

 

Anyway - it is worth it. I took most of my pics hanging out of the windows instead of standing up (they lift the roof up so that you can stand up to admire the scenery and the inhabitants)

 

One thing I regret is that I did not make the driver stop more often for me to take pics of all the glorious and lonely trees in Masai Mara. Most of the tree shots are taken while the car was moving, looking for animals. Perhaps one day I will go back there on a tree safari :))

 

♫ ♪

Divided reverse. Letter generously translated by Nettenscheider, written in Bautzen on 3.9.1915 and addressed to a Fräulein Martha Frenzel in Hörnitz. Postage cancelled a day later in Bautzen.

 

Saxon Husaren resplendent in Feldgrau circa September 1915.

 

The boots of the Hussars were called „Tschismen“ and like the rest of their wartime uniform, they were based on the colourful peacetime uniform. Compared to regular cavalry boots, „Tschismen“ were much more fancy and adorned with white edging along the top, which formed a rosette on the front.

  

Part of large stained glass window at Huntington Gardens in San Marino, California

Generously loaned for display at the Washington Auto Show.

The end of the 2010 Winter Olympics is drawing close.

While there are things to both support and to despise about the Olympics, I have been pleased with the way Vancouver/Whistler held up and even shone.

But what has most caught my attention has been the athletes themselves.

Among the many heart-warming stories and accomplishments I just wanted to acknowledge 3 of our medal-winning Canadians and their generosity.

As far as know, most competitors are not rich. If anything, broke is a closer description. So to see Jennifer Heil, Alexandre Bilodeau & Clara Hughes donate their entire bonus for winning a medal to charity makes me proud to support them.

Congratulations to them and all the athletes for their determination is getting to these Olympics and taking the risks necessary to be among the best in the world. :)

 

Made {explore} - Highest position: 185 on Sunday, February 28, 2010

Thailand street scene.

Fresh egg pasta generously filled with PDO Gorgonzola Cheese and Walnuts. Gorgonzola PDO cheese is reputed to have been produced in Gorgonzola, Milan

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swat_District

  

Swat (pronounced [ˈsʋaːt̪], Pashto: سوات) is a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, located close to the Afghan-Pakistan border. It is the upper valley of the Swat River, which rises in the Hindu Kush range. The capital of Swat is Saidu Sharif, but the main town in the Swat valley is Mingora.[1] It was a princely state (see Swat (princely state)) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa until it was dissolved in 1969. The valley is almost entirely populated by ethnic Gujjar and Pashtuns (Afghans). The language spoken in the valley is Pashto/Pakhto and Gojri. With high mountains, green meadows, and clear lakes, it is a place of great natural beauty and is popular with tourists as "the Switzerland of the region".

  

History

  

Swat has been inhabited for over two thousand years. The first inhabitants were settled in well-planned towns. In 327 BC, Alexander the Great fought his way to odegram and Barikot and stormed their battlements. In Greek accounts these towns have been identified as Ora and Bazira. Around the 2nd century BC, the area was occupied by Buddhists, who were attracted by the peace and serenity of the land. There are many remains that testify to their skills as sculptors and architects. In the beginning of the 8th century AD, Gabari Royal Tajik tribe advanced through Laghman, ningarhar, Dir and invaded Swat, defeating the Buddhists and the Hindus. This war was headed by Sultan Pakhal Gabari and later on by Sultan Behram Gabari Rulers of Kuner Pich and cousin of Rulers of Balkh and Kashmir. Later some Dilazak encrouched tha area and settled among Gabaris, who in turn were ousted by the Yusufzais which was backed by Mughal Badshah Zahiruddin Muhammad Baber, considered the super power in 1519 and 1520. The historical paradox was that the Yusufzais were ousted from Kabul by Mirza Ullegh beg, the uncle of Baber, and killed 600 malak of Yusufzai; the Gabaris helped Yousofzais refugees with a warm welcome and settled them in Bajour Dir and Swat regions. The Yousofzais forgot the generosity of Gabaris and encrouched upon the Gabari state with the plotted help of Zahiruddin Muhammad babar. They Demolished the Gabar-Kot (fortress) in bajour in 1519 and further advanced to the swat and compelled the last Gabari King Sultan Awais Gabari to flee to Upper Dir where he established his rule in,Chitral wakhan,Badakhshan and other upper Oxus. The originator of the present family of Swat was the Muslim saint Abdul Ghafoor, the Akhund of Swat, a Safi Momand of Hazara district, from where he went to Buner territory. He was a pious man and the people respected him so greatly that they called him Akhund Sahib.[2]

 

During the mid-19th century, Muslim tribes were fighting against each other for the possession of Swat Valley. On the intervention of the honourable Akhund Sahib, the killing was stopped, and such was his influence that the chiefs of all tribes unanimously made him the ruler of the valley. Akhund Sahib administrated the valley according to Muslim laws. Peace and tranquility prevailed, and agriculture and trade flourished in the territory. Akhund Sahib had two sons by his wife, who belonged to Nikpi Khel(نیک پی خیل).

 

After the death of Akhund Sahib, the tribal chiefs again started fighting and killing, which continued for years. Eventually the tribal chiefs agreed to give the control of the valley into the hands of the honourable Gul Shahzada Abdul Wadood, the son of Mian Gul Abdul Khaliq, son of Akhund Sahib. The wife of Mian Abdul Wadood was the daughter of Honorable Mirza Afzal-ul-Mulk, the ruler of Chitral. The British by trick put Chitral under the suzerainty of Kashmir. The Chitral ruler gave two horses every year to the Rajia of Kashmir, and the Raja provided Chitral with grain and sugar, etc. Swat thus went under protection of the British.

 

During the rule of Mian Gul Muhammad, Abdul Haq Jehanzeb, the son of Mian Abdul Wadood Khatana, the state acceded to Pakistan in 1947. The present prince, Muhammad Aurzngzeb Khan, son of Jahanzeb, married the daughter of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan in 1955. Thus by intermarriages with the other castes, the family became a branch of the imperial Gujjars i.e., the Royal family of Swat valley which belongs to the Gujjar family which laid down the foundation of Swat kingdom. Jahanzeb started a Degree College at Saidu Sahrif, the capital of the State, and four High Schools at Mingora, Chakesar, Matta and Dagar. Fourteen middle schools, twenty-eight lower middle schools, and fifty-six primary schools were established. A girls high school and high class religious schools were established at Saidu Sharif. At all the schools, the poor students were granted scholarships. The state was an exemplary state during British rule. They also have a firm stand in politics of Pakistan. The current Prince Aurangzeb Khan was also Governor of Baluchistan.

  

Buddhist heritage of Swat

  

Although it is generally accepted that Tantric Buddhism first developed in Swat under King Indrabhuti, there is an old and well-known scholarly dispute as to whether Uddiyana was in the Swat valley, Orissa or some other place. Padmasambhava (flourished eighth century AD), also called Guru Rimpoche, Tibetan Slob-dpon (teacher), or Padma ‘byung-gnas (lotus born) legendary Indian Buddhist mystic who introduced Tantric Buddhism to Tibet and is credited with establishing the first buddhist monastery there.According to tradition, Padmasambhava was native to Udyana (now Swat in Pakistan).[3] Padmasambhava was the son of Indrabhuti, king of Swat in the early eighth century AD. One of the original Siddhas, Indrabhuti flourished in the early eighth century AD and was the king of Uddiyana in the Kabul valley. His son Padmasambhava is revered as the second Buddha in Tibet. Indrabhuti's sister, Lakshminkaradevi, was also an accomplished siddha of the 9th century AD.[4] Ancient Gandhara, the valley of Pekhawar, with the adjacent hilly regions of Swat and Buner, Dir and Bajaur was one of the earliest centers of Buddhist religion and culture following the reign of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, in the third century BC. The name Gandhara first occurs in the Rigveda which is usually identified with the region[5]

  

Buddha heritage in the Swat Valley

  

The Swat museum has acquired footprints of the Buddha, which were originally placed for devotion in the sacred Swat valley. When the Buddha ascended, relics (personal items, body parts, ashes etc.) were distributed to seven kings, who built stupas over them for veneration.

  

The Harmarajika stupa (Taxila) and Butkarha (Swat) stupa at Jamal Garha were among the earliest Gandhara stupas. These were erected on the orders of King Ashoka and contained the genuine relics of the historic Buddha.[citation needed]

 

The Gandhara school is credited with the first representations of the Buddha in human form, rather symbolically as the wheel of the law, the tree, etc.[citation needed]

 

As Buddhist art developed and spread outside Gandhara, Gandharan styles were imitated. In China the Gandhara style was imitated in bronze images, with gradual changes in the features of these images over the passage of time. Swat, the land of romance and beauty, is celebrated throughout the Buddhist world as the holy land of Buddhist learning and piety. Swat was a popular destination for Buddhist pilgrims. Buddhist tradition holds that Buddha himself came to Swat during his incarnation as Gautama Buddha and preached to the people here.

 

It is said[by whom?] that the Swat valley was filled with fourteen hundred imposing and beautiful stupas and monasteries, which housed as many as 6,000 gold images of the Buddhist pantheon for worship and education. Archaeologists now know of more than 400 Buddhist sites covering an area of 160 km2 in Swat valley alone. Among the important excavations of Buddhist sites in Swat an important one is Butkarha-I, containing original relics of the Buddha. A stone statue of Buddha, is still there in the village Ghalegay.[citation needed] There is also a big stupa in Mohallah Singardar Ghalegay

  

Hindu Shahi Rulers and Sanskrit

  

Swat was ruled by the Hindu Shahi dynasty who have built an extensive array of temples and other architectural buildings now in ruins. Sanskrit may have been the lingua franca of the Swatis.[

  

Hindu Shahi rulers built fortresses to guard and tax the commerce through this area. Their ruins can be seen in the hills of Swat: at Malakand pass at Swat’s southern entrance

  

Advent of Islam by Mahmud of Ghazni

  

At the end of the Mauryan period (324-185 BC) Buddhism spread in the whole Swat valley, which became a very famous center of Buddhist religion.[8]

 

After a Buddhist phase the Hindu religion reasserted itself, so that at the time of the Muslim conquest (1000 AD) the population was solidly Hindu.[8]

  

In 1023 Mahmood of Ghazni attacked Swat and crushed the last Buddhist King, Raja Gira in battle. The invasion of Mahmood of Ghazni is of special importance because of the introduction of Islam as well as changing the Chronology.

  

Arrival Of Yousafzais

  

The first Muslim arrivals in Swat were Pakhtun Dilazak tribes from south-east Afghanistan. These were later ousted by Swati Pakhtuns, who were succeeded in the sixteenth century by Yusufzai Pakhtuns. Both groups of Pakhtuns came from the Kandahar and Kabul valley

  

Geography

  

The valley of Swat is situated in the north of N.W.F.P, 35° North Latitude and 72° and 30° East Longitude, and is enclosed by the sky-high mountains.

 

Chitral and Gilgit are situated in the north, Dir in the west, and Mardan in the south, while Indus separates it from Hazara in the east. Physical Features: Swat can be divided into two physical regions:

 

Mountainous Ranges.

Plains.

  

Mountainous Ranges

  

As mentioned above, Swat is lying in the lap of Mountainous Ranges, which are the offshoots of Hindukush, so the larger part of Swat is covered with high mountains and hills, the crests of which is hidden by everlasting snow. Though these gigantic Ranges run irregularly: some to the west while the others to the east, but the general direction is North-South. These ranges enclose small but very enchanting valleys.

 

Eastern Ranges: In Kohistan-e-Swat the chief knot of eastern ranges is Mankial. Its northern branches separate Kohistan-e-Swat from Abasin Kohistan. These ranges form a barrier between Gilgit and Swat, and between Chitral and Swat. The southern extension of Mankial ranges reaches proper Swat. There they join Shangla ranges. Shangla ranges separate proper Swat from Shangla Par area (Shangla Par district). In Shangla district, there are Karora Ranges, which separate Puran from Kanra and Ghurband. The continuation of Shangla ranges joins Dwasaray. On the one hand Dwasaray separates lower Swat from Puran, on the other, it set aside the Buner from Puran. Now the general Direction of the ranges turns westward. Here it is called Elum. Elum Ranges is a big wall between the proper Swat and Buner. The Elum ranges at last join mountains of Malakand.

  

The Western Ranges: Western ranges start from the mountain and hills of Gabral, Kohistan-e-Swat. It joins the hills of Kundal (Utror). There these ranges meet Daral Ranges. These ranges form a border with Dir district. They run west ward and are named according to the locality. For example Lalko ranges Manrai and Chaprai etc. at last they join the hills of Adenzee and Shamozee. Manrai ranges send off some off shoots southward. They the hills separate Arnoyay valley from the widest valley of Nekpikheil valley.

  

Plains

  

Actually the valley of Swat starts from the foothill of Malakand but we are concerned with portion from Landakay to Gabral (Gulabad), the area within the administrative boundaries of Swat. The length of the valley from Landakay to Gabral is 91 miles. Two narrow strips of plains run along the banks of Swat River from Landakay to Madyan. Beyond Madyan in Kohistan-e-Swat, the plan is too little to be mentioned. So for as the width concerns, it is not similar, it varies from place to place. We can say that the average width is 5 miles. The widest portion of the valley is between Barikot and khwaza khela. The widest view point and the charming sight where a major portion of the valley is seen is at Gulibagh on main road, which leads to Madyan. There are some subsidiary valleys, which help to increase the width of the main valley. These subsidiary valleys are called "Daras". A Dara a narrow passage between mountains, and sometimes, the upper course of a river is also called Dara. If we imagine the main valley as a stem of a tree the subsidiary valleys form its branches. Swat River and its tributaries drain Swat. There fore, the whole valley is the outcome of running water. This flowing water cuts the upper courses deeply, and flows the load of washed away materials. As the gradient is greater in the upper course so the erosion is on large scale, particularly in the summer rains, when all the rivers are in flood. The big boulders and stones are rolled, which causes more destruction in the upper courses. When the loaded water reaches to the areas of low gradient, the heavier materials are deposited. The deposition takes place according to the slope, generally, we observe, that the upper course is made up of big boulders, the middle course is of relatively small stones, pebbles, and debris, while the lower course is made of fine clay. Anyhow, the whole plain of Swat valley is strewn by the running water, and is made up of fine alluvial soil.

  

Demographics

  

The population at the 1981 Census was 715,938, which had risen to 1,257,602 at the next Census in 1998. The main language of the area is Pakhto. The people of Swat are mainly Pakhtuns,(Afghans) Yusufzais, Akhund Khel Miangan (Syed), Chitralis, Kohistan is, Gurjar (Gujar or Gurjar is the major tribe of the district; its people are divided in different clans like Khatana, Bajarh, Chichi, Ahir, Chuhan, Pamra, Gangal etc. are the main subtribe of the Gurjar family of Swat), Akhund khel Yousafzai, Nooristani, and Awans. Most probably they are originated from the same tribe that roamed around the great trans-Himalayan mountain ranges thousands of years before, and now remained in some isolated pockets of the Himalayan mountain ranges.[citation needed]

 

The Dardic people of the Kalam region in northern Swat are known as Kohistan is and speak the Torwali and Kalami languages. There are also some Khowar speakers in the Kalam region. This is because before Kalam came under the rule of Swat, it was a regional tributary to Chitral. The Kalamis paid a tribute of mountain ponies to the Mehtar of Chitral every year.

  

Tourist attractions

  

Marghazar

  

Marghazar 16 km away from Saidu Sharif is famous for its “Sufed Mahal” the white marble palace of the former Wali (Ruler) of Swat.

  

Malam Jabba

  

Malam Jabba (also Maalam Jabba, Urdu: مالم جبہ) is a Hill Station in the Karakoram mountain range nearly 40 km from Saidu Sharif in Swat Valley, Peshawar, Pakistan. It is 314 km from Islamabad and 51 km from Saidu Sharif Airport.Malam Jabba is home to the largest ski resort in Pakistan. The Malam Jabba Ski Resort, owned by the Pakistani Tourism Development Corporation, had a ski slope of about 800m with the highest point of the slope 2804 m (9200 ft) above sea level. Malam Jabba Ski Resort was the joint effort of the Pakistan government with its Austrian counterpart. The resort was equipped with modern facilities including roller/ice-skating rinks, chair lifts, skiing platforms, telephones and snow clearing equipment.

  

Swat Museum

  

Swat Museum is on the east side of the street, halfway between Mingora and Saidu. Japanese aid has given a facelift to its seven galleries which now contain an excellent collection of Gandhara sculptures taken from some of the Buddhist sites in Swat, rearranged and labelled to illustrate the Buddha's life story. Terracotta figurines and utensils, beads, precious stones, coins, weapons and various metal objects illustrate daily life in Gandhara. The ethnographic section displays the finest examples of local embroidery, carved wood and tribal jewellery. For the last three years the museum is occupied by Pakistan army and it is not known when they would be leaving it.

  

Miandam

  

Miandam is a small summer resort ten kilometres (six miles) up a steep side valley and 56 kilometers (35 mi) from Saidu Sharif, making it an hour's drive. The metaled road passes small villages stacked up the hillside, the roofs of one row of houses forming the street for the row of houses above. Tiny terraced fields march up the hillside right to the top. Miandam is a good place for walkers. Paths follow the stream, past houses with behives set into the walls and good-luck charms whitewashed around the doors. In the graveyards are carved wooden grave posts with floral designs, like those used by Buddhists 1,000 years ago.

  

Madyan

  

By the time you reach this small town at 1320 m and about 60 km from Mingora, the mountains have closed in and the valley is almost snug. Here one senses why Swat is so popular among the tourists. There are a lot of embroidered shawls in the Bazars of Madyan.At 1,321 metres (4,335 feet) above sea level,but it is a larger town and has many hotels in all price ranges and some good tourist shopping. Antique and modern shawls, traditional embroidery, tribal jewellery, carved wood and antique or reproduced coins are sold along the main street. This is the last Swati village, offering interesting two-and three-day walks up to the mountain villages... ask in the bazaar in Muambar Khan's shop for a guide. North of Madyan is Swat Kohistan where walking is not recommended without an armed guard. The central mosque at Madyan has carved wooden pillars with elegant scroll capitals, and its mud-plastered west wall is covered with relief designs in floral motifs. Both bespeak the Swati's love of decoration.[10]

  

Behrain

  

A quarter of an hour past Madyan, the road squeezes through Behrain. Tourists stop to shop or have a look around for beautiful carved wood chairs and tables and other handicrafts. Behrainis are a mix of Pashtuns and Kohistanis. Behrain is ten kilometres north of Madyan and only slightly higher, at about 1,400 metres (4,500 feet). It is another popular riverside tourist resort, with bazaars worth exploring for their handicrafts. Some of the houses have carved wooden doors, pillars and balconies. These show a remarkable variety of decorative motifs, including floral scrolls and bands of ornamental diaper patterns almost identical to those seen on Buddhist shrines and quite different from the usual Muslim designs.

  

Kalam

  

2070 m high and 100 km from Mingora, it was the centre of an independent state in the 19th century. It was later taken by Chitral then given to Swat after partition.Kalam, 29 kilometres (18 mi) from Bahrain and about 2,000 metres (6,800 feet) above sea level, the valley opens out, providing rooms for a small but fertile plateau above the river. In Kalam the Ushu and Utrot rivers join to form the Swat river. Here, the metalled road ends and shingle road leads to the Ushu and Utrot valleys. From Matiltan one gets a breath-taking view of the snow-capped Mount Falaksir 5918 metres (19,415 ft.), and another unnamed peak 6096 metres (20,000 ft.) high.

  

Usho

  

Usho 3 km from Kalam Valley and 117 km from Saidu Sharif

  

Utror

  

Utror 16 km from Kalam Valley and 120 km from Saidu Sharif. Utror valley is situated between 35° 20′ to 35° 48′ N latitudes and 72° 12′ and 72° 32′ E longitudes. The population of Utror is 6888 and the area of the valley is about 47400 hectares. Utror valley is surrounded by Gabral and Bhan valleys on the east, upper Dir district on the west, Kalam valley on the south and Gabral valley on the north. It is 15 km from Kalam, the centre of Swat Kohistan. The altitude of the valley at Utror proper is 2300 meters and reaches to 2900 meters at Kandol Lake.

  

Ghabral

  

Gabral valley lies between 35° 20′ to 35° 48′ N latitudes and 72° 12′ and 72° 32′ E longitudes over an area of about 38733 hectares. The population of Gabral is 3238. The valley is surrounded by Chitral District in the north, Utror valley in the south and south west, upper Dir district in the west and Bhan and Mahodand valleys in the east. It is 5 km distant from Utror proper and 20 km from Kalam. The altitude of the valley ranges from 2580 metres at Baila to 5160 metres at Karkaray Lake top.In Utror and Gabral, 44 medicinal plants are collected during the months of May, June, July and August. Only 14 of them are traded to National and International markets while the rest are used locally. A survey by Pakistan Forest Institute concludes that 75 crude herbal drugs are extensively exported and more than 200 are locally traded in Pakistan. Indigenous people, who have no training in sustainable harvesting, post-harvesting care and storing of medicinal plants, collect 85 percent of these crude herbs from the wild.

  

Kundol Lake, Swat valley

  

Mahudan

  

Mahodand valley, which lies in the North of Kalam, is famous not only among nature lovers, and escapists but also the exotic trout fish hunters. The valley can be accessed through an un-metalled road from Kalam in a four by four (4x4) vehicle. The road is bumpy and tricky but the surrounding landscapes engrosses you so severely that you wish for more and expect to discover new panoramas. The small hamlets that are scattered in the mountains and the bellowing smoke that spirals into the sky from the houses are some, which lives in the memory forever. Swat River, which is born here, is shackled by the tall mountains, which has turned its water into a roaring monster trying to release itself from its fetters, but there are some places where the river is calm and silent without showing any sign of rebellion.

  

Pari (Khapiro) lake

  

Pari Lake is one of the lakes in Swat region which is located at a very high altitude in the foot of the tallest peak in the range with a considerable depth. The name Pari or Khapiro is given to the lake due to the widespread belief that the lake is the abode of fairies where they live and bathe in the cool, pure and clear water of the lake. It is located to North-east of Utror valley and can be accessed only by trekking. Trekking to the lake needs endurance and love for nature as the trail is exasperating as well as dangerous therefore, utmost care should be taken while trekking on the narrow bends and turns leading to the lake. The lake is accessible from both Izmis and Kundal lakes. Two ascending tracks lead to this lake from Kundal and Izmis lakes taking almost five hours to reach this roof top of Swat. The trail is very steep from both sides but the surrounding beauty and eye-cooling green pastures and exotic flowers not only boost the trekker’s stamina but compel him to explore further.

  

Kundol Lake

  

The pastoral valley of Swat has abundance of precious resorts of nature where one can find solace and respite from the never-ending struggle of life. Kundal or Kandolo Lake is one such place here upon which the Maestro of nature has spent extra time and effort to paint. Kundal Lake is situated in the north of Utror valley. One can easily access it from Kalam via Utror from where a link road ends in a green valley called Ladu in the foothills of the lake. You can either hike to Ladu from Utror or take a four-wheeler to ease and minimize your journey. It consumes almost two hours to reach the beautiful valley of Ladu. For the adventurous kind, a walk in the romantic valley will unravel several new mysteries. The people who take temporary residency over here during summer plow the open land and harvest potatoes and turnips, which are famous all over the country for its exotic taste. There is also a small hut in Ladu where you can take tea and get something for eating. From Ladu it takes almost four hours to reach the lake. Some locals can guide you and even take your luggage if properly paid. The mountains around this small valley are covered with tall cedar and pine trees and meandered by different streams and torrents. The people are friendly and provide you guidance if required.

  

Bashigram Lake

  

Bashigram Lake is situated to the east of Bashigram valley near Madyan. The road to this valley is partly metaled and can be plied by a four by four or any ordinary vehicle. It takes almost forty to fifty minutes to reach this picturesque valley inhibited by simple and hospitable folk. From here, trekking of four to five hours, depending on professionalism and enthusiasm of the trekkers lands you in the realm of a serene and enchanting lake of Bashigram.

  

Spin Khwar (White Stream) Lake

  

Spin Khwar is a beautiful lake hidden in the lap of mountains towards the north of Kundal Lake and east of Utror valley. The name Spin Khwar has a clear significance as a small white stream in the east flows down to the lake from the surrounding mountains and is a major source of water for the lake. The lake is accessible through two tracks, one from Kundal and the other from Ladu valley. The track from Ladu is comparatively easy to walk and less tiring while the track from Kundal is not only difficult but alarmingly dangerous although it is short and links Kundal and Spin Khwar. Its steepness and dangerous bends needs an experienced trekker and unending physical strength. The grazers in the area have built small huts and a mosque where one can stay but a personal tent is more recommendable as these huts are in a poor condition due to lack of maintenance.

  

Daral Lake

  

Daral lake is situated to the northeast of Sidgai Lake and can be accessed through Saidgai after two three hours rigorous trekking. The trail to Daral is full of fun and amusement because it runs over sky touching heights of the mountains provides spectacular sights and panoramas for the beauty hungry eyes of nature lovers. A close look towards the south will reveal the long and winding sellouts of river Swat in the horizon.After walking and trekking for about two and a half hours on bare and naked mountains, the trail start descending towards the East where Daral Lake is located.

  

Administration

  

The region has gone through considerable changes over the last few years since the dissolution of the princely state in 1969. Members of the former Royal family have since on occasion been elected to represent the area in the Provincial Assembly and National Assembly.

  

Provincial & national politics

  

The region elects two male members of the National Assembly of Pakistan (MNAs), one female MNA, seven male members of the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (MPAs)[11] and two female MPAs. In the 2002 National and Provincial elections, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an alliance of religious political parties, won all the seats amidst a wave of anti-Americanism that spread after the United States' invasion of Afghanistan.

  

Wild Life: In early days when the shrubs and bushes covered slopes and foothill areas,hares, porcupine, fox, jackal, wolf, pigs, and hyenas were in large number. Now the need for fuels decreased the scrubs and trees, so these animals have decreased considerably. In the forests,monkeys are often found. Among the birds: hawks, eagles, falcons are found in the high mountains, while pheasants, partridges, hoopoes, larks, sparrows, quails, doves, swallows, starlings, nightingales, crows, kites, vultures, owls, bates are the common birds.

  

Bees: The bees were kept in Swat commonly, and the pure honey of was famous all over the country. But now the moveable beehives have affected the Swat locally reared bees greatly. Now, the local good honey is found in remote areas only, while the honey of moveable hives is available everywhere in low prices.

  

Fisheries: There is a large fishery in Madyan. In this fishery the trout fish are being reared. In Kohistan-e-Swat there are some private fisheries too. In Buner the fish were being reared in Barandu, Dagar. Moreover the Swat River serves as a permanent fishery throughout the year while the tributaries of it are used for fishing only in spring season.

  

Mineral Resources: Mines' production plays an important role in the economy of a country, particularly in the regions where they exist, because, the local people get the opportunities to labor in, and earn their livelihood. But the Swati mines have no importance for the local people in this respect. It is necessary, however, to mention what they are, and where do they exist. Swat is rich in mineral wealth, but the discovered commodities are a few. Among them, the china clay stands first; others are marble stone, and emerald.

  

China Clay: The china clay exists at “Kathyar” in Nekpikheil (on the road that leads to Shahderai at a distance of 15 miles from Mingora). This is the largest mine, having the finest quality, of China clay in Pakistan. The clay is mined here, and is transported to Shaidu in Nawshehra (which is at a distance of around 100 miles from Swat). It is not so advantageous for the local people, because they have no opportunity to work in the complex.

  

Soap Clay: The mine of soap clay has been discovered recently between Alpurai and Kanra on the side of Gilgit Road (Shahrah-e-Resham). It is spread in a vast area.

  

Marbles: The marbles are dug near Charbagh, Murghuzar, and Barikot in the proper valley of Swat, and in Buner, it is mined in Thor Warsak, Bampokha, and Sawawai. Moreover, there is a great expectation of iron ores, which will be discovered in near future.

  

Emerald: The finest quality of emerald is produced in Swat. Its Color and transparency is unique. It is the best in world. It is exported to the international markets: There is an export potential of 500 million dollars in this sector, provided it is excavated and cut as per international standards. Before the absorption of Swat in Pakistan, the emeralds of Swat were better in quality, and greater in quantity. But since then it is said that the quantity of production is little, and the quality devalued.

  

Industries:

  

Handicrafts: The handicrafts of Swat are very famous. When a tourist visits Swat, he accumulates bundles of these articles as gifts for his friends. All of the crafts prepared here are interesting, especially, the following are very charming.

  

Woolen Blankets: These blankets are known as "Sharai". They are prepared of wool obtained from the local sheep. The weight of a medium size blanket is four kilos. This is the best source of defense from the severity of winter. It is woven in Dewlai, Kala Kalay, Salampur, Puran, and Ghurband. These villages prepare the items on commercial scale.

  

Shawl: Shawl is a younger brother of Sharai, as it is also a woolen sheet, but light in weight. Sometimes, cotton is also mixed in its texture. It is beautifully fringed, and is commonly used by ladies. The tourists like it too much. Shawls are prepared in Salampur and Dewlai "Jolabad" on commercial bases.

  

Rugs: The next important thing, made of local fleece with laborious work, is rug. This is prepared in the villages by pressing wool with the help of water spray. After preparation, it is beautified with the usage of various colors. Rugs are the traditional carpets of shepherds, but now are used everywhere.

  

Embroidery: The embroidery of Swat is very famous, and is liked everywhere in Pakistan, as well as by the out-comers. This art is an indoor hobby of the ladies in Swat. Particularly in Nekpikheil, this is so common that very younger girls might also be seen having needlework in their hands. There are three types of embroidery:

  

Panrae or Panhey: Panrey or Panrhey is the old fashion of shoes, still used by the old persons in Swat. They are made in Swat with the simply tanned leather. The cobblers have great skill in the formation of ladies shoes with golden lace work. Similarly, the sandals with golden lace work are also made. The cobblers of Shahderai had great skill in this field. It is now archaic.

  

Shkor: A Shkor is a pot in which chapatis (plate bread used in India and Pakistan) are kept. The ordinary Shkors are prepared everywhere in Swat, but a special design is made in Puran and Chagharzee (These Shkors are high-based pots made of wheat stalks with laborious art, not easily available in bazaar).

  

Furniture: Furniture of various styles is made in the district. The cots, tables, chairs, dressing tables, cradles of more advanced types, etc. are furnished in Mingora, and in nearly all large villages.