View allAll Photos Tagged kitchenstove
Thursday 29th September 2022.
Camera: Rolleicord V medium format twin lens reflex.
Lens: Schneider 75mm Xenar f/3.5.
Film: Ilford FP4 Plus ISO 125 120 black & white negative.
Exposure: 1s @ f/8; focused to 3 feet.
Development: Ilford ID-11 1 + 3 20C/21m.
Other Details: Tripod; self timer used. Cropped to 3:2 ratio from 6x6 negative frame.
Copyright 2022 Tasmania Film Photography
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This electric cooking stove is part of a display of early 20th Century domestic appliances upstairs at Hydro Tasmania's Waddamana Heritage Site, the location of Tasmania's first large scale hydroelectric generating installation.
The details on the maker's plate visible on the front of the stove in my image are:
LONDON, McClary's CANADA.
SER. NO. 34995
TYPE 15 - 3
VOLTS 230
AMPS. 37
Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.
Today we are below stairs in the Wickham Place kitchen. The Wickham Place kitchens are situated on the ground floor of Wickham Place, adjoining the Butler’s Pantry. It is dominated by big black leaded range, and next to it stands a heavy dark wood dresser that has been there for as long as anyone can remember. In the middle of the kitchen stands Cook’s preserve, the pine deal table on which she does most of her preparation for both the meals served to the family upstairs and those for the downstairs staff. And here we are before the range at the pine deal table where Mrs. Bradley the Cook is going to give her scullery maid another cooking lesson by having her prepare vegetable consommé for the second course for the upstairs dinner this evening.
“Agnes. Agnes.”
“Yes, Mrs. Bradley?” Agnes scurries over from the sink.
“I think you’ve earned the right for another cooking lesson.”
“Oh! Oh really Mrs. Bradley! Your famous soufflé?”
“Heavens girl!” the older woman cries, throwing her careworn hands in the air. “Do you really think me a loon? I’ve told you before. You need to learn the basics of plain cooking before I can teach you anything fancy. And a clear consommé of vegetables will be fancy enough for you.”
“That sounds very fancy Mrs. Bradley.”
“That’s because them who eat upstairs,” she raises her eyes to the ceiling. “Like their fancy names for their finely cut vegetable soup.”
“Vegetable soup, Mrs. Bradley?” Agnes’ shoulders slump.
“Now! Now! Buck up my girl!” the Cook says as she steps towards her enormous range to stir a pot over the flame with her wooden spoon. “Don’t think of it as vegetable soup. Think of it as,” She flourishes her spoon through the air. “Consommé.”
Agnes goes to the pine deal dresser on the left hand side of the range an takes out the big copper stock pot and under Mrs. Bradley’s instruction, fetches carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onions, leek, a clove of garlic and thinking it might also go in, a radish.
“Did I say a radish, girl?”
“No Mrs. Bradley.”
“No radish in vegetable consommé, Agnes.”
“But it’s a vegetable, Mrs. Bradley.”
“So’s an artichoke, but you aren’t putting that into it either girl!”
“No Mrs. Bradley.” Agnes says with an apologetic tone.
“Now, get chopping girl! Small pieces mind. We don’t want upstairs choking on big chunks of potato, now do we?”
“No, Mrs. Bradley.”
The theme for the 11th of September “Looking Close… on Friday” is “vegetables”. This tableaux is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood like the ladderback chair and the teapot on the dresser in the background. 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 tableaux include:
All the vegetables and garlic clove seen on Cook’s deal table are artisan miniatures from a specialist stockist of food stuffs from Kettering in England, as are the onions hanging to the right of the range. He has a dizzying array of meals which is always growing, and all are made entirely or put together by hand, so each item is individual.
The kitchen knife with its inlaid handle and sharpened blade comes from English miniatures specialist Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniature store.
The copper stock pot, the copper pan and the pots on the range in the background are all made of real copper and come from various miniature stockists in England and America.
In front of stock pot containing carrots and parsnips is one of Cook’s Cornishware white and blue striped bowls. One of her Cornishware cannisters stands to the left of the pot. 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.
To the right of the stock pot and Cornishware bowl stands a silver Art Nouveau cup which is a dolls’ house miniature from Germany, made in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. It is a beautiful work of art as a stand alone item and is remarkably heavy.
The jars of herbs are also 1:12 miniatures, made of real glass with real cork stoppers in them.
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).
A commission by Allied Ironfounders to photograph their latest "Down to Date" stove. There it stands, all gleaming and new with a promise of many years of cooking and heating and creating a warm sense of welcome in kitchens all over the land! My late father in law was an Iron Moulder, a skilled if dirty and backbreaking profession and he worked in AIF back in 1940. He may even have been one of those who produced the parts for this stove?
Photographer: A. H. Poole
Collection: Poole Photographic Studio, Waterford
Date: 23rd March 1940
NLI Ref: POOLEWP 4334
You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today it is Tuesday, and we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. Lettice is hosting a luncheon for her future sister-in-law Arabella Tyrwhitt who will soon marry her eldest brother Leslie. As Arabella has no sisters, and her mother is too unwell at present to travel up to London from Wiltshire, Lettice has taken it upon herself to help Arabella select a suitable trousseau. So, she has brought her to London to stay in Cavendish Mews, so from there she can take Arabella shopping in all the best shops in the West End, and take her to her best friend Gerald Bruton’s couturier in Grosvenor Street for her wedding dress. Edith is busy, rushing about the room between the stove and the deal kitchen table in the centre of the room, banging copper pots and porcelain serving dishes alike as she starts to serve the luncheon of a roast beef with vegetables and gravy.
“Lawd!” exclaims Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman* who comes on Tuesdays and every third Thursday to do the hard jobs. Her eyes drifting to the white painted ceiling above as she struggles through the door leading from the kitchen to the hallway carrying her tin bucket and mop, she asks, “Ow many’s in there to make that kinda racket?”
“Shh!” Edith gasps, raising her left index finger to her lips whilst she holds a cleaver in her right. “Mrs. Boothby please.” she hisses. “They’ll hear you.”
As a raucous peal of girlish laughter erupts from behind the green baize door that leads from the kitchen to the dining room, the old Cockney looks sceptically at Edith. “I doubt that deary. All they ‘ear is their bloody selves.”
“Here, let me help you with that,” Edith says kindly as she takes a few steps over to Mrs. Boothby and grasps the handle of the bucket, her skin brushing against the far more careworn hands of the older woman.
“Ta dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says in relief.
The pair awkwardly manoeuvre the bucket of dirty water over to the white enamel sink and hoist it up onto the draining board with a concerted effort.
“I can take it from ‘ere, dearie.” the old woman says thankfully.
Edith steps back to the deal kitchen table where she starts to slice the roast beef she has just taken from the oven into thick medallions. As the cleaver cuts into the juicy browned flesh, revealing the soft pink inside, steam arises from it, teasing the maid with its delicious smell. She sighs quietly as she closes her eyes for a moment and hopes that there will be some remnants of the been from the noisy luncheon going in in the dining room.
“There are four of them, Mrs. Boothby: Miss Lettice, Miss Tyrwhitt, Mrs. Palmerston and Mrs. Channon, so hopefully there will be some leftover beef for us. If there is, I can pack half up for you to take home if you like.”
The old woman sniffs the delicious aroma drifting about the kitchen appreciatively as she tips the dirty grey water down the sink. “Oh ta, dearie!” she says enthusiastically. “I’d like that. I can ‘ave beef sandwiches when I go to Lady Landscome’s tomorra.”
“Doesn’t Lady Landscome feed you, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith looks across the kitchen at the old woman in shock.
“Well, she tells ‘er cook Mrs. Appleby to feed me, but the old trout’s so snooty like ‘er mistress that she don’t fink I deserve much more than bread ‘n drippin’, rather than the real food she serves ovvers on the staff. I’s just the old char what comes up from Poplar to do all the dirty and ‘ard jobs she and the over maid won’t do.”
“That’s awful, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says in outrage.
“Your old mistress, Mrs. Plaistow’s cook is no better to my friend Jackie.”
“Yes, but Mrs. Plaistow’s a mean old thing who keeps a close eye on the accounts, Mrs. Boothby. Cook only served meat to us once a week, occasionally twice if we were lucky, and it was never good stuff. I got a better feed at home with Mum and Dad than I ever did at Mrs. Plaistow’s.” She sighs as she begins to transfer the medallions of beef onto the white porcelain serving platter. “I feel very lucky to work for a lady like Miss Lettice.”
“She’s not a bad ‘un, far as mistresses go.” Mrs. Boothby agrees. “Certainly, compared to the likes of your Mrs. Plaistow.”
“I can’t say I’ve had a lot of experience of mistresses, Mrs. Boothby, but I think just about anyone would be better than her!”
“Oh I wouldn’t bet on that, Edith dearie. There’s plenty as bad as ‘er, or worse, let me tell you. An’ that Miss Tyrwhitt ain’t too bad neither.” She nods sagely. “She said ta to me today for washin’ the floors when she walked into the ‘allway, and she apologised for walkin’ across the clean floor. Nice surprise that was. What she stayin’ ‘ere for anyway?”
“Miss Tyrwhitt has come up from Wiltshire, Mrs. Boothby.”
“Ain’t Wiltshire where Miss Lettice is from?”
“Yes. Miss Tyrwhitt lives on the neighbouring estate to Miss Lettice. They grew up together, and she’s going to marry Miss Lettice’s eldest brother, the future Viscount Wrexham. That’s why she’s here. Miss Tyrwhitt doesn’t have any sisters, only brothers, so Miss Lettice has brought her up to London to take her to Mr. Bruton’s frock shop in Soho to get a wedding dress and other things for her trousseau.”
“If the girl comes from a good family like Miss Lettice, shouldn’t she ‘ave ‘er own ‘ouse to stay in?”
“I think her parents have a house in Curzon Street**, but I think they might think it a bit of a waste to open it up and engage servants just for Miss Tyrwhitt for a few weeks. Apparently, her mother is poorly, so she hasn’t come up to London. Besides, I think Miss Lettice enjoys having a house guest, especially one as nice as Miss Tyrwhitt.”
“Well, I ‘ope she don’t become a snooty up-‘erself woman when she becomes viscountess or whatever and lose ‘er nice manners.”
“Yes, she apologised to me too last night when she and Miss Lettice went out to the Embassy Club and she left clothes strewn across the bed which I had to put back in the wardrobe.” Edith smiles to herself as she places the last medallion on the platter. “Not that I mind. Those dresses of hers are so beautiful, all covered in lace and beads.”
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Boothby says with a cocked eyebrow as she rests her left arm on the edge of the bucket as she rights it. “Did you try any of ‘em on then, dearie?”
“Good heavens no!” Edith blushes before falling silent.
“But?” the old Cockney presses.
“But I must confess, I did hold one or two up against me as I stood in front of the mirror, before I put them back in the wardrobe.”
“I see.” chuckles the old woman knowingly.
“Well, a girl has a right to dream, doesn’t she Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks as she turns from the table and steps over to the stove where she withdraws a pot from its top.
“Course you do, Edith dearie!” Mrs. Boothby assures her younger friend as she steps aside, making room for Edith as she uses the lid of the copper saucepan to drain the sliced green beans inside. “A pretty girl like you, what’s steppin’ out wiv a nice chap like Frank Leadbetter deserves to know what ‘er weddin’ dress might look like.”
Bustling back to the table, Edith begins scooping the beans onto the platter beside the beef, just as another burst of female laughter emanates from the dining room. “Oh it’s hardly a dream of a wedding dress, Mrs. Boothby.” She lowers the saucepan onto the cutting board as she thinks. “At least not yet. We’ve only been walking out together for a little while now.”
“Don’t cha want to marry ‘im?”
“Well, I hardly know yet, do I? Once I get to know Frank a bit better, then I’ll decide whether I marry him or not, Mrs. Boothby.”
“So, what was you thinkin’ as you paraded before the mirror like a princess, then?” Mrs. Boothby asks. “If you wasn’t thinkin’ about your weddin’ dress.”
Edith turns and puts the empty saucepan back on the stove and picks up a copper skillet in which mushrooms are frying in butter. “Well, I was just thinking about how beautiful it would be to wear one of those dresses to the Hammersmith Palais***.”
“Ahh, so you was bein’ Cinderella then, was you?”
Edith nods a little guiltily.
“You’d look quite a picture, I’d imagine, dearie. But I fink you’d look a picture in your own frocks. Your Ma taught you well. Youse quite good wiv the needle ‘n thread.”
Edith scatters mushrooms and butter sauce atop the beans. “Compared with those dresses, my frocks are so ordinary, Mrs. Boothby. It’s a wonder Frank wants to take me dancing.”
“Nah! Don’t talk such rubbish!” Mrs. Boothby strides across the room and grasps Edith by the shoulders. “There’s an old sayin’ that clothes make the man.”
“Yes, I’ve heard it.” Edith says, her head downcast.
“But it don’t say nuffink ‘bout a woman though, do it?”
“What do you mean, Mrs. Boothby?”
“What I mean is, youse as pretty as a picture in your maid’s uniform, so just imagine ‘ow much more beautiful you look in one of your own frocks. You wear the frock: it don’t wear you! ‘Old your ‘ead ‘igh my girl, just like what I do when that nasty Mrs. Appleby feed me bread ‘n drippin’ ‘cause she finks I ain’t worth more than that. You are beautiful, just like Cinderella was, and if I know Frank even a little bit, I know ‘e’d be proud to take you dancin’ at the ‘Ammersmith Palais no matter what cha was wearin’!”
“Oh you’re right, Mrs. Boothby. I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself. I have a lot to be thankful for.” She steps away from Mrs. Boothby and turns her back on her, busying herself stirring a small pot on the stove before removing it from the flame gas ring.
“Course you do, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby watches Edith pour thick brown gravy into a blue and white gravy boat. “An’ youse as much right to dream as what anyone else does, but just remember to ‘ang onto reality, cos dreams we wake up from, but reality’s ‘ere to stay.” She smiles at Edith, who looks her in the eye and smiles back.
“You’re right Mrs. Boothby.”
“Course I am, dearie. I’s always right, even if others don’t fink I am. Youse got some ideas from Miss Tyrwhitt’s frocks, and as I said youse a dab ‘and wiv a needle ‘n thread. Why don’t cha make your own frock to go dancin’ in. Frank’d be mighty proud to go dancin’ wiv a girl what made ‘er own fashionable fancy dancin’ frock.”
“That’s a good idea, Mrs. Boothby. I might just do that.”
“That’s my girl!” Mrs. Boothby says, grasping Edith’s chin between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand lovingly.
Another volley of laughter breaks into their friendly moment.
“Well, thinking of reality, I’d best serve luncheon before Miss Lettice thinks to poke her nose in here.” Edith sighs. “I have enough trouble keeping her out of my kitchen as it is.”
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**Curzon Street is a beautiful street lined with Georgian houses in Mayfair, where amongst other famous people, novelist Nancy Mitford (then Mrs. Peter Rodd) lived.
***The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Edith’s deal table is a panoply of things as she readies luncheon for Lettice and her guests. The mahogany stained serving tray, the gravy boat of gravy, the chopping board, napkins and cutlery all came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. The sliced roast beef, beans and mushrooms on a white platter, which look almost good enough to eat, I have had since I was a teenager. I bought it from a high street shop that specialised in dolls, doll houses and doll house miniatures. The cleaver comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures Shop in the United Kingdom. The jars of herbs are also 1:12 miniatures, made of real glass with real cork stoppers in them. I have had them since I was a teenager too.
To the left of the tray is a box of Queen’s Gravy Salt. Queen’s Gravy Salt is a British brand, and this box is an Edwardian design. Gravy Salt is a simple product it is solid gravy browning and is used to add colour and flavour to soups stews and gravy - and has been used by generations of cooks and caterers. It is an artisan miniature made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England
In front of the Queen’s Gravy Salt to the far bottom left of the picture is one of Edith’s Cornishware cannisters. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
The Deftware cups, saucers and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot. Also on the dresser sits a rolling pin, and some more pieces of Cornishware including bowls and another canister.
Of course, no kitchen would be complete without some kitchen pantry staples of the 1920s, so also on the dresser you will see a tin of Lyall’s Golden Treacle, a tin of Peter Leech and Sons Golden Syrup and a box of Lyon’s Tea. All three were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. In 1859 Henry Tate went into partnership with John Wright, a sugar refiner based at Manesty Lane, Liverpool. Their partnership ended in 1869 and John’s two sons, Alfred and Edwin joined the business forming Henry Tate and Sons. A new refinery in Love Lane, Liverpool was opened in 1872. In 1921 Henry Tate and Sons and Abram Lyle and Sons merged, between them refining around fifty percent of the UK’s sugar. A tactical merger, this new company would then become a coherent force on the sugar market in anticipation of competition from foreign sugar returning to its pre-war strength. Tate and Lyle are perhaps best known for producing Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Lyle’s Golden Treacle. Peter Leech and Sons was a grocers that operated out of Lowther Street in Whitehaven from the 1880s. They had a large range of tinned goods that they sold including coffee, tea, tinned salmon and golden syrup. They were admired for their particularly attractive labelling. I do not know exactly when they ceased production, but I believe it may have happened just before the Second World War. Lyons Tea was first produced by J. Lyons and Co., a catering empire created and built by the Salmons and Glucksteins, a German-Jewish immigrant family based in London. Starting in 1904, J. Lyons began selling packaged tea through its network of teashops. Soon after, they began selling their own brand Lyons Tea through retailers in Britain, Ireland and around the world. In 1918, Lyons purchased Hornimans and in 1921 they moved their tea factory to J. Lyons and Co., Greenford at that time, the largest tea factory in Europe. In 1962, J. Lyons and Company (Ireland) became Lyons Irish Holdings. After a merger with Allied Breweries in 1978, Lyons Irish Holdings became part of Allied Lyons (later Allied Domecq) who then sold the company to Unilever in 1996. Today, Lyons Tea is produced in England.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith, her maid’s, preserve. With her mistress out, having a final fitting for her outfit for the Royal wedding of her friend Elizabeth* to the Duke of York**, Edith is enjoying the sense of tranquillity that falls upon the Cavendish Mews flat when Lettice is not home, and is sitting at the deal kitchen table in the middle of the room, looking through one of her small number of cookbooks as she works out a menu for the next few days. Having just boiled the brass kettle on the stovetop behind her, the young maid has made a pot of tea for herself, and it sits within easy reach of her right hand, the spout peeping out from the blue and white knitted tea cosy made for her by her mother. Steam rises from the spout, and from the Delftware cup featuring a windmill as she cradles it in both her hands as she consults ‘Miss Drake’s Home Cookery’*** and considers whether to cook fillets of whiting with oyster sauce or Clementine Sauce for Lettice’s luncheon on Tuesday.
“Let’s see,” Edith says quietly mulling over the recipe for Clementine Sauce aloud. “One ounce of butter, one ounce of flour, half a pint of fish stock, half a gill**** of cream, lemon juice, salt and cayenne to taste. Oh! Parmesan! I don’t have any of that. Well, I can get some from Willison’s easily enough.”
Just at that moment there is a tentative knock on the tradesman’s door leading out of the kitchen onto the back stairs of the flats, shattering Edith’s quiet contemplation and startling her so much that she almost spills tea onto her precious cookbook.
“That’s Frank’s knock.” Edith remarks aloud to the empty kitchen around her, recognising the slightly hesitant tap of her young man, Frank Leadbetter, delivery boy for Willison’s Grocery in Mayfair. “Frank? Frank is that you?” she calls cheerily, quickly standing up and self-consciously brushing down the front of her blue and white striped morning print dress uniform and quickly sweeping some loose strands of her blonde hair behind her ears in an effort to make herself more presentable for her beau.
“It is Edith.” Frank’s voice calls from the other side of the white painted door. “May I come in?”
“Oh yes, do come in Frank. It’s not locked.”
The door opens and Frank pokes his head around the door, his workman’s flat cap covering his head of mousy brown hair. He smiles, his pale skin flush from riding his bike and then climbing several flights of stairs to reach the Cavendish Mews flat from the ground floor.
“You’re just in time.” Edith continues with a smile. “I’ve just boiled the kettle. If you have time that is.”
“Yes, I do.” Frank indicates, walking into Edith’s cosy kitchen and closing the door behind him so as to keep the cool spring air outside. He is struck by the ghostly, yet comforting wafts of butter and herbs from last night’s Chicken a la Minute dinner that Edith cooked for Lettice. “Jolly good Edith. All this bicycling around Mayfair and Pimlico gives a man a thirst.”
Edith walks over to the pine dresser and takes down another Delftware cup and saucer whilst Frank lifts up the Windsor backed chair next to the back door and carries it across the waxed black and white chequered linoleum floor and puts it adjunct to Edith’s own Windsor chair.
“It’s funny, Frank. I was just making a mental note to myself to order some Parmesan cheese from Mr. Willison’s, and here you are!”
“Well,” Frank removes his cap and runs his fingers through his slightly wavy hair before depositing the cap on the surface of the kitchen table. “You know I’m always at your service, Miss Watsford.”
Edith giggles as she and Frank sit down at the table.
As Edith lifts the cosy clad pot and pours Frank a cup of steaming tea, she remarks, “But I don’t have a grocery order, Frank. What are you doing here?” She quickly adds, “Not that I mind, of course.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Frank laughs good naturedly.
“Don’t tell me that Mr. and Mrs. Willison have shown some heart and given you the morning off.”
“Not likely, Edith!” Frank scoffs casting his eyes to the ceiling above, taking up the sugar bowl and adding two large heaped spoonfuls of sugar to his tea. “No, I finished my round of deliveries early, so I thought I had just enough time to pop in and have a cup of tea with my sweetheart before I was missed back at the shop.”
‘Well, we better make the most of this impromptu visit then, before you are missed.”
“Oh yes! That old Mrs. Willison is a tartar! I think she is more of stickler for time than Mr. Willison is.”
“So, to what do I owe the honour then, Frank?”
“What? Can’t a chap visit his girl just to say hullo?”
“Well of course, Frank.” Edith picks up her own teacup again. “I’m always delighted to be graced with your company.”
“That’s better.” Frank nods approvingly as he stirs his tea with a slightly tarnished teaspoon. He takes a sip and sighs with pleasure before adding, “But actually, I do have an ulterior motive to be here today, Edith.”
“Oh?” Edith queries warily. “What is it, Frank?”
“Well, I know I got off to a bad start with you family the other Sunday,” Frank begins.
“Oh, are you still worried about that, Frank? I thought we’d been through all this on Easter Sunday.” Edith admonishes. With a brave smile she assures him, “I told you: we’ll win Mum over easily enough, given a bit of time and you keeping quiet about some of your more progressive workers’ ideas.”
“I know, Edith, but I’ve got a little something with me that might calm the waters a little, at least with your dad.”
“What is it? What have you got, Frank?”
“These.” Frank reaches into the inside of his white shirt beneath his russet coloured woollen vest and withdraws a small envelope from his breast pocket.
Handing it to Edith with a beaming smile he lets his sweetheart investigate it. The envelope is postmarked with yesterday’s date. Addressed to Frank by hand in a neat copperplate care of the boarding house in Holborn the return address, one in Wembley that she doesn’t recognise, is typed in the top left hand corner.
“What is it, Frank?” Edith asks suspiciously, holding the envelope aloft, poised in the air between them.
“Well, just open it and find out.” Frank encourages her with a broad smile. “It won’t bite.” He chuckles at Edith’s hesitancy.
Edith slips her fingers tentatively beneath the edge of the back of the envelope and hooks underneath it. It comes away easily, having already been opened and simply slipped back into place. Opening the envelope, she peers inside and withdraws several small pale yellow ticket stubs between her slightly careworn fingers. She gasps as she reads the black print on one of the four tickets.
“This is for the White Horse Finals***** at Empire Stadium******!”
“I know.” Frank replies matter-of-factly, but with pride beaming from his expression. “There are four tickets in there.”
“Four tickets!” Edith gasps, looking again, her eyes growing wide in amazement.
“Yes: two for us and one each for your dad and mum.”
“Four! That’s amazing Frank! You can’t get a ticket for the finals for love nor money!”
“I thought they might help make up for my somewhat awkward introduction to your parents, and show that I really do care about you, and them too, of course.”
“Oh Frank!” Edith leaps out of her chair and flings her arms around Frank’s neck as he sits there.
Unaccustomed to such fervent signs of affection from Edith, who is usually very reserved, Frank is taken aback at first, but then settles comfortably into the embrace, smiling as he inhales the sweet smell of his sweetheart: freshly laundered clothes and Lifebuoy soap intermixed with the fragrance of her hair. He wraps his arms around Edith’s waist carefully and for a moment is lost in his love for her before the moment is broken as Edith regains her composure and finally pulls away from him, albeit a little reluctantly.
“How on earth did you get these?” Edith asks in astonishment, resuming her seat. “Magic? Dad’s been trying to get hold of tickets for weeks and weeks, pulling every string and pulling in every favour that he can!”
“I guess they just weren’t the right strings he pulled.” Frank beams elatedly.
“But how did you do it?”
“Well, you know how I said when we had lunch with your parents that there was some doubt as to whether the Empire Stadium will be completed on time.”
“Yes Frank.”
“Well, I know a bit more than the papers let on because I’m friendly with a couple of chaps who are working on the building of it, you see.”
“Really Frank?”
“Yes. Anyway, one of them has a girl who works at the booking office for the football final tickets, and my friend pulled a few strings for me, and there you go!” He waves a hand theatrically towards the envelope, which Edith has now placed face down on the kitchen table between them.
“Oh Frank! You are a wonder!” Edith picks up her cup of tea and takes a sip.
“Well, think of it as more of a good will gesture from me to your parents, than a gift from me to you.”
“But Frank, don’t you see? It is a gift! This will help brush over that awkwardness from the other day, and calm the waters as you say. You’re so clever!”
“Well,” Frank says happily, looking very pleased with himself. “You’re my girl, Edith, and I want your parents’ blessing as well as my Gran’s, when it comes to marrying you one day. I need to make sure that your parents know that even though I may be a bit of a radical thinker, I have your best interests at heart: first and foremost.”
“And this will go well towards building the foundations of their trust in you, Frank! It really will!” Edith enthuses. “Dad’s been like a child with a broken toy according to Mum, moping about the house when he comes home empty handed after seeing friends down at the pub who haven’t been able to get him tickets. He was even thinking of just taking Mum for a picnic and the pair of them would sit outside the stadium and listen to what was going on inside.”
“Well now he won’t have to, Edith! He can go! We all can go!”
“How lucky am I, to have you as my beau, Frank Leadbetter?”
“About as lucky as I am to have you as my best girl, Edith Watsford.”
The par of young lovers laugh as they settle back in their chairs, chatting away happily, making the most of the unexpected stolen moment together before Frank must return to his job delivering groceries and Edith to her household chores around the flat.
*Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, as she was known at the beginning of 1923 when this story is set, 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". He proposed again in 1922 after Elizabeth was part of his sister, Mary the Princess Royal’s, wedding party, but she refused him again. On Saturday, January 13th, 1923, Prince Albert went for a walk with Elizabeth at the Bowes-Lyon home at St Paul’s, Walden Bury and proposed for a third and final time. This time she said yes. The wedding took place on April 26, 1923 at Westminster Abbey.
**Prince Albert, Duke of York, known by the diminutive “Bertie” to the family and close friends, was the second son of George V. He was never expected to become King, but came to the throne after his elder brother David, the Prince of Wales, abdicated in 1936 so that he could marry the love of his life American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. Although not schooled in being a ruler, Bertie, who styled himself as George VI as a continuation of his father, became King of United Kingdom and the Dominions from 1936 to 1952, and saw Britain through some of its darkest days, becoming one of the most popular monarchs in British history.
***’Miss Drake’s Home Cookery’ is a book of standard household recipes suitable for a plain cook or maid-of-all-work like Edith. First published in 1915 it was compiled by Miss Lucy Drake, a trained cookery teacher at the Education Department of Melbourne, and a student of the National Training School of Cookery and other branches of Domestic Economy , Buckingham Palace Road, London.
****The gill or teacup is a unit of measurement for volume equal to a quarter of a pint. It is no longer in common use, except in regard to the volume of alcoholic spirits measures, but was certainly a well known measure in the years prior to the Second World War.
*****The first football match to be played at Wembley Stadium was between the Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United. This match became known as the White Horse final, and was played just a few days after the completion of the stadium.
******Originally known as Empire Stadium, London’s Wembley Stadium was built to serve as the centerpiece of the British Empire Exhibition. It took a total of three hundred days to construct the stadium at a cost of £750,000. The stadium was completed on the 23rd of April 1923, only a few days before the first football match, between the Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United, was to take place at the stadium. The stadium's first turf was cut by King George V, and it was first opened to the public on 28 April 1923. Much of Humphry Repton's original Wembley Park landscape was transformed in 1922 and 1923 during preparations for the British Empire Exhibition. First known as the "British Empire Exhibition Stadium" or simply the "Empire Stadium", it was built by Sir Robert McAlpine for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 (extended to 1925).
This cosy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Central to our story is the envelope containing the four tickets to the White Horse final, which is a 1:12 size miniature made to incredibly high standards of realism by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Although known predominantly for his creation of miniature books, Ken has also created quite a number of other items, including envelopes and even tiny legible letters that go inside them. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
Also on Edith’s deal table stands her teapot. The tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in England. The Delftware cups, saucers and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot.
The little cookbook, a non-opening 1:12 artisan miniature of a real cookbook, comes from a small American artisan seller on E-Bay.
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.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews, although we are still in Mayfair, moving a few streets away to Hill Street, where Edith, Lettice’s maid, and her beau, grocery boy Frank Leadbetter, are visiting Edith’s friend and fellow maid Hilda. It is a beautiful, sunny Sunday and Sundays all three have as days off from their jobs as domestic servants and delivery boy. Taking advantage of this, all three are going to spend the afternoon at Hammersmith Palias de Danse*. As usual, Frank collects Edith from Cavendish Mews and the pair then go to the home of Lettice’s married friends Margot and Dickie Channon, where Hilda works as a live-in maid.
Being Hilda’s day off, her employers usually decamp for the day, and today they are visiting their friend Priscilla who recently married American dry goods heir Georgie Carter. The pair have just returned to London from their honeymoon which took in much of Europe before visiting Georgie’s family in Philadelphia. The quartet will dine at the Café Royal**, doubtless at the expense of Georgie since the Channons seem perpetually to have financial difficulties, but as a result, the Channons have invited the Carters back to their Hill Street flat for after supper coffee, which means that Hilda must do one of her most hated jobs: grind coffee beans to make real coffee for Georgie Carter, who is particular about his American style coffee. We find the trio in the kitchen of the Hill Street flat, the ladies’ dancing frocks and Frank’s suit at odds with their surrounds as Hilda grinds the coffee beans sitting in a white china bowl in the large wooden and brass coffee grinder. By preparing the coffee, ready to make before she goes out, it will be easy to serve when her employers and their guests return after dinner, and the beans will still be fresh enough for Georgie’s liking.
“You know,” Frank remarks as he stands at Edith’s elbow and watches Hilda turn the handle of the coffee grinder with gusto. “I don’t see why they can’t just drink Camp Coffee*** like the rest of us.”
“Oh Frank!” gasps Edith, looking up at her beau and patting his hand with her own as he squeezes her left shoulder lovingly. “You know perfectly well why not, Frank. Mr. and Mrs. Channon’s friend, Mr. Carter is an American gentleman, and just like Miss Wanetta Ward the American moving picture star, he doesn’t like British coffee.”
“What rot!” Frank scoffs at the suggestion. “There’s nothing wrong with British coffee! If British coffee isn’t to Mr. Carter’s taste, let him have tea then, and save poor Hilda the effort of having to grind up coffee beans for his lordship.” He slips off the jacket of his smart Sunday blue suit, revealing his crisp white shirt, red tie and smart navy blue vest. He drapes it over the back of the Windsor chair Edith sits in. “Come on old girl,” he says to Hilda as he moves around the deal pine kitchen table. “Give me a go then. Give your arms a chance to recuperate before we go dancing.”
“You’re such a Socialist, Frank Leadbetter.” pipes up Hilda as with a grunt, she pushes the handle of the grinder mechanism over a particularly recalcitrant coffee bean.
“What?” gasps Frank as he takes over grinding from the grateful maid. “I thought you’d come to my defence, Hilda, especially as I’m being so chivalrous as to grind coffee beans for you.”
“Oh I am grateful, Frank, ever so.” Hilda replies, rubbing her aching forearms with her fat, sausage like fingers. “But just because you are being gallant, doesn’t mean I can’t call you a Socialist.”
“Because a hard working man like me thinks I’m every bit as good as this friend of your Mr. and Mrs. Channon, I’m now a Socialist?” Frank asks in an appalled voice. “You’re as bad as Edith’s mum.” He nods in his sweetheart’s direction.
“Mum thinks Frank might be a Communist.” Edith explains. “Even though we’ve both told her that he isn’t.”
“Handsome is as handsome does.” remarks Hilda with a cheeky smile as she glances at Frank winding the red knob topped brass handle of the grinder.
“I’m neither, I’ll have you know, Hilda Clerkenwell!” Frank retorts. “I’d prefer to think of myself as more of a progressive thinker when it comes to the rights and privileges of the working man,” He looks poignantly at Hilda. “And woman.”
“Same thing.” Hilda retorts matter-of-factly as she starts to straighten the russet grosgrain bandeau**** embellished with gold sequins which has slipped askew whilst she has been grinding coffee beans.
“Pardon my ignorance,” Edith begins gingerly. “But what exactly is a Socialist?”
“Socialism is a political movement that wants to reform various economic and social systems, transferring them to social ownership as opposed to private ownership.” remarks Hilda as she runs her hands down the back of her hair.
“Well done, Hilda!” Frank congratulates her.
“You sound surprised, Frank.” Hilda says with a cheeky smile. “Don’t they have smart girls where you come from, present company excluded, Edith!” Hilda adds hurriedly so as not to offend her best friend.”
“Oh, you know I’m not very political,” Edith assures Hilda, yet at the same time self consciously toys with her blonde waves as she speaks.
“I must confess, Hilda, I am a little surprised.” Frank admits. “I don’t know many girls who are interested in social rights and can give explanations so eloquently.”
“I’m so sorry Frank!” Edith defends herself. “I know you’ve tried to teach me, but I can’t help it. I get confused between this ist and the other ist. They all seem the same to me.” She blushes with mild embarrassment at her own ignorance.
“No, no, Edith!” Frank assures her as he stops grinding the coffee beans and reaches out his left hand, clasping her right one as it rests on the tabletop and squeezes it reassuringly. “This isn’t a criticism of you! It was a compliment to Hilda. You’re wonderful, and there are things that you understand and are far better at than me.”
“Than both of us, Edith.” adds Hilda quickly, the look of concern about her friend taking umbrage clear on her round face.
“Yes, inconsequential things.” Edith mumbles in a deflated tone.
“No, not at all.” Frank reassures her soothingly as he takes up grinding coffee again. “What good am I to myself if I can’t cook a meal to feed myself.”
“And for all my love of reading, Edith, you know I can’t sew a stitch.” Hilda appends. “I could never have made this beautiful frock.” She grasps the edge of the strap of her russet coloured art satin***** dress as she speaks. “Not in a million years. We’re all good at different things, and no-one could say you weren’t smart, Edith.”
“That’s right.” Frank concurs, smiling at his sweetheart. “One of the reasons why I’ve always admired you is because you aren’t some silly giggling Gertie****** like some of the housemaids I’ve known. You aren’t turned by just a handsome face, and your head isn’t filled with moving picture stars and nothing else.”
“Well, I do like moving picture stars, Frank.” Edith confesses.
“Oh I know, Edith, and I love you for that too.” Frank reassures her. “But it’s not all that is in there. You have a good head on your shoulders.”
“And a wise one too.” Hilda interjects. “How often do I ask you for advice? I’ve always asked you for your opinion on things for as long as we’ve been friends.”
“You are clever, and insightful, and you want a better life for yourself too, and that’s why I really love you. We want the same things from life.” Frank says in a soft and soothing tone full of love as he gazes at Edith. “You are very pretty, and no-one can deny that – not even you,” He holds out an admonishing finger as Edith goes to refute his remark. “But beauty, however glorious will fade. Just look at our Dowager Queen Mother*******. When beauty fades, wit and intelligence remain, and you have both of those qualities in spades, Edith.”
“Oh Frank.” Edith breathes softly. “You aren’t ashamed of me then?”
“Of course I’m not Edith! How could I ever be ashamed of you? I’m as proud as punch******** to step out with you! You’re my best girl.”
Frank winds the gleaming brass coffee grinder handle a few more times before stopping. He pulls out the drawer at the bottom and as he does, the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee beans fills the air around them, wafting up his, Edith and Hilda’s nostrils. He sighs with satisfaction at a job well done.
“Good enough for his American lordship?” Frank asks Hilda.
She peers into the drawer. “Good enough.” she acknowledges with another of her cheeky smirks, nodding affirmatively.
“I still think he could jolly well grind his own, you know, Hilda!” Frank opines.
“Socialist.” she laughs in reply as she walks around Frank, withdraws the drawer of ground coffee and knocks the contents into the small, worn Delftware coffee cannister with careful taps, so as not to spill and waste any of the hard-won grinds.
“I bet you, your Wanetta Ward doesn’t grind her own coffee, Edith.” Frank goes on as he walks back around to Edith and slips his jacket on again.
“I bet you she does, Frank!” Edith counters.
“What? A moving picture star grinding her own coffee? I don’t believe it!”
“Miss Ward is a very unorthodox person, Frank, even for an American.” she assures him. “I think she might surprise you if you ever get the pleasure of meeting her one day.”
“Maybe.” Frank says doubtfully. “Well now that coffee is ground, we should really get going.” He runs his hands around the back of his jacket collar to make sure it is sitting straight. “The Hammersmith Palais waits for no-one, not even those who slave for undeserving Americans.” He laughs good heartedly. “Shall we go?”
“Oh yes!” enthuses Edith as Frank chivalrously pulls out her chair for her as she stands up. “I’ll fetch our coats.”
With her pretty blue floral sprigged frock swirling about her figure, Edith hurries over to the pegs by the door where Frank’s, Hilda’s and her own coat and hats hang. She moves lightly across the floor, practicing her dance steps as she goes, silently moving to the music she hears the band playing in her head.
“I really wonder why I bother sometimes.” Hilda says despondently as she pulls her brown coat on over the top of the luxurious man-made silk frock that Edith made for her and decorated with lace trimming and small bursts of sequins.
“Like I said,” Frank mutters. “He should settle for Camp Coffee like the rest of us, or have tea.”
“Not grinding coffee, Frank!” Hilda scoffs in reply. “I mean go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais week after week. What’s the point?”
“What do you mean, Hilda?” Edith asks gently, slipping her arms into her own black three-quarter length coat as Frank holds to open for her.
“I mean why do I bother going dancing when no man at the Palais ever looks at me, even in this beautiful new frock you made me, Edith.” She picks up the lace trimmed hem of her dance dress and lifts it despondently.
Edith and Frank both glance anxiously at one another for a moment. Both know they are thinking exactly the same thing. What Hilda says is true. Whenever the three of them go to the Hammersmith Palais de Danse there are always far more women in attendance than men. The Great War decimated the male population, and almost drove an entire generation of young men into extinction. Sadly, this means that more and more women are finding themselves without a gentleman to step out with, and are deemed surplus to needs by society. In spite of any of his faults, Edith knows how lucky she is to have a young man like Frank. Even the attentions of pretty girls are less in demand with fewer men in circulation desiring their company. Unlike Edith, Hilda is a little on the plump side, enjoying the indulgence of sticky buns from the bakers and an extra serving of Victoria Sponge at the Lyons Corner Shop********* at the top of Tottenham Court Road. Her face is friendly, with soft brown eyes and a warm smile, but she isn’t pretty. Even with the judicious application of a little powder and rouge acquired from the make-up counter of Selfridges********** her skin lacks the fresh gleam that Edith has, and for as long as she has known her, Edith has always found Hilda to have a very pale complexion. When the three of them do go dancing, Frank is often the only man she dances with when he partners her around the dancefloor, and more often than not, Hilda ends up taking the part of the man, dancing with any number of other neglected wallflowers, just to ward of the tedium of waiting for someone to ask her to dance. The plight, for plight it was, of women like Hilda was all too common, in the post-war world of the 1920s.
“Perhaps you’re looking in the wrong place, Hilda.” Frank says.
“What do mean, Frank?”
“Well, a girl with brains like you needs a man who will stimulate her mentally. Perhaps you might find the man of your dreams at a library.”
“A library!” Hilda’s mind conjures up images of pale bookish young men in glasses with phlegmatic characters who would much rather shake her hand limply and discuss the benefits of Socialism, rather than sweep her off her feet romantically.
“Not at all helpful, Frank!” hisses Edith as she watches her best friend’s face fall.
“I was only joking.” Frank shrugs apologetically, unsure what to say.
Edith hurries over and wraps her arm around Hilda’s slumping shoulders consolingly. “A faint heart never won a fair lady, Hilda.” She pulls Hilda to her lovingly. Hilda looks up at her friend sadly, yet thoughtfully. “And I think it works the same in reverse.”
Seeing a way to make amends for his ill-timed joke, Frank pipes up, “That’s exactly right, Hilda. Edith wouldn’t have been anywhere near as attractive to me if she hadn’t had a bit of pluck.”
“And you look splendid in the dance frock I made for you, Hilda,” Edith adds. “Really you do.”
“Do you really think so, Edith?” Hilda asks, looking at her friend.
“Of course I do! I’m a professional seamstress, and you are my best friend. I wouldn’t make something that didn’t suit you!”
“No, no of course not.” Hilda replies.
“And didn’t Mrs. Minkin say that russet satin would suit your colourings?”
“She did.”
“Well then,” Edith replies matter-of-factly. “There is nothing more to be said.”
“That’s right.” agrees Frank, and without further ado, he sweeps Hilda into his arms.
With the ease of a natural dancer, Frank begins to waltz his partner carefully across the black and white chequered linoleum floor of the Channon’s kitchen, guiding her around the kitchen table and the chairs gathered around it, past the black and white stove and the dresser cluttered with crockery and provisions.
“Oh Frank!” Hilda says, laughing joyously as she allows herself to be swept away. “You really are a one!”
Edith smiles as she sees a light return to her best friend’s eyes, and a smile appear upon her pert lips. She considers herself so fortunate not just because she has a chap to step out with, but because Frank is so kind and considerate. Not just any man would understand or appreciate Edith’s wish to include Hilda in their excursions to the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, and not every man would be as willing to take a turn with her on the dancefloor, as has been proven. Then again, Frank is no ordinary man, and as time goes on and she gets to know him better, the more she is becoming aware that her sweetheart is a very special man indeed. She laughs as Frank dips Hilda, making her squeal in delight, before raising her up again and restoring her to her feet.
“There!” Frank says with a huff as he catches his breath. “Now that your feet are suitably warmed up, you’re ready to go, Miss Clerkenwell. We’ll have no more talk of you not wanting to come dancing with us.”
“Today might be the day you meet someone, Hilda. Don’t give up on the chance.” Edith enthuses.
“Oh alright you two!” Hilda acquiesces. “I give up. Let’s go then.”
“That’s the spirit, Hilda!” Frank says. “That pluck will win you a fine and handsome gentleman with a brain that you deserve.”
“I can hardly battle both of you, can I?” Hilda laughs as she carefully places her floppy brimmed brown velvet and copper faille poke-style bonnet decorated with a beige rose and leaves atop her head.
The three friends walk out of the kitchen door that leads out onto the flat’s back stairs and begin to descend to the street. Hilda locks the door behind her and the coffee grinder and the as of yet to be ground coffee beans sit on the table, ready for when she returns later that day to serve to Margot, Dickie and their friends Priscilla and Georgie Carter.
*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.
**The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.
***Camp Coffee is a concentrated syrup which is flavoured with coffee and chicory, first produced in 1876 by Paterson & Sons Ltd, in Glasgow. In 1974, Dennis Jenks merged his business with Paterson to form Paterson Jenks plc. In 1984, Paterson Jenks plc was bought by McCormick & Company. Legend has it (mainly due to the picture on the label) that Camp Coffee was originally developed as an instant coffee for military use. The label is classical in tone, drawing on the romance of the British Raj. It includes a drawing of a seated Gordon Highlander (supposedly Major General Sir Hector MacDonald) being served by a Sikh soldier holding a tray with a bottle of essence and jug of hot water. They are in front of a tent, at the apex of which flies a flag bearing the drink's slogan, "Ready Aye Ready". A later version of the label, introduced in the mid-20th century, removed the tray from the picture, thus removing the infinite bottles element and was seen as an attempt to avoid the connotation that the Sikh was a servant, although he was still shown waiting while the kilted Scottish soldier sipped his coffee. The current version, introduced in 2006, depicts the Sikh as a soldier, now sitting beside the Scottish soldier, and with a cup and saucer of his own. Camp Coffee is an item of British nostalgia, because many remember it from their childhood. It is still a popular ingredient for home bakers making coffee-flavoured cake and coffee-flavoured buttercream. In late 1975, Camp Coffee temporarily became a popular alternative to instant coffee in the UK, after the price of coffee doubled due to shortages caused by heavy frosts in Brazil.
****A bandeau is a narrow band of fabric worn round the head to hold the hair in position. Although bandeaus existed long before the 1920s, there was a resurgence in popularity for embroidered grosgrain ribbons to be worn around the head across the forehead in the 1920s, and they are synonymous with 1920s flapper fashion.
*****The first successful artificial silks were developed in the 1890s of cellulose fibre and marketed as art silk or viscose, a trade name for a specific manufacturer. In 1924, the name of the fibre was officially changed in the U.S. to rayon, although the term viscose continued to be used in Europe.
******Although obscure as to its origin, the term “giggling Gertie” is of English derivation and was often used in a derisive way to describe silly children and young people, usually girls, who were deemed as being flippant and foolish.
*******Queen Alexandra was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from the twenty-second of January 1901 to the sixth of May 1910 as the wife of King-Emperor Edward VII. Daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark, at the age of sixteen Alexandra was chosen as the future wife of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the son and heir apparent of Queen Victoria. When she arrived in England she was famed for her beauty and her style of dress and bearing were copied by fashion-conscious women. From Edward's death, Alexandra was queen mother, being a dowager queen and the mother of the reigning monarch. Alexandra retained a youthful appearance into her senior years, but during the Great War her age caught up with her. She took to wearing elaborate veils and heavy makeup, which was described by gossips as having her face "enamelled".
********Although today we tend to say as “pleased as punch”, the Victorian term actually began as “proud as punch”. This expression refers to the Punch and Judy puppet character. Punch's name comes from Punchinello, an Italian puppet with similar characteristics. In Punch and Judy shows, the grotesque Punch is portrayed as self-satisfied and pleased with his evil actions.
*********J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.
********** Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of upscale department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1908. Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. was an American-British retail magnate who founded the London-based department store. His twenty year leadership of Selfridge’s led to his becoming one of the most respected and wealthy retail magnates in the United Kingdom. He was known as the 'Earl of Oxford Street'.
***********Faille is a type of cloth with flat ribs, often made in silk. It has a softer texture than grosgrain, with heavier and wider cords or ribs. Weft yarns are heavier than warp, and it is manufactured in plain weaving. It was especially popular in the Nineteenth Century, and its popularity, although somewhat dwindling, did carry through into the early decades of the Twentieth Century.
This cosy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Hilda’s deal table stands her coffee grinder with its brass handle, wooden base and drawer, and red knobs. It comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The little Delftware canister and the white china bowl also come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The coffee beans in the bowl are really black carraway seeds. The vase of flowers comes from an online shop on E-Bay.
Hilda’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.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews, although we are still in Mayfair, moving a few streets away to Hill Street, where Edith, Lettice’s maid, is visiting her friend and fellow maid Hilda. Edith and Hilda used to share at attic bedroom together in the Pimlico townhouse of Mr. and Mrs. Plaistow, their former situation, where they worked together as parlour maids. Edith recently helped Hilda obtain a new position as live-in maid for Lettice’s married Embassy Club coterie friends, Dickie and Margot Channon. Whilst Edith spends her Sundays off with her beau, Willison’s Grocers delivery boy Frank, she shares her Wednesdays off between visiting her parents in Harlesden and spending the day enjoying the pleasures London has to offer with Hilda. It is in the Channon’s Hill Street flat’s kitchen that we find ourselves today where Edith and Hilda are taking luncheon before heading off to nearby Oxford Street for a spot of window shopping.
Hilda has found that the Channon’s rather chaotic household and way of living somewhat of challenge to get used to working in, but it always guarantees great stories that she can share with her best friend, and this is what the girls are doing. The Channons are away, visiting Dickie’s parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Taunton in Cornwall, which makes it easier for Hilda to entertain Edith at the flat in Hill Street, and the pair are enjoying Dickie and Margot’s unknown largess as the table is set with tea for two, bread from the glazed bread crock and a choice of spreads for them to enjoy.
“Well, “ Hilda says with a sigh of relief as she unscrews the yellow lid from the Marmite* jar. “I can tell you I was relieved to hear Mrs. Channon say to your Miss Lettice over lunch last week that the reason why they are going to see her in-laws is because they find it too lowering to visit the flat.” She scoops some of the thick dark Marmite out of the jar and smears the paste thinly across her slice of bread.
“Mmmm…” murmurs Edith in reply, her own knife still laying next to her untouched slice of bare bread.
“She sounds like a nasty old trout anyway.” Hilda prattles on as she cuts her slice of Marmite topped bread into two by slicing it with ungainly drags of her Bakelite** handled knife. “Poor Mrs. Channon always comes back from these stays at the in-law’s castle so downcast, and despondent.”
“Yes…” Edith replies in a distracted way, still leaving her bread untouched.
“And I’ve heard she and Mr. Channon talk about the fact that they have no children yet.” Hilda picks up one half of her bread and bites into it hungrily, chewing her mouthful a few times and half swallowing it before adding, “I mean, I know they have been married for a year and all, so it is unusual.” She loudly chews her mouthful of bread and Marmite a few more times. “But you can’t force babies to come, now can you?”
“Mmmm…”
“And, I mean fancy the Marchioness being rich enough to live in a castle, yet she and the Marquess barely give Mr. Channon a penny to live by, and they won’t visit his home because they think it’s too lowering.” Hilda emphasises the last word before taking another large bite of her bread. “What a cheek! ‘d hate her for a mother-in-law, no matter how rich she is! She’s just plain rude, if you ask me! Don’t you agree, Edith?”
“No…” Edith replies after a few moments, her voice reedy and tinged with a far off quality.
“You don’t, Edith?” Hilda asks, her face screwing up in disbelief, her mouth a thin, long line moving up and down as she chews.
“I don’t what?” Edith replies.
“You don’t agree with me, Edith!” Hilda retorts in surprise. “Haven’t you been listening to me?” She looks at the slice of bare bread on Edith’s plate and her untouched cup of tea, and then up into Edith’s rather pale and wan face with apprehension. “What’s wrong Edith? You haven’t touched your tea.”
“Oh!” Edith gasps, before smiling at her friend. “Nothing, Hilda.” She picks up the jar of Golden Shred Marmalade*** and unscrews the painted red lid.
“Aren’t you going to put butter on your bread first?” Hilda asks with disquiet as she watches Edith’s clean knife edge towards the gelatinous golden orange conserve within the jar.
“What?” Edith looks at the marmalade and then looks at the bar of creamy pale yellow butter on the white glazed tray of the butter dish. “Oh! Oh yes!” She giggles somewhat forcefully at her mistake. “Silly me.”
“What’s wrong Edith?” Hilda asks her friend in genuine concern as she watches her butter her bread. “You’ve been a bit off ever since you’ve arrived, and I don’t think you’ve really heard a word I said since you got here.”
“Yes I have, Hilda!” Edith defends.
“You’re not,” Hilda glances down to Edith’s stomach, encased in a pretty floral print frock of her own making, cocking her eyebrow as she does. “You know… in the family way with Frank, are you?”
“Hilda!” Edith let’s her knife clatter loudly onto her blue and white plate. “Good heavens, no!” She blushes. “I’m not that kind of girl! You know that! How could you even think such a thing? I haven’t let Frank touch me like that, and he knows he can’t, until he’s put a ring on my finger.”
“Oh, that’s a relief!” Hilda sinks back not the comfort of the round back of her Windsor chair. “Then what is it? Something’s bothering you. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. Is it Miss Lettice? Has she done something? I know your brother is home. Is he alright?”
“Of course my brother’s alright!” Edith scoffs in surprise. “You only saw him at the Hammersmith Palais**** on Sunday. And no, it’s nothing about Miss Lettice.”
“Well, a lot can happen in a few days, Edith. So, what is it, then. Is it to do with Frank?”
Edith doesn’t reply for a moment, which tells her best friend so much before she finally does reply falteringly. “Well, yes… well not him, exactly.”
“What is it then?” Hilda sits forward and picks up the last bite of her first half of her bread. “Come on! Out with it then!”
Edith sighs deeply and toys with the marmalade as she smears it across her slice of bread. “I’m worried about meeting Frank’s grandmother on Sunday.”
“But I thought you wanted to meet her.” Hilda replies, her eyes widening in surprise. “You’re the one who has been banging on to me for weeks about Frank dragging his heels. Now he’s gone and done the right thing and organised for you two to finally meet. I don’t understand.”
“Oh, I am glad, Hilda. Really, I am.”
“Well you don’t sound it, I must confess.” Hilda says matter-of-factly as she snatches up her second half of her bread and bites deeply into it, emitting a small gasp of pleasure at doing so.
Edith cuts her slice of bread in half with desultory strokes as she considers her reply. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
“Alright. Well, I’m worried that she won’t like me.”
“What?” Hilda gasps. “What is there not to like about you, Edith? You’re wonderful! Frank’s picked himself the best of the catch!” She pats Edith’s arm comfortingly as she leans forward. “You’re pretty and smart. You’ve landed yourself a good job as far as being in service goes. Goodness,” She slaps Edith’s forearm. “You’re even clever enough to whip Frank up a shirt on that new Singer***** of yours, I’ll wager. I’m sure she’ll be tickled pink that her grandson has found such a catch as you.”
“But she sounds so grand, Hilda. She makes lace, and she lives in Upton Park. It sounds much nicer than Harlesden.”
“What rubbish!” Hilda scoffs. “Lots of women make lace, and they aren’t fine ladies like Mrs. Channon or Miss Lettice. In fact, I doubt that either of our mistresses could sew their own lace. And as for Upon Park, it’s just an ordinary suburb, just like any other in London.”
“Have you been there?”
“Well, no.” Hilda admits. But as her friend’s face falls, she quickly adds, “But I have been with you to the Premier****** in East Ham, and that isn’t far away, and there’s nothing particularly grand or special about it. Upton Park is just an ordinary London suburb, just like many others, and that includes Harlesden.”
“I don’t really know much about Frank’s upbringing, other than his parents died in the Spanish Flu epidemic. His grandmother might not approve of a working girl whose father works in a biscuit factory and a mother who is a laundress.”
“Rubbish! Your parents are both respectable people, Edith. Your mum keeps a lovely house and did a splendid job of raising you and your brother. You’ve nothing whatever to be ashamed of! I’m sure your nerves are just bringing all this nonsense up.”
“Oh,” Edith sighs. “You’re probably right, Hilda.” She smiles wanly at her friend and reaches up her own right hand and places it gratefully on her best friend’s left forearm. “Thank you.”
“Course I’m right.” Hilda says with satisfaction.
The pair settle back in companionable silence for a short while. Hilda happily helps herself to another slice of thick and soft white bread from the bread crock, far nicer than the bread she used to be served by the cook in Mrs. Plaistow’s, who deliberately gave the maids food of a poorer quality out of sheer spite, whilst feeding she and her kitchen maid little delicacies that she would create just for them. Smearing a thick layer of rich, dark and gleaming Marmite on her bread, Hilda feels the silence change. Glancing up at her friend she watches as she gingerly nibbles at her slice of bread, spread with a thin layer of jewel like orange marmalade. Her eyes, usually so bright, seem dull and sad and she is obviously troubled and distracted by something more than she is saying. Hilda sips her tea and ponders the situation.
“There’s something else worrying you, isn’t there Edith?” she confronts her friend at length.
“No, I…”
“Don’t try and deny it!” Hilda protests, raising one of her doughy arms with its wide hands and fat, sausage like fingers. “I’ve known you long enough Edith Watsford, to know there is something wrong. What is it? Don’t you want to tell it me?”
Edith looks guiltily at her, evidently upset at withholding information from her most trusted of friends, yet unable to voice them. Finally, she speaks.
“You’ll think me foolish, if you thought my other reasons were rubbish, Hilda.”
“Your reasons may be rubbish,” Hilda agrees. “But your concerns aren’t. Come on Edith. We tell each other everything. You know I won’t think you’re foolish. Like I said before, you’re a smart girl, and smart girls aren’t foolish.” She smiles in a welcoming fashion, encouraging Edith to share. “I won’t pass judgement on you.” she concludes softly, putting down her slice of bread, just to prove the point that she is paying full attention. “Promise.”
Edith puts down her own nibbled slice of bread and explains with a heaviness and reluctance, “I feel foolish, because I can’t help but feel I’m cheating on Bert’s memory by going to see Frank’s grandmother.”
When Edith pauses and looks across at her friend, Hilda doesn’t respond, even though she wants to. She wants to tell her that such an idea is nonsense, and that she has been crying over the photo of a dead man for far too long as it is, but she knows that will only make Edith feel foolish, and she doesn’t want her to feel that way. Instead, she stays silent for a moment before asking, “How’s that then?”
“Well, by me going to see Frank’s grandmother, it commits me more to Frank, and I can’t help but feel that in doing so, I’m not being generous to Bert’s memory.”
“That’s,” Hilda begins, about to add the word rubbish. However, she quickly changes her mind, swallows the word and instead says, “Understandable.”
“Do you really think so, Hilda?”
Hilda smiles, but her smile contains pity for her friend. “For all the time we shared that awful, cold attic bedroom at Mrs. Plaistow’s, I remember how often you talked about Bert, and how often you looked at his picture. Of course, he was your first love, and whilst I have no real experience of love myself, I do know that first loves remain in your heart.”
Edith nods shallowly.
“But I think that Bert would be disappointed in you if you didn’t take this chance with Frank, Edith. He sounded like a nice chap, and I think he’d be happy for you if you had a chance at love again. You’re lucky.” she adds. “Not all of us get that chance.” Now her pity is for herself.
“Oh, I’m sorry Hilda!” Edith exclaims. “I must sound so ungrateful! Here I am with a lovely man like Frank, and I’m worried about a man who isn’t even alive any more.”
“He lives in your heart.” Hilda says in a strangulated voice as she struggles to hold back her own tears.
“Don’t worry, Hilda!” Edith assures her friend. “We’re going to find you a good man at the Hammersmith Palais. You wait and see!”
“Not with the number of women there are in comparison to the men.” Hilda says doubtfully, picking up her bread slice and her cup. “Like most of the plainer girls, I end up dancing with other women rather than sit and be a wallflower. Thank goodness for your Frank dancing with me from time to time, or your brother last week.” After slurping a sip of hot sweet and milky tea, she adds, “My Mum used to tell me I had good child-bearing hips. I think she used to say it out of kindness, because I’ve always been on the heftier side.” She looks down at herself. “I’ll never be a slip of thing like you, and there’s a fact.”
“Oh I wouldn’t…” Edith begins, but Hilda holds up her hand in protest again as she pops her bread between her teeth.
Taking the slice out of her mouth, she continues, “Anyway, Mum doesn’t say that any more, partially I think to spare me the humiliation of being reminded that I’m still single at the age of twenty three, but I think more so to keep herself from remembering that as her only child left alive, if I am destined to be an old maid, she’ll never have grandchildren.”
“Oh, don’t talk like that, Hilda! You might meet the man you are going to marry, tomorrow.”
“Let’s be honest, Edith,” Hilda says in a deflated fashion. “I’m nowhere near as pretty as you, nor as trim, and with so many young men killed in the war, my chances of finding someone are slim. Besides, I can’t sew my own pretty frocks like you can, and it seems that dresses in my size are mostly muddy brown or olive in colour. They are hardly becoming are they?”
“Well, we might be able to do something about that.” Edith says with a genuine smile that returns brightness to her eyes. “Now that I do have my own sewing machine, I can just as easily make up a frock for you as I can for me. I have plenty of Weldon’s******* at home.”
Hilda’s sad face suddenly brightens and her cheeks fill with colour, giving her a pretty flush of pink. “Would you Edith?” she dares to ask. “Would you really?”
“Oh yes, of course I will!” Edith exclaims. “If I start working on it in the evenings this week, it might even help keep my mind off meeting Frank’s grandmother. I probably won’t have anything ready for a week or two, but if you don’t mind waiting.”
“Oh, of course I don’t mind waiting! That would be wonderful!”
“Well,” Edith says, sparking up herself at the thought of making a frock for her best friend. “I know we said we were going to go and look in the shop windows on Oxford Street, but why don’t we go to Mrs. Minkin’s Haberdashers in Whitechapel instead? We could pick some nice fabric today, and maybe even look at frock patterns to see what you like.”
“We’d better eat up then!” Hilda says before stuffing what is left of her second slice of bread into her mouth and washing it down with another slurp of tea. Through a wall of chewed up bread mixed with tea she adds, “Whitechapel’s a bit further away than Oxford Street.”
As Edith stands and prepares to help tidy the luncheon dishes away, Hilda waves her hands over them, indicating to her that she will take care of them when she gets back. Hilda goes to the pegs by the back door to the flat and picks up her chocolate brown overcoat and camel felt cloche with the chocolate brown grosgrain ribbon, the latter of which she pulls down over her mousy brown hair. Holding out Edith’s black coat to her, the pair of best friends wrap up against the still chilled early spring weather and slip out the door, their joyously chattering filling the air like birdsong as they discuss what Hilda’s new frock might look like.
*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.
**Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.
***Golden Shred orange marmalade still exists today and is a common household brand both in Britain and Australia. They are produced by Robertson’s. Robertson's Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson's marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.
****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.
*****The Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing machines, it was renamed Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865, then the Singer Company in 1963. In 1867, the Singer Company decided that the demand for their sewing machines in the United Kingdom was sufficiently high to open a local factory in Glasgow on John Street. The Vice President of Singer, George Ross McKenzie selected Glasgow because of its iron making industries, cheap labour, and shipping capabilities. Demand for sewing machines outstripped production at the new plant and by 1873, a new larger factory was completed on James Street, Bridgeton. By that point, Singer employed over two thousand people in Scotland, but they still could not produce enough machines. In 1882 the company purchased forty-six acres of farmland in Clydebank and built an even bigger factory. With nearly a million square feet of space and almost seven thousand employees, it was possible to produce on average 13,000 machines a week, making it the largest sewing machine factory in the world. The Clydebank factory was so productive that in 1905, the U.S. Singer Company set up and registered the Singer Manufacturing Company Ltd. in the United Kingdom.******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.
*******Created by British industrial chemist and journalist Walter Weldon Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was the first ‘home weeklies’ magazine which supplied dressmaking patterns. Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was first published in 1875 and continued until 1954 when it ceased publication.
This cosy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Hilda’s deal table is everything required for a nice, hearty luncheon for two working maids. The bread crock, butter knives and the butter dish come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The bar of butter on the dish I have had since I was six. It came as part of a dinner set, underneath a silver butter dish. The blue and white floral tea set, plates and bread slices all come from different online stockists of miniatures on E-Bay. The vase of flowers also comes from an online shop on E-Bay. The jar of Marmite and the jar of Golden Shred Marmalade are handmade artisan miniatures with great attention to the labelling, made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire., a panoply of things as she readies luncheon for Lettice and her guests. The mahogany stained serving tray, the gravy boat of gravy, the chopping board, napkins and cutlery all came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. Edith’s green handbag, appearing on the table at the bottom right-hand corner of the photo, is handmade from soft leather. I bought it along with many other items from an American miniature collector named Marilyn Bickel.
Hilda’s two different Windsor chairs are hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniatures which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat of either, but both are definitely unmarked artisan pieces.
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.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: usually Edith her maid’s preserve. However, this morning it has been invaded by two deliverymen from nearby Harrods department store. 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 the flat has been in upheaval as Edith and Lettice’s charwoman* Mrs. Boothby have been cleaning the flat thoroughly in preparation for the occasion. Today they will move some of the furnishings to make space for the guests to dance and mingle and roll up the carpets so Mrs. Boothby can give the parquet floors a good waxing before the first guest arrives. Lettice has fled her flat for the day to avoid all the upheaval and keep out of the way of her servants. The florist is expected at midday and the caterers from Harrods at four o’clock, but for now, all the alcohol for the party has arrived.
“Cor! Would yer look at all that!” Mrs. Boothby gasps as she slips into the kitchen via the door that leads from the flat’s entrance hall and stares at the kitchen table. “I was hopin’ for a nice reviving cup of Rosie-Lee** before I starts polishin’ the dinin’ room floor.”
“Not a chance I’m afraid, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith sighs. “Not until these gentlemen are finished. As you see, my table has been taken over by deliveries.”
“’Scuse me, Miss,” a green liveried deliveryman mutters as he tries to slip unobtrusively past Edith, a large wooden crate of champagne bottles in his broad, muscular arms.
“Sorry.” Edith slips a little closer to the stove and watches as the box is deposited onto the table with a soft thud and the rattle of bottles.
“Cor! ‘Ow many people is Miss Lettice expectin’ tonight, dearie?”
“About one hundred and twenty guests I think, Mrs. Boothby.”
“Gawd knows where they’s gonna fit.” Mrs. Boothby casts her eyes to ceiling. She picks out a bottle from the crate. Looking at the label is starts to read aloud, “Da Rock… da Rockegree.”
“De Rochegré,” Edith corrects her appalling French pronunciation.
“You certainly know French champagne!” The deliveryman cocks his eyebrow in obvious surprise, but gives her a happy smile, revealing a neat set of white teeth as his blue eyes sparkle.
“I work for a flapper,” Edith replies, blushing at the compliment, but daring to return his smile with a shy one of her own. “It pays to know.”
“Right you are, Miss!” the deliveryman exclaims, tapping his finger to his cap. “’Scuse me, but there’s more where these come from.” And he walks towards the door that leads to the back service stairs of Cavendish Mews, slipping aside to let another Harrods deliveryman, older than him wearing glasses carrying a bottle of gin and a bottle of Cinzano, pass.
“Humph!” Mrs. Boothby mutters in a disgruntled fashion, screwing up her nose and depositing the bottle back into the crate in a rather offhand way. “French!” she sniffs as it clatters back into the crate.
“What’s wrong with French champagne, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks, thinking to herself that it’s unlikely the old Cockney woman from Poplar has ever had so much as a taste of French champagne in her life.
“Well, it’s fancy ain’t it?” She crews up her nose. “And it’s foreign!” She glares at the offending bottle as its glass gleams in the morning sunshine pouring through the kitchen window. “I don’t like foreign. Give me a good pint of British beer at the ‘Appy Go Lucky** any day of the week.”
“Well, if Miss Lettice and her friends drink it, it can’t be all bad, Mrs. Boothby.”
The old woman gives her a doubtful look. “Well, nuffink’s as good as a nice reviving cup of Rosie-Lee is it?” she asked pointedly.
“Oh, alright then. I’ll make you a cup,” Edith gives in. “But you’ll have to have it over here by the stove. There isn’t any room on the table, what with the champagne buckets, glasses and bottles in the way.”
“Ta very much, dearie.” the Cockney woman says with a smug and satisfied grin.
Edith busies herself using the small shelf on the right-hand side of the stove to make a pot of tea for herself and the charwoman.
“Fetch me two cups, and the sugar bowl from the dresser, will you Mrs. Boothby?”
“Right you are, dearie!” she replies cheerfully, pulling down two Deftware teacups and the sugar bowl.
“You’ll have to settle for milk directly from the bottle this morning,” Edith mutters as she walks over to the food safe and withdraws a pint bottle of milk. “As I shan’t have the time, or it looks like the space, to wash a milk jug.”
“I don’t mind, dearie! As long as I get my Rosie-Lee. I’m about parched, and I can’t be polishin’ the dinin’ room floor wiv a dry mouth.”
Edith pours hot water over the tealeaves in the pot and stirs it vigorously before hitting the rim of the pot three times with her spoon. Turning back to the table, she sighs. “Where is all this going to go?”
“Down the gullets of them rich fancy guests what’s comin’ tonight, I shouldn’t wonder!” The wiry thin Cockney woman bursts out laughing at her own joke, which turns into one of her bouts of fruity coughing.
“Well said!” the first and younger of the Harrods deliverymen pipes up as he steps across the threshold of the kitchen through the service entrance. “You are a card, aren’t you mother?”
“Mother!” Mrs. Boothby flaps her hand at him. “I ain’t your mother. Cheeky blighter!”
The deliveryman deposits another rattling crate of bottles onto the kitchen table. “A dozen Deutz and Geldermann.” he remarks, looking to Edith with another broad smile.
“Thank you.” she replies, daring to meet his eyes and smiling a little more broadly this time. Turning back momentarily to Mrs. Boothby she remarks, “More French champagne.”
The two women watch the handsome deliveryman leave again, his broad shouldered bulk filling the doorframe. They remain silent for a few moments.
“Well, you are a dark ‘orse, dearie!” Mrs. Boothby remarks, sizing up her companion with a wide eyed gaze.
“What on earth do you mean, Mrs. Boothby?”
“Well, look at you, all sweetness and innocence in your blue and white cotton print morning uniform, flirtin’ wiv the deliveryman!”
“I wasn’t flirting!” Edith splutters. She spins around and starts pouring the tea, trying to hide the flush of colour rising up her neck and flooding her cheeks. “I was only talking, that’s all.”
“You was talkin’, and smilin’, and flirtin’ my girl! Don’t you deny it!” The older woman leans on the shelf of the stove and peers from her vantage point up into Edith’s face, trying unsuccessfully to catch her eye, but clearly seeing her blush.
“Oh, you do create something from nothing.”
“And ‘ere I was, thinkin’ you was sweet the grocer’s delivery boy.” the older woman continues to tease, smiling cheekily as Edith squirms under her gaze.
“Frank Leadbetter? Mrs. Boothby, you do talk a lot of rot!” She looks up, her face now quite scarlet. “I’m just being friendly is all!”
“Aahh… friendly,” the older woman remarks with a cocked eyebrow and a knowing look as she picks up her cup of tea. “I see.”
“Mrs. Boothby!”
“Ahem!” The older of the deliverymen clears his throat, interrupting the two ladies.
Turning around in surprise, Edith and Mrs. Boothby stare across at the skinny middle aged man who returns their gaze critically over the top of his glasses. Clearly embarrassed at inadvertently catching them in the middle of a very personal conversation, he smiles awkwardly at them.
“Yes?” Edith asks, wiping her hands down her apron, but trying to hold his gaze with confidence she doesn’t now have.
“Aahh, that’s the last of the delivery, Miss. If you could just sign here, Miss?”
He hands her his clipboard and pen. Edith takes it from him and signs the form agreeing that the delivery is complete, without even glancing at the inventory. Anxious that he leaves so that she can recover her dignity, she thrusts the clipboard back to him. “Very good.”
Taking it back, he tips his hat and mutters, “Good day, ladies.”
Scuttling out the service door, Edith follows him, closes it behind him and snibs it. She stands with her back to the room for a moment whilst she regains her composure, taking a few deep and calming breaths, all the while feeling Mrs. Boothby’s eyes upon her.
Finally turning back, Edith mutters, “Oh you are awful sometimes, Mrs. Boothby.”
The Cockney charwoman smiles as she leans against the stove, her saucer in one hand and her cup raised to her lips. Lowering it to reveal a smile as mirth filled as her eyes, she says, “And youse a flirt, dearie.” She pauses, once again considering the young maid in a new light. “Still, I don’t blame you. Youse a pretty little fing, ‘though I suspect you don’t know quite how pretty you is. And,” She takes a deep sigh. “If I was firty years younger, I’d flirt wiv ‘im too.” She shakes her head and narrows her eyes as she glances towards the closed door. “‘E was a good looking fella, ‘e was.”
Anxious to change the subject and salvage some dignity, Edith walks across the room. “Come on Mrs. Boothby, help me move these bottles off the table and onto the bench. I need to clean all these glasses and sort the crockery and the silverware before the caterers arrive this afternoon. I’ll never be able to do it without my table to work on.”
“Is it worf a ‘Untley and Palmer’s to go wiv me Rosie-Lee?”
“You can have two Huntley and Palmers of your choice from the special box I ordered from Harrods for tonight’s party if you do.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Boothby beams in delight. “Ta!”
The two women begin moving the bottles, Edith’s embarrassment gone, and Mrs. Boothby’s mischief abated, as they focus on the job at hand.
*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.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On Edith’s deal table is a panoply of bottles for the party. The Harrod’s crate, which I purchased from an EBay seller in the United Kingdom, is full of bottles of Deutz and Geldermann and De Rochegré champagne. All are artisan miniatures and made of glass and some have real foil wrapped around their necks. They and the various bottles of wine and mixers in the background are 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 champagne glasses are 1:12 artisan miniatures. Made of glass, they have been blown individually by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering and are so fragile and delicate that even I with my dainty fingers have broken the stem of one. They stand on an ornate silver tray that I have had since I was around eight years old. The silver cocktail shaker is also made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The silver wine cooler in the foreground is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.
On the first shelf of dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot stands the Deftware kitchen tea set. Each piece features the traditional painting of a windmill.
To the left of the dresser, a spice cabinet with six marked drawers hangs from the wall. Also hanging on the wall are three copper frypans with black metal handles which, along with the copper kettle on the stove came from a specialist dollhouse supplier.
Edith’s Windsor chair, just visible beyond the bottles, 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.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today is Tuesday and we are in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve, except on Tuesdays, every third Thursday of the month and occasionally after a big party. That is when Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, comes from her home in Poplar to do all the hard jobs. Edith is grateful that unlike her previous positions, she does not have to scrub the black and quite chequered kitchen linoleum, nor polish the parquetry floors, not do her most hated job, black lead the stovetop. Mrs. Boothby does them all without complaint, with reliability and to a very high standard. She is also very handy on cleaning and washing up duty with Edith after one of Lettice’s extravagant cocktail parties. There is only one drawback with Mrs. Boothby, and that is her morning ritual.
Setting out her things for baking, Edith hears the familiar sounds of Mrs. Boothby as she climbs the service stairs of Cavendish Mews: her footfall in her low heeled shoes that she proudly tells Edith came ‘practically new from Petticoat Lane’ and the fruity cough that comes from deep within her wiry little body.
“Morning dearie!” Mrs. Boothby calls cheerily as she comes through the servants’ entrance door into the kitchen.
“Morning Mrs. Boothby,” Edith replies as she gathers canisters from the dresser.
“Baking already dearie?” the older woman asks, eying the ingredients as they start to fill the deal kitchen table in the middle of the room. “I’m not late am I?”
“No, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith replies with a sigh as she spreads the items out sparsely and then turns to get a few thigs she doesn’t need for the baking to clutter the end of the table. “Just making an early start.”
“Well, just let me rest me weary bones a minute before you start, Edith love!” Mrs. Boothby bustles over to the corner of the table not yet occupied by clutter and drops her beaded bag territorially with a thud before moving the Windsor backed chair to the warm spot between the stove and the table. “I’m parched after me trip up from Poplar! Should’ve seen the traffic at Tottenham Court Road this mornin’! Quite bunged up it was! Now, I’ll just sit ‘ere and ‘ave a reviving cup of Rosie-Lee** and a fag before I get started.”
Edith, with her back to Mrs. Boothby, shudders almost imperceptibly. How she 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.
“Got the kettle on dearie?” Mrs. Boothby’s query breaks into Edith’s happy memories of her parents.
“Err… there’s tea in the pot, Mrs. Boothby,” she replies distractedly, indicating to the pot on the table covered with a pretty knitted cosy.
“Oh! Splendid!” Mrs. Boothby enthuses as she takes a Delftware cup and saucer off the dresser.
“Although it may be a bit stewed,” Edith adds as afterthought.
“Oh I don’t mind a good, strong Rosie-Lee. If I can stick a spoon up in it, all the betta! Got any of them nice ‘Untley and Palmer breakfast biscuits to go wiv me Rosie-Lee?”
Sighing because she knows it will hold up her baking, Edith can do little to refuse the old char as she has no doubt that the sprightly eyed woman has already spied the tin on the bench. Reaching over, she hands it to Mrs. Boothby’s welcoming hands.
“Ta!” she says. “Lovely.” She pours herself a cup of tea, sticks a biscuit between her teeth and then starts fossicking through her capacious beaded bag before withdrawing her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut. Rolling herself a cigarette she reaches over to the deal dresser and grabs the silver and cut glass ash tray Edith washed last night which she has yet to return to the drawing room where it is kept for guests who smoke. Lighting her cigarette with a satisfied sigh and one more of her fruity coughs, Mrs. Boothby settles back happily in the Windsor chair with her cigarette in one hand and the biscuit in the other.
Edith resigns herself, as she does every morning that the char comes in, to Mrs. Boothby’s morning ritual. And she tells herself, as she does every morning that the char comes in, that the sooner it begins, the sooner the ritual will be over, and then Mrs. Boothby will do all the unpleasant jobs she doesn’t have to do. Smelling the miasma of cigarette smoke and noticing the fine grey curls start to permeate the air, the maid crinkles up her nose in disgust. She casually goes over to the kitchen window and opens it.
“Lawd dearie!” Mrs. Boothby gasps. “Now don’t go openin’ that damn window! I’ll catch me death, so ‘elp me I will!”
Edith lowers the sash again, quietly and without complaint, knowing there is no arguing with Mrs. Boothby. She sighs again but thinks there will be plenty of time to air the kitchen after the char has gone into the drawing room to polish the floors.
Looking disconcertedly at Edith, the older woman remarks, “Are you sure you was born ‘ere in London and not in Scotland, dearie? Lawd I ain’t never met a girl so intent on cold London air! It’s un’ealthy it is! They’s fumes out there wot will kill you, y’know?”
*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.
This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a weekly challenge called “Snap Happy”. A different theme chosen by a member of the group each week, and the image is to be posted on the Monday of the week.
This week the theme, “up-close/macro” was chosen by Andrew, ajhaysom.
I thought another scene using some of my 1:12 miniature collection would be a perfect choice for macro photography, however I have deliberately chosen a photograph that contains the smallest miniature I have as the centre not only of my photo, but also my narrative: a single cigarette with a red burning tip. The cigarette is a tiny five millimetres long and just one millimetre wide! Made of paper, I have to be so careful that it doesn’t get lost when I use it!
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
The tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in England.
The Huntley and Palmer’s Breakfast Biscuit tin containing a replica selection of biscuits is also a 1:12 artisan piece. Huntley & Palmers is a British firm of biscuit makers originally based in Reading, Berkshire. The company created one of the world\'s first global brands and ran what was once the world\'s largest biscuit factory. Over the years, the company was also known as J. Huntley & Son and Huntley & Palmer. Huntley and Palmer were renown for their ‘superior reading biscuits’ which they promoted in different varieties for different occasions, including at breakfast time. The design on the tin is Edwardian, and was so popular that it carried on through the 1920s. Other biscuit varieties had similar patterned tins in different colour ranges to aid those who were unable to, or couldn’t, read!
Mrs. Boothby’s beaded handbag is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. Hand crocheted, it is interwoven with antique blue glass beads that are two millimetres in diameter. The beads of the handle are three millimetres in length.
Spilling from her bag are her Player’s Navy Cut cigarette tin and Swan Vesta matches, which are 1:12 miniatures hand made by Jonesy’s Miniatures in England. The ashtray is also an artisan piece, made of cut clear crystals set in a silver metal frame. The tray has black ash in it, and the 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (no it isn’t affixed there) came with it. Made by Nottingham based tobacconist manufacturer John Player and Sons, Player\'s Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf, mild being today\'s rich flavour). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Player\'s and two thirds of these were branded as Player\'s Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Player\'s sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London). Production continued to grow until at its peak in the late 1950s, Player\'s was employing 11,000 workers (compared to 5,000 in 1926) and producing 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. Nowadays the brands "Player" and "John Player Special" are owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands (formerly the Imperial Tobacco Company). Swan Vestas is a brand name for a popular brand of \'strike-anywhere\' matches. Shorter than normal pocket matches they are particularly popular with smokers and have long used the tagline ‘the smoker\'s match’ although this has been replaced by the prefix ‘the original’ on the current packaging. Swan Vestas matches are manufactured under the House of Swan brand, which is also responsible for making other smoking accessories such as cigarette papers, flints and filter tips. The matches are manufactured by Swedish Match in Sweden using local, sustainably grown aspen. The Swan brand began in 1883 when the Collard & Kendall match company in Bootle on Merseyside near Liverpool introduced \'Swan wax matches\'. These were superseded by later versions including \'Swan White Pine Vestas\' from the Diamond Match Company. These were formed of a wooden splint soaked in wax. They were finally christened \'Swan Vestas\' in 1906 when Diamond merged with Bryant and May and the company enthusiastically promoted the Swan brand. By the 1930s \'Swan Vestas\' had become \'Britain\'s best-selling match\'.
The Deftware cup, saucer and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot.
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.
Tonight we are below stairs in the Wickham Place kitchen. The Wickham Place kitchens are situated on the ground floor of Wickham Place, adjoining the Butler’s Pantry. It is dominated by big black leaded range, and next to it stands a heavy dark wood dresser that has been there for as long as anyone can remember. In the middle of the kitchen stands Cook’s preserve, the pine deal table on which she does most of her preparation for both the meals served to the family upstairs and those for the downstairs staff.
It's a busy and noisy place this evening with all spare hands being put to some use as Lord and Lady Southgate entertain the United States Ambassador to England, Mr. Whitelaw Reid*. As he is coming, Her Ladyship has invited a number of her fellow Americans who now live in London society like she does.
There is a frenetic energy about the room which scullery maid Agnes finds a little overwhelming as she tries to be useful to Mrs. Bradley and keep out from under the feet of the constant stream of liveried footmen coming through with dirty glasses for her to wash and empty bottles of champagne to be disposed of. In comparison, Mrs. Bradley the cook, has everything in hand as she orders Agnes, an additional kitchen maid she has hired for the night and the two housemaids Sara and Tilley about. Here we are before the range at the pine deal table where Mrs. Bradley has just finished removing some lightly fried hors d’oeuvres from her copper skillet with a slotted spatula, carefully placing them on a fine white porcelain plate.
“Well,” she says with a satisfied sigh over the clatter of pots and the patter of feet. “What do you think Agnes?”
“About what, Mrs. Bradley?” Agnes scurries over from the sink.
“About what! About what? About these, girl!” She indicates to the three plates before her.
The hors d’oeuvres for the reception are ready. Prawns on puff pastry decorated with caviar, potato petites adored with cherry tomatoes and cucumber slivers and by special request of Her Ladyship for the tastes of her American friends, crab, tomato, fresh herbs and mayonnaise on toast squares.
“Oh! Oh, they look wonderful Mrs. Bradley! I hope to make something as beautiful as these some day.”
“And you will, girl. You will.” the older woman assures her. “Now, have you done your bit for the hors d’oeuvres, Agnes?”
The cook has recently taught her scullery maid how to fashion pretty looking ornamental garnishes for platters. “Yes, Mrs. Bradley!” She carefully brings over from the safety of a sideboard in the corner of the kitchen a selection of sliced carrots and greenery which she artfully places on each plate.
“Very good Agnes!” Cook says approvingly. “Fit for a queen, or a gaggle of American Dollar Princesses in this case, my girl!”
“Are the canapés ready, Mrs. Bradley?” a slightly out of breath and red-faced Mr. Withers the butler asks as he hurries through the kitchen door from the corridor outside. “Viscount and Viscountess Astor** have finally arrived.”
“Hors d’oeuvres for the evening!” she says proudly. “With Agnes’ help, of course.”
“Very good Agnes,” Mr. Withers gives her one of his approving smiles. “Mrs. Bradley will make a first class cook of you yet.”
The scullery maid smiles shyly and blushes.
“Potato petites with cherry tomatoes and cucumber slivers, prawns on puff pastry with caviar,” Cook continues. “And crab, tomato, fresh herbs and mayonnaise on toast by special request of Her Ladyship for the Americans amongst them upstairs.”
The three liveried house footmen in their frock coats, britches and powdered wigs return and take one plate each, holding them safely aloft as he file out the door and upstairs to serve the guests mingling in Wickham Place’s main reception room.
“Well, don’t just stand there, girl!” Cook say to the mesmerised Agnes. “I need you chopping herbs to garnish the soup with whilst Florrie and I check on the roast fowls.”
“Yes, Mrs. Bradley.” Says Agnes, still smiling from the praise of Cook and Mr. Withers.
*Mr. Whitelaw Reid was an American politician, newspaper editor and writer. He was appointed the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St, James’ by Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. He served in this role, including during the William Howard Taft administration, until his death in 1912.
**Waldorf Astor, Second Viscount Astor and his wife Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor were American-born members of the British aristocracy and were also British politicians. Lady Astor although not the first woman elected to the British parliament, was the first woman elected to take her seat there. Both were members of parliament at different times for Plymouth.
The theme for the 27th of November “Looking Close… on Friday” is “savoury food”. This tableaux is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood like the ladderback chair to the left of the picture. 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 tableaux include:
The plates of finely made hors d‘oeuvres seen on Cook’s deal table, and the parsnip you can just see peeping out of the blue and white Cornishware bowl on the rfight are artisan miniatures from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England, as are the onions hanging to the right of the range. He has a dizzying array of meals which is always growing, and all are made entirely or put together by hand, so each item is individual.
The kitchen knife and the meat cleaver with their inlaid handles and sharpened blades comes from English miniatures specialist Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniature store.
The copper stock pot, the copper pan and the pots on the range in the background are all made of real copper and come from various miniature stockists in England and America.
To the right of the photo, containing parsnips is one of Cook’s Cornishware white and blue striped bowls. One of her Cornishware cannisters stands on the dresser in the background. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
The copper skillet on the edge of the chopping board, the stock pot and the kettle on the range are all 1:12 miniature that come from various stockists over the years.
The jar of herbs is also a 1:12 miniature, made of real glass with a real cork stopper in it.
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).
Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.
Today we are below stairs in the Wickham Place kitchen. The Wickham Place kitchens are situated on the ground floor of Wickham Place, adjoining the Butler’s Pantry. It is dominated by big black leaded range, and next to it stands a heavy dark wood dresser that has been there for as long as anyone can remember. In the middle of the kitchen stands Cook’s preserve, the pine deal table on which she does most of her preparation for both the meals served to the family upstairs and those for the downstairs staff.
It is Easter time, and Mrs. Bradley, fondly known as Cook by most of the Wickham Place family and staff, wants to make something festive for the Southgate children, both of whom have recently been feeling poorly with rather nasty colds. Now that they are back on their feet, albeit with a little less noise and vibrant energy as usual, she wants something to cheer them up. Mrs. Bradley’s scullery maid Agnes looks on.
“Well,” Mrs. Bradley says with a satisfied sigh as she finishes a sixth cupcake by adding a home-made marzipan pink rabbit atop the white cream cheese icing Agnes had been allowed to ice the cupcakes with. “What do you think Agnes?”
“Oh Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes gasps. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful!”
“Thank you, my girl!” she smiles proudly, admiring her handywork.
“I wish I’d had something like that at Easter when I was Master Piers and Miss Sarah’s age.” the scullery maid sighs.
“Well, I imagine your parents did their best for you.”
“I s’pose.” Agnes shrugs. “I just remember doing a lot of praying, atonement and fasting.”
“Your people are chapel, aren’t they?”
“Yes, Mrs. Bradley.”
“Ah, that accounts for it then.” Mrs. Bradley starts tidying up.
“Accounts for what, Mrs. Bradley?” Agnes follows the cook’s lead and starts clearing the table too, keeping a sharp eye on the mixing bowls of left over icing.
“Well, all the praying, atonement and fasting.” the Cook waves about a beater still coated in pink coloured icing sugar, which Agnes follows with a hungry look.
“I do remember the minister’s wife used to boil eggs for us and we’d decorate them at Sunday School.” Agnes pauses as a happy smile lights up her face momentarily.
“Oh yes?” Mrs. Bradley remarks. “Did you dye them different colours?”
“We did, Mrs. Bradley. We used to use cranberries, orange peel and lemon peel for dyes.”
“Were the scarlet ones your favourite?”
“Yes! They used to remind me of the red winter flannel petticoats I’d wear.” Agnes looks in astonishment at the older woman. “However did you know, Mrs. Bradley?”
“Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t always a matronly cook, you know!” The older woman puts her hands on her shapely hips. “I liked red too when I was a girl. So bright in a world full of black.”
“Black, Mrs. Bradley?”
“Oh yes. The Queen, god rest her soul, was in mourning when I was a girl, and it seemed like the whole world went into mourning with her for years! And did you give the eggs you dyed to friends and family?*”
“I wanted to, Mrs. Bradley, because that’s what the minister taught us to do,” Agnes replies, the bright smile suddenly disappearing from her face as she lowers her eyes to the tabletop and busies herself self-consciously. “But Mum wouldn’t have a bar of it. I wanted to give them to my Granny, who used to bake us kids hot cross buns at Easter if she could afford get the fruit and peel to put into them,” She sighs. “But Mum said it was a wicked waste of fresh eggs to boil them just for decorating and giving away.”
“So what did you do with them then, if your mother wouldn’t let you give them to your grandmother?”
“I didn’t do anything with them, Mrs. Bradley. Mum would snatch them off me, and then she’d give me a clip around the ears and tell me to pray for my soul for being such a wicked and wasteful girl.”
“Ah, there’s that chapel atonement again.” Mrs. Bradley remarks bitterly, feeling sorry for her poor, mousey scullery maid. “And did you?”
“Did I ever, Mrs. Bradley! I’d never dare disobey my Mum!” She blushes at the mere thought of it. “I still wouldn’t! My Dad always called Mum a Tarter. As a kid growing up, I never knew what that meant, but now I do, and I think he was right.”
“Doesn’t sound like you had much fun as a child, Agnes.” Mrs. Bradley remarks.
“Oh it wasn’t all bad, Mrs. Bradley,” Agnes remarks with a false steeliness to her voice. “We didn’t have much: still don’t, but we got by.”
“Not enough money for pink, green and yellow marzipan rabbits like Master Piers and Miss Sarah, I’ll wager.” she remarks knowingly.
“Goodness no, Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes looks in shock at the cook at the mere suggestion of it, a blush of shame flushing her cheeks.
“Here then,” she slides a cupcake with a pink marzipan rabbit across the table towards Agnes. “Happy Easter, my girl.” The older woman smiles magnanimously.
Agnes looks at the cupcake and then beams another happy smile at the older woman. “Really, Mrs. Bradley?”
“Master Piers and Miss Sarah have plenty for their nursery tea. They won’t miss one cupcake.”
“Oh! Thank you, Mrs. Bradley! Happy Easter!”
*The exchanging of greetings and gifts was a common custom in Victorian times during the Easter festival. People used to visit their relatives and friends and exchanged sweets, gifts (often homemade), and greetings. The celebration of the Easter festival was a major part of the culture during the Victorian era.
In the custom of the Victorian era, I should like to wish my Twenty First Century Flickr friends and followers a very happy and restful Easter. I know it will be a difficult Easter this year for some, but I hope you all find a little piece of joy and happiness.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
The divine little cupcakes, each with an Easter bunny on the top, has 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 cupcake is only five millimetres in diameter and eight millimetres in height!
The mixing bowl with the pink icing an whisk and the mixing bowl with cupcake dough, the jelly mould and jug of jelly are also made by Frances Knight.
The box of of Rowntree's Table Jelly is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Founded by Henry Isaac Rowntree in Castlegate in York in 1862, Rowntree's developed strong associations with Quaker philanthropy. Throughout much of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, it was one of the big three confectionery manufacturers in the United Kingdom, alongside Cadbury and Fry, both also founded by Quakers. In 1981, Rowntree's received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade. In 1988, when the company was acquired by Nestlé, it was the fourth-largest confectionery manufacturer in the world. The Rowntree brand continues to be used to market Nestlé's jelly sweet brands, such as Fruit Pastilles and Fruit Gums, and is still based in York
To the right of the tray of cupcakes, stands one of Cook's Cornishware cannisters. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
Next to the Cornishware cannister stands a miniature Blue Calico milk jug. Traditional dark blue Burleigh Calico made in Staffordshire, England by Burgess & Leigh since 1851. It was inspired by Nineteenth Century indigo fabrics. Blue Calico is still made today, and still uses the traditional print transfer process, which makes each piece unique.
The Art Nouveau silver cup in front of the tray of cupcakes is a dolls’ house miniature from Germany. Made in the first decade of the Twentieth Century it is a beautiful work of art as a stand alone item, and is remarkably heavy for its size.
The copper kettles on the range in the background are all made of real copper and come from various miniature stockists in England and America.
The floral teapot in the top right-hand corner of the picture I acquired from a specialist high street tea shop when I was a teenager. I have five of them and each one is a different shape and has a different design. I love them, and what I also love is that over time they have developed their own crazing in the glaze, which I think adds a nice touch of authenticity.
The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today it is Tuesday, and we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve, which is usually a place of calm and organisation. However today, Edith is in a flap, rushing about the room between the stove and the deal kitchen table in the centre of the room, banging copper pots and porcelain serving dishes alike as she starts to serve the day’s luncheon of a roast chicken with boiled vegetables and gravy.
“Goodness dearie! What’s to do?*” Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman** who comes on Tuesdays and every third Thursday to do the hard jobs, gasps as she slips into the kitchen via the door that leads from the flat’s entrance hall.
“Oh nothing!” Edith spits anxiously as she slams a heavy bottomed copper saucepan on the table’s surface and starts spooning some boiled vegetables into a pretty blue and white serving dish. “It’s just that Miss Lettice’s father is here.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Boothby’s eyebrows arch with curiosity over her sparking eyes. “Is that ooh that pompous old windbag is in the parlour?”
“Ssshhh!” Edith shushes the older Cockney woman. “He’ll hear you!” She indicates with her slotted ladle to the green baize door that leads from the kitchen to the flat’s dining room and the drawing room beyond it.
“I very much doubt that, dearie. “’E seems more than occupied wiv jabberin’ away to Miss Lettice.”
Edith’s face suddenly drains of the high colour her anxiety and the hot kitchen has given it. “He didn’t see you, did he Mrs. Boothby?”
The wiry thin Cockney woman bursts out laughing, which turns into one of her bouts of fruity coughing. “Goodness no, dearie!” she gasps. “I was just finishin’ polishin’ the bedroom floor and I glimpsed ‘im from a distance sittin’ in the parlour as I was comin’ across the entrance hall wiv me bucket.” She drops her aluminium bucket onto the black and white linoleum floor. “Nah! I knows better than ta show my face there when Miss Lettice ‘as guests.”
“Well,“ Edith mutters distractedly as she continues spooning greens from the pot into the tureen. “That’s a relief anyway.”
“Now, what’s all this then?” Mrs. Boothby asks with genuine concern. “It ain’t like you ta be upset by one of Miss Lettice’s visitors, dearie. It’s only ‘er old dad come ta pay a call.”
“Exactly!” Edith says, dropping the ladle back into the pot. She turns around and withdraws a roast chicken from the oven, golden brown and juicy, which she places on the wooden serving tray in the middle of the table. “Miss Lettice came in here at eleven, bold as brass. She knows I don’t like it when she fails to ring the call bell and comes in here.”
“And what did she want?”
“Well, she asked me what was for luncheon. I told her I was going to marinade her a nice bit of chicken with some vegetables. She then asked if it could be extended to a whole chicken with a few extra vegetables, as she had an unexpected visitor dropping in from Wiltshire.”
“Well, that’s where she comes from, so of course ‘er old dad is gonna come from there too.” Mrs. Boothby observes.
“Precisely!” Edith starts mixing some juices from the pan with some gravy salt and some herbs in a smaller copper pot. “When I asked her who was expected, she said breezily as you please, ‘oh just my father’.”
“Well,” Mrs. Boothby says, looking at the chicken on the serving dish, inhaling the wafts of delicious steam coming from it appreciatively. “Looks and smells alright ta me.”
“Alright! Alright!” Edith splutters as she stirs up the gravy. “I’ve never cooked for a viscount before!”
“Ooh’s a viscount?” Mrs. Boothby asks.
“He is!” Edith hisses back. “Miss Lettice’s father! He’s the Sixth Viscount Wrexham.”
“I thought you said your last position was in Pimlico.” Mrs. Boothby says, looking doubtfully at the maid.
“It was, but what has that to do with Lord Chetwynd being a viscount?” Edith pours the rich, thick steaming gravy into a blue and white porcelain gravy boat which matches the tureen and serving dishes.
“Well, they’s plenty of fancy titled folk in Pimlico. Didn’t ya serve some there?”
“I worked for a steel manufacturer and his wife, not a member of the aristocracy, Mrs. Boothby. I served other manufacturers, businessmen and MPs, but not a viscount.”
“Well, I shouldn’t worry too much ‘bout it, dearie. ‘E’ll eat ‘is tea just like manufacturers, businessmen, MPs and everyone else does; wiv ‘is mouth.”
“I’m not so sure about that Mrs. Boothby. He’s already asked Miss Lettice several times where the butler is when he wants a drink or anything else.”
“Nah! ‘E’s just potificatin’, like all them old lawds and laydees do, cos they got their own butlers and maids and what-not in they’s big ‘ouses at ‘ome.” The older woman comes around and wraps her careworn bony fingers around Edith’s shoulders, squeezing them in a comforting fashion. “Yer listen ta me, dearie. Yer cooked a fine tea ‘ere, just as good as any ‘Is Lawdship what would get back in Wiltshire from ‘is ‘oity-toity cook. ‘E should be grateful ta be getting’ such good food ta eat.”
Edith sighs and slumps a little.
“Nah! None of that my girl!” Mrs. Boothby continues, frowning at Edith. “Come on! Shoulders back! Show ‘Is Lawdship that youse as good as any servant. Do Miss Lettice proud. Eh?”
Edith looks up to Mrs. Boothby gratefully. “Thank you, Mrs. Boothby. You’re right.”
“Course I am, dearie. Nah, you go serve and I’ll start the washin’ up. Hhhmm?”
As Edith place the dishes and carving cutlery on her serving tray, ready to take into the dining room, she says, “I wonder why he’s come here for luncheon.”
“Ooh, dearie?”
“The Viscount Wrexham, of course Mrs. Boothby!”
“Oh ‘im. Well, I imagine ‘e’ll get a better meal ‘ere than at one of them clubs ‘e goes to in St. James.”
“But usually, when he visits London, he and Miss Lettice lunch at Claridge’s, or the Savoy. They’ll get a much finer lunch there than here.”
“Well, they’s no point in worryin’ yerself into more of a state ‘bout it, nah is there?”
“I suppose not.”
“What’s ‘appenin’ is appenin’, and there ain’t nuffin’ yer can do ‘bout it. Nah go serve them their tea before it gets cold.”
*The phrase “what’s to do?” in the 1920s and 1930s meant “what’s the matter?” or “what’s wrong?”.
**A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Edith’s deal table is a panoply of things as she readies luncheon for Lettice and her British peerage father. The mahogany stained serving tray, the roast chicken, tureen of vegetables and gravy boat of gravy all came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. They look almost good enough to eat. The carving cutlery, which is made with great attention to detail, comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.
To the right of the tray is a box of Queen’s Gravy Salt. Queen’s Gravy Salt is a British brand, and this box is an Edwardian design. Gravy Salt is a simple product it is solid gravy browning and is used to add colour and flavour to soups stews and gravy - and has been used by generations of cooks and caterers. It and the Oxo stock cubes are artisan miniatures from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England. Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.
The glass jar of herbs with its wooden stopper of cork is also a 1:12 size miniature, as are the blue porcelain mixing bowl, wooden spoon and the copper pots on the table. The smaller of the two on the right I have had since I was a teenager, and it is remarkably heavy for its size!
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
On the bench in the background is a toaster: a very modern convenience for a household even in the early 1920s, but essential when there was no longer a kitchen range on which to toast the bread. Although toasters had been readily available since the turn of the century, they were not commonplace in British kitchens until well after the Great War in the late 1930s. Next to the toaster is a biscuit barrel painted in the style of English ceramic artist Clarice Cliff which is a hand painted 1:12 miniature made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. It contains its own selection of miniature hand-made chocolate biscuits! Next to that stands a bread crock and various jars and preserves for toast.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: usually Edith her maid’s preserve. However, this afternoon it has been invaded since four o’clock by several of the catering staff of the nearby Harrods department store. 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 the flat has been in upheaval as Edith 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 band and for the guests to dance and mingle. Lettice has fled her flat for the day to avoid all the upheaval and keep out of the way of her servants and hired staff. Harrods delivered the alcohol this morning, the florist delivered some amazing floral arrangements at midday and now the caterers from Harrods are filling Edith’s preserve with a cacophony of chatter and the clatter of food preparation.
Edith stands in a corner of her kitchen, dressed in her afternoon uniform of black silk moiré with her special lace collar, cuffs, lace trimmed apron and pleated headpiece kept for formal occasions. She carefully observes the three caterers wearing white aprons to protect their green Harrods uniforms as they busily work on different tasks around Edith’s central deal kitchen table. One artfully lays out a range of Macfarlane Lang Homestead cracker biscuits on one of the silver trays that Lettice has borrowed from her parents’ estate. The caterer carefully leaves space for several fluted glass bowls in which he has already scooped and garnished some brightly coloured salmon dip and French onion dip which he made upon arrival at Lettice’s flat. The second skilfully assembles vol-au-vents filled with spiced mushroom pâte and savoury petit fours of egg and lettuce, ham and tomato, lettuce tomato and cucumber and cured meats onto another of Lettice’s family silver trays. A second, smaller tray has a bowl of caviar and several petit fours topped with caviar and wedges of lemon ready to be served. The third caterer is busily assembling a tray of thin triangular sandwiches filled with egg mayonnaise, cucumber and lettuce, tomato and cheese, ham and tomato and ham and cucumber fillings. Their fingers dance across their work as they laugh and chatter lightly with one another, however their conversation does not extend to Edith whom they seem quite happy to ignore.
“My goodness,” Edith remarks at length. “How swiftly you work, gentlemen.”
“Time is of the essence.” one of the men deigns to reply. “There is no time to waste.”
“Oh,” Edith replies quietly retreating a little further from the table, feeling somewhat rebuked for interrupting the men.
“What time do your mistress’ guests arrive, girl?” snaps the head caterer as he completes another perfect petit four of egg and lettuce.
“Ahh,” Edith stammers nervously. “The invitation is for eight, err… I think.”
“Think? You think?” he splutters incredulously. “You aren’t here to think, girl! I asked you a question. Now answer it!”
“Sorry, sir,” Edith mumbles. “Yes, yes, eight o’clock, sir.”
“What was that girl?” he barks distractedly as he reaches for an empty vol-au-vent case. “Stop muttering would you!”
“Yes sir,” Edith replies, trying to add confidence to her voice as she raises her voice. “Eight o’clock sir.”
“And how many guests?” he demands in reply.
“About one hundred and twenty.” Edith responds.
“About? About?” The head caterer’s eyes widen and his face reddens like a beetroot as he retorts, “Catering is a precise business, girl! Even a stupid lump like you should know that! I didn’t ask for abouts, I want to know how many guests are coming, and I want an answer!”
Mustering all her courage and resolve Edith counters, “And I’ve answered it as best as I can for you, sir. I’m afraid that I’m not privy to my mistress’ exact number of guests. When I asked her, she told me around one hundred and twenty guests.”
“Useless, useless girl!” the head caterer carps as he returns to his task. “Very good gentlemen,” he continues more kindly as he addresses his companions whilst glancing up at the kitchen clock hanging on the wall. “We’re doing splendidly for time.”
“Did you ever doubt it, Walter?” the caterer filling sandwiches replies.
“Never!” Walter, the head caterer answers back, smiling proudly. “We are a well-oiled machine.” His smile vanishes as his gaze falls upon Edith and his lips purse in disapproval.
The youngest caterer, the one creating the sandwiches, looks over to his left and gives Edith a momentarily smile, which she returns, feeling a little relief that at least one of the three Harrods staff was a little kinder than the others.
Emboldened by his engagement with her, she addresses the youngest man. “Can I help in any way,” she asks timidly with a small smile.
“The best thing you can do,” Walter snaps, looking up and glaring at Edith. “Is to keep out of our way, you stupid girl, and speak only when spoken to!”
Edith feels tears of embarrassment and shame start to sting her eyes as she lowers her head. She reaches into the pocket of her dress and withdraws a small white handkerchief and discreetly dabs at her eyes.
“It’s alright Miss,” the younger man says kindly in reply to Edith’s offer. “It’s good of you to offer, but we all know what our allocated tasks are. We can manage fine.”
“I could do with a spot of refreshment to keep my gears greased,” remarks the caterer setting out the biscuits. Looking up from his work, he spies Edith standing quietly by the stove, her hands folded meekly before her. “You there girl!” he addresses her loftily, as if seeing her for the first time. “Do something useful girl and put on the kettle and make Mr. Rowntree,” He looks at Walter. “Mr. Brown,” He looks at the youngest caterer. “And myself a pot of tea! Now girl!”
“Yes sir,” Edith replies and catches herself just in time to stop herself from curtseying to the haughty caterer.
The young girl picks up the brightly polished kettle and walks across the room and over to the sink where she fills it. Walking back, she heaves the heavy vessel onto the shelf beside the stovetop and reaches out to move one of the large copper pots of consommé boiling on the stovetop to one of the rear burners.
“Stop!” Walter cries out, almost causing Edith to spill the boiling contents of the pot on herself as she jumps anxiously. “Don’t touch that!”
“But sir,” she answers. “The kettle is too heavy for me to lift over the pot. I shall burn myself if I try.”
“You can’t just go moving that consommé to another burner, you stupid, stupid girl!” blusters Walter angrily. “That is sitting at perfect simmering temperature. Burn yourself for all I care, but you are not to move that pot! Who the bloody hell do you think you are?”
“And ooh the bloody ‘ell do you fink you are?” comes a cockney voice from the diagonally opposite corner of the kitchen.
All eyes turn in surprise to the door leading from the service stairs into the kitchen, where Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, stands. Arrayed in a long blue coat, she has a fox fur stole draped about her shoulders whilst on her head sits a pre-war toque of navy blue. Her rangy figure bristles with anger as her beaded blue bag and her umbrella in her hands and the single peacock feather aigrette sticking out of her toque tremble with the anger radiating from her. Raising her chin, she draws herself up to her full height as she glares with eyes aflame at the head caterer from Harrods.
“Who?” Walter splutters, as much startled as the others by the woman’s sudden appearance in the doorway.
“Nah! Nah!” Mrs. Boothby replies, shaking her head at him as she steps purposefully across the room. “I asked you a question,” She pokes the man sharply in the chest with a bony right index finger. “And I believe that a gentleman answers a lady’s question. Nah! I’ll ask you again, since it seems to me that youse maybe ‘ard of ‘earing. Oooh the bloody ‘ell are you, to be bullying this ‘ere young girl?” She pokes him again for good measure.
“I’m Walter Rountree, head cater of Harrod’s catering department.” he replies pompously, pulling himself up to his full height, looking down his nose imperiously at Mrs. Boothby. “Who are you, old woman, to come barging in here like this?”
The youngest caterer utters a snorting laugh which he quickly extinguishes as the Cockney woman’s beady eyes momentarily snap from Water’s face and glare at him.
“I,” Mrs. Boothby sneers with a set, square jaw. “Am Mrs. Boothby, ‘ousekeeper for the ‘Onourable Miss Lettice Chetwynd, Mr. Walter Rowntree of ‘Arrods catering!” She pokes him sharply again, and this time Water backs away slightly. “And I am responsible for this ‘ere girl’s well bein’. And,” she adds forcefully. “I don’t like the way you’re addressin’ ‘er!”
“I don’t think I rightly care, Mrs. Boothby.” he blusters in reply. “I know now who to blame for this girl’s inability to answer the simplest of questions.”
A tense silence falls across the room, with the other two caterers standing mid activity, poised with knife or spoon in hand and poor Edith cowering by the stove, all watching the stand off between the haughty head caterer and the old cockney woman. Only the ticking of the clock on the wall and the distant rumble of traffic through the ajar kitchen window breaks the silence.
“Well, Mr. Walter Rowntree of ‘Arrods catering,” Mrs. Boothby continues undaunted. “I think you will when Mr. Cowling, the ‘ead of catering learns ‘ow you bullied a young and defenceless girl, what I left ‘ere to oversee your work whilst I was out on business.” She pauses and then adds. “It is Mr. Cowling what sent you ‘ere, wan it?”
The other two caters gasp at the mention of their superior’s name, giving Mrs. Boothby the advantage that she needs to bolster her bravado.
Glancing momentarily at the other two men she proceeds, “And, I don’t think Mr. Cowling would be terribly pleased to ‘ear that the actions of you, Mr.?” She raises a black leather glove clad hand to the caterer arranging the biscuits and dips. “Err, Mr.?”
“Mr. Jones, Ma’am.”
“And you, Mr. err?” the old woman looks sharply at the young man standing over the sandwiches.
“Brown, Ma’am.”
Returning her gaze to Walter, Mrs. Boothby completes her sentence with names. “I don’t think Mr. Cowling would be terribly pleased to ‘ear that the actions of Mr. Jones, Mr. Brown, or you Mr. Walter Rowntree of ‘Arrods catering, were to blame for the sudden wivdrawl of the patronage of the ‘Onourable Miss Lettice Chetwynd, ‘er parents the Viscount and Countess of Wrexham, or the Marquess and Marchioness of Taunton, what’s son and future daughter-in-law tonight’s party is being ‘eld in ‘onour of, from the hestalishment of ‘Arrods Department Store, nah would ‘e?”
No-one responds to her at first.
“Well… no.” Walter finally replies, breaking the stunned silence enveloping the others in the room. “No, he wouldn’t.”
“Well then,” Mrs. Boothby smiles thinly. “I suggest that you apologise to Edith ‘ere right nah, and if youse does it nicely, I might just forget this whole sorry business and not tell my Mistress what disgraceful behaviour I’ve seen ‘ere today. Hhhmmm?”
Walter blanches as she smiles smugly at him before slowly turning back to Edith and the other two men, who still stand goggle eyed and white faced at he and Mrs. Boothby.
He clears his throat awkwardly. “Err… I’m sorry, Miss. I didn’t mean to be so abrupt.”
“Or rude and abnoxious,” Mrs. Boothby pipes up helpfully.
“Err, yes, or rude or obnoxious. I hope you will forgive me.”
Edith doesn’t reply, too stanned by what has just taken place in her kitchen.
Mrs. Boothby releases a long breath of satisfaction at Walter’s apology, resulting in one of her nasty fruity smokers’ coughs bursting forth, wracking her body.
“Oh Mrs. Boothby, are you alright?” Edith gasps, rushing over to the old woman. “Here, let me get you a glass of water.”
The old Cockney woman bats Edith’s attentions away with a waving hand as she regains her composure. “I’m alright, dearie,” she gasps breathlessly. “Nah, grab that box of champagne bottles what’s sittin’ up there and come wiv me. We best stock the cocktail cabinet before Miss Chetwynd gets ‘ome.”
“Yes Mrs. Boothby!” Edith replies, dropping a curtsey at the imposing woman’s instructions.
Edith picks up the box the Cockney woman indicated to and takes it towards the green baize door that leads into the flat’s dining room, and still dressed in her coat, fur and hat, complete with umbrella and beaded bag on her arm, Mrs. Boothby follows.
Turning back to the three men, Mrs. Boothby addresses the youngest as an afterthought. “’Ere Mr. Brown, put the kettle on would you and make us a cup of Rosie Lee** would you?”
“Yes ma’am.” he replies meekly.
“Ta!” Mrs. Boothby acknowledges before following Edith through the door.
Edith and Mrs. Boothby giggle as they scuttle across the dining room and out of any possible earshot of the three Harrods caterers.
“Oh, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith gasps as she puts the crate of champagne on the empty dining table. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Humph!” Mrs. Boothby sniffs, looking back to the door leading to the kitchen. “We may not all ‘ave the vote*** yet, but that don’t mean that little men like ‘im can treat us women like rubbish.”
“But, but how did you know his manager was Mr. Cowling, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks.
The old Cockney woman smiles broadly. “Easy! I read ‘is name this mornin’ on the docket on Miss Lettice’s desk when I was tidying.”
Both women chuckle as the start to sort out the bottles in the crate.
*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.
***In 1921 when this story is set, not every woman in Britain had the right to vote. In 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed which allowed women over the age of thirty who met a property qualification to vote. Although eight and a half million women met this criteria, it was only about two-thirds of the total population of women in Britain. It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over twenty-one were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to fifteen million.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On Edith’s deal table delicious canapés are being prepared for the party. The plate of sandwiches, the silver tray of biscuits and the bowls of dips, most of the savoury petite fours on the silver tray closest to the camera and the two white bowls containing salmon dip and egg mayonnaise 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 loaf of bread with the slices hanging off it is made by Polly’s Pantry Miniatures in America. The ripe red tomatoes in the Cornishware bowl are made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, whilst the sliced pieces of tomato on the chopping board come from The Dollhouse Suppliers in England, who specialise in hand made fruit and vegetables made from Fimo and dried air clay. The bowl of caviar was made by Karen Lady Bug Miniatures in England. The very real looking lettuce lying next to the bread I bought along with a few other vegetables, including the cucumber on the chopping board, from an auction house some years ago. The jars of herbs and lemon slices are also 1:12 miniatures, made of real glass with real cork stoppers in them which I also bought from an auction and have had for many years.
The tin of Macfarlane Lang’s Homestead Biscuits features a 1920s design on its lid. It was purchased from Shepherd’s Miniatures in England. Macfarlane Lang and Company began as Lang’s bakery in 1817, before becoming MacFarlane Lang in 1841. The first biscuit factory opened in 1886 and changed its name to MacFarlane Lang and Co. in the same year. The business then opened a factory in Fulham, London in 1903, and in 1904 became MacFarlane Lang & Co. Ltd. In 1948 it formed United Biscuits Ltd. along with McVitie and Price.
The tray that the caviar is sitting on and the champagne bucket sitting on the bench in the background are made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.
The Harrod’s crate sitting next to the champagne bucket on the kitchen bench in the background I purchased from an EBay seller in the United Kingdom. It is full of bottles of Deutz and Geldermann and De Rochegré champagne. All are artisan miniatures and made of glass and some have real foil wrapped around their necks. They are made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
On the first shelf of dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot stands the Deftware kitchen tea set. Each piece features the traditional painting of a windmill.
To the left of the dresser, a spice cabinet with six marked drawers hangs from the wall. I have had that piece since I was around eight years old. Also hanging on the wall are three copper frypans with black metal handles which, along with the copper pots and kettle on the stove came from a specialist dollhouse supplier.
Edith’s Windsor chair, just visible beyond the heavily covered table, 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.
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.
Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.
Today we are below stairs in the Wickham Place kitchen. The Wickham Place kitchens are situated on the ground floor of Wickham Place, adjoining the Butler’s Pantry. It is dominated by big black leaded range, and next to it stands a heavy dark wood dresser that has been there for as long as anyone can remember. In the middle of the kitchen stands Cook’s preserve, the pine deal table on which she does most of her preparation for both the meals served to the family upstairs and those for the downstairs staff.
Tomorrow is Empire Day*, and Mrs. Bradley, fondly known as Cook by most of the Wickham Place family and staff, has been given instructions by Lady Southgate to come up with a suitably themed afternoon tea for the Southgate children, Piers and Sarah. The deal table is covered in ingredients to make something memorable for the occasion.
“Well,” Mrs. Bradley asks Agnes. “Have you finished with pouring out the jellies to set, Agnes?”
“Oh, yes Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes enthuses, indicating to the copper moulds filled with hot red water which is still steaming. “They’s all set!”
“’They are’, is what you mean to say my girl!” she corrects her.
“Oh, yes Mrs. Bradley. They are all set.”
“That’s better.” Mrs. Bradley replies, satisfied. “Well back to making that cupcake icing then, my girl! We have no time to waste today with Her Ladyship’s orders for this Empire Day afternoon tea!”
“Yes, Mrs Bradley.” Agnes moves around the end of the table and resumes beating the half-finished creamy icing.
“I’m only grateful that they,” Mrs. Bradley raises her wooden spoon coated in Victoria sponge cake mix and points it to the ceiling above her head. “Are at one of the King’s Levées for Empire Day tomorrow evening. Otherwise, I don’t know how we’d get all this done.”
“No, Mrs. Bradley.”
The older woman goes back to combining beaten eggs and vanilla into her big bowl of creamed butter and sugar. She looks at the brightly coloured jars of plum and apple and gooseberry jam in front of her as she does and a distant look drifts across her face. “Tell me Agnes,”
“What Mrs. Bradley?”
“Between all that praying, atonement and fasting of your dour chapel life, did you ever celebrate Empire Day?”
“Oh yes Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes smiles. “It was always a special day at school! I’d wear my best white pinny, what Mum would of,” She stops, her face falling slightly after catching sight of the cook’s stern glance at her linguistic faux pas. “Would have, bleached and starched. I’d get to wear a pretty ribbon in my hair.”
“And what did you do, at school I mean?”
“Well of course we’d all salute the flag in the morning when we stood in our class rows for assembly. Our headmaster would give us a speech about the fact that we were part of the biggest and best empire what… that, has ever been known in the world, and we’d all have to declare our loyalty to the King. Miss Laycock was the most musical teacher that we had at our school, and she’d dust off the old upright in the gymnasium we used for calisthenics, and we’d all sing songs like ‘God Save the King’ and ‘Jerusalem’, and then, if she was in the mood, we’d have dancing whilst she played tunes.”
“That all sounds rather jolly.” Mrs. Bradly remarks, folding scoops of flour through her beaten egg and creamed butter mixture.
“Oh, that wasn’t the best of it, Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes exclaims, momentarily resting her whipping arm.
“No, Agnes?”
“No! The best part was that in the afternoon we all got to leave school early, but not before we had a lovely big tea set out for us!”
“Now that does sound grand, Agnes.”
“It was Mrs. Bradley! There were cakes and slices, not as fine as what we made here, but still, very nice for what our families could all afford.”
“I didn’t think your mother would contribute to such a lavish display of food wastage, since she used to pinch your boiled Easter Eggs complaining of the extravagance and waste.”
“Who said she did, Mrs. Bradley?” Agnes scoffs. “Nah, my brothers and sisters liked Empire Day because we’d get food we never got at home. Mum and Dad couldn’t afford to give anything to the tea, but we were still allowed to eat some of the cakes and slices. If we were lucky, we might even get some fruit from one of the local orchards and we could take an apple or a pear away with us as an afternoon treat as we went to play on our afternoon off school.”
“I still say that it doesn’t sound like you had much fun as a child, Agnes, even with your grand Empire Day celebrations.” Mrs. Bradley remarks.
“It mightn’t have been a life like Master Piers and Miss Sarah, but broken biscuits and the occasional stolen fruit didn’t do us no harm, Mrs. Bradley,” Agnes remarks with a false steeliness to her voice. “Anyway, Mum might have been a Tarter, but Dad was a good man and loved us all. He wasn’t a drunk like some of my school chums’ dads was… were, and he never laid a hand on us, ‘less we deserved it of course, which we did sometimes.”
“I could well imagine.” Mrs. Bradley chuckled, pouring the Victoria sponge mix into two separate baking tins. Placing them in the hot oven of the range behind her, she turns back and remarks, “Now! Her ladyship wants ‘something suitably patriotic’, so how about I teach you how to make marzipan Union Jacks, Agnes!”
“Oh yes Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes claps with delight. “That would be wonderful!”
*The very first Empire Day took place on the 24th of May 1902, Queen Victoria’s birthday. Although not officially recognised as an annual event until 1916, many schools across the British Empire were celebrating it before then. Each Empire Day, millions of school children from all walks of life across the length and breadth of the British Empire would typically salute the Union Jack and sing patriotic songs like ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘God Save the King’ (later ‘God Save the Queen’). They would hear inspirational speeches and listen to tales of ‘daring do’ from across the Empire, stories that included such heroes as Clive of India, Wolfe of Québec and ‘Chinese Gordon’ of Khartoum. But of course the real highlight of the day for the children was that they were let of school early in order to take part in the thousands of marches, maypole dances, concerts and parties that celebrated the event. Empire Day remained an essential part of the calendar for more than 50 years, celebrated by countless millions of children and adults alike, an opportunity to demonstrate pride in being part of the British Empire. By the 1950s, the Empire was in decline and Britain’s relationship with the other countries that formed the Empire had also changed, as they began to celebrate their own identity. In 1958 Empire Day was re-badged as British Commonwealth Day, and still later in 1966 when it became known as Commonwealth Day. The date of Commonwealth Day was also changed to 10th June, the official birthday of Queen Elizabeth. The date was again changed in 1977 to the second Monday in March, when each year The Queen still sends a special message to the youth of the Empire via a radio broadcast to all the various countries of the Commonwealth.
This tableau is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood like the ladderback chair in the background. 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:
Cook’s yellow stoneware mixing bowl and wooden spoon I have had since I was a teenager. I bought it from a high street doll house miniature specialist. Also from the same shop is the mixing bowl containing eggs and the whisk. You can even see the egg yolks in the bowl. All these items are 1:12 artisan miniatures with amazing attention to detail so they match the life size equivalent.
To the left of the bowl, stands one of Cook's Cornishware cannisters. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
The Art Nouveau silver cup in front of the bowl and cannister is a dolls’ house miniature from Germany. Made in the first decade of the Twentieth Century it is a beautiful work of art as a stand alone item, and is remarkably heavy for its size.
The two jars of P.C. Flett and Company jam are 1:12 artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. One is plum jam and the other apple and gooseberry. 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.
Behind Cook’s mixing bowl and the Cornishware cannister stands a bag of Dry Fork Four. The Dry Fork Milling Company was based in Dry Fork Virginia. They were well known for producing cornmeal. They were still producing cornmeal and flour into the 1950s. Today, part of the old mill buildings are used as a reception centre.
The box of Rowntree's Table Jelly is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Founded by Henry Isaac Rowntree in Castlegate in York in 1862, Rowntree's developed strong associations with Quaker philanthropy. Throughout much of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, it was one of the big three confectionery manufacturers in the United Kingdom, alongside Cadbury and Fry, both also founded by Quakers. In 1981, Rowntree's received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade. In 1988, when the company was acquired by Nestlé, it was the fourth-largest confectionery manufacturer in the world. The Rowntree brand continues to be used to market Nestlé's jelly sweet brands, such as Fruit Pastilles and Fruit Gums, and is still based in York.
The mixing bowl at the end of the table with the white cream icing and whisk, the jelly mould and jug of jelly have been made in England by hand by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.
In the foreground of the photo stands a miniature Blue Calico milk jug. Traditional dark blue Burleigh Calico made in Staffordshire, England by Burgess & Leigh since 1851. It was inspired by Nineteenth Century indigo fabrics. Blue Calico is still made today, and still uses the traditional print transfer process, which makes each piece unique.
The copper kettles on the range and the copperware in the dresser in the background are all made of real copper and come from various miniature stockists in England and America.
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.
It’s Saturday just after midday and we are behind the green baize door that leads from the dining room into the servant’s part of Lettice’s flat. We are in Edith’s preserve, the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen. Edith hears the gentle squeak of the hinges of the green baize door. She looks up from her pride and joy, the gas stove, where she is about to withdraw the boiling kettle to make herself a cup of tea and sees her mistress in the kitchen. Much to Edith’s consternation, her mistress has the most annoying habit of neglecting to use the electric servants’ bells installed by the builders, and visits Edith in what she considers, her kitchen. Frowning, the maid thinks to herself, “Anyone would think she was a shop girl rather than the daughter of a peer!”
“Oh Edith! Edith!” gasps Lettice dramatically. “Greek tragedy!”
“Whatever is it, Miss?” Edith asks, still frowning as she doubts it is all as bad as her mistress suggests.
“Edith, I’ve just had a call from Mrs. Hatchett.”
“Yes Miss?” Edith answers, having no idea who Mrs. Hatchett is, or what this Mrs. Hatchett means to Lettice.
“Well. She is coming here today, at four, to talk about me redecorating her house. Do we have any fresh cake ready?”
“Well, no Miss: only half a Dundee cake. Will that do?”
“Oh no Edith! Not for Mrs. Hatchett. We need something… fresh.” Lettice ponders. “Well, could you just pop around the corner to Harrods and buy a cake? I’ll get you some extra money for it.”
“No, Miss!” Edith scoffs.
Lettice looks up at her maid with wide eyes. “Why ever not Edith?”
“It’s Saturday, Miss! Harrods won’t be open.”
“Oh,” Lettice frowns and thinks again.
“And don’t suggest the local grocer’s,” Edith pipes up quickly as if reading her mistress’ mind. “Mr. Willson is closed too!”
“Blast!” Lettice mutters and starts to gnaw at her painted thumbnail as she leans against Edith’s deal kitchen table.
“But I can whip up my Mum’s old ‘pantry chocolate cake’, Miss. I have all the ingredients right here. It’s lovely and moist but looks a bit plain. However, if I dust it with a bit of confectioners’ sugar, it looks very nice.”
“Oh! Oh, would you Edith? That sounds simply spiffing!” Lettice gasps in delight. She throws her arms around Edith’s neck, much to the other woman’s consternation, and beams one of her winning smiles. “Oh you are a brick!”
Lettice flutters out of the kitchen the way she came, much to Edith’s relief.
“Spiffing! Humph!” Edith mutters with a snort. She busies herself taking out a copper pot and then fetching flour and sugar canisters, butter, milk and eggs from the food safe, a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade, salt and some Cadbury’s Original dark chocolate from the pantry. With everything laid out on her kitchen table, Edith’s memory of how to bake her mother’s cake comes to the front of her mind.
“First of all, beat two eggs,” she tells herself.
This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a weekly challenge called “Snap Happy”. A different theme chosen by a member of the group each week, and the image is to be posted on the Monday of the week.
This week the theme, “egg” was chosen by Lisa, red stilletto.
Eggs are a vital part of cake baking. Goodness knows how they made cakes during the war without them! Edith’s well set out ingredient selection, which does indeed make up the genuine ingredients list for the recipe for “Pantry Chocolate Cake” (a lovely moist and rich chocolate cake from my Great Grandmother’s cooks’ recipe book of ‘fail safe recipes’), is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
The eggs, including the those broken in the bowl are all 1:12 artisan miniatures with amazing attention to detail.
On Edith’s deal table is a Cornishware white and blue striped bowl which holds the eggs and also one of her Cornishware cannisters. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
The tall Deftware jug containing milk and the plate with a block of butter on it are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser just out of shot to the right of the table. The block of butter comes from a small silver set that I have had since I was given it as part of a seventh birthday present, and it belongs beneath a butter dish. Fellow Flickr photographer and miniature enthusiast ursula.valtiner and I both have the same silver set with the same yellow block of butter in the butter dish!
Next to the Cornishware sugar canister and the copper pot is a jar of Golden Shred Orange Marmalade. Golden Shred orange marmalade still exists today and is a common household brand both in Britain and Australia. It is produced by Robertson’s. Robertson\'s Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson\'s marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.
In front of the bowl of eggs, the whisk and butter is a wrapped block of Cadbury’s Original dark chocolate. Cadbury, like Robertson’s, is a household name known around the world. Established in 1824 in Birmingham by Quaker John Cadbury, they began by selling tea, coffee and drinking chocolate. John Cadbury developed the business with his brother Benjamin, followed by his sons Richard and George. George developed the Bourneville estate, a model village designed to give the company\'s workers improved living conditions. Dairy Milk chocolate, introduced in 1905, used a higher proportion of milk within the recipe compared with rival products. By 1914, the chocolate was the company\'s best-selling product. Cadbury, alongside Rowntree’s and Fry’s, were the big three British confectionery manufacturers throughout much of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Cadbury was granted its first Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria in 1854. It has been a holder of a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II in 1955. Cadbury merged with Schweppes in 1969 and was then purchased by Kraft Foods in 2010.
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
On the bench in the background is a toaster: a very modern convenience for a household even in the early 1920s, but essential when there was no longer a kitchen range on which to toast the bread. Although toasters had been readily available since the turn of the century, they were not commonplace in British kitchens until well after the Great War in the late 1930s. Next to the toaster is a biscuit barrel painted in the style of English ceramic artist Clarice Cliff which is a hand painted 1:12 miniature made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. It contains its own selection of miniature hand-made chocolate biscuits! Next to that stands a bread crock.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith, her maid’s, preserve, where Frank Leadbetter, the young grocery delivery boy and sometimes window dresser of Mr. Willison’s Grocery in Binney Street, Mayfair, has just finished unpacking Edith’s latest grocery order for the household. Edith has been stepping out with Frank for a while now, and now that they are committed to one another, they hope to make it official soon by announcing their engagement to Edith’s parents and Frank’s grandmother, Mrs. McTavish.
“Do you have time to stop for tea, Frank?” Edith asks cheerfully as she places a can of tinned peaches onto a lower shelf of the kitchen dresser.
“If we make it a quick one, yes.” Frank agrees tentatively. “I still have to make a delivery to Lady Hackney’s cook all the way up along Upper Brook Street*, and finally a drop off some groceries to Hilda at the Channon’s in Hill Street.”
“Well luckily the pot’s not long been filled,” Edith replies, patting the top of the white china teapot sitting on the table, covered with a tea cosy knitted in yellow, blue, purple and cream by her mother, Ada. “Sit of a spell.” She smiles indicating to a chair drawn up to the table. “We need to give you a bit of strength for you to cycle all the way down Upper Brook Street.”
“Thanks Edith,” Frank sighs gratefully as he slips into the worn seat of the Windsor chair at the top of Edith’s deal pine kitchen table. “I wish Lady Hackney’s cook was as hospitable as you.”
“A bit of tartar**, is she?” Edith asks as she withdraws a Delftware cup and saucer from the kitchen dresser and puts it on the table next to hers.
“Is she ever! She barks orders and looks down her nose at me.” Frank opines. “As if she’s any better than me.”
“Of course she isn’t, Frank.” Edith assures her beau soothingly as she takes a seat in her usual Windsor chair adjunct to Frank’s. “She’s just like me.” She pauses. “Shall I be mother then***?”
“Yes please Edith!” Frank replies eagerly as he picks up the Delftware jug and sloshes some milk into his teacup**** before adding a dash to Edith’s as well. Edith picks up the pot and pours tea for Frank into his cup before then filling her own. “And you’re nothing like Lady Hackney’s cook.”
“No, Frank!” Edith giggles, returning the pot to the table. “I only meant that she’s a servant, just like me, or even you for that matter. It doesn’t matter who she works for. She could even work for Their Majesties, and she’d still be a servant.”
“Oh!” Frank adds two spoonfuls of sugar to his tea and stirs it before handing the sugar bowl and teaspoon to his sweetheart who accepts them from him.
Frank looks at the surface of the table. Across it are spread several colourful, glossy film magazines including Picturegoer***** and Photoplay****** alongside a copy of the Daily Mail.
“I see you’re keeping busy.” Frank notes with an air of sarcasm as he picks up a copy of Photo Play Magazine******* featuring a rather striking coloured portrait of motion picture star Norma Shearer******** painted by Earl Christy*********. In the portrait she gazes up over her shoulder with kohl rimmed eyes, an image that is both striking and provocative at the same time to his mind.
“Oh Frank!” Edith hisses. “Can’t a poor hard-working girl have a tea break?”
“Only if her tea break is with her best beau.” Frank smirks cheekily.
“I’ll have you know, Frank Leadbetter, that I’d not long finished ironing Miss Lettice’s newspaper********** before you arrived to deliver my grocery order.”
Frank murmurs a muffled agreement with his sweetheart, eyeing her with a knowing look.
“And I was just taking a break before I settled down to decide what took Miss Lettice for diner,” Edith defends as she pats two small cookbooks perched on the edge of the table to her left. “Since she is dining in tonight.”
Frank nods but continues to eye her knowingly.
“Oh, you are awful, Frank!” Edith sighs in exasperation.
“I don’t mind what you do in your spare time.” Frank says, smiling a little more broadly as he speaks. “I just hope Miss Lettice doesn’t catch you enjoying these magazines on her time.”
“No fear.” Edith chuckles. “I think after five years, I have finally cured her of barging into my kitchen unannounced like she was used to doing when I first came here. All the same though,” she adds a little self-righteously. “I think I do have the right to stop for a tea break during the morning, and I don’t think Miss Lettice would bemoan me for that. I have been up since six after all.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t. You don’t have to prove anything to me.” Frank agrees, chuckling to himself as he takes a sip of his tea.
“What?” Edith asks, glaring at Frank. “What’s so funny?”
“You are Edith.” Frank admits. “I do love it when I can rile you up just a little. You are even prettier when you are being self-defensive.”
Edith sits back in her seat, looking appalled. “I have a right mind to throw this tea all over you, Frank Leadbetter!” she mutters.
“What, and ruin all your precious moving picture magazines in the process?” Frank exclaims. “I don’t think so!”
Edith looks anxiously at her magazines on the table. “Well, perhaps I’ll move them first. Then I’ll fling this tea on you.”
“Well, I like that!” Frank retorts with a snort and a good-natured guffaw. “My best girl prefers her magazines over me!”
“That will teach you for riling me up, Frank Leadbetter!” Edith says with a smirk, unable to hold the pretence of appearing to be angry with her sweetheart any longer.
The pair settle back comfortably in their seats, laughing happily together as they sip their tea and look at one another with love and affection.
“Frank,” Edith ask tentatively. “Do you think I should have my hair bobbed?” She pats the side of her wavy blonde hair, which is fastened in a chignon at the back of her neck.
“What?” Frank gasps, choking on his mouthful of tea as he does. Coughing, he quickly covers his mouth with his hand to make sure he doesn’t splutter on Edith’s magazines.
“Let me get you some water, Frank!” Edith exclaims, as she goes to get up from her seat.
“No. No!” Frank manages to answer her, pushing his right arm out across Edith’s waist to bar her from getting up. “I’ll… be fine.” After a few more coughs he manages to ask hoarsely, “Why on earth do you want to get your hair bobbed, Edith?” He reaches out his right hand again but this time he places it with a gentle and loving touch upon her tresses draped partially across her ear. “It’s so soft and lovely as it is.”
“But don’t you think I’d look glamorous with bobbed hair, Frank?” Edith asks. She leans forward and pulls her latest copy of Photoplay from beneath the Picture Play magazine with Norma Shearer on the cover. Edith holds up the magazine next to her face. On the cover of Photoplay is a portrait of newcomer silent picture actress Louise Brooks*********** posing dramatically in a cheongsam************ holding a fan up to her cheek. “Like her! Look at how stylish it looks! So smart.”
“I like your hair as it is, Edith. It’s soft and beautiful, and frames your face so much more nicely than I think that sharp look would. It’s so severe, and you aren’t severe, Edith.”
“But all the girls are doing it now.” Edith mewls.
“But you aren’t just any girl, Edith.” Frank replies, now moving his hand to her left cheek, where he caresses her soft skin gently. “You’re my best girl, and I like you the way you are.”
“But it would be so much easier to manage.” Edith adds.
Frank looks at her with gentle, sparkling eyes. “We’ve had this conversation before. Please, don’t bob your hair.”
Edith sighs deeply and places the magazine down on the table again. “Alright Frank. I won’t.”
“That’s my best girl.” Frank purrs. “Thank you.”
The pair fall into companionable silence for a short while as they both finish their cups of tea.
Sighing with pleasure as he finishes his drink, Frank returns the cup to its saucer and stands. “Well, I’d better be getting along on my way. Heaven forbid, that I should be late in delivering Lady Hackney’s cook’s tin of Tate and Lyall’s************* golden syrup.”
“Is that all you are delivering to her?” Edith asks in shock.
“Just that.” Frank confirms.
“That’s just awful, Frank!” Edith replies hotly. “Surely she could have sent her kitchen maid or one of Lady Hackney’s tweenies, maids or footmen to get it for her! What a cheek!”
“Such is the plight of a lowly and humble grocer’s boy.” Frank opines with a sigh and a fall of his shoulders.
“There’[s nothing lowly about you, Frank!”
“Thank you, Edith.” Frank smiles back gratefully.
“Fancy you having to bicycle all the way along Upper Brook Street, just to deliver a single tin of golden syrup! That cook sounds as bad as Mrs. Clifford’s maid, Myra, downstairs: a toffee-nosed snob, and that’s a fact!”
“You’re beautiful when you’re fired up too, Edith Watsford.” Frank murmurs lovingly. “Still,” He smiles down at her. “Toffee-nosed snob or not, Lady Hackney’s cook will be fit to be tied if I’m too much longer, and then I’ll get what for from Mr. and Mrs. Willison if word gets back to them that I was late delivering to her. The Willisons are toffee-nosed snobs every bit as much as Myra or Lady Hackney’s cook, and they are proud of every one of the titles on their books, even if most of them are tardy in paying their accounts. I wouldn’t have a job if I lost them Lady Hackney’s business.”
“So much for your wonderful new world for the working man.” Edith grumbles as she stands herself, and starts to gather up her magazines, shuffling them into a stack.
“It is coming, Edith.” Frank assures her. “And things are already changing.”
“How?”
“Well, not so long ago, you would have been in a great deal of trouble if you’d stopped for a break like this.” He waves his hand across the tea things on the table. “But now it’s a right given you.”
“It’s not much, Frank.”
“But it is something,” Frank assures Edith. “And many small concessions add up to big changes. We just have to be patient for a bit longer.”
“Well,” Edith huffs with determination as she enfolds her arms around her magazines as she draws them up to her chest. “Luckily I’m a patient girl.” She looks poignantly at Frank.
“Not much longer now, Edith.” Frank replies softly. “Thinking of which,” he adds more brightly. “What are you doing on your Wednesday afternoon off?”
“I haven’t really made any firm plans yet, Frank. I thought I might invite Hilda to come with me to Mrs. Minkin’s haberdashery in Whitechapel. She needs more wool for her knitting, and I want the latest copy of Weldon’s**************. I want to make a new summer frock. Why do you ask? Don’t tell me you’ve got Wednesday afternoon off too?”
“As a matter-of-fact, I do.” Frank crows.
“Oh Frank!” Edith exclaims. “I haven’t said anything to Hilda yet. Shall we make plans to do something?”
“I’d like that.” Frank replies brightly with a beaming smile. “In fact, I’d like to make a suggestion!”
“What do you want to do, Frank?”
“Well, I can’t really tell you, because I want it to be a surprise.”
“A surprise?” Edith squeezes the magazines more tightly as she gasps. “Frank, I love surprises!”
“Do you think you could make it to Clapham Junction by one on Wednesday, Edith?”
“By one?” Edith ponders. “I don’t see why not. I could catch the train from Down Street*************** to Leicester Square, and then take the Southern**************** from Waterloo. Could you meet me at Clapham Junction Railway Station*****************?”
“I think I could manage that.” Frank replies with a winning smile. “Wear that lovely white blouse of yours with the Peter Pan collar****************** if you would.”
“Oh! Are we going on a picnic to Clapham Common*******************?” Edith asks.
“If I told you,” Frank replies with an exasperated sigh. “It wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”
“I suppose not.” Edith agrees begrudgingly. “Let’s hope the weather is good, just in case it is.”
*The western continuation of Brook Street, Mayfair, (to Park Lane) is called Upper Brook Street; its west end faces Brook Street Gate of Hyde Park. Both sections consisted of neo-classical terraced houses, mostly built to individual designs. Some of them were very ornate, finely stuccoed and tall-ceilinged, designed by well known architects for wealthy tenants, especially near Grosvenor Square, others exposed good quality brickwork or bore fewer expensive window openings and embellishments. Some of both types survive. Others have been replaced by buildings from later periods.
**A tartar is a bad-tempered or aggressively assertive person, typically a woman, and is based upon the hard crust of calcium salts and food particles on the teeth which is known as tartar.
***The meaning of the very British term “shall I be mother” is “shall I pour the tea?”
****In the class-conscious society of Britain in the 1920s, whether you added milk to your cup of tea first or the tea was a subtle way of defining what class you came from. Upper-class people, or those who wished to ape their social betters added milk after the tea, whereas middle-class or working class people comfortable in their own skins were known to add milk before the tea.
*****Picturegoer was a fan magazine published in the United Kingdom between 1911 and 23 April 1960.
******Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines, its title another word for screenplay. It was founded in Chicago in 1911. Under early editors Julian Johnson and James R. Quirk, in style and reach it became a pacesetter for fan magazines. In 1921, Photoplay established what is considered the first significant annual movie award. For most of its run, it was published by Macfadden Publications. The magazine ceased publication in 1980.
*******Picture Play, originally titled Picture-Play Weekly was an American weekly magazine focusing on the film industry. Its first edition was published on April 10, 1915. It eventually transitioned from a weekly to a monthly magazine, before ending its production run, when it continued as Your Charm, in March 1941.
********Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated women. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare, and was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee, winning Best Actress for The Divorcee (1930).
*********F. Earl Christy was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1882. The "F" is believed to stand for "Frederic". At seventeen, he painted originals for the Boardwalk Atlantic City Picture company, with many of his early works published by the J. Hoover and Sons Calendar Company of Philadelphia. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts from 1905 to 1907. Christy produced dozens of magazine covers including; Dell Publishing Company for Modern Romances, Modern Screen and Radio Stars, Ainslee's magazine, American Magazine, Sunday Magazine of the New York Times, Collier's, Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, Liberty Magazine, McClure's Photoplay Magazine, and Puck Magazine. He also created illustrations for many calendar prints, ink blotters, postcards and Princess Pat Cosmetic's advertisements. Most of his images were of beautiful girls primarily playing sports such as basketball, golf and tennis. Earl Christy never married and lived most of his life with one or both of his sisters. He passed away on Long Island New York in 1961.
**********It was a common occurrence in large and medium-sized houses that employed staff for the butler or chief parlour maid to iron the newspapers. The task of butlers ironing newspapers is not as silly as it sounds. Butlers were not ironing out creases, but were using the hot iron to dry the ink so that the paper could be easily read without the reader's ending up with smudged fingers and black hands, a common problem with newspapers in the Victorian and Edwardian ages.
***********Mary Louise Brooks was an American film actress during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career.
************A cheongsam is a straight, close-fitting silk dress with a high neck and slit skirt, worn traditionally by Chinese and Indonesian women. It was developed in the 1920s and evolved in shapes and design over years, and gained popularity in Western society as an outfit that represented the exoticism of the orient.
*************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.
**************Created by British industrial chemist and journalist Walter Weldon Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was the first ‘home weeklies’ magazine which supplied dressmaking patterns. Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was first published in 1875 and continued until 1954 when it ceased publication.
***************Down Street, is a disused station on the London Underground, located in Mayfair. The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway opened it in 1907. It was latterly served by the Piccadilly line and was situated between Dover Street (now named Green Park) and Hyde Park Corner stations. The station was little used; many trains passed through without stopping. Lack of patronage and proximity to other stations led to its closure in 1932. During the Second World War it was used as a bunker by the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and the war cabinet. The station building survives and is close to Down Street's junction with Piccadilly.
****************The Southern Railway (SR), sometimes shortened to 'Southern', was a British railway company established in the 1923 Grouping. It linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, South coast resorts and Kent. The railway was formed by the amalgamation of several smaller railway companies, the largest of which were the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SE&CR). The construction of what was to become the Southern Railway began in 1838 with the opening of the London and Southampton Railway, which was renamed the London and South Western Railway.
*****************Clapham Junction is a major railway station near St John's Hill in south-west Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Despite its name, Clapham Junction is not in Clapham, a district one mile to the south-east. A major transport hub, Clapham Junction station is on both the South West Main Line and Brighton Main Line, as well as numerous other routes and branch lines which pass through or diverge from the main lines at this station. It serves as a southern terminus of both the Mildmay and Windrush lines of the London Overground.
******************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.
*******************At over eighty-five hectares in size, Clapham Common is one of London’s largest, and oldest, public open spaces, situated between Clapham, Battersea and Balham. Clapham Common is mentioned as far back as 1086 in the famous Domesday Book, and was originally ‘common land’ for the Manors of Battersea and Clapham. Tenants of the Lords of the Manors, could graze their livestock, collect firewood or dig for clay and other minerals found on site. However, as a result of increasing threats from encroaching roads and housing developments, it was acquired in 1877 by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and designated a “Metropolitan Common”, which gives it protection from loss to development and preserves its open character.
This comfortable domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
Edith’s deal kitchen table is covered with lots of interesting bits and pieces. The tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in the United Kingdom. The Deftware cups, saucers, sugar bowl and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot. The vase of flowers are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium and inserted into a real, hand blown glass vase.
Edith’s two cookbooks are made by hand by an unknown American artisan and were acquired from an American miniature collector on E-Bay. The newspaper which features an image of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future Queen Elizabeth and one day Queen Mother, is a copy of a real Daily Mail newspaper from 1925 and was produced to high standards in 1:12 by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
The Picture Play, Photoplay and Picturegoer magazines are 1:12 miniatures made by artisan Ken Blythe. I have a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my miniatures collection – books mostly. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! Sadly, so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. As well as making books, he also made other small paper based miniatures including magazines like the ones you see displayed here. They are not designed to be opened. What might amaze you in spite of this is the fact is that all Ken Blythe’s books and magazines are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make them all miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
Edith’s Windsor chairs are both hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniatures which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat of either chair, but they are definitely unmarked artisan pieces.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
The tin bucket, mops and brooms in the corner of the kitchen all come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltit_Fort
Baltit Fort or Balti Fort is an ancient fort in the Hunza valley in the Northern Areas of Pakistan.
In former times survival of the feudal regimes of Hunza was ensured by the impressive Baltit fort, that sit on top of Karimabad. The foundations of the fort are said to date back around 700 years, but there have been rebuilds and alterations over the centuries. In the 16th century the Thum married a princess from Baltistan who brought master Balti craftsmen to renovate the building as part of her dowry. The architectural style is a clear indication of Tibetan influence in Baltistan at the time.
The Mirs of Hunza abandoned the fort in 1945, and moved to a new palace down the hill. The fort started to decay and there was concern that it might possibly fall into ruin. Following a survey by the Royal Geographical Society of London, a restoration programme was initiated and supported by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture Historic Cities Support Programme. The programme was completed in 1996 and the fort is now a museum run by the Baltit Heritage Trust.
Historical background
Baltit Fort, the former residence of the Mirs of Hunza
In olden times a number of small independent states existed in the history of Northern Areas of Pakistan. Among them Hunza and Nager were the traditional rival states, situated on opposite sides of the Hunza (kanjut) river. The rulers of these two states, known as Thámo / Mirs (Thάm=S), built various strongholds to express their power. According to historical sources (Ref: Tarikh-e-Ehd Atiiq Riyasat Hunza by Haji Qudrarullah Baig, Pub: S.T.Printers Rawalpindi 1980 Pakistan), the Hunza rulers initially resided in the Altit Fort, but later as a result of a conflict between the two sons of the ruler Sultan, Shah Abbas (Shάboos) and Ali Khan (Aliqhάn), Shaboos shifted to the Baltit Fort, making it the capital seat of Hunza. The power struggle between the two brothers eventually resulted in the death of younger one, and so Baltit Fort further established itself as the prime seat of power in the Hunza state.
The rich beauty of Baltit Fort can be traced to over seven hundred 700 years ago. Ayasho II, Tham / Mir of Hunza in the early 15th fifteenth century married Princess Shah Khatoon (Sha Qhatun) from Baltistan (In Moghul history Baltistan is called Tibet Khurd mean, little Tibet), and was the first to modify the face of Altit and, subsequently Baltit Fort. Baltistan meaning land of Balti people had a very strong cultural and ethnical relation with the Ladakh territory of India then. Consequently, the structure of Baltit Fort was influenced by the Ladakhi / Tibetan architecture, with some resemblance to the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Then additions, renovations and changes to the building were being made through the centuries by the long line of rulers of the Hunza that followed.
A veritable treasure house for ancient forts, the Northern Areas of Pakistan lost most of its glorious built heritage around the 19th century as a result of the destructive attacks by the Maharaja of Kashmir. However, in this regard people of Hunza were exceptionally fortunate to successfully defend against the invasions of Maharaja Kashmir four times. One of the biggest changes in the structure of Baltit Fort came with the invasion of the British in December 1891. Tham / Mir Safdarali Khan, ruler of Hunza his wazir Dadu (Thara Baig III), fled to Kashgar (China) for political asylum with their fellows and families. With the conquest of Hunza and Nager states by the British forces in December 1891, the fortified wall and watch towers of the old Baltit village and watch towers of the Baltit Fort on its north-western end were also demolished as desired by the British authorities. The British installed his younger brother Tham / Mir Sir Muhammad Nazim Khan K.C.I.E, as the ruler of Hunza state in September 1892 [1].
During his reign, Tham / Mir Nazeem Khan made several major alterations to the Baltit Fort. He demolished a number of rooms of third floor and added a few rooms in the British colonial style on the front elevation, using lime wash and colour glass panel windows. The Baltit Fort remained officially inhabited until 1945, when the last ruler of Hunza, Mir Muhammad Jmamal Khan, moved to a new palace further down the hill, where the present Mir of Hunza Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan (Current Chief Executive of Northern Areas) and his family are residing.
With no proper authority entrusted to care for it, the Fort was exposed to the ravages of time and over the years its structure weakened and began to deteriorate. His Highness Aga Khan IV initiated the restoration efforts for Baltit Fort in 1990, when Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan the son of last ruler of Hunza, Tham / Mir Muhammad Jamal Khan and his family generously donated the Fort to the Baltit Heritage Trust, a public charity formed for the explicit purpose of owning and maintaining the Fort. The restoration undertaken by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Geneva in association with the Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan (Pakistan), took six years to complete. The project was supported by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture as the main donor through its Historic Cities Support Programme, as well as by the Getty Grant Program (USA), NORAD (Norway) and the French Government.
The restored Fort, resplendent in its regal glory was inaugurated on September 29, 1996 in the presence of His Highness the Aga Khan IV and the president of Pakistan Farooq Ahmad Khan Laghari. It is now operated and maintained by the Baltit Heritage Trust and is open to visitors. Preservation at its best, the Baltit Fort serves as a perfect example of culture restored and preserved for the future generations of the mountain people.
Awards and recognition
2005 Time Magazine Asia, Best of Asia Award[2]
2004 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards for Cultural Conservation - Award of Excellence (see profile)[3]
2000 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards: Global Winner[4][5]
Bibliography
Baig Qudratullah, Tarikh-e-Edh Atiiq Riyāsat Hunza Pub: S.T.rinters Rawalpindi-Pakistan 1980
Dani A.H, History of Northern Areas of Pakistan Pub: Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore Pakistan www.sang-e-meel.com, Reprinted: 2007).
Biddulph John, Tribes of Hindoo Koosh Pub: The Superintendent of Government Printing-Calcutta India 1880, Reprint: Ali Kamran Publishers, Lahore-Pakistan 1995.
Credit: The "Historical Background" chapter was contributed by Hunza – Baltit Fort curator E.U.Baig (kanjudi@gmail.com)
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. Edith sighs as she places the notepad and pencil in front of her on the deal kitchen, enjoying the silence that has fallen across the flat in her mistress’ absence as she sips some tea from her delftware teacup and enjoys a biscuit from the brightly painted biscuit barrel. Lettice has gone to Charring Cross to acquire a present for her oldest childhood chum and fellow member of the aristocracy, Gerald Bruton. It will soon be his birthday, and Lettice is treating him to an evening at the Café Royal* in Regent Street. However, she also wants something less ephemeral than a glittering evening out to dinner for Gerald to look back on in the years ahead as he turns twenty-five.
Edith picks up the pencil and starts listing the items that she knows she needs to order from Willison’s Grocers around the corner on Binney Street. As she lists flour, a dozen eggs and caster sugar** the pencil scratches across the surface, and Edith thinks of seeing her beau, grocer’s delivery boy and part time window dresser, Frank Leadbetter. Her heart skips a beat as she thinks about his handsome face smiling down at her, and his arms wrapping her in one of his all-embracing hugs that she loves so much. Frank might be a wiry young man, but his arms are strong from all the heavy lifting of boxes of groceries for Mr. Willison. Edith and Frank have been stepping out together since that fateful day in February 1922 when Edith flippantly suggested to Frank that Mrs. Boothby, the charwoman*** that comes to do the hard graft around the flat commented on how she felt Edith was sweet on Frank. Since their first date to see ‘After the Ball is Over’ – a moving picture that starred one of Lettice’s clients, actress Wanette Ward – at the Premier in East Ham**** the pair have spent a great deal of their spare time together, and their relationship has become very serious. Edith knows that it is only a matter of time before Frank proposes, and whilst that doesn’t mean any immediate change to the current rhythm of her life, she knows that eventually, once she is married, she will be obliged to leave service***** and become a housewife. She has been keeping money aside to help her when she and Frank finally set up house, and she has started a few scrapbook in which she cuts out and affixes images of wedding gowns and cakes from Lettice’s discarded magazines, as well as sketches of wedding frocks and bridesmaids’ dresses that she has done on late evenings after Lettice has retired to bed.
Edith is still daydreaming at the kitchen table when a gentle tapping at the kitchen door leading to the scullery breaks into her thoughts.
“Yes?” Edith queries, surprised at the tapping, and then even more startled when Lettice’s head pops around the edge of the door.
When Edith first came to work for Lettice, Lettice had the rather unnerving, and to Edith’s mind irritating and irrational habit of walking into the service area of the flat, such as the kitchen or scullery, seeking Edith for some reason or other, rather than ringing the servants’ bells located around the public rooms. It was only once Wanetta Ward had raised the idea with Lettice that whilst Cavendish mews might be her flat, and it might be her kitchen, that it was really Edith’s preserve, that she stopped the habit of just barging in.
“Miss Lettice!” Edith gasps, and quickly forces herself out of her comfortable Windsor chair and stumbles onto her feet. “I didn’t know you were home yet. Did you have a nice trip to Charring Cross?” She drops an awkward curtsey.
“I did, thank you Edith.” Lettice gushes, stepping through the door, still holding her parcels from Mr. Mayhew’s bookshop******. “I bought Gera… err… Mr. Bruton, a lovely book on Art Nouveau design.” She squeezes the parcel a little more closely to her chest as she speaks.
“That must be nice for you, Miss.” Edith remarks a little awkwardly.
“Yes, it is.” Lettice agrees, as she looks around the tidy kitchen.
Edith notices that Lettice is still dressed in her pretty floral summer frock, designed by Gerald, with its handkerchief point hem and matching cloche hat made by Gerald’s friend Harriet Milford.
“Did you need something, Miss?” Edith presses, anxious that Lettice is regressing back into her old habit of barging into the kitchen unannounced.
“No… yes… no… well…” Lettice stammers, suddenly lunging towards the opposite side of the kitchen table, dropping her parcels and purse onto its scrubbed surface. “Well yes, actually Edith.”
“Miss?”
“Well… look, I know that I promised that I would ring the bell when I wanted you, and I have, haven’t I Edith?”
“Yes Miss.” Edith replies, somewhat perplexed by her mistress’ response.
“But this time it’s different, don’t you see?”
Edith cocks an eyebrow over her right eye and looks quizzically at Lettice. “Err… no. I’m afraid I don’t see.”
“Oh please, please Edith,” Lettice flaps her well manicured and bejewelled hand in the air between the two women. “Do sit back down.”
“Yes Miss.” Edith manages to reply as she sinks back down into her seat and watches as Lettice scurries across the black and white chequered linoleum and drags across the second kitchen chair to the table and sits opposite her.
“Well this is far more personal, and as it pertains to you specifically,” Edith’s face drains of colour at Lettice’s words. “Oh! Oh no!” Lettice quickly assures her with a calming gesticulation. “It’s nothing bad, dear Edith. I’m not going to dismiss you.”
Edith releases the deep breath she has inhaled with a sigh of relief, and she sinks more comfortably into the rounded back of the worn Windsor chair. “Oh, you did give me a turn then, Miss. I really thought for a moment that I was in for it.”
“Good heavens no, Edith.” Lettice smiles. “That is the last thing that would ever happen! You’re the best maid a girl like me could ask for.” She pauses as the smile falls from her painted lips. “Which is all the more reason why this is an awkward conversation to have, but one I had to have in here, in your,” She waves her hands around her. “Well, your realm as it were.” She coughs with embarrassment as her face begins to colour.
“Awkward, Miss?” Edith queries again. “I… I’m sorry. Call me dim, Miss, but I really can’t say that I’m following you.”
Lettice’s shoulders slump as she releases a frustrated sigh. “I’ve come to apologise, Edith.”
“Apologise, Miss?”
“Yes,” Lettice admits guiltily. “I’ve been,” She casts her eyes downwards to the table surface as she speaks. “A bit of a beast lately.”
“Oh I wouldn’t go…” Edith begins to defend, but the words die on her lips as Lettice holds up a hand to stop her protestations.
“No. It’s true. I have been a beast. And I’m sorry, Edith. Truly I am. Mr. Bruton pointed out how sharp I was with you at dinner the other night. You didn’t deserve to be berated like that, especially in front of Mr. Brunton, whom I know you respect.”
“I do, Miss.”
“Yes, well, he obviously has a lot of respect for you too, Edith.”
“He does, Miss?” Edith’s eyes grow wide and her jaw goes slack in surprise at the revelation.
“He does. Firstly, he called me out on my bad behaviour the other evening, which he had every right to do. Secondly, he complimented you on being such a good maid. And thirdly he said that he’d employ you as a seamstress if he could.”
“He would, Miss?” Edith purrs with pleasure, flushing at the compliment.
“Mr. Bruton has proven himself to be far more observant than me. I seem not to be able to notice the pearl under my very nose, Edith.” Lettice chuckles awkwardly. “He’s noticed how smartly turned out you are on the occasions he has seen you coming and going on your afternoons off when he’s been here with me, and I haven’t.”
“Goodness!” Edith’s blush deepens as she considers that a couturier such as Gerald has observed her humble dressmaking skills.
“So there you go! Your skills haven’t gone unnoticed, and I for one am going to try and be more grateful for your services around here, Edith. You really are a brick, you know, and I’m so lucky to have you here to look after me and try and keep things in order for me.”
“And answer that infernal contraption!” she remarks poignantly, referring to the Bakelite******* and chrome telephone in Lettice’s Cavendish Mews drawing room which she dislikes intensely.
“And answer the telephone, which I know you loathe, dear Edith.” Lettice agrees with a relieved sigh, knowing that Edith will forgive her for her recent rudeness. “See, you really are a brick!”
“Well, thank you, Miss.” Edith smiles broadly.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so short and snappy, lately. It’s not an excuse, or rather it shouldn’t be, but… well you know the lady novelist you like whose flat I am redecorating?”
“Madeline St John, do you mean, Miss?” Edith perks up, excited about anything that Lettice might be willing to divulge about her favourite romance novelist.
“Yes. Well, Lady Gladys, whom you know as Madeline St John, has been very difficult with me.”
“Ohe she’s been lovely with me over that infernal telephone when I’ve answered it and she’s been on the line. She’s ever so polite and chatty. She’s even promised to sign a few copies of her novels to give to you, to give to me, Miss.”
“Yes, well, not to disparage her, but that’s the public face that Lady Gladys wants everyone to see. However the private Lady Gladys is not so kind.”
“Why do you say that, Miss.”
“Because Edith, I sadly know the truth now, but after it was too late to stop her from being difficult and controlling. You see, I am acting on her wishes to decorate a flat for her, but the flat belongs to a young lady around your age, and that young lady can’t express her own opinion as to how she wants her flat to be decorated.”
“Oh that’s terrible, Miss! Poor her!”
“Poor her, indeed.”
“So what are you going to do to right the situation, Miss?”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure. I’m not even sure I can do anything.”
“Well,” Edith says comfortingly, picking up her pencil again and rolling it around in her fingers. “I’m sure you’ll find some way to fix it, Miss.”
Noticing Edith’s pad for the first time, Lettice clears her throat. She glances at the kitchen clock as it ticks quietly away on the wall. “My, my! Is that the time? Well, I mustn’t tarry here any longer and hold you up from your duties, Edith.” She stands and gathers up her parcels. “Are you writing to a friend?”
“No, Miss.” Edith holds up her pad. “It’s a grocery list, Miss.”
“Oh! Yes… well… very good, Edith.”
Lettice turns away and walks towards the kitchen door. Just as she is about to cross the threshold of the scullery, she turns back.
“You wouldn’t, would you, Edith?”
“Wouldn’t I what, Miss?”
“Leave me to go and work for Mr, Bruton as a seamstress.”
Edith feels the blush of embarrassment at the fact that her dressmaking skills have been noticed fill her cheeks.
“Never mind.” Lettice continues. “Don’t answer that, and forget I’ve asked you.”
“Yes Miss.” Edith replies, standing and dropping another hurried bob curtsey.
“I’ll raise your wages, just to be sure that Mr. Bruton can’t entice you away.” Lettice adds. “I should pay you more for all that you do, anyway. How does another four shillings a month sound?”
“Four shillings?” Edith gasps in amazement.
“That’s settled then.” Lettice smiles. “And I promise to try and be less prickly. I promise things will get better once Lady Gladys’ commission is finished.”
As Lettice retreats, her clicking footsteps quickly dissipating across the linoleum of the scullery before she disappears through the green baize door leading to the Cavendish Mews flat’s dining room, Edith can barely contain her excitement. In the space of a few minutes she has received an unexpected apology, discovered that her skills as a seamstress may pay her dividends in the future, and been given a generous increase to her wages. She settles back into her seat, reaches across and snatches up a chocolate biscuit, allowing her lids to close over her eyes as she does, and bask in the glory of what has just come to pass.
*The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.
**Caster sugar is the term for very fine granulated sugar in the United Kingdom. British bakers and cooks value it for making meringues, custards, sweets, mousses, and a number of baked goods. In the United States, caster sugar is usually sold under the name "superfine sugar." It is also sometimes referred to as baking sugar or casting sugar, and can be spelled as "castor." The term "caster" comes from the fact that the sugar was placed in a shaker with a perforated top, called a caster, and used to sprinkle on fresh fruit. I have several sugar casters in my own antique silver collection from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
***A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
****The 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.
*****Prior to and even after the Second World War, there was a ‘marriage bar’ in place. Introduced into legislation, the bar banned the employment of married women as permanent employees, which in essence meant that once a women was married, no matter how employable she was, became unemployable, leaving husbands to be the main breadwinner for the family. This meant that working women needed to save as much money as they could before marriage, and often took in casual work, such as mending, sewing or laundry for a pittance at home to help bring in additional income and help to make ends meet. The marriage bar wasn’t lifted until the very late 1960s.
******A. H. Mayhew was once one of many bookshops located in London’s Charring Cross Road, an area still famous today for its bookshops, perhaps most famously written about by American authoress Helene Hanff who wrote ’84, Charing Cross Road’, which later became a play and then a 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Number 56. Charing Cross Road was the home of Mayhew’s second-hand and rare bookshop. Closed after the war, their premises is now the home of Any Amount of Books bookshop.
*******Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, teapot handles, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.
This comfortable domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
Edith’s deal kitchen table is set for tea for one. The tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in the United Kingdom. The brightly painted biscuit barrel, attributed to the style created by famous Staffordshire pottery paintress Clarice Cliff, containing a replica miniature selection of biscuits a 1:12 artisan piece acquired from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The Delftware cup, saucer, plate, sugar bowl and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot. The vase of flowers are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium and inserted into a real, hand blown glass vase. The pencil on the pad is a 1:12 miniature as well, and is only one millimetre wide and two centimetres long.
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 of either chair, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan pieces.
The bright brass pieces hanging on the wall or standing on the stove all come from various stockists, most overseas, but the three frypans I bought from a High Street specialist in dolls and dolls’ house furnishings when I was a teenager. The spice drawers you can just see hanging on the wall to the upper right-hand corner of the photo came from the same shop as the frypans, but were bought about a year before the pans.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
On its top stand various jars of spices and tins of ingredients used in everyday cooking in the 1920s. The glass jars of preserves and spices came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom, whilst the other items come from by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, who specialise in 1:12 miniature grocery items, with particular attention paid to their labelling. Several other tins of household goods made by Little Tings Dollhouse Miniatures stand on the white painted surface of the dresser.
In addition to brass pots, the Delftware tea service and tins of household groceries, the dresser also contains two Cornishware cannisters which I found from an online stockist of 1;12 dollhouse miniatures. 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. Attached to the edge of the dresser is a gleaming meat mincer which is a 1:12 miniature that I acquired from a collector in the Netherlands. The demijohns underneath the dresser I have had since I was a teenager and were acquired from a small toy shop in London. The lettuce in the basket underneath the dresser I acquired from an auction house some years ago as part of a lot of hand made artisan miniatures.
On the bench in the background stands a bread crock. There is also a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Golden Shred orange marmalade still exists today and is a common household brand both in Britain and Australia. It is produced by Robertson’s. Robertson’s Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson’s marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.
The tin bucket, mops and brooms in the corner of the kitchen all come from Beautifully handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today is Tuesday and we are in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve, except on Tuesdays, every third Thursday of the month and occasionally after a big party. That is when Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, comes from her home in Poplar to do all the hard jobs. Edith is grateful that unlike her previous positions, she does not have to scrub the black and quite chequered kitchen linoleum, nor polish the parquetry floors, not do her most hated job, black lead the stovetop. Mrs. Boothby does them all without complaint, with reliability and to a very high standard. She is also very handy on cleaning and washing up duty with Edith after one of Lettice’s extravagant cocktail parties. All of this leaves Edith with a little more time to spend on the tasks around the flat that she does enjoy, such as baking cakes in the splendidly modern and clean gas oven installed in the Cavendish Mews kitchen, which is a delight for Edith to use.
Edith sighs with satisfaction as she carefully lowers her latest creation onto the deal kitchen tabletop: a light and fluffy lemon sponge, baked just as her mother taught her. Between the layers of sponge, which are springy to the touch, is a layer of thick cream, ready to ooze out as the cake is cut, whilst on its top, more dollops of cream are graced with slices of candied lemon.
“There we go, Edith dearie. That’s the barfroom done.” Mrs. Boothby’s smoke hardened voice announces as she walks through the door leading from the hallway into the service portion of the flat carrying a wooden handled mop and gleaming tin bucket with her. “Spick where speck was, ‘n’ span where squalor.” she adds proudly with one of her fruity, phlegmy coughs as she plops the bucket on the linoleum floor and leans the mop against the end of the kitchen dresser. Reaching into the capacious front of her bright floral pinny, she withdraws a can of Vim** and bends down to put it back into her little crate of heavy duty cleaning aids which sits in the corner of the kitchen.
“Thank you Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says gratefully as she reaches up next to Mrs. Boothby for a box of Lyon’s tea***. “Could you get those stains off the vanity?”
“What wiv a bit of elbow grease, I did.” the old Cockney woman replies. Pulling out a cleaning rag from her pinny pocket she holds it out for Edith to see the black smears on it. “Lawd knows what’s in that muck Miss Lettice wears on ‘er face, but it marks the porcelain good ‘n’ proppa.”
Edith places the box of tea on the table. “Well, I’m grateful you managed to, Mrs. Boothby.”
“That’s alright, Edith dearie. That’s me job, ain’t it?” She walks across the kitchen muttering, “Back in my day, a lady weren’t a real lady if she ‘ad muck on ‘er face, if you know what I mean.”
Edith blushes as she replies, “I think I do.” She remembers her mother talking about girls who painted their faces as being no better than actresses or tarts.
As she returns from depositing her rags into the clothing chute that leads down to the cellar where a large hamper waits to catch them and from where the professional commercial launderers collects the dirty linens every week, Mrs. Boothby spies the cake sitting on the table surrounded by tea things. “Ooooh! Fancy! What’s the occasion?”
Edith laughs. “No occasion, Mrs. Boothby. It’s just my Mum’s lemon sponge cake.” When Mrs. Boothby cocks her eyebrow over her eye and gives the young maid a doubtful look, Edith adds, “Well, with a few embellishments.”
“Embellishments, is it?” Mrs. Boothby’s voice arcs as she puts her hands on her bony hips. “Well, down Poplar, we’d call that cake just plain fancy, and far too fancy to be havin’ for any ordinary tea.”
“It’s to serve to Miss Lettice and Mr. Gifford, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith looks up to the kitchen wall, beyond which in the Cavendish Mews flat’s parlour, Lettice is entertaining Mr. Gifford for the second time.
“So that’s the fancy chap what Miss Lettice ‘as wiv ‘er in the parlour, then?” Mrs. Boothby asks.
“Yes, that’s Mr. Gifford.” Edith replies as she busily sets two saucers and two teacups on the square silver tray that already has Lettice’s Royal Doulton ‘Falling Leaves’ Art Deco teapot and milk jug on it. “He’s a neighbour of sorts of Miss Lettice’s parents, down in Wiltshire.”
“Cor! ‘E can’t half talk, can he?” Mrs. Boothby opines. “I’ve been listen’ to ‘im go on and on about lawd knows what whilst I’ve been scrubbin’ the barfroom.”
Edith smothers a laugh as she nods. “He is a bit of a talker, Mrs. Boothby, and no mistake!”
“Some people got a bit too much ta say, if you ask me, and I reckon ‘e’s one of um.”
“Mrs. Boothby!” Edith chides the older woman.
“Well, it’s true.” the older woman replies dourly, wagging her finger. “Jibber-jabber, jibber-jabber*****, fillin’ the air wiv noise, and nuffink to show for it neither, and that’s a fact.” She nods once.
“Come, Mrs. Boothby, there’s no denying that you like your bit of gossip.”
“Gossip ain’t jibber-jabberin’, Edith dearie.” Mrs. Boothby defends herself. “It’s a vital part of life.” She looks at Edith as she places two brilliantly polished teaspoons on the tray. “And don’t you pretend like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, Edith dearie. You like a bit of gossip too.”
“Not as much as you, Mrs. Boothby.”
“Says you!” laughs the old woman.
Eith chuckles and shakes her head. “I had to answer that infernal contraption, the other day,” she remarks, changing the subject back to Mr. Gifford and referring to the Bakelite**** and chrome telephone in Lettice’s Cavendish Mews drawing room which she dislikes intensely. “Because Miss Lettice was out at Croydon visiting Mr. Blessed the upholsterer, and Mr. Gifford was on the other end.”
“Talk a lot to yer, did ‘e?”
“Well, let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t have this lemon sponge in the oven when he rang.” Edith arches her eyebrows as she speaks.
“So, what’s ‘e ‘ere for anyways? Got news ‘bout Miss Lettice’s dad ‘n mum, ‘as ‘e?”
“Oh, heavens no, Mrs. Boothby!” Edith replies as she opens the narrow, brightly decorated box of Lyon’s tea and scoops out several spoons of fragrant tea leaves and puts them in the bottom of Lettice’s elegant teapot. She inhales the scent and sighs pleasurably. “If it were something like that, I’m sure Miss Lettice would have found out by other means, like…”
“Like that infernal contraption?” Mrs. Boothby adds cheekily, interrupting her young companion.
“Like that infernal contraption.” Edith agrees.
Mrs, Boothby chuckles with mirth, however her chuckles quickly turn into a fruity coughing fit. Edith snatches a glass from the dresser and rushes to the white enamel kitchen sink and fills the glass with water from the shiny brass cold tap. She quickly brings it back to the kitchen table and offers it to Mrs. Boothby, who has collapsed into Edith’s Windsor chair and is bent over double, with her head between her legs, coughing loudly.
“Quick! Drink this, Mrs. Boothby!” Edith insists, shoving the glass into her hand.
The old Cockney char takes a long draught of the clean cool water and gasps for breath raspily as she sits up and leans her bony frame back into the curved back of the chair. “Oh… oh…” she huffs. “Fank you…” She gulps. “Fanks, Edith dearie… you… youse a… a love.”
“That’s alright, Mrs. Boothby. Catch your breath.”
“That’ll teach me… for teasin’ ya… won’t it, dear… dearie?”
“Well, I’m not the vengeful type, Mrs. Boothby, but…”
Edith’s statement is suddenly broken by the sound of the green baize door that leads between the dining room and the service part of the flat creaking on its hinges. Both women are suddenly acutely aware as they hear Lettice’s soft footsteps slapping on the black and white linoleum floor of the cupboard lined scullery.
“Is everything alright, Edith?” Lettice’s head appears through the open kitchen door that leads to the scullery, a look of concern upon her pretty face as she takes in the scene of her maid and charwoman.
“Oh, yes Miss.”
“T’was… just me.. mum.” Mrs. Boothby manages to say. “I done… done lost me breaf, like an idiot,” She sighs and takes a sip of water, slurping it noisily from her glass. “An’… an… I couldn’t… catch it.”
“Are you quite alright, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice asks, screwing up her nose with distaste at the old cockney woman’s unattractive slurping gulps of water. “It sounded quite serious from out there.”
“I’ll… I’ll be fine, mum.” She takes another noisy slurp of water. “Fanks ta Edith,” She pats Edith’s hand draped on her right shoulder with her free careworn and bony left hand. “She… got me a glass of… water.” she huffs. “Just need ta… catch me breaf is all, mum.”
“Good.” Lettice replies, although both Edith and Mrs. Boothby cannot help but catch a tinge of irritation in her voice. “Well, as long as everything is in hand, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Don’t cha… worry your… pretty ‘ead about me, mum.” the old woman goes on breathily before taking another large gulp of water from the glass. “I’ll be right as rain****** in no time.”
“Very good, Mrs. Boothby.” Lettice concludes, turning around. Then she pauses and turns back. “Edith, if you could try to keep the noise to a minimum, I’d appreciate it. Mr. Gifford and I could both clearly hear the kerfuffle in here. It’s far too much noise.” She shakes her head. “Most unprofessional.”
“Yes Miss.” Edith quickly bobs an apologetic curtsey to her mistress and casts her eyes downwards as Lettice turns on her heel and walks back through the scullery and the green baize door, back to the drawing room and her guest.
“Oh, I’m sorry… Edith dearie. I were just ‘avin’ a laugh. I didn’t mean ta get youse inta no trouble.”
“It’s fine, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith assures her, sweeping down on her knee before the old Cockney char. Looking her squarely in the face, she gazes earnestly at her. “Honestly. Miss Lettice has been a bit out of sorts lately. I can’t say for certain, but I think she is having some difficulties with one of the commissions she has taken on.”
“Which one? She’s got so many, I can’t keep up wiv ‘em all.”
“I think it’s the one in Bloomsbury, where Miss Lettice is decorating the flat of a young lady.”
“Is the lady bein’ difficult then?”
“No, not her, but her mother, I think. The flat belongs to the lady, but her mother, Lady Caxton, keeps butting in and telling Lettice how she wants it decorated.”
“That doesn’t sound very nice. What about what the lady wants her flat ta look like? Don’t she care?”
“I’m not sure that matters, Mrs. Boothby. She keeps telephoning Miss Lettice. I’ve spoken to her a number of times when I’ve had to answer that infernal contraption. She’s very nice to me: actually far nicer than some of the other ladies that telephone here. I’m trying to stay on her good side, because Miss Lettice tells me that she writes romance novels, under the name of Madeline St John, and I love her books! Miss Lettice says Lady Caxton is going to sign a couple of her novels and give them to her to give to me as a gift.”
“Well, she can’t be all bad then, even if she’s givin’ Miss Lettice an ‘ard time. That’s a loverly fing ta do, givin’ you a couple a books, Edith dearie.”
“I know!” Edith enthuses. “Anyway, I’m sure this is just a passing phase with Miss Lettice, and it will all be fine in the end. She’s very good at smoothing things over with people. And thinking of which, I think you’re contrite enough now, Mrs. Boothby. You just sit there, and once the kettle is boiled, I’ll serve Miss Lettice and Mr. Gifford, and then I’ll make us a pot of tea too when I come back. That will revive you.”
“Nuffin’ like a good cup ‘a Rosie-Lee******* to fix everyfink, Edith dearie.” Mrs. Boothby agrees. “Along wiv a fag.”
“Oh no you don’t, Mrs. Boothby!” Edith snatches Mrs. Boothby’s blue beaded bag out of her grasp and puts it out of the old woman’s reach on the wooden bench behind her. “I’m sure those things make you cough. In fact, I know they do, because I coughed when my brother Bert came home with some woodbines******* after his first trip out to sea as a bell boy. An older steward gave him the packet, telling him that smoking them would make him a man. We both hid behind Mum’s washhouse at home in Harlesden and shared one. It made us both cough.”
“Did your mum catch youse?”
“No, luckily. She was out shopping down on the high street at the time. I’m sure if she was home, Mum would have caught us: we made that much noise. We threw the packet over the garden wall into the back laneway after our little experiment and scrubbed our hands willingly with carbolic, so as not to get caught. I’ve never had one since!” Edith nods emphatically. “Besides,” she turns the fluted white gilt plate holding the lemon sponge decorated with whipped cream and candied lemon wedges, adjusting her view of the cake, smiling with pleasure as she looks down at it. “I don’t want you smoking up my cake before I serve it to Miss Lettice and Mr. Gifford.”
“Alright. Alright.” Mrs. Boothby puts the empty glass on the deal tabletop and holds up her hands in defence. “I don’t want cha getting’ in no more trouble than I may ‘ave got ya in already wiv me coughin’, Edith dearie.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says gratefully.
“So goin’ back to me question, before I nearly chocked on me own breaf, what’s this Mr. Gifford doin’ ‘ere in Miss Lettice’s parlour, anyway?”
“Miss Lettice is taking him on as a client. He’s come up to London to sign the contract.”
“Oooh.” Mrs. Boothby enthuses. “What’s she doin’ for ‘im?”
“I’m not exactly certain, but I know that she went down to Wiltshire to visit his house, after he came here with a photo album. She has been painting a design over and over again with her watercolours of a little Japanese house, like you see on Blue Willow ware.”
“Oh, I know them. They’s called pagodas.”
“That’s them! Well, I’ve been cleaning up a lot of screwed up pieces of paper with pagodas on them, which obviously weren’t to Miss Lettice’s liking.”
“Sounds a bit rum, doesn’t it, Edith dearie?”
“Well, yes, but as I found out later, what she’s been painting is a wallpaper design for Mr. Gifford. I suppose she is going to get the pattern printed on paper and then hung for Mr. Gifford. Beyond that, I don’t know much else.”
“Oh well, that’ll be good business for ‘er, anyway.”
“Well, here is something I do know, because I overheard Miss Lettice talking to Mrs. Channon over tea and biscuits the other day.”
“Aha!” crows Mrs. Boothby, eliciting another phlegmy cough. “I was right! I said you likes a bit of gossip!”
“Well…” Edith mutters, blushing as she speaks. As the older woman cocks her ear and looks expectantly at Edith, she continues, “If whatever she does pleases Mr. Gifford, she’ll get another article in Country Life******** magazine! Apparently, Mr. Gifford is related in some way to the man who wrote the first article about Miss Lettice, and he promised to write another one if Mr. Gifford likes what Miss Lettice does at his house. Hopefully that might help brighten up Miss Lettice too!”
“Well then, Edith dearie, you’re going to have ta face the fact.”
“And what fact is that, Mrs. Boothby?”
“That, that infernal contraption is goin’ ta be ringin’ off the ‘ook, just like it did ever since that first article in that fancy toff magazine got published, Edith dearie.”
The bright copper kettle on the stove rattles about, indicating that it is boiling. Using a cloth to protect her hand from burning, Edith grasps its handle and pours hot water into the tall and elegant teapot on the tray.
“I’ll just serve this to Miss Lettice,” Edith says to Mrs. Boothby. “And then we can have our own bit of jibber-jabbering over some tea.”
*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.
**Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.
***Lyons Tea was first produced by J. Lyons and Co., a catering empire created and built by the Salmons and Glucksteins, a German-Jewish immigrant family based in London. Starting in 1904, J. Lyons began selling packaged tea through its network of teashops. Soon after, they began selling their own brand Lyons Tea through retailers in Britain, Ireland and around the world. In 1918, Lyons purchased Hornimans and in 1921 they moved their tea factory to J. Lyons and Co., Greenford at that time, the largest tea factory in Europe. In 1962, J. Lyons and Company (Ireland) became Lyons Irish Holdings. After a merger with Allied Breweries in 1978, Lyons Irish Holdings became part of Allied Lyons (later Allied Domecq) who then sold the company to Unilever in 1996. Today, Lyons Tea is produced in England.
****Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, teapot handles, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.
*****The term to jibber-jabber was first seen in English in the early Sixteenth century. It is generally thought to be an onomatopoeia imitative of speech, similar to the words jabber (to talk rapidly) and gibber (to speak inarticulately).
******The allusion in the simile “right as rain” is unclear, but it originated in Britain, where rainy weather is a normal fact of life, and indeed W.L. Phelps wrote, “The expression 'right as rain' must have been invented by an Englishman.” It was first recorded in 1894.
*******Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.
********Woodbine is a British brand of cigarettes which, as of 2019, is owned and manufactured by Imperial Tobacco. Woodbine cigarettes are named after the woodbine flowers, native to Eurasia. Woodbine was launched in 1888 by W.D. & H.O. Wills. Noted for its strong unfiltered cigarettes, the brand was cheap and popular in the early 20th century with the working-class, as well as with army men during the First and Second World War.
********Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
This comfortable domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
Edith’s deal kitchen table is covered with everything required for a splendid afternoon tea. Edith’s delicious and very realistic looking lemon sponge cake has been made from polymer clay and was made by Karen Ladybug miniatures in England. Lettice’s “falling leaves” tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. The delicate silver tea is a miniature piece I have had since I was a child or about eight or nine. The forks on the plates and the teaspoons on the tray come from a large cutlery set acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The box of Lyons Tea is a 1:12 miniature hand made with close attention paid to the packaging by Jonesy’s Miniatures in England. The vase of flowers are all beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium and inserted into a real, hand blown glass vase.
Edith’s Windsor chairs are both hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniatures which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat of either chair, but they are definitely unmarked artisan pieces.
The bright brass pieces hanging on the wall or standing on the stove all come from various stockists, most overseas, but the three frypans I bought from a High Street specialist in dolls and dolls’ house furnishings when I was a teenager.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today is Tuesday and we are in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve, except on Tuesdays, every third Thursday of the month and occasionally after a big party. That is when Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, comes from her home in Poplar to do all the hard jobs. Edith is grateful that unlike her previous positions, she does not have to scrub the black and quite chequered kitchen linoleum, nor polish the parquetry floors, not do her most hated job, black lead the stovetop. Mrs. Boothby does them all without complaint, with reliability and to a very high standard. She is also very handy on cleaning and washing up duty with Edith after one of Lettice’s extravagant cocktail parties.
Lettice is away, staying with her family at Glynes, the Chetwynd’s grand Georgian Wiltshire estate, where she is visiting a neighbour of sorts of her parents, Mr. Alisdair Gifford who wishes Lettice to decorate a room for his Australian wife Adelina, to house her collection of blue and white china. Lettice’s absence allows Edith and Mrs. Boothby to tackle some of the more onerous jobs around Cavendish Mews before Lettice’s return later in the week. Whilst Mrs. Boothby has been giving the bathroom a really good going over with a scourer, Edith has climbed a stepladder, taken down all the crystal lustres of the chandeliers in the drawing room, dining room and hallway, washed them all and returned them to their freshly dusted metal frames. After a very full morning’s work, the two ladies are taking a well-deserved break in the kitchen of Cavendish Mews and sit around the deal kitchen table, enjoying a cup of tea, and the pleasant company of one another.
“Thank you for giving the bathroom a really good going over, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith says with a very grateful lilt to her voice as she pours some fresh tea into the old Cockney charwoman’s Delftware teacup. “I do try and keep it tidy, but… well…” Her voice trails off.
“Nah, don’t cha give it a second fort, Edith dearie,” Mrs. Boothby replies, blowing forth clouds of acrid pale greyish blue smoke across the tabletop covered with magazines, books and a tin of Huntley and Palmers** Empire Assorted Biscuits. “I know youse does, but what wiv all those lotions ‘n’ potions Miss Lettice uses to titivate ‘erself wiv, well, it just gets plain scummy, don’t it? I mean, what’s the point in all them fancy bottles of pink ‘n’ blue stuff wiv fancy labels if it’s all gonna go dahwn the plug ‘ole in the end, anyway?”
Edith smiles at Mrs. Boothby’s direct manner. Even though she has been working at Cavendish Mews, and thus Mrs. Boothby for five years now, there are still things that fly from the old woman’s mouth that surprise her.
“I mean all Ken and I use is a good old scrubbin’ wiv some carbolic,” Mrs. Boothby continues. “And look, ain’t I just as lovely as Miss Lettice?” She lifts her chin upwards and stretches out her arms slightly in a mock impersonation of a model. A serenely haughty look fills her heavily wrinkled face for just a moment, before she resumes her normal stance and starts laughing hard, her jolly guffaws punctuated by her fruity smoker roughened coughs.
“Oh Mrs. Boothby!” Edith titters. “You are a one!”
“’Ere! Don’t laugh, Edith dearie! That could be me on this ‘ere cover!” Mrs. Boothby laughs, carrying on the joke as she snatches up Edith’s latest copy of Home Chat from the tabletop in front of her and holds it up next to her face. “The face what sold a million copies!”
“Oh Mrs. Boothby!” Edith manages to splutter between laughs as tears roll down her cheeks. “You’re making my sides hurt.”
“Oh well, we can’t ‘ave none of that nah, can we?” the old woman says cheekily, returning the magazine to its place on top of a copy of Everylady’s Journal****. “Too much laughter eh? On ta somfink more serious. You clean all them dainty crystal drops what ‘ang off the lights then, did cha?”
“Oh yes, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith manages to say as she calms down and dabs the corners of her eyes with her dainty lace embroidered handkerchief. “It’s an awful job. I’m just glad Miss Lettice is away, so I can do it.”
“I agree. It does make it a bit easier when Miss Lettice ain’t ‘ome. You can leave a job and come back to it, ‘specially if it’s a big job, and not ‘ave to worry ‘bout pickin’ up after yerself in case she comes flouncin’ threw.”
“Her absence gives me a chance to think about some new menu options for my repertoire.” Edith adds, patting the covers of two cookbooks sitting just to her right. “I’m a good plain cook, but I’d like to be able to do a few fancier things too.”
“Nuffink wrong wiv a bit of plain cookin’, Edith dearie. That’s all I served me Bill when ‘e was alive, and ‘e nevva complained ‘bout anyfink I served ‘im up for tea.”
“I know Mrs. Boothby, and some the best recipes I know, I learned from Mum who is also a plain cook, but I’d just like to expand a bit. It would be nice to be able to make something fancier if Miss Lettice asks.”
“Well, just be careful, dearie.” The old charwoman picks up her cigarette from the black ashtray and takes a deep drag on it. “You’ll make a rod for your own back if you ain’t careful. Youse knows what them toffs can be like. Just look at poor “Ilda ‘avin’ ta grind coffee bits for Mr. Channon ev’ry mornin’ now, just cos once Mr. Carter the fancy American came visitin’ and made demands for fresh ground coffee, when Camp Coffee***** would ‘ave done just as well.” She blows out another plume of smoke and releases a few fruity phlegm filled coughs as she does. “Nah she’s gotta make it all the time, poor love.” Changing the subject after taking a slurp of her sweet hot tea, she continues, “So youse ready then, for Sunday?”
“Oh yes, I am!” Edith enthuses, thinking of the trip that she will be taking to Wembley to see the British Empire Exhibition****** with her beau, shop delivery boy Frank Leadbetter, her parents and brother, Bert, and Frank’s Scottish grandmother, Mrs. McTavish, on Sunday. “I can hardly wait. It all just sounds so amazing! All different pavilions from around the world.”
“Frank got your tickets then?”
“Well, he actually gave them to me, because he’s concerned that the daughter of Mr. Willison might pinch them, just to be nasty.”
“She sounds like a right piece a work, dearie. Best they stay safe wiv you, ‘ere at Cavendish Mews, then.”
“Yes, best to be on the safe side, for Henrietta,” Edith shudders as she mentions her name. “Is quite a little madam. Mind you,” She takes up a biscuit from the tin before her and takes a satisfied bite out of it. “I did give her what for that day you and I walked up to Oxford Street together.”
“Whatchoo do, Edith dearie?” Mrs. Boothby asks, snatching up a biscuit for herself with her long and bony, careworn fingers of her right hand, whilst holding her smouldering cigarette aloft in her left. She leans forward, excited to catch a little bit of gossip about her younger companion and friend.
“Well, after you left Frank and I together…”
“Ah yes!” Mrs. Boothby interrupts. “No place for an old woman like me when there’s young love in the air, is there?”
“We didn’t exactly shoo you away, Mrs. Boothby, as I recall it.”
“Well, be that as it may, go on.” She takes a long drag on her hand rolled cigarette, the paper crackling as the tobacco inside burns.
“Well, after you left and Frank and I talked for just a little while, I noticed we were being observed by that nasty little snitch. She accused us of cavorting in the street!”
“Did she now, fancy fine little madam?”
“As if she even knew what cavorting meant.”
“So whatchoo do, then, Edith dearie?”
“Well, I told her that we weren’t, and I told her to stop spying on Frank and I, or I’d tell Miss Lettice that I wanted to take our business elsewhere, and that her father would know that she was the cause of it.”
The old Cockney woman bursts out laughing and claps her hands in delight, showering flakes of ash and biscuit crumbs over the table before her. “Good for you, Edith dearie! I ain’t nevva fort youse ‘ave the guts to do somefink like that!”
“Nor did I, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith answers slightly shakily as she puts her hand to her heaving chest where her heart beats a little faster at the memory of her altercation with Henrietta Willison. “I don’t quite know where it came from, but I did, and I’m not unhappy that I did it.”
“Well, I say well done, dearie. That girl sounds like a nasty bit o’ work: spyin’ on people and spoilin’ their fun by threatenin’ ta steal tickets what they done paid for. It ain’t right. Sounds like she got what was commin’ to ‘er, and there’s a fact.”
“All the same, I do feel a little guilty about it.”
“Why, Edith dearie?” Mrs. Boothby munches contentedly on the remains of her biscuit as she settles back into the rounded back of the Windsor chair she sits in.
“Well, part of me thinks that for all her nastiness, it’s not entirely Henrietta’s fault that she is the way that she is.”
“’Ow’s that then?”
“Well, she’s at that difficult age. I don’t know if I was overly wonderful when I was her age either. Mum always said I was in a funk, which I put down to working for nasty old Widow Hounslow at the time, but looking back, I think I was emotional. My first chap who I was sweet on, the postman, had taken the King’s shilling******* and gone off to Flander’s Fields******* and never came back.”
“Bless all of ‘em takers of the King’s shillin’.” Mrs. Boothby interrupts, lowering her eyes as she does so.
“So I was a mess of emotions.”
“Course you was, dearie. Any girl wiv a sweetheart in the army would ‘ave been the same.”
“Maybe, but I think that even if there hadn’t been a war, I’d still have been emotional. You see it wasn’t just the war: everything made me emotional, or sullen.” She stops speaking and takes a gentle sip of her tea. “Do you know what I think, Mrs. Boothby?”
“What’s that then, dearie?”
“I think Henrietta is sweet on Frank, even though she’s far to young for Frank, and I think she sees me as a threat.”
“Nah, nah, my girl!” Mrs. Boothby defends. “Youse ain’t no threat ta nobody!”
“You know that, and I know that, but I think in her emotional, difficult stage of life mind, Henrietta thinks that if I went away, Frank might notice her.”
“Well, whevva she finks that or not, she’s still got no business stealin’ a body’s tickets what they gone and paid for ‘emselves. She got what she deserved, which I ‘ope is a big fright!” Mrs. Boothby nods seriously as she screws up her face into an even more wrinkled mass of crumpled flesh.
“Maybe, Mrs. Boothby.”
“Would you go frew wiv it, then: ya threat, I mean?”
“Well, I haven’t had to yet, but if she continues to spy on Frank and I, or cause trouble, I will tell Miss Lettice, and I don’t think she’ll take too kindly to me being bothered in my own time by the daughter of our grocers.”
“Well, enuf ‘bout ‘er, Edith dearie. Nah you said your dad was lookin’ forward to seein’ the trains at the hexibition.”
“That’s right, Mrs. Boothby. The Flying Scotsman********* in the Palace of Engineering.”
“Right-o. But whatchoo lookin’ forward to seein’ the most on Sunday, besides Frank’s pretty blue eyes starin’ dahwn inta yer own, eh?”
“Oh Mrs. Boothby!” Edith gasps, raising her hands to her cheeks as she feels them flush. As the old Cockney chuckles mischievously from her seat adjunct to Edith, the young girl perseveres as she clears her throat. “Well, I’m looking forward to seeing the Palace of Engineering too.”
“I nevva took you for a train lover, Edith dearie!” Mrs. Boothby says in surprise.
“Oh, it isn’t the railway exhibits I’m interested in.” Edith assures her, raising her hands defensively before her and shaking her pretty head. “No. I saw in the newspapers the designer of the Lion of Engineering********** and I read what was going to be included in the pavilion, and there will be examples of new British labour-saving devices, so I’m very keen to see them.”
“Is that all?” Mrs. Boothby exclaims aghast. “A whole bunch of new fancy appliances? What about all the fings from ‘round the world? That’s what I’d be interested to see!”
“Oh I am. They say that there will be coloured people there from some of the African nations, living right there at the exhibition, giving demonstrations of native crafts and taking part in traditional cultural events.”
“Yes, I read that too! Fancy that! I don’t see many coloured people, even dahwn Poplar, where we’s all mixed in togevva, ‘cept maybe a sailor or two nah and then.”
“And there will be elephants roaming around too, and goodness knows what else. It’s all going to be amazing, I’m sure.”
“Well, I look forward to ‘earing all about it from you, Edith dearie. You’ll probably be the closest I get to seein’ it, meself.”
Edith cradles her cup in her hands and looks thoughtfully at the old woman. “Aren’t you going to go too, Mrs. Boothby. Everyone I know is going. Hilda is going, although one of her friends from Mrs. Minkin’s knitting circle asked her before Frank and I did, so she is going with some of them in a few weeks.”
“Yes, she told me she was goin’, too, but not wiv you, which is a bit of a shame.”
“Oh, I’m just glad that she’s going, and that she has made some new friends.” Edith replies happily. “Hilda, as you know, is quite shy, and she finds it hard to make friends. I don’t think we would have been friends if we hadn’t shared a bedroom at Mrs. Plaistow’s, even if we were both under housemaids and living under the same roof.” She sighs. “Anyway, Hilda and I get to see each other all the time, especially since we live so close by now. As a matter of fact, I’m actually going over to Hill Street tonight, with Miss Lettice’s blessing, to help wait table with Hilda for Mr. and Mrs. Channon. They have some important guests from America coming to dinner this evening, and Hilda can’t manage to serve Lobster à la Newburg*********** by herself. Thus, why I have pulled out my cookbooks. I need to have my head on right if I’m to be head cook for Hilda, who is petrified of spoiling the lobster for Mr. and Mrs. Channon’s guests.”
“Well, I ‘ope Mr. and Mrs. Channon is payin’ you, Edith dearie, is all I’ll say. They might be ‘avin’ some fancy toffs over for a lobster tea, probably that American Mr. Carter and ‘is snobby English wife, but they’s can barely scrape by payin’ the ‘ouse’old bills. “Ilda ‘ad the wine merchants boys over at ‘Ill Street last week whilst I was there. Luckily, Mr. and Mrs. Channon were genuinely out, so ‘Ilda didn’t ‘ave ta lie and say they weren’t ‘ome when they was, but it’s still pretty bad when the bailiff’s knockin’ at the door.”
“Yes, I heard about that from Hilda. It’s a sorry state of affairs, and that’s a fact. I don’t think Mr. or Mrs. Channon can balance a budget to save themselves. Luckily, like you and Hilda, tonight’s wages will be paid to be by Mrs. Channon’s father, Mr. de Virre, who will also be in attendance.”
“Just as well. ‘E never fails to pay me wages.”
“Anyway, you were going to tell me why you and Ken aren’t going to the British Empire Exhibition. I’m sure Ken would enjoy the amusement park. Apparently it’s the biggest in Britain.”
“Big ain’t necessarily best.” Mrs. Boothby concludes sagely. “And it certainly ain’t for me Ken. I’m sure you’re right. ‘E’d love the rides and the colour, but they’s too many people there, and Ken gets hoverwhelmed, ‘e does if they’s too many strangers about. Besides,” she adds with a defensive sniff. “I don’t want no-one lookin’ sideways wiv funny glances at me Ken. ‘E’s a good lad, but folks outside ‘a Polar ain’t so kind to lads like ‘im, and I won’t ‘ave no strangers pokin’ fun at ‘im niver!”
“Well that’s fair enough, Mrs. Boothby. Shall I buy Ken a nice souvenir from the exhibition, then, since he’s not going to go himself?”
“Youse spoils my lad, Edith dearie. Nah, what youse should be doin’ is savin’ your shillin’s and pence for when you set up ‘ouse wiv Frank. Youse far too generous, dearie.”
“Nonsense, Mrs. Boothby. I think a treat for someone as sweet as Ken is only deserving.”
“Well, if I can’t talk you outta it, make it somethin’ small and cheap, eh?”
“Alright Mrs. Boothby.” Edith laughs good naturedly. “More tea?”
“Like I’d evva say no to a nice cup ‘a Rosie-Lee************, dearie!”
Just as Edith pours the tea, a jangling ring echoes through the peaceable quiet of the kitchen.
BBBBRRRINGGG!
BBBBRRRINGGG!
Edith places the knitted coy covered pot back down on the table with an irritable thud and looks aghast through the doors wedged open showing a clear view to Lettice’s dining room. Beyond it in the Cavendish Mews drawing room, the sparkling silver and Bakelite telephone rings.
“Oh! That infernal contraption!” she mutters to herself.
BBBBRRRINGGG!
Edith hates answering the telephone. It’s one of the few jobs in her position as Lettice’s maid that she wishes she didn’t have to do. Whenever she has to answer it, which is quite often considering how frequently her mistress is out and about, there is usually some uppity caller at the other end of the phone, whose toffee-nosed accent only seems to sharpen when they realise they are speaking to ‘the hired help’ as they abruptly demand Lettice’s whereabouts.
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“That will be the telephone, Miss Watsford,” Mrs. Boothby says with a cheeky smirk as she stubs out her cigarette and reaches for her tobacco and papers so that she can roll herself another one. “Best youse go see ‘oo it is, then.”
Edith groans as she picks herself up out of her comfortable Windsor chair and walks towards the scullery connecting the service part of the flat with Lettice’s living quarters. “I should have disconnected it from the wall the instant Miss Lettice left.” she says as she goes. “Then let’s hear it ring.”
“Oh! I should like to see Miss Lettice’s face if she came back and saw that!” Mrs. Boothby manages to say between her guffaws and smattering of fruity coughs as Edith disappears.
*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.
**Huntley and Palmers is a British firm of biscuit makers originally based in Reading, Berkshire. The company created one of the world’s first global brands and ran what was once the world’s largest biscuit factory. Over the years, the company was also known as J. Huntley and Son and Huntley and Palmer. Huntley and Palmer were renown for their ‘superior reading biscuits’ which they promoted in different varieties for different occasions, including at breakfast time, morning and afternoon tea and reading time.
***Alfred Harmsworth founded Home Chat to compete with Home Notes. He ran the Amalgamated Press and through them he published the magazine. He founded it in 1895 and the magazine ran until 1959. It was published as a small format magazine which came out weekly. As was usual for such women's weeklies the formulation was to cover society gossip and domestic tips along with short stories, dress patterns, recipes and competitions. One of the editors was Maud Brown. She retired in 1919 and was replaced by her sister Flora. It began with a circulation of 186,000 in 1895 and finished up at 323,600 in 1959. It took a severe hit before the Second World War in circulation but had recovered before it was closed down.
****The Everylady’s Journal was published monthly in Australia and shipped internationally from 1911 to 1938, but began life as The New Idea: A Woman’s Journal for Australasia in 1902. The New Idea contained articles on women’s suffrage, alongside discussions about diet, sewing patterns and tips and tricks for the housewife and young lady. From 1911 The New Idea became the Everylady’s Journal. Published by T.S. Fitchett the fashion periodical changed its name to New Idea in 1938, and it is still being published to this day.
*****Camp Coffee is a concentrated syrup which is flavoured with coffee and chicory, first produced in 1876 by Paterson & Sons Ltd, in Glasgow. In 1974, Dennis Jenks merged his business with Paterson to form Paterson Jenks plc. In 1984, Paterson Jenks plc was bought by McCormick & Company. Legend has it (mainly due to the picture on the label) that Camp Coffee was originally developed as an instant coffee for military use. The label is classical in tone, drawing on the romance of the British Raj. It includes a drawing of a seated Gordon Highlander (supposedly Major General Sir Hector MacDonald) being served by a Sikh soldier holding a tray with a bottle of essence and jug of hot water. They are in front of a tent, at the apex of which flies a flag bearing the drink's slogan, "Ready Aye Ready". A later version of the label, introduced in the mid-20th century, removed the tray from the picture, thus removing the infinite bottles element and was seen as an attempt to avoid the connotation that the Sikh was a servant, although he was still shown waiting while the kilted Scottish soldier sipped his coffee. The current version, introduced in 2006, depicts the Sikh as a soldier, now sitting beside the Scottish soldier, and with a cup and saucer of his own. Camp Coffee is an item of British nostalgia, because many remember it from their childhood. It is still a popular ingredient for home bakers making coffee-flavoured cake and coffee-flavoured buttercream. In late 1975, Camp Coffee temporarily became a popular alternative to instant coffee in the UK, after the price of coffee doubled due to shortages caused by heavy frosts in Brazil.
******The British Empire Exhibition was a colonial exhibition held at Wembley Park, London England from 23 April to 1 November 1924 and from 9 May to 31 October 1925. In 1920 the British Government decided to site the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park, on the site of the pleasure gardens created by Edward Watkin in the 1890s. A British Empire Exhibition had first been proposed in 1902, by the British Empire League, and again in 1913. The Russo-Japanese War had prevented the first plan from being developed and World War I put an end to the second, though there had been a Festival of Empire in 1911, held in part at Crystal Palace. One of the reasons for the suggestion was a sense that other powers, like America and Japan, were challenging Britain on the world stage. Despite victory in Great War, this was in some ways even truer in 1919. The country had economic problems and its naval supremacy was being challenged by two of its former allies, the United States and Japan. In 1917 Britain had committed itself eventually to leave India, which effectively signalled the end of the British Empire to anyone who thought about the consequences, while the Dominions had shown little interest in following British foreign policy since the war. It was hoped that the Exhibition would strengthen the bonds within the Empire, stimulate trade and demonstrate British greatness both abroad and at home, where the public was believed to be increasingly uninterested in Empire, preferring other distractions, such as the cinema.
*******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.
********The term “Flanders Fields”, used after the war to refer to the parts of France where the bloodiest battles of the Great War raged comes from "In Flanders Fields" is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, written in 1915.
*********No. 4472 Flying Scotsman is a LNER Class A3 4-6-2 "Pacific" steam locomotive built in 1923 for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) at Doncaster Works to a design of Nigel Gresley. It was employed on long-distance express passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line by LNER and its successors, British Railways' Eastern and North Eastern Regions, notably on The Flying Scotsman service between London King's Cross and Edinburgh Waverley after which it was named. Retired from British Railways in 1963 after covering 2.08 million miles, Flying Scotsman has been described as the world's most famous steam locomotive. It had earned considerable fame in preservation under the ownership of, successively, Alan Pegler, William McAlpine, Tony Marchington, and, since 2004, the National Railway Museum. 4472 became a flagship locomotive for the LNER, representing the company twice at the British Empire Exhibition and in 1928, hauled the inaugural non-stop Flying Scotsman service. It set two world records for steam traction, becoming the first locomotive to reach the officially authenticated speed of 100 miles per hour on the 30th of November 1934, and setting the longest non-stop run of a steam locomotive of 422 miles on the 8th of August 1989 whilst on tour in Australia.
**********Although largely forgotten today, British artist, sculptor and designer, Percy Metcalf had a great influence on the lives of everyday Britons and millions of people throughout the British Empire. He designed the first coinage of the Irish Free State in 1928. The first Irish coin series consisted of eight coins. The harp was chosen as the obverse. Metcalfe was chosen out of six designers as the winner of the reverse design of the Irish Free State's currency. The horse, salmon, bull, wolf-hound, hare, hen, pig and woodcock were all on different denominations of coinage that was known as the Barnyard Collection. In 1935, it was George V's jubilee, and to celebrate the occasion, a crown piece containing a new design was issued. The reverse side of the coin depicts an image of St George on a horse, rearing over a dragon. Due to its modernistic design by Metcalfe it has earned little credit from collectors. In 1936, Metcalfe designed the obverse crowned effigy of Edward VIII for overseas coinage which was approved by the King, but none was minted for circulation before Edward's abdication that December. Metcalfe was immediately assigned to produce a similar crowned portrait of King George VI for overseas use. This image was also used as part of the George Cross design in 1940. The George Cross is second in the order of wear in the United Kingdom honours system and is the highest gallantry award for civilians, as well as for members of the armed forces in actions for which purely military honours would not normally be granted. It also features on the flag of Malta in recognition of the island's bravery during the Siege of Malta in World War II. Metcalfe also designed the Great Seal of the Realm. He produced designs for coinage of several countries including Ireland and Australia. He created a portrait of King George V which was used as the obverse for coins of Australia, Canada, Fiji, Mauritius, New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia. To commemorate the extraordinary visit that George VI and Queen Elizabeth set out on to North America in 1939, three series of medallions were designed for the Royal Canadian Mint. The reverse side of the coins contained a joint profile of George VI and Queen Elizabeth, which was designed by Metcalfe. This design was also used on the British Coronation Medal of 1937. Metcalfe created a British Jubilee crown piece, which was exhibited in the Leeds College of Art in November 1946. Prior to all his coin designs, Metcalfe had taken up sculpting and designing objects as an art form at the Royal College of Art in London, and he was commissioned to create the great Lions of Industry and Engineering for the British Empire Exhibition in 1924.
***********Lobster Newberg (also spelled lobster Newburg or lobster Newburgh) is an American seafood dish made from lobster, butter, cream, cognac, sherry and eggs, with a secret ingredient found to be Cayenne pepper. A modern legend with no primary or early sources states that the dish was invented by Ben Wenberg, a sea captain in the fruit trade. He was said to have demonstrated the dish at Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City to the manager, Charles Delmonico, in 1876. After refinements by the chef, Charles Ranhofer, the creation was added to the restaurant's menu as Lobster à la Wenberg and it soon became very popular. The legend says that an argument between Wenberg and Charles Delmonico caused the dish to be removed from the menu. To satisfy patrons’ continued requests for it, the name was rendered in anagram as Lobster à la Newberg or Lobster Newberg.
************Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.
This comfortable domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
Edith’s deal kitchen table is covered with lots of interesting bits and pieces. The tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in the United Kingdom. The Huntley and Palmer’s Breakfast Biscuit tin containing a replica selection of biscuits is also a 1:12 artisan piece. Made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight, the biscuits are incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The Deftware cups, saucers, sugar bowl and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot. The vase of flowers are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium and inserted into a real, hand blown glass vase.
Edith’s two cookbooks are made by hand by an unknown American artisan and were acquired from an American miniature collector on E-Bay. The Everywoman Journal magazine from 1924 sitting on the table was made by hand by Petite Gite Miniatures in the United States, whilst the copy of Home Chat is a 1:12 miniature made by artisan Ken Blythe. I have a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my miniatures collection – books mostly. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! Sadly, so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. As well as making books, he also made other small paper based miniatures including magazines like the copy of Home Chat. It is not designed to be opened. What might amaze you in spite of this is the fact is that all Ken Blythe’s books and magazines are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make them all miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
Also on the table, sit Mrs. Boothby’s Player’s Navy Cut cigarette tin and Swan Vesta matches, which are 1:12 miniatures hand made by Jonesy’s Miniatures in England. The black ashtray is also an artisan piece, the bae of which is filled with “ash”. The tray as well as having grey ash in it, also has a 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (it is affixed there). Made by Nottingham based tobacconist manufacturer John Player and Sons, Player’s Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf, mild being today’s rich flavour). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Player’s and two thirds of these were branded as Player’s Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Player’s sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London). Production continued to grow until at its peak in the late 1950s, Player’s was employing 11,000 workers (compared to 5,000 in 1926) and producing 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. Nowadays the brands “Player” and “John Player Special” are owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands (formerly the Imperial Tobacco Company). Swan Vestas is a brand name for a popular brand of ‘strike-anywhere’ matches. Shorter than normal pocket matches they are particularly popular with smokers and have long used the tagline ‘the smoker’s match’ although this has been replaced by the prefix ‘the original’ on the current packaging. Swan Vestas matches are manufactured under the House of Swan brand, which is also responsible for making other smoking accessories such as cigarette papers, flints and filter tips. The matches are manufactured by Swedish Match in Sweden using local, sustainably grown aspen. The Swan brand began in 1883 when the Collard & Kendall match company in Bootle on Merseyside near Liverpool introduced ‘Swan wax matches’. These were superseded by later versions including ‘Swan White Pine Vestas’ from the Diamond Match Company. These were formed of a wooden splint soaked in wax. They were finally christened ‘Swan Vestas’ in 1906 when Diamond merged with Bryant and May and the company enthusiastically promoted the Swan brand. By the 1930s ‘Swan Vestas’ had become ‘Britain’s best-selling match’.
Edith’s Windsor chairs are both hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniatures which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat of either chair, but they are definitely unmarked artisan pieces.
The bright brass pieces hanging on the wall or standing on the stove all come from various stockists, most overseas, but the three frypans I bought from a High Street specialist in dolls and dolls’ house furnishings when I was a teenager. The spice drawers you can just see hanging on the wall to the upper right-hand corner of the photo came from the same shop as the frypans, but were bought about a year before the pans.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
The tin bucket, mops and brooms in the corner of the kitchen all come from Beautifully handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
Quality prints, greeting cards and more can be purchased at >> kaye-menner.artistwebsites.com/featured/old-iron-stove-ov...
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews, although we are still in Mayfair, moving a few streets away to Hill Street, where Edith, Lettice’s maid, is visiting her friend and fellow maid Hilda. It is a beautiful, sunny Wednesday and Wednesday afternoons from one o’clock, both girls have time off from their jobs as domestic servants. Taking advantage of this, Edith and Hilda are planning to go and have some afternoon tea at the nearby Lyon’s Corner House* at the top of Tottenham Court Road. Edith has come to collect Hilda from the home of Lettice’s married friends Margot and Dickie Channon, where Hilda works as a live-in maid. However, Hilda is not quite ready to go.
When Edith walks in through the tradesman’s entrance of the Hill Street, she finds Hilda in the kitchen, pushing pieces of rather second-rate beef through a mincer, and the deal table is littered with cooking implements and food. As well as the tray of minced meat, there is a deep baking dish, a bowl of partially peeled potatoes, and several onions and tomatoes waiting to be sliced up. A large jar of salt stands to one side of a wooden chopping board, whilst a jar of mixed herbs perches precariously on the edge of the table next to the mincer.
“I won’t be long, Edith. I’m just finishing preparing tonight’s mince and potato stew for tea.”
“For dinner, Hilda,” Edith kindly corrects her friend**.
“Listen to you, My Lady!” Hilda chortles good naturedly, making her friend blush as she picks up a bright red tomato from in front of her. “Such fancy words from you Miss Edith Watsford! You must be the most well spoken maid in Mayfair.”
“I thought you wanted to improve yourself, Hilda.” Edith responds quietly, a little hurt by her best friend’s response. “I was only trying to help.”
“Oh, sorry Edith! I was only teasing.” Hilda apologises, smiling and kindly putting out her hand and clasping Edith’s in it as it rests on the arm of her chair. “I suppose it didn’t come across in quite the way I wanted. I’m just a little frazzled today.” She goes on. “Of course I’m all for self-improvement,” she assures her. “And I do appreciate you correcting me. I wasn’t really criticising you. Forgive me?”
Edith releases a breath she didn’t realise she was holding and sinks back into the rounded back of the Windsor chair she is sitting in. “That’s a relief! Of course I forgive you, Hilda: not that there’s anything to forgive, naturally.”
“Naturally.” Hilda retorts with a short nod. “Of course, whether it’s tea, dinner or supper,” she continues with a derisive snort. “It will all go down into our bellies, just the same.”
“I’d never want to offend you, Hilda.” Edith says seriously. “You’re my best friend.”
“You’d never offend me, Edith.” Hilda replies gently with a broad smile on her doughy face. “I know that. Best friends don’t offend one another, intentionally anyway.”
“Of course they don’t.” Edith replies with a relieved smile.
“And best friends help one another out.”
“Of course they do!” Edith enthuses.
“Then could you help me out?” She pushes a smaller wooden chopping board and knife towards Edith. “Could you cut up this onion for me?” She holds out a golden brown onion to her friend.
Edith’s mouth falls open in shock, but curls up at the corners as she takes in her friend’s beseeching look. “Hilda Clerkenwell! What crust you have! We’re going out for tea and cakes at Lyon’s Corner House, and you just don’t want your fingers smelling of raw onion!”
“Oh! Go on, Edith! Be a sport! You know I hate cutting onions. They always make me cry so much.” She pouts and looks hopefully at her friend. “Please?”
“Oh!” Edith huffs. “Only if you buy me a second slice of cake when we get to Lyon’s.”
“Done!” Hilda replies immediately, smiling as she places the onion in the middle of the board she has slid across to Edith.
“Any cake I like, mind.” Edith adds with a cheeky smile as she picks up the onion, knowing that she won’t ask for a slice of the most extravagant and expensive cakes in the glass counter of the Tottenham Court Road Lyon’s Corner House, even if she could, because she knows that Hilda works as hard, if not harder, for her meagre maid’s wage as she does.
“Thanks Edith! You are a brick!” Hilda replies with relief as Edith picks herself up out of her chair and picks up the chopping board and knife. “There’s plenty of carbolic at the sink for your hands afterwards.”
“You know, I keep telling you that there’s really nothing to it,” Edith remarks to Hilda as she walks across the black and white chequered linoleum floor of the kitchen and places the board on the enamel draining board of the sink beneath the kitchen window. “Just make sure there is plenty of fresh air around you.” She groans as she heaves open the squeaking sash of the lower pane of the window. “The breeze will carry away your tears.”
“Not mine.” Hilda says grumpily as she takes up a potato and begins peeling it. “That never works for me. Damn things.”
“Language!” Edith scolds. She takes up the knife and cuts off both ends of the onion and peels the skin off. “Small pieces, Hilda?”
“Please.” Hilda replies as she casts her potato peelings aside into a small pile to her right.
Edith begins to chop the onion up into small pieces quickly and efficiently, the sound of the knife’s blade banging dully against the wood of the chopping board as it slices through the flesh of the onion, giving her a sense of satisfaction as she watches it transform from a round vegetable into neat white cubes. Once she is done, she uses the flat of the knife to push all the pieces into a pile in the middle of the board and places the knife next to it before she turns on the brass hot and cold taps of the sink and washes her hands thoroughly with carbolic soap. Once her hands are clean, and odour free, to her satisfaction, Edith returns the chopping board topped with the knife and pile of diced onions to Hilda’s deal kitchen table and resumes her seat.
“I know you enjoy a nice stew, Hilda,” Edith comments a little awkwardly as she manoeuvres herself back into a comfortable position in her seat, blushing as she looks at the large deep brown glazed baking dish with its pristine white interior in the centre of the table. “But that looks like a lot just for you for dinner.”
“Oh, it’s not just for me.” Hilda replies matter-of-factly as she cuts into the ripe flesh of a tomato and begins slicing it thinly. “It’s for Mr. and Mrs. Channon too.”
“What?” Edith blurts with an incredulous explosion of laughter. “Mr. and Mrs. Channon eating a mince and potato stew for dinner?”
“Shh!” Hilda drops the knife on the chopping board in front of her with a clatter and puts her chubby, sausage like finger to her lips.
“What?” Edith asks, trying to regain her composure.
“Mr. and Mrs. Channon will hear you.” Hilda hisses. “They haven’t gone out today. They’re only just out there, in the drawing room.” She indicates towards the closed kitchen door and the world of the Wood Street flat beyond it, inhabited by the Channons.
“What are they doing?” Edith hisses.
“Playing cards I think.” Hilda admits. “Or they were when I took them tea and coffee a half hour ago.”
Edith quickly grasps the seriousness of the situation and lowers her voice. “They usually pay calls on a Wednesday.”
“They can’t afford to, just now.” Hilda replies dourly in an equally low voice as she resumes chopping the tomato. “Mr. Channon has spent his allowance for the month, including the portion for petrol for their motorcar. They aren’t going to traipse around London paying calls on foot. At least it went to a good cause.”
“Oh?” Edith queries.
“Yes, they paid off the wine merchant’s bill. It was fearfully overdue, and he was threating to withhold any future orders.”
“That’s frightful, Hilda.”
Reducing her voice to barely more than a whisper, Hilda retorts, “It’s better than me standing at the door telling his man a bald-faced lie that the Master and Mistress are out, when in fact they are both hiding behind the drawing room sofa.”
“That’s true.” Edith replies, her eyebrows arching high over her pale blue eyes. “I don’t think I could do that.”
“That’s because you’re too good by half, Edith – far better a soul than me. You’ll go to heaven and I’ll be stuck in purgatory.” Hilda giggles. “And it’s because of the paid wine merchant’s bill that we’re having mince and potato stew for supper. We’re paying the piper***, for the other week’s Lobster à la Newburg**** supper.”
“Oh dear.”
“Oh dear is right.” Hilda admits. “When I went to Mrs. Channon on Monday and said I needed money for the housekeeping, she gave me the most alarmed look I think I’ve ever seen on her face. It was as if I’d just told her that war had broken out again.”
“Heaven forbid!”
“She asked me where all the housekeeping money had gone.”
“What do you mean, Hilda?”
“Well, that was exactly what she said when I explained to her that whilst I can be a thrifty and canny grocery shopper, I’m not a miracle worker. Lobsters are expensive no matter where you buy them, or from whom.”
“And what did Mrs. Channon say to that?”
“Well, she told me that she would sort something out, but could I wait until the afternoon for the money. I said that I could, and she bustled off to her bedroom.”
“Her bedroom? Not to take the vapours*****, surely?”
“No, Edith, although she can be prone to fits of hysteria sometimes, especially when it comes to paying bills.”
“I’m sure her fits of hysteria aren’t anywhere near as bad as Miss Lettice’s friend, Mrs. Palmerston’s are. She caused quite a scene over luncheon last year when Miss Lettice’s sister-in-law was visiting Cavendish Mews.”
“Maybe not, but they can still be trying when the grocer is at the tradesman’s entrance demanding payment from me, and Mrs., Channon is suddenly indisposed.”
“So, if not for the vapours, why did Mrs. Channon go to her bedroom, Hilda?”
“Well, when I saw her a short while later whilst I was dusting the entrance hall, she bustled past all dressed up to the nines, looking very serious and carrying one of her small brown leather valises in her hand. I think she was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice me dusting the nook in the hallway, and I gave her ever such a fright when I wished her a good afternoon as she went to the door.”
“What happened, Hilda?”
“She dropped her valise on the entrance hall tiles, that’s what happened, and it popped open: not much mind you, but enough for me to see that she had one of her fox fur tippets****** inside. She hurriedly shut it again, and told me she was going out for a little bit, but that she hadn’t forgotten I needed the housekeeping money, and she left.”
“She didn’t get you to hail a taxi, then?”
“I don’t think she’d have dared, considering I had run out of housekeeping money.”
“Do you know where she went, Hilda?”
“No, I don’t, because as soon as she left, I hurried to her dressing room rather than peeping out of the drawing room windows to see in which direction she walked.”
“What did you find in her dressing room?”
“It was in the usual state of untidiness it’s in after she’s chosen what she’s going to wear: wardrobe doors flung and left open, hatboxes strewn about, clothes all over her pretty little Marie Antoinette chaise and the floor.”
“So, nothing amiss there.” Edith remarks.
“Indeed,” Hilda admits. “However, then I noticed that her tippet was missing from the wardrobe, as well as two of her older evening dresses: only the empty coat hangers were left on the rail.”
“You don’t think she…” Edith drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Hocked them, do you?” She gasps even at the thought of one of her own mistress’ dearest friends forced to deposit some of her beautiful clothes, even the older, more worn and less fashionable pieces, at a pawnbroker as a security for money lent.
“I hate to admit it, but I’m sure she did, Edith.” Hilda hisses guiltily. “She returned later that afternoon and paid me my housekeeping money just as she promised.” Hilda looks around, as if double checking to make sure Mrs. Channon wasn’t about to barge in and catch she and Edith gossiping about her. “In fact, she gave me enough housekeeping money, albeit on a far less lavish budget,” She indicates with a sweeping gesture to the minced meat, potatoes, tomatoes and onions on the deal kitchen table before her. “To keep us going until Mr. Channon receives his next month’s allowance from the Marquis in a fortnight. Mrs. Channon told me to use my thrift with the shopping, as that under no circumstances was she able to furnish me with any more money for the housekeeping until Mr. Channon receives his next stipend.”
“No!”
“Yes. I’m only grateful that Mrs. Channon’s father, Mr. de Virre pays my wages.”
“And Mrs. Boothby’s.” Edith adds.
“And Mrs. Boothby’s.” Hilda agrees quietly. “Otherwise, we might not get paid at all!”
“So Mr. and Mrs. Channon are economising, then.”
“As much as they know how to, I suppose.” Hilda shrugs. “They haven’t been to the theatre or to the Embassy Club in Bond Street for over a week now. Instead, they sit in the drawing room and play cards, read, or listen to the wireless.”
“At least they have a wireless for entertainment.” Edith points out.
“Yes, well, Mrs. and Mrs. Channon’s idea of economising is nothing like yours and mines are,” Hilda sighs. “But I suppose it’s all relative. Them not going to the theatre and spending a quiet night at home is probably as unusual and difficult for them to contrive as it is for us to be able to afford to go to the theatre in the first place.”
“I’ve never been to the theatre.” Edith points out. “And nor have you, Hilda.”
“Well, we’ve been to the music hall, and that’s the theatre.” Hilda defends.
“I’m sure the music hall is not what Mr. and Mrs. Channon call theatre.” Edith scoffs with an amused chuckle.
“Tea, dinner. Music hall, theatre. It’s all much of a muchness, isn’t it?”
“Poor Mrs. Channon. That must be awful for her, having to pawn her beautiful things, just to be able to afford to eat. I mean, I know you’ve said that she’s no dab hand at managing a budget…”
“Now that’s an understatement, if ever I heard one.” Hilda chuckles as she starts adding the minced meat, chunks of peeled potato, sliced tomatoes and Edith’s diced onions to the deep dish and sprinkling herbs on top. “But it’s more than just Mrs. Channon’s inability to balance the books.”
“What do you mean, Hilda?”
Hilda pours some Worcestershire sauce over the top of the food in the dish and stirs it all together, before draping a muslin cloth over the top of it. “There! That can steep for the afternoon, and it will be perfect come tea… err… dinner time.”
“You didn’t hear me, Hilda.” Edith persists. “What did you mean by Mrs. Ch…”
“Shh!” Hilda puts her finger to her mouth again, and looks warningly towards the kitchen door. “I did, actually. Come on Edith, let’s get our coats and hats. I’ll explain it all to you as we go up to Tottenham Court Road.”
The pair gather up their coats, hats, gloves and handbags and step out of the Hill Street flat through the rear tradesman’s entrance. “I’m off Mrs, Channon!” Hilda calls brightly before carefully closing the kitchen door, without waiting for a response.
As the pair walk down the back stairs of the flats, Hilda explains. “I don’t suppose when you were here a few weeks ago, you overheard the conversation over dinner?”
“Hilda Clerkenwell!” Edith gasps. “I never listen to conversations over the dinner table!”
“Yes, you’re far better than me in that respect.” Hilda admits guiltily.
“Anyway, even if I was prone to eavesdrop, which I don’t, I was too busy concentrating on what we needed to do in order to serve the next dish, that night.”
“Well, if you weren’t so good and pious, Edith, earing your place in heaven, you would have heard that loud American man, Mr. Carter…”
“The one who likes his ground coffee?”
“The very same. Well, he and his wife were talking about how Mrs. Carter was going to see a specialist in Harley Street*******.”
“A specialist?”
“Some fancy doctor, who is assisting Mrs. Carter in…” Hilda pauses and glances around to make sure that no-one is eavesdropping in the stairwell. “In the family way.”
Edith gaps. “I didn’t think Mrs. Carter was in the family way, Hilda! She certainly doesn’t look like it.”
“She’s not.”
Edith pauses mid step. “Hilda, what has a specialist in Harley Street and Mrs. Carter not being with child have to do with Mrs. Channon not being able to pay the household bills?”
“Mrs. Channon isn’t pregnant either,” Hilda says conspiratorially. “And that’s a problem, Edith.”
“Well, I must confess I did notice that they’ve been married for almost three years and there is still no sign of children, but I just assumed that being a flapper, and part of the Bright Young Things******** set I read about in the papers that Miss Lettice is part of too, well, I just assumed that with their busy lives, going to parties and nightclubs all that, that they didn’t have time to have a child.”
“Well, they might have put it down to that in the first place, but now there is some pressure being exerted on them to have a child.”
“What kind of pressure, Hilda?”
“Well, Mr. Carter’s family want grandchildren, but Mrs. Carter still isn’t with child, and it’s the same problem for Mr. and Mrs. Channon. The old Marquis and Marchioness are desperate for Mr. and Mrs. Channon to have a son who can inherit the title from Mr. Channon when he passes on, even though I’m sure it will be years before the old Marquis passes on and passes the title to Mr. Channon, never mind Mr. Channon passing on himself. But anyway, because Mrs. Channon isn’t with child yet, the mean old Marquis has cut Mr. Channon’s allowance.”
“Cut it?”
“Not entirely, but certainly cut it.”
“By how much?”
“I’m not really sure, but enough that I’m having to do more with less housekeeping. I think the old Marquis is hoping that if Mr. and Mrs. Channon live a quieter life and don’t go to the theatre or nightclubs as much, they will settle down to the business of having a child.
“Well, that’s awful of the old Marquis, but there is an element of common sense in what he is suggesting.” Edith admits.
“Maybe, but Mrs. Channon confided in me, and she told me that she and Mr. Channon have been trying to have a child. It just hasn’t happened. So, now that the pressure has been put upon them, they are resorting to visiting a specialist to see if they can help.”
“Oh poor Mrs. Channon.”
“Well, let’s just hope she doesn’t have to hock anything else.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, those doctors in Harley Street are expensive. Mrs. Carter was saying that lots of duchesses and the like go there for help to get in the family way. If Mrs. Channon can’t balance her household budget now, how will she manage the fees from a fancy doctor on top of that?”
*J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.
**Before, and even after the Second World War, a great deal could be attained about a person’s social origins by what language and terminology they used in class-conscious Britain by the use of ‘”U and non-U English” as popularised by upper class English author, Nancy Mitford when she published a glossary of terms in an article “The English Aristocracy” published by Stephen Spender in his magazine “encounter” in 1954. There are many examples in her glossary, amongst which are the word “sofa” which is a U (upper class) word, versus “settee” or “couch” which are a non-U (aspiring middle-class) words. Whilst quite outdated today, it gives an insight into how easily someone could betray their humbler origins by something as simple as a single word.
***The idiom of “to pay the piper”, meaning to pay for the cost of something, derives from the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The town of Hamelin agrees to pay the Piper to get rid of all the rats. When they fail to pay him, he steals their kids. The earliest known reference, according to the article, is from AD1300.
****Lobster Newberg (also spelled lobster Newburg or lobster Newburgh) is an American seafood dish made from lobster, butter, cream, cognac, sherry and eggs, with a secret ingredient found to be Cayenne pepper. A modern legend with no primary or early sources states that the dish was invented by Ben Wenberg, a sea captain in the fruit trade. He was said to have demonstrated the dish at Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City to the manager, Charles Delmonico, in 1876. After refinements by the chef, Charles Ranhofer, the creation was added to the restaurant's menu as Lobster à la Wenberg and it soon became very popular. The legend says that an argument between Wenberg and Charles Delmonico caused the dish to be removed from the menu. To satisfy patrons’ continued requests for it, the name was rendered in anagram as Lobster à la Newberg or Lobster Newberg.
*****In archaic usage, “the vapours” is a mental, psychological, or physical state, such as hysteria, mania, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, lightheadedness, fainting, flush, withdrawal syndrome, mood swings, or PMS in which a sufferer loses mental focus.
******A tippet is a piece of clothing worn over the shoulders in the shape of a scarf or cape. Tippets evolved in the fourteenth century from long sleeves and typically had one end hanging down to the knees. By the 1920s, tippets were usually made of fox, mink or other types of fur.
*******Harley Street is a street in Marylebone, Central London, named after Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer. Since the Nineteenth Century it has housed a large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery. Since the Nineteenth Century, the number of doctors, hospitals, and medical organisations in and around Harley Street has greatly increased. Records show that there were around twenty doctors in 1860, eighty by 1900, and almost two hundred by 1914. When the National Health Service was established in 1948, there were around one and half thousand. Today, there are more than three thousand people employed in the Harley Street area, in clinics, medical and paramedical practices, and hospitals.
********The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.
This cosy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On Hilda’s deal table stand everything required to make a mince and potato stew. There is a deep ceramic baking dish, a wooden chopping board with a kitchen knife, onions and slices of tomato on it, some potatoes and tomatoes, a tray of mince and salt and herbs. Attached to the edge of the table is a mincer. The chopping board, brown onions, tomatoes, potatoes, the yellow ceramic bowl and the cutlery all came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The tomato slices come from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. The knife on the chopping board and the bread knife come from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures Shop in the United Kingdom. The dish of mincemeat, jars of salt and herbs and the deep baking dish base come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The meat mincer is a 1:12 miniature that I acquired from a collector in the Netherlands. The vase of flowers are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium and inserted into a real, hand blown glass vase.
Hilda’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 dresser stacked with a panoply of kitchen items. Including a bread crock, cannisters and a toast rack that came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop.
Also in the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
The bright brass pieces standing on the stove all come from various stockists, most overseas.
The tin bucket, mops and brooms between the dresser and the stove all come from Beautifully handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. It is Sunday, Edith’s day off and she is busily preparing for an excursion with her beau, local grocery delivery boy, Frank Leadbetter. The deal pine kitchen table is covered with all that is required to make a selection of sandwiches, with a loaf of fluffy fresh bread, a bar of bright yellow butter, some ripe red tomatoes and a frilly head of green lettuce. After the announcement of the sudden collapse of her ‘uncle’ Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt, patriarch of the family living on the estate adjunct to that of Lettice’s parents, Lettice has hurriedly returned to her grand Georgian family home of Glynes in Wiltshire, leaving Edith with ample time on her hands to plan a picnic for she and Frank. The picnic basket Edith’s brother, Bert, brought back for her from Australia as a Christmas gift sits to the side, waiting to be filled. As Edith prepares the sandwiches, she is kept company by her best friend Hilda, who also has Sundays off.
“So, what’s on the menu for today then?” Hilda asks as she looks at Edith deftly slicing pieces of bread from a loaf before then cutting a tomato in half.
“Well, tomato and lettuce sandwiches,” Edith replies, indicating with the blade of her knife to the tomatoes on the board before her and the head of lettuce between the two girls. “I’ve got some nice cheese as well for cheese and tomato sandwiches and with Miss Lettice away, there is half a cucumber left, so I thought I’d use it up by making cucumber sandwiches.”
“A feast fit for a king, no less!” Hilda says encouragingly.
“Oh there’s more.” Edith continues. “I also baked a cherry pie for dessert, using Mum’s recipe.”
“Now, I wish I was coming with you, Edith!” Hilda enthuses. “Where are you and Frank going for your picnic?” she asks Edith as she toys with a lettuce leaf on the head that Edith has yet to attack with her knife.
“We thought we might go to Kensington gardens today.” Edith replies as she cuts a smaller tomato bought from Willison’s Grocers and starts slicing it into thin slivers. “It’s not too far away, and we like it there.”
“Well, you’re blessed with a beautiful, sunny day for it.” Hilda remarks cheerfully, pointing to the kitchen window, through which sunlight streams.
Edith stops slicing the tomato, allowing her knife to come to rest in a pool of tomato juice on the cutting board. She glances anxiously at her best friend. “You don’t mind, do you Hilda?”
Hilda stops toying with the lettuce leaf. “Mind? Whatever do you mean, Edith? Why should I mind?”
A month ago, as Edith, Frank and Hilda were in Hilda’s employer’s kitchen in Hill Street about to leave to go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse* on their Sunday afternoon off, Hilda grew despondent about going. With the dearth of young, or even older, eligible men, Hilda wondered why she bothered to go dancing, when she never met any men and usually ended up dancing with other women who were wallflowers** like her. Ever since then, Edith has been acutely aware of her best friend’s feelings of loneliness. When the two had been housemaids together at the home of Mrs. Plaistow in Pimlico it hadn’t mattered so much as both girls had been single and their shared sense of being without a beau strengthened their bond. However, now Edith has Frank, so Edith has been especially conscious to include Hilda even more than usual in her plans ever since, in an effort to compensate for her friend’s lack of a beau. Rather than go dancing, where the lack of men is so painfully evident, at Frank’s suggestion, he and Edith have altered their usual Sunday afternoon plans and done things where they could include Hilda easily. However, in spite of her conscious efforts, with the good weather of summer in the air, and Lettice being away for an indefinite period of time as she returns to Wiltshire on an urgent family matter, Edith is anxious to use the picnic basket her brother, Bert, brought her back from Australia, and have a picnic just for she and Frank for a change.
“Well, I just don’t want you at a loose end is all, Hilda.” Edith replies. “I know you’ve been feeling a bit low ever since that afternoon we went dancing.”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about me, Edith.” Hilda scoffs with a dismissive wave as she sinks back from the table into the rounded back of the second Windsor chair in Edith’s kitchen.
“Of course I have to worry about you, Hilda!” Edith retorts. “You are my best friend, after all.”
“Well, you don’t need to today, Edith.” Hilda assures her. “Today is a lovely day for you and Frank to go and enjoy your Sunday off without me.” She looks at her friend earnestly. “I know you Edith, and I know what you’ve been doing.”
“Me?” Edith hurriedly picks up her knife and finishes slicing the tomato, focussing all her attention on her task, refusing to engage her friend’s gaze. “I haven’t been doing anything.”
“Yes you have, Edith. Don’t deny it.” Hilda wags her fleshy right index finger admonishingly at Edith. “I know that ever since we went dancing that Sunday, you and Frank have been colluding to include me in more of your Sunday afternoon activities to make sure I don’t feel left out.”
“Oh what rubbish you talk sometimes, Hilda!” Edith says, brushing her friend’s observation off as easily as she sweeps the slices of tomato aside with the flat of her knife. She cuts off a slice of fluffy white bread from the loaf at her left and begins to butter it. “I’ve done no such thing!”
“Haven’t you?” Hilda counters rhetorically. “What about the fact that last week we went to the Angel*** rather than go dancing.”
“That was just so we could do something different for a change, Hilda. Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it?”
“Oh, I enjoyed it well enough, but it seemed a bit unusual to break from our usual routine.”
“Frank and I wanted to do something different for a change. We don’t always want to go to the same places.”
“I’m sure you two would have preferred to have been alone and sitting in the back of the Premier in East Ham**** with the other young couples in the dark, rather than sitting with me in the middle seats.”
“I’ll have you know, Hilda Clerkenwell, that I very much wanted to see ‘Bell Boy 13’*****.”
“Mmm…hmmm.” replies Hilda disbelievingly.
“I did, Hilda!” Edith says firmly, feverishly buttering the bread.
“Well, even if that is the case,” Hilda retorts. “It’s high time you and Frank had a Sunday on your own for a change, rather than spend it with me as well. However jolly the outing may be for me, I’m a third wheel.”
“You’re never that, Hilda!” Edith assures her.
Hilda gives her friend a knowing look again before speaking. “You don’t often get to take advantage of Miss Lettice being away for an indefinite period.”
“That’s true, although it comes about through unfortunate circumstances. A relation has been taken ill.”
“Well, unfortunate for her or not, you should take advantage of the fortuitous circumstance it creates for you and enjoy the summer day with Frank.” She runs her finger around the raised edge of the Delftware plate on which a bar of glossy yellow butter sits.
Edith pauses slicing another piece of bread from the loaf and looks at Hilda, whose face is hidden my a mass of brown waves as she hangs her head. “There’s something else going on here.” she says firmly. “I know there is. I have sensed it ever since you arrived. Come on Hilda, spit it out!”
“Well, there is an extra reason why you needn’t worry about me every Sunday.”
Edith drops the bread knife onto the cutting board where it lands with a loud clatter. “You haven’t finally met a nice young man, have you?” she gasps excitedly.
Hilda looks to her friend. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Edith, but no.”
“Oh, I was hoping that chap I saw you chatting to at the bar of the Angel when you bought us a round of drinks might have taken a shine to you.”
“Goodness no!” Hilda laughs loudly. “He was a sailor from Norway. He was only asking me whether I knew of any places he could go for entertainment around there. Once I said I didn’t, he lost interest in me very swiftly.”
“So what is it then?”
“Well,” Hilda says sheepishly. “You mustn’t laugh at me.”
“I’d never laugh at you, Hilda.”
“Well, you know the last time we went to visit Mrs. Minkin’s haberdashery in Whitechapel?”
“Yes, I bought some new black feathers for my straw cloche after the ones on it were damaged on that windy day.” Edith recollects. “But you didn’t buy anything.”
“No, you’re right, I didn’t,” Hilda agrees. “But I did pick up a flyer for a group who knit socks, scarves and balaclavas for the poor in the East End.”
“But you don’t know how to knit!” laughs Edith.
“I knew I shouldn’t have told you!”
“Oh, I’m sorry Hilda,” Edith quickly pipes up, stopping her laughter. “I didn’t mean to laugh.” She covers her mouth as she looks apologetically at her friend. “It is just a surprise is all. I mean, you don’t know how to knit. I tried to teach you, but,” She pauses for a moment to think how to best couch the outcomes without hurting her friend’s feelings any more than she may already have by laughing at the idea of her knitting. “Well, you just never took to it. Did you?”
“Well, I wasn’t really keen to learn then.” Hilda admits. “As I recall, you were the one who thought I should learn, and you were so keen to teach me that I thought I’d have a go at it, but my heart wasn’t really in it.”
“And that’s changed now?”
“Can’t a girl change her mind?”
“Oh of course she can Hilda!” Edith defends. “I’m so happy for you,” she adds. “But I’m intrigued. What was it that changed your mind? What has inspired you to what to learn to knit, since Mrs. Minkin and I couldn’t?”
“I suppose it was looking around me when we go down to the East End. Up here in Mayfair everything is so nice, and there is enough for everyone, but down there, there are children walking about wearing rags. I can’t afford to feed the starving children of the East End, but maybe I can do some good and help knit them some things to help keep them warm.”
“What a lovely idea, Hilda.” Edith says encouragingly. “I’m so proud of you for doing it. I’ve never really thought to do anything like that before.”
“Well, I figured I could learn something new, and it might help fill some of my Sundays, so that way you don’t have to include me in your plans.”
“I hope you know that Frank and I don’t mind having you tag along, Hilda.”
“I know you don’t, because you’re my best friend, and because Frank is a very special and understanding chap.” Hilda replies with a sad smile. “Many other young men wouldn’t be so tolerant.”
“It isn’t about tolerance, for either of us.” Edith defends.
“I know that too, Edith. I’m just stating a fact that there aren’t many young men like Frank out there, which is all the more reason why you should be enjoying at least the occasional Sunday in the pleasure of his company without me. He’s a good man, Edith, and as you know, men in general are hard to come by, so that makes him even more special. Better hang on to him and not let go, Edith.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, I like the sound of joining a group where I can come and go as I like, so I’m not committed to giving up all my free Sundays, so we can still go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais or go to the pictures at the West Ham Premier.” Her smile changes as little from sad to hopeful. “And who knows? I might make some new lady friends and acquaintances who have eligible bachelors who are just waiting for a girl like me who can knit them a scarf, or socks.”
“Or a jumper!” laughs Edith.
“Or a balaclava!” adds Hilda, joining in Edith’s laughing.
“I’m happy for you, Hilda.”
“Well, I had to do something to get me out of the funk I’ve been in lately,” Hilda replies. “So it was join the knitting circle or join the Socialist Party in Bloomsbury.” she adds jokingly.
Edith joins in with her friend’s mischievous laughter.
“By the way, Edith. If there happen to be a few too many sandwiches made, I’ll happily take a few with me to the knitting circle.”
Edith smiles. “I’ll wrap up a few for you in a brown paper bag, Hilda.”
“Thanks ever so, Edith.” Hilda replies gratefully.
*The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.
**A wallflower, as well as being a species of flower is also an informal description of a person, usually a woman or young girl, who has no one to dance with or who feels shy, awkward, or excluded at a party.
***The Angel, one of the oldest Rotherhithe pubs, is now in splendid isolation in front of the remains of Edward III's mansion on the Thames Path at the western edge of Rotherhithe. The site was first used when the Bermondsey Abbey monks used to brew beer which they sold to pilgrims. It is located at 24 Rotherhithe St, opposite Execution Dock in Wapping. It has two storeys, plus an attic. It is built of multi-coloured stock brick with a stucco cornice and blocking course. The ground floor frontage is made of wood. There is an area of segmental arches on the first floor with sash windows, and it is topped by a low pitched slate roof. Its Thames frontage has an unusual weatherboarded gallery on wooden posts. The interior is divided by wooden panels into five small rooms. In the early 20th Century its reputation and location attracted local artists including Augustus John and James Abbott McNeil Whistler. In the 1940s and 50s it became a popular destination for celebrities including Laurel and Hardy. Today its customers are local residents, tourists and people walking the Thames Path.
****The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.
*****’Bell Boy 13’ is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by William A. Seiter, and starring Douglas MacLean, John Steppling, Margaret Loomis, William Courtright, Emily Gerdes, and Eugene Burr. College graduate Harry Elrod (Douglas MacLean) wishes to marry actress Kitty Clyde (Margaret Loomis), but his Uncle Ellrey Elrod (John Steppling) has picked out Angela Fish (Emily Gerdes) as a wife for his nephew. Harry arranges an elopement with Kitty. His uncle's suspicions are aroused and he trails Harry continuously. Miss Fish and her father the Reverend Doctor Wilbur Fish (William Courtright) call. Harry in desperation starts a fire in his room. He is rescued by the fire brigade and then stages a run through the streets in the fire chief's car, intending to catch another train and follow Kitty. He escapes the pursuing firemen, boards the train, and arrives safely at the Philadelphia hotel where Kitty will meet him. There he finds that she has changed her mind, coming to believe that he must have his uncle's consent. He then receives a telegram from his uncle, disowning him. Broke, Harry takes a job as a hotel bell boy. In uniform, he enters where Kitty is dining with Mr. Haskell, her press agent, and sits down, but is dragged away by the indignant hotel manager. Uncle Ellrey comes to the hotel but is shown the wrong room by Harry, so he demands that Harry be fired. The manager, ever ready to make a guest happy, is ready to oblige him, but Harry turns Bolshevist and induces the entire hotel staff to go on strike. The end result is that the uncle is defeated, and Harry wins Kitty.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Edith’s deal table is a panoply of things as she readies her picnic luncheon. The chopping board, butter knife and tomatoes all came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The tomato slices come from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. The loaf of bread is made from polymer clay and looks remarkably realistic. It was made by Polly’s Pantry in America. The bar of butter on the Delftware plate I have had since I was about six. It came under a 1:12 scale silver butter dish I was given as part of a Christmas gift. The knife on the chopping board and the bread knife come from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures Shop in the United Kingdom. The head of lettuce has been made by an unknown artisan and is made of very thinly rolled clay which has had very realistic detailing picked out on its leaves before being painted. I bought it as part of a job lot of 1:12 size miniature artisan food pieces at an auction when I was a teenager. The Deftware plates are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which I acquired from a seller in America through E-Bay.
To the left of the picture you can see the wicker picnic basket that Bert brought home for Edith. In truth it is not Australian made, but was made by an unknown miniature artisan in America. The floral patterns on the top have been hand painted. The hinged lids lift, just like a real hamper, so things can be put inside.
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove on which stand some shiny brass pieces acquired from various online stockists on 1:12 miniatures. The stove would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
On the bench in the background is a toaster: a very modern convenience for a household even in the early 1920s, but essential when there was no longer a kitchen range on which to toast the bread. Although toasters had been readily available since the turn of the century, they were not commonplace in British kitchens until well after the Great War in the late 1930s. Next to the toaster is a biscuit barrel painted in the style of English ceramic artist Clarice Cliff which is a hand painted 1:12 miniature made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. It contains its own selection of miniature hand-made chocolate biscuits! Next to that stands a bread crock. There is also a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Golden Shred orange marmalade still exists today and is a common household brand both in Britain and Australia. It is produced by Robertson’s. Robertson’s Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson’s marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews, although we are still in Mayfair, moving a few streets away to Hill Street, where Edith, Lettice’s maid, is visiting Edith’s friend and fellow maid, Hilda. Hilda works as a live-in maid for Lettice’s married friends Margot and Dickie Channon. It is the first Wednesday of 1924 and Hilda has just returned with her employers after spending Christmas and New Year with them at the Shropshire country estate of Lord and Lady Lancraven, who are friends of the Dickie’s parents, the Marquis and Marchioness of Taunton. It is a cold January day, but the Channon’s kitchen is cosy and homely thanks to the flats hydronic heating coming through the metal radiators and the Roper stove that commands attention in the small space. Hilda and Edith have enjoyed a lunch of toast with choices of different toppings together. Now with the kitchen table cleaned and the dishes in the white enamel sink, Hilda announces with a flourish to Edith that she has made them a special pudding before going to the kitchen drawer and withdrawing some enamel handled kitchen cutlery.
“So how was your Christmas then, Hilda?” Edith asks as she sits back comfortably in her Windsor chair drawn up to the deal kitchen table.
“Well,” Hilda says, pausing with the kitchen cutlery and two starch stiffened napkins in her hand, cocking her head to one side thoughtfully. “It was lovely, but at the same time, it was the most peculiar Christmas I’ve ever had! You and I have never worked in the big country house of an aristocrat before, so I can tell you now from first-hand experience that they do things very differently in them!” She shakes her head, almost in disbelief.
Edith bursts out laughing at her best friend’s statement. “How so, Hilda?”
“Well, you know I wasn’t happy about having to tag along with Mrs. Channon to Lord and Lady Lancraven’s country house, pretending to be her lady’s maid.” When Edith nods, Hilda adds with an edge of scorn in her voice, “I don’t hold with pretending to be something I’m not, even if it is to help Mrs. Channon save face because she’s too poor to have a lady’s maid.”
“Well you said it was the old Marchioness of Taunton’s idea that you were to pose as Mrs. Channon’s lady’s maid, Hilda. It sounds to me like poor Mrs. Channon didn’t have a say in the matter.”
“Exactly Edith! And do I look like a lady’s maid?” Hilda asks rhetorically as she drops the cutlery and napery in her hand on the clean surface of the table with a clatter. “No! All you have to do is look at the way I’m dressed to know that fashion isn’t at the top of my mind, and these fingers,” She holds up her fat, sausage like digits before her. “Well, you know as well as anyone that I’m no needlewoman.”
“But,” counters Edith kindly, toying with the end of one of the napkins. “You are learning to knit, thanks to that group in the East End you joined last year. You told me you’re a dab hand at knitting scarves now.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was a dab hand at it yet,” Hilda replies doubtfully, screwing up her pudgy face. “My tension is a bit unregulated, and I do drop stitches now and then, only to pick them up on the following row.”
“It’s a start at least.” Edith replies with a friendly chuckle. “We all have to start somewhere, Hilda.”
“Well anyway, anyone can tell I’m not a lady’s maid’s bootlace just by looking at me, but I reluctantly agreed to play along, but only out of a sense of duty to poor Mrs. Channon and get her nasty old mother-in-law off her back.”
“And you got to see your sister, and your Mum.” adds Edith, wagging her finger. “Don’t forget that silver lining.”
“Well yes, but that was just by luck, Edith. I don’t think the Marquis and Marchioness accepted the invitation on behalf of themselves and Mr. and Mrs. Channon to Lord and Lady Lancraven’s for Christmas just because Emily is Lady Lancraven’s lady’s maid.”
“No, but at least you got to see them, and you said that Emily fixed things with Lady Lancraven to get your mum up to Shropshire from London.”
“That’s true.”
“So why was Christmas peculiar then, Hilda.” Edith’s eyes light up with excitement. “Tell me everything about being at the Lancraven’s! Was it glamorous? Did you meet anyone famous?”
“Famous? Acting as Mrs. Channon’s lady’s maid below stairs, the closest I came to meeting someone famous was if I met their maid or valet, and they were all a right lot of snobs themselves, let me tell you!” Hilda decries bitterly. “They wouldn’t even give me the time of day if they didn’t have to, and there’s a fact!” Her mouth forms into a thin crease as she nods heavily.
“Oh that is disappointing, Hilda.”
“Not really, Edith.” Hilda shakes her head. “Why would I waste my time talking to people who thought less of me because I’m a cook and maid-of-all-work, rather than a lady’s maid? We all work hard to earn a crust. What does it matter whether it’s cooking and cleaning or sewing and mending?”
“I agree Hilda, but you think about when we worked at Mrs. Plaistow’s. The upper parlour maids snubbed us when in fact what we did as lower house maids wasn’t all that much different than what they did*.”
“Anyway,” Hilda goes on. “What would I have done if I met someone famous?”
“Probably done the same as I would have: stood agog, mouth hanging open like a frog.” giggles Edith.
“Exactly! So, anyway, on the way up to Shropshire, whilst Mr. Channon drove, I sat in the back with Mrs. Channon. She told me that when we arrived at Lord and Lady Lancraven’s, I wouldn’t be called Hilda, or even Miss Clerkenwell whilst we were staying there.”
“What? Whyever not, Hilda?” laughs Edith. “What did they call you then?”
“Channon.”
“Miss Channon?”
“No. Just Channon.”
“Why?”
“Because I was Mrs. Channon’s maid. Emily, being Her Ladyship’s lady’s maid is called Miss Lancraven by all the other household staff and the guests’ servants. Even though we’re sisters, I had to call her Miss Lancraven if anyone else was about and within earshot, which was most of the time. I could only call her Emily on the occasions when we were alone together.”
“How very peculiar!” remarks Edith.
“Well it gets more so, Edith, let me assure you. Mrs. Channon also told me on the drive up that when I arrived at the house, I was to give her jewellery box over to the safekeeping of the Lancraven’s first footman or Butler: whoever was looking after the strong room.”
“The strong room?”
“It’s where rich people in country houses keep their silver and valuables, apparently. I was to hand over Mrs. Channon’s jewellery casket to whoever was in charge of the safe, and retain the key. Each evening I had to go down, ask to retrieve the box and take out what jewels Mrs. Channon wanted to wear to dinner.”
“And why was that so peculiar, Hilda? It sounds reasonable enough to me.”
“Well, because unlike your Miss Lettice, most of Mrs. Channon’s jewels are paste, except for what her father Lord de Virre gave her. Certainly all the pieces given to her by the Marquis and Marchioness of Taunton aren’t real. She told me herself that the real jewels were sold off long ago to pay the family’s debts, and imitation copies were made. So it seems a bit peculiar to lock up a whole lot of paste jewellery in a safe, pretending it’s real.”
“I guess it’s that saving face again, Hilda. The Marquis and Marchioness don’t want to appear like they have no money, and they don’t want Mr. and Mrs. Channon as their heir and daughter-in-law to appear like that either.”
“So when we arrived, Mr. Channon parked the car at the front of the house alongside the other guests’ cars and whilst they went in through the front doors, I had to wait with the car until the Lancravens sent servants out to fetch Mr. and Mrs. Channon’s luggage, and then I had to walk around to the servant’s entrance of the Lancraven’s house carrying my own luggage and Mrs. Channon’s jewellery box, which I did hand over to the rather leering first footman, who winked at me when I did.”
“Ugh!” exclaims Edith. “How presumptuous of him. Tell me, what was the Lancraven’s house like? Was it grand?”
“Was it ever! A big red stone place with lots of gables and chimneys. What I did get to see of above stairs was ever so fine. Thick carpets and antique furniture. Mrs. Lancraven is American, so she had central heating put in, even in the servants’ quarters, and every guest bedroom has its own bathroom.”
“Fancy that!” gasps Edith. “And did you get to share a room with Emily?”
“Well, that was peculiar too, Edith. I thought I would have, just like you and I used to do, back at Mrs. Plaistow’s in Pimlico. But apparently, because Emily is Lady Lancraven’s maid, she doesn’t sleep in the servant’s quarters like I had to. She has her own little room next to Lady Lancraven’s boudoir, just in case Her Ladyship needs something during the night.”
“What could she possibly want?”
“I don’t know. A hot water bottle? A powder, perhaps**? Anyway, as it was, as a visiting maid, I had to share a room with a rather surly and snobby parlour maid, who worked out very quickly that I was no lady’s maid and called me a fraud right to my face.”
“Nasty thing!” decries Edith defensively.
“That’s why I don’t hold with pretending to be something I’m not. You always get caught out in the end if you try.” Hilda wags her finger admonishingly through the air. “I’m sure she spread that news around to all the other servants about who I was and wasn’t, because no-one, other than Emily when she could, wanted to talk to me willingly. At least it meant the Lancraven’s slimy footman in charge of the safe didn’t try and make any advances after that first bout of cheekiness.”
“Well, there’s a silver lining, Hilda.”
“And when we sat down to tea in the middle of the day, which we had to do because the Cook and his staff were too busy preparing dinners for the family upstairs in the evening, we weren’t allowed to sit wherever we wanted.”
“No?”
“No. So I couldn’t sit next to Emily, even though I wanted to. We had to sit in order of precedence in the servants’ hall, women down one side and men down the other,” Hilda pauses before going on. “The slimy first footman sat on the Butler's right, and Emily, as Lady Lancraven’s lady’s maid, sat on his left. As Mr. Channon is the Marquis’ heir, he gets his father’s courtesy title*** so Mrs. Channon is known as Lady Channon, but she is still below her mother-in-law, so I sat between the Marchioness’ lady’s maid and the lady’s maid of a Lady Lancaster.” Hilda steps away from the table and goes over to the meat safe in the corner of the kitchen, where she opens its door.
“And how was that?” Edith asks from her place at the kitchen table.
“Oh it was awful!” replies Hilda matter-of-factly, bending down and retrieving a polished fluted copper mould. “I think they both found it offensive to sit next to the pretending lady’s maid, and they only deigned to speak to me out of a sliver of politeness because they also knew, or had been told, that I was Emily’s younger sister, and they didn’t wish to put her nose out of joint being their hostess’ lady’s maid.”
“Oh Hilda! That sounds positively frightful! Did you have to sit and share your Christmas lunch separated from Emily at that table too?”
“Well, luckily no.” Hilda answers, straightening up and walking back across the room, carefully carrying the mould before gently placing it on the tabletop. “That’s where the lovely starts, although once again it was rather peculiar.”
“Go on then.” Edith encourages her friend.
“As Emily is Lady Lancraven’s lady’s maid, and she does hold some sway with her, she must have said something to Her Ladyship when she found out that I was coming up with Mr. and Mrs. Channon for Christmas and as you know, Lady Lancraven arranged for Mum to come up by the railway from London on Christmas Eve so she could spend Christmas Day with us. So Christmas Eve, we all sat as usual at the big table in the draughty servant’s hall, with Mum down the end after the lowest maids as though she was a nobody, not that she complained of course. I felt so sorry for her, and I know Emily did too, but as Emily pointed out later in the evening when it was just the three of us, we had to follow the protocols of presidence.” Hilda scoffs softly. “However, on Christmas Day the Lancraven’s Houskeeper, Mrs. Hartley, invited Emily, Mum and me to celebrate Christmas privately in her parlour***.”
“Oh that was nice of her to offer you that bit of family privacy, Hilda.”
“Well you’d think so,” Hilda begins, placing her hands on her hips. “Except she stayed in the parlour the entire time, and gave us no privacy at all! ‘Don’t mind me,’ she said as she took her place at the table with us. ‘You won’t even notice I’m here.’”
“But you did?”
“But we did.” Hild rolls her eyes. “She loudly ordered the scullery maid about when she came in to serve, and complained bitterly about the food, apologising to Mum and to me about the ‘poor quality of the Christmas fare’ and how ‘cold it was’.”
“And was it horrible?”
“Good heavens no! It was delicious, and hot!” bursts Hilda. “I don’t know what Mrs. Hartley was complaining about! Lord and Lady Lancraven have a French cook, Monsieur Dupain .”
“Fancy!” Edith replies, pulling a mock serious face.
“Apparently Lady Lancraven’s family in New York had a French cook, or should I say a ‘chef de cuisine’ as Emily quietly corrected me on one of the few occasions over Christmas time when we were on our own. So, what Lady Lancraven had in New York she has to have in England, so she hired Monsieur Dupain. I don’t know what the French eat on Christmas Day, but Monsieur Dupain served us a delicious roast with mint jelly and potatoes, sprouts, cabbage, parsnips and carrots. It was a real English Christmas, Edith, with all the trimmings, as if we were the guests of honour, and not them upstairs.”
“It sounds just as good as the turkey we had on Christmas Day.” Edith remarks.
“Oh how was the turkey received by your family and Frank and his gran?” Hilda enquires.
“They loved it, Hilda! Mum and Dad were tickled pink***** when it arrived, and Frank and Granny McTavish loved it too.” Edith admits.
“Oh, ‘Granny McTavish’ is it now?” Hilda queries with a cocked eyebrow. “Very cosy like.”
“Oh stop it Hilda!” Edith flaps a hand kittenishly at her friend. “She told me I could call her that. In fact she insisted.”
“So Granny McTavish has suitably calmed the waters between your mum and Frank then?” Hilda persists.
“I think so, Hilda. Mum’s really taken a shine to Frank now. She may not agree with all his ideas, but she’s willing to entertain his thoughts, and she says he’s a generous soul. She’s even admitted to being pleased to have him over regularly for Sundy lunch, and she and Dad are both happy that I’m happy.”
“Ahh,” Hilda says knowingly. “So it won’t be long now before I hear from you about a proposal from Frank then, Edith?”
“Oh stop that!” Edith says again as her face flushes with embarrassment. “I mean, we’ve talked about it, but that will be ages away yet. We need to save up some money so we can set up house together, and I won’t be able to work for Miss Lettice any more if I’m married, even if she wants me to.”
“We’ll see.” Hilda looks away from her embarrassed friend and smiles to herself.
“Oh today isn’t about me, Hilda Clerkenwell!” Edith deflects hotly. “Go on with your story about Christmas Day at the Lancraven’s.”
“Well, going back to the food, I actually think it may have been Monsieur Dupain’s head kitchen maid, Dulcie, who cooked our tea, as I’m sure a Frenchman couldn’t cook an English roast the way we had it. I’m sure Monsieur Dupain would have been too busy making fancy things like pheasant pies, roast quail and braised ox hearts for the family and guests above stairs for Christmas tea.”
“Christmas dinner.” Edith gently corrects her friend.
“Tea, dinner, it’s all the same once it ends up in your stomach, Edith.” Hilda counters. “Anyway, Mrs. Hartley never left the table whilst we were having our tea. Perhaps she was frightened that Mum and me would slip a few pieces of silverware into our pockets. She nosed into all our business and we couldn’t have a proper private conversation between the three of us.” Hilda goes on. “Still, at least it was good to be celebrating Christmas away from home for a change. The spectre of Dad still hangs heavily around at home.” She sighs heavily. “Especially at birthdays and Christmas.”
“Even though he’s been gone for…”
“It will be three and a half years in March.” Hilda admits sadly. “Yet I still expect him to burst through the kitchen door on Christmas Day in that old worn Father Christmas outfit and imitation beard – goodness knows where he found them – full of cheer, even though he knew Emily and I were both far to old to believe in Father Christmas anymore. I think it was good for Mum too. As well as not being at home, she didn’t have to peel a potato or wash a dish the whole time she was at Lord and Lady Lancraven’s. For all her nosiness, Mrs. Hartley was most solicitous towards Mum, and she treated her like an honoured guest and wouldn’t let her lift a finger whilst she was staying. I know Mum felt a bit bad about that, but still, Emily told her not to fuss about it.” Hilda smiles. “Now, thinking of honoured guests, that’s why I wanted to have you over here this afternoon: to try this out.” She taps the gleaming copper mould with her fingers.
“I did notice that, and I was wondering why you were serving us jelly here this afternoon when it’s so cold outside, rather than us going out for lunch.” Edith remarks. “Where are Mr. and Mrs. Channon by the way?”
“They’ve gone out settling their accounts with the wine merchant, the butcher and Mrs. Channon’s hat maker with some of the money that wealthier relations gave them for Christmas.” Hilda elucidates. “Anyway, I wanted to try out this jelly mould because this was my Christmas gift from Lady Lancraven.”
“From Lady Lancraven?” Edith gasps.
“Yes!” Hilda admits.
“I thought your mum must have given it you.” Edith admires the gleaming mould on the table before her.
“Well, there’s the thing, Edith. We’d not long finished our tea when there was a soft knocking at the parlour door. When Mrs. Hartley answered it, in came Her Ladyship herself, dressed up in all her Christmas finery like a faerie atop the Christmas tree. She wanted to make sure that Mum had had a pleasant trip up from London, and then explained that as she always gave all her servants Christmas gifts every year, as we were her guests, she had Christmas gifts for us!”
“Really! That’s so generous of her.”
“I know, Edith. So she gave Mum a beautiful lacquered sewing box, and she gave me this copper jelly mould. I suppose Emily would have told her the truth about me being a cook and live-in maid, rather than Mrs. Channon’s lady’s maid.”
“Then let’s see if it works.” Edith remarks, looking hungrily at the upside down mould filled with gleaming jelly.
Hilda takes a gilt edged blue and white platter and places it upside down atop the copper jelly mould, then carefully she flips them both. Taking up a spoon, she taps the mould on the top and around the sides, and then carefully lifts the mould up. With a satisfying slurp, the orange coloured jelly separates from the mould and comes out in a clean fluted dome.
“Perfect!” Hilda sighs with satisfaction, standing back slightly to admire her own handiwork.
“Well, it may have been peculiar to receive a Christmas gift from Lady Lancraven,” Edith remarks. “But as a gift, it produces perfectly formed jelly!”
“Let’s enjoy Lady Lancraven’s generosity then!” Hilda remarks with a cheeky smile, taking a seat in her Windsor chair adjunct to Edith, proffering her an enamel handled spoon.
*It wasn’t uncommon in the class-conscious world before the Second World War for servants to be as snobby as their masters, and a definite hierarchy existed, with deference being paid to the upper house staff by the lower house staff. Cooks would be waited upon by their scullery maids, Butlers by footmen and footmen by hallboys. Servants took pride in working for titled employers, even when these roles were sometimes not as well paid as the same position in the home of a wealthy industrialist or steel magnate. The cache that came with working for old, well established aristocratic families meant that upper house servants from these households often snubbed lower house staff or the staff of nouveau riche families working their way up the social ladder.
**To take a powder is a very old fashioned term, but was often used to by ladies to refer delicately to taking medication of some kind, like a headache powder.
***A Marquis is called “My Lord” by both social equals and commoners. His eldest son also bore his courtesy title, and any of his younger sons were known as “Lord Firstname Surname”, and his daughters, or daughter-in-laws as “Lady Firstname Surname”.
****In class-obsessed times a strict hierarchy existed among servants, with the senior, upper servants known as "the pugs". The home, whether large or small, was run by the housekeeper. Before dinner in the servants’ hall, the upper servants assembled in the housekeeper’s room, which was known as “pug’s parlour”, and walked in for dinner, led by the butler, which was known as the “pug’s parade”. It was also customary for the upper servants to take their pudding, tea and coffee in the “pug's parlour” as well. It was the privilege that went with seniority of position in grander houses.
*****The phrase “tickled pink” is used to denote that someone is expressing delight. The first term, first recorded in 1922, alludes to one's face turning pink with laughter when one is being tickled. The variant, clearly a hyperbole, dates from about 1800.
This cosy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Hilda’s deal table is a delicious looking jelly, almost good enough to eat, made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. It stands on a small plate that came from an online stockist of dollhouse miniatures. Next to it stands a copper jelly mould, also from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The vase of flowers also comes from an online shop on E-Bay. The cutlery came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in England.
The packet of Chivers Jelly Crystals and the packet of gelatine come from Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Great attention to detail has been paid to the labelling, to match it authentically to the real thing. Chivers is an Irish brand of jams and preserves. For a large part of the Twentieth Century Chivers and Sons was Britain's leading preserves manufacturer. Originally market gardeners in Cambridgeshire in 1873 after an exceptional harvest, Stephen Chivers entrepreneurial sons convinced their father to let them make their first batch of jam in a barn off Milton Road, Impington. By 1875 the Victoria Works had been opened next to Histon railway station to improve the manufacture of jam and they produced stone jars containing two, four or six pounds of jam, with glass jars first used in 1885. In around 1885 they had 150 employees. Over the next decade they added marmalade to their offering which allowed them to employ year-round staff, rather than seasonal workers at harvest time. This was followed by their clear dessert jelly (1889), and then lemonade, mincemeat, custard powder, and Christmas puddings. By 1896 the family owned 500 acres of orchards. They began selling their products in cans in 1895, and the rapid growth in demand was overseen by Charles Lack, their chief engineer, who developed the most efficient canning machinery in Europe and by the end of the century Chivers had become one of the largest manufacturers of preserves in the world. He later added a variety of machines for sorting, can making, vacuum-caps and sterilisation that helped retain Chivers' advantage over its rivals well into the Twentieth Century. By the turn of the century the factory was entirely self-sufficient, growing all its own fruit, and supplying its own water and electricity. The factory made its own cans, but also contained a sawmill, blacksmiths, coopers, carpenters, paint shop, builders and basket makers. On the 14th of March 1901 the company was registered as S. Chivers and Sons. By 1939 there were over 3,000 full-time employees, with offices in East Anglia as well as additional factories in Montrose, Newry and Huntingdon, and the company owned almost 8,000 acres of farms. The company's farms were each run independently, and grew cereal and raised pedigree livestock as well as the fruit for which they were known.
Hilda’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 pieces.
In the background you can see a very modern dresser stacked with a panoply of kitchen items. Including a bread crock, cannisters and a toast rack that came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop.
Quality prints, greeting cards and more can be purchased at >> kaye-menner.artistwebsites.com/featured/old-iron-stove-ov...
Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.
The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.
The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.
The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.
The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.
The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.
The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.
Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.
Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.
Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.
Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.
A glass-ceramic cooktop makes for a nice subject on a rainy day! A bit hot, so the camera got a tad warm on the front, but not too much with my trusty 50 mm lens!
Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.
The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.
The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.
The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.
The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.
The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.
The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.
Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.
Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.
Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.
Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.
Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.
The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.
The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.
The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.
The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.
The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.
The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.
Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.
Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.
Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.
Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.
Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.
The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.
The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.
The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.
The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.
The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.
The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.
Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.
Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.
Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.
Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.
Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.
The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.
The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.
The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.
The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.
The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.
The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.
Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.
Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.
Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.
Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.
Located at the end of a sleepy little cul-de-sac in the leafy north east Melburnian suburb of Fairy Hills is a beautiful pebbledash Arts and Crafts style bungalow. Quiet and unassuming amid its well kept gardens, this bungalow is quite significant historically as it is the creation and home of nationally renowned husband and wife artists Christian and Napier Waller, and is known as the Waller House. Together they designed the house and much of its interior decoration and furnishings. Napier Waller lived in their purpose designed home for some fifty years. What is especially significant about the house is that both it and its contents are quite intact. Napier Waller's studios, examples of his art, that of his two wives and his niece, famous studio potter Klytie Pate, and items connected with his work remain exactly as he left them. Architecturally the house design is innovative in its internal use of space, specifically in the organisation of the studio cum living room and displays a high degree of artistic creativity in the interior decoration.
The Waller House in Fairy Hills is so named because it was the residence of Mervyn Napier Waller, the acclaimed artist who gained National fame from his water colours, stained glass, mosaic works and murals and his wife Christian, who was a distinguished artist and designer of stained glass in her own right. In particular Napier Waller's works adorn the Melbourne Town Hall, the Myer Emporium Mural Hall, the Victorian State Library and the Australian War Memorial. The Waller House is a split level house designed by Napier and his first wife Christian who intended the house to be both a home and a workplace. For this the design was conceived to accommodate the tall studies and pieces of the artist's work.
The Waller house was built by Phillip Millsom in 1922 and the architectural style of the house is a mixture of Interwar Arts and Crafts, Interwar Old English and Interwar California Bungalow. The house is constructed from reinforced concrete walls with a rough cast pebbledash finish. The roof is steeply pitched with a prominent half timbered gable over the front entrance and has Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. There are small paned casement windows. There have been several additions to the original design over the years but these have all been sympathetic to the original design.
The house is entered from a two sided verandah into an entrance hall, panelled in Tasmanian wood. This has stairs leading to the different levels of the house interior. In one direction the hall leads to a main living hall which was Napier Waller's original studio and later used as the main living room in the house. This room has a high ceiling with casement windows, a musicians’ gallery and a broad brick fireplace flanked by fire-dogs and bellows made by the sculptress Ola Cohn (1892 – 1964). Like many of the other rooms in the house the studio is panelled and floored with Tasmanian hardwood and contains some of the studies for Napier Waller's murals: “The Five Lamps of Learning; the Wise and Foolish Virgins” a mosaic for the University of Western Australia and, “Peace After Victory” a study painting for the State Library of Victoria. Above the panelling the plaster walls are painted in muted colours in wood grain effect. The raftered plaster ceiling has been painted in marble effect with gold leaf. Book shelves, still containing the Wallers’ beautiful books, are built into the panelled walls. Furniture in the room includes a settee with a painted back panel featuring jousting knights, painted by Christian Waller, a leather suite and black bean sideboards and cupboards. This furniture was designed in the nineteen thirties by Napier Waller and by Percy Meldrum and a noted cabinet maker called Goulman. The studio cum hall also contains many ceramic works created by studio potter Klytie Pate who was Christian Waller’s niece and protégée. The entrance hall leads in the other direction to a guest room, known as the “Blue Room”. This was the idea of Napier's wife Christian and has simple built-in glass topped furniture and Napier's murals of the “Labours of Hercules” which include a self portrait of the artist. An alcove section of the room was constructed out of an extension to the verandah. Stairs lead from the entrance hall to the musicians’ gallery which has a window and overlooks the studio cum living room. The kitchen near the studio/hall is panelled and raftered with built-in cupboards conforming to the panelling. The ceiling is stencilled in a fleur-de-lys design by Napier. The dining room lies to the right of the studio cum hall and contains shoulder high panelling and raftered ceilings. It has an angled brick corner fireplace and the walls and ceiling have the same painted treatment as the studio cum living room. The oak dining furniture was designed by Napier. A small den with high window, furnished with leather chairs, opens off the dining room. Opening off the hall to the left is a long rectangular room known as the glass studio. This was added to the house by builder C. Trinck of Hampton in about 1931 and contains Napier Waller's kiln, paintbrushes and stained-glass tools on the benches, and stained glass designs and racks which are still stacked with radiant streaked glass from his work with stained glass windows. A bedroom and bathroom with attic pitched rafter ceiling and casement windows is situated on the upper level of the house. Another bedroom in ship's cabin style with flared wall light fittings and built in bunks opens off this first bedroom.
The house backs onto a courtyard enclosed by a long bluestone garden wall. The house is set in a three and a half acre site with cypress hedges and gravelled paths. The garden drops away to a hillside slope with manna gum trees. Set on the slope is a flat roofed studio built in 1937. It has an undercroft beneath a studio room and this contains a lithographic press and a printing press of 1849 for woodcuts and linocuts. This was used by Napier and his first wife Christian to produce prints in the 1930s. Napier was widowed and married his stained glass studio assistant Lorna Reyburn in 1958.
The Waller House has recently become famous for yet another reason. The exterior has been used as a backdrop in the ABC/ITV co-production television series, “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (2013). The house serves as the residence of the program’s lead character, Doctor Lucien Blake (played by Australian actor Craig McLachlan), and the doctor’s 1930s tourer is often seen driving up to or away from the Waller House throughout the series. The Waller House is the only regular backdrop not filmed in the provincial Victorian gold rush city of Ballarat, in which the series is based.
The Waller House is still a private residence, even though it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Napier Waller under the proviso that it would not revert to state ownership until after the death of his second wife, Lorna. The current leasee of the Waller House is a well known Melbourne antique dealer, who was friends with Lorna Reyburn, and who acts as a loving informal caretaker. He was approached by the Napier Waller Committee of Management and keeps the house neat and tidy, and maintains the garden beautifully. I am very grateful to him for his willingness to open the Waller House, and for allowing me the opportunity to comprehensively photograph this rarely seen gem of Melbourne art, architecture and history.
Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was an Australian artist. Born in Penshurst, Victoria, Napier was the son of William Waller, contractor, and his wife Sarah, née Napier. Educated locally until aged 14, he then worked on his father's farm. In 1913 he began studies at the National Gallery schools, Melbourne, and first exhibited water-colours and drawings at the Victorian Artists' Society in 1915. On 31 August of that year he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and on 21 October at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, married Christian Yandell, a fellow student and artist from Castlemaine. Serving in France from the end of 1916, Waller was seriously wounded in action, and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. Whilst convalescing in France and England Napier learned to write and draw with his left hand. After coming home to Australia he exhibited a series of war sketches in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart between 1918 and 1919 which helped to establish his reputation as a talented artist. Napier continued to paint in water-colour, taking his subjects from mythology and classical legend, but exhibited a group of linocuts in 1923. In 1927 Napier completed his first major mural for the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne. Next year his mural 'Peace after Victory' was installed in the State Library of Victoria. Visiting England and Europe in 1929 to study stained glass, the Wallers travelled in Italy where Napier was deeply impressed by the mosaics in Ravenna and studied mosaic in Venice. He returned to Melbourne in March 1930 and began to work almost exclusively in stained glass and mosaic. In 1931 he completed a great monumental mosaic for the University of Western Australia; two important commissions in Melbourne followed: the mosaic façade for Newspaper House (completed 1933) and murals for the dining hall in the Myer Emporium (completed 1935). During this time he also worked on a number of stained-glass commissions, some in collaboration with his wife, Christian. Between 1939 and 1945 he worked as an illustrator and undertook no major commissions. In 1946 he finished a three-lancet window commemorating the New Guinea martyrs for St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill. In 1952-58 he designed and completed the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. On 25 January 1958 in a civil ceremony in Melbourne Waller had married Lorna Marion Reyburn, a New Zealand-born artist who had long been his assistant in stained glass.
Christian Waller (1894 – 1954) was an Australian artist. Born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Christian was the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children of William Edward Yandell a Victorian-born plasterer, and his wife Emily, née James, who came from England. Christian began her art studies in 1905 under Carl Steiner at the Castlemaine School of Mines. The family moved in 1910 to Melbourne where Christian attended the National Gallery schools. She studied under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, won several student prizes, exhibited (1913-22) with the Victorian Artists Society and illustrated publications. On 21 October 1915 at the manse of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Carlton, she married her former fellow-student Mervyn Napier Waller; they were childless, but adopted Christian’s niece Klytie Pate, in all but a legal sense. During the 1920s Christian Waller became a leading book illustrator, winning acclaim as the first Australian artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland (1924). Her work reflected Classical, Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau influences. She also produced woodcuts and linocuts, including fine bookplates. From about 1928 she designed stained-glass windows. The Wallers travelled to London in 1929 to investigate the manufacture of stained glass at Whall & Whall Ltd's premises. Returning to Australia via Italy, they studied the mosaics at Ravenna and Venice. Christian signed and exhibited her work under her maiden name until 1930, but thereafter used her married name. In the 1930s Waller produced her finest prints, book designs and stained glass, her work being more Art Deco in style and showing her interest in theosophy. She created stained-glass windows for a number of churches—especially for those designed by Louis Williams—in Melbourne, Geelong, and rural centres in New South Wales. Sometimes she collaborated with her husband, both being recognized as among Australia's leading stained-glass artists. Estranged from Napier, Christian went to New York in 1939. In 1940 she returned to the home she shared with her husband in Fairy Hills where she immersed herself in her work and became increasingly reclusive. In 1942 she painted a large mural for Christ Church, Geelong; by 1948 she had completed more than fifty stained-glass windows.
Klytie Pate (1912 – 2010) was an Australian Studio Potter who emerged as an innovator in the use of unusual glazes and the extensive incising, piercing and ornamentation of earthenware pottery. She was one of a small group of Melbourne art potters which included Marguerite Mahood and Reg Preston who were pioneers in the 1930‘s of ceramic art nationwide. Her early work was strongly influenced by her aunt, the artist and printmaker, Christian Waller. Klytie’s father remarried when she was 13, so Klytie went to live with her aunt, Christian Waller. Christian and her husband Napier Waller encouraged her interest in art and printmaking. She spent time at their studio in Fairy Hills, and thus her work reflected Art Deco, Art Nouveau, the Pre Raphaelites, Egyptian art, Greek mythology, and Theosophy. Klytie made several plaster masks that were displayed by the Wallers in their home and experimented with linocut, a medium used by Christian in her printmaking. Her aunt further encouraged Klytie by arranging for her to study modelling under Ola Cohn, the Melbourne sculptor. Klytie became renowned for her high quality, geometric Art Deco designed pottery which is eagerly sought after today by museums, art galleries, collectors and auction houses.
Fairy Hills is a small north eastern suburb of Melbourne. Leafy, with streets lined with banks of agapanthus, it is an area well known for its exclusivity, affluence and artistic connections. It was designed along the lines of London’s garden suburbs, such as Hampstead and Highgate, where houses and gardens blended together to create an informal, village like feel. Many of Fairy Hills’ houses have been designed by well known architects of the early Twentieth Century such as Walter Burley Griffin (1876 – 1937) and have gardens landscaped by designers like Edna Walling (1895 – 1973). Fairy Hills is the result of a subdivision of an 1840s farm called “Fairy Hills” which was commenced in the years just before the First World War (1914 – 1918). “Lucerne Farm”, a late 1830s farm associated with Governor La Trobe, was also nearby.
It was early Saturday morning. I was making my girls pancakes. The first one was in the pan. I set down the bowl on the burner shown, not realizing I hadn't turned it off after I used it to melt some butter. I smelled the burning plastic almost immediately, but it took me a moment to realize what was happening. Once I did, I grabbed the bowl, picked it up, leaving burner shaped curved holes in the bottom, pouring batter all over the stove, cupboards and floor. I stood for far longer than I should have, batter pouring out, trying to figure out what to do.
Because I'm a great father, I made another bowl of batter so my girls could have the pancakes I'd promised.
May 12, 2019 - Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio located at 951 Chicago Ave., Oak Park, IL.
"In 1889 Wright completed the construction of a small two-story residence in Oak Park on the Western edges of Chicago. The building was the first over which Wright exerted complete artistic control. Designed as a home for his family, the Oak Park residence was a site of experimentation for the young architect during the twenty-year period he lived there. Wright revised the design of the building multiple times, continually refining ideas that would shape his work for decades to come.
The semi-rural village of Oak Park, where Wright built his home, offered a retreat from the hurried pace of city life. Named “Saint’s Rest” for its abundance of churches, Oak Park was originally settled in the 1830s by pioneering East Coast families. In its early years farming was the principal business of the village, however its proximity to Chicago soon attracted professional men and their families. Along its unpaved dirt streets sheltered by mature oaks and elms, prosperous families erected elaborate homes. Beyond the borders of the village farmland and open prairie stretched as far as the eye could see.
The Oak Park Home was the product of the nineteenth century culture from which Wright emerged. For its design, Wright drew upon many inspirational sources prevalent in the waning years of the nineteenth century. From his family background in Unitarianism Wright absorbed the ideas of the Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who encouraged an honest life inspired by nature. The English Arts and Crafts movement, which promoted craftsmanship, simplicity and integrity in art, architecture and design, provided a powerful impetus to Wright’s principles. The household art movement, a distinct movement in middle-class home decoration, informed Wright’s earliest interiors. It aimed, as the name implies, to bring art into the home, and was primarily disseminated through books and articles written by tastemakers who believed that the home interior could exert moral influences upon its inhabitants. These various sources were tempered by the lessons and practices Wright learned under his mentors, Joseph Lyman Silsbee and Louis Sullivan.
For the exterior of his home, Wright adapted the picturesque Shingle style, fashionable for the vacation homes of wealthy East Coast families and favored by his previous employer, Silsbee. The stamp of Sullivan’s influence is apparent in the simplification and abstraction of the building and its plan. In contrast to what Wright described as “candle-snuffer roofs, turnip domes [and] corkscrew spires” of the surrounding houses, his home’s façade is defined by bold geometric shapes—a substantial triangular gable set upon a rectangular base, polygonal window bays, and the circular wall of the wide veranda.
Despite its modest scale, the interior of the home is an early indication of Wright’s desire to liberate space. On the ground floor Wright created a suite of rooms arranged around a central hearth and inglenook, a common feature of the Shingle style. The rooms flow together, connected by wide, open doorways hung with portieres that can be drawn for privacy. To compensate for the modest scale of the house, and to create an inspiring environment for his family, Wright incorporated artwork and objects that brought warmth and richness to the interiors. Unique furniture, Oriental rugs, potted palms, statues, paintings and Japanese prints filled the rooms, infusing them with a sense of the foreign, the exotic and the antique.
In 1895, to accommodate his growing family, Wright undertook his first major renovation of the Home. A new dining room and children’s playroom doubled the floor space. The design innovations pioneered by Wright at this time marked a significant development in the evolution of his style, bringing him closer to his ideal for the new American home.
The original dining room was converted into a study, and a new dining room replaced the former kitchen. The dining room is unified around a central oak table lit through a decorative panel above and with an alcove of leaded glass windows in patterns of conventionalized lotus flowers. The walls and ceiling are covered with honey-toned burlap; the floor and fireplace are lined with red terracotta tile.
The new dining room is a warm and intimate space to gather with family and friends. The Wrights entertained frequently, and were joined at their table by clients, artists, authors and international visitors. Such festive occasions, according to Wright’s son, John, gave the house the air of a “jolly carnival.”
The 1895 playroom on the second floor of the Home is one of the great spaces of Wright’s early career. Designed to inspire and nurture his six children, the room is a physical expression of Wright’s belief that, “For the same reason that we teach our children to speak the truth, or better still live the truth, their environment ought to be as truly beautiful as we are capable of making it.” Architectural details pioneered by Wright in this room would be developed and enhanced in numerous commissions throughout his career.
The high, barrel-vaulted ceiling rests on walls of Roman brick. At the center of the vault’s arc a skylight, shielded by wood grilles displaying stylized blossoms and seedpods, provides illumination. Striking cantilevered light fixtures of oak and glass, added after Wright’s 1905 trip to Japan, bathe the room in a warm ambient glow. On either side of the room, window bays of leaded glass with built-in window seats are at the height of the mature trees that surround the lot, placing Wright’s children in the leafy canopy of the trees outside.
Above the fireplace of Roman brick, a mural depicting the story of the Fisherman and the Genie from The Arabian Nights is painted on the plastered wall. An integral architectural feature within the room, the mural was designed by Wright and executed by his colleague, the artist Charles Corwin. It is a fascinating blend of decorative motifs; forms from exotic cultures—such as Egyptian winged scarabs—are combined with flat, geometric designs that echo the work of Wright’s international contemporaries, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Vienna Secessionists.
In 1898 Wright built a new Studio wing with funds secured through a commission with the Luxfer Prism Company. The Studio faced Chicago Avenue and was connected to his residence by a corridor. Clad in wood shingles and brick, the Studio exterior is consistent with the earlier home. However, the long, horizontal profile, a key feature of Wright’s mature Prairie buildings, sets it apart. Adjacent to the entrance, a stone plaque announces to the world, “Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.” Decorative embellishments and figural sculptures set off the building’s artistic character and impressed arriving clients.
The reception hall serves as the entrance to the Studio. A waiting room for clients and a place for Wright to review architectural plans with contractors, this low-ceilinged space connects the main areas of the Studio—a library, a small office, and the dramatic two-story drafting room, the creative heart of the building.
The studio staff worked on drafting tables and stools designed by Wright in rooms decorated with eclectic displays of artwork and objects. Japanese prints, casts of classical sculptures, as well as models and drawings executed in the drafting room, filled the interiors of the Studio. In Wright’s home the integration of art and architecture served to nurture and intellectually sustain his family. In the Studio, these same elements served a further purpose, the marketing of Wright’s artistic identity to his clients and the public at large.
In September of 1909, Wright left America for Europe to work on the publication of a substantial monograph of his buildings and projects, the majority of which had been designed in his Oak Park Studio. The result was the Wasmuth Portfolio (Berlin, 1910), which introduced Wright's work to Europe and influenced a generation of international architects. Wright remained abroad for a year, returning to Oak Park in the fall of 1910. He immediately began plans for a new home and studio, Taliesin, which he would build in the verdant hills of Spring Green, Wisconsin. Wright’s Oak Park Studio closed in 1910, though Wright himself returned occasionally to meet with his wife Catherine who remained with the couple's youngest children at the Oak Park Home and Studio until 1918. The Home and Studio was the birthplace of Wright's vision for a new American architecture. Wright designed over 150 projects in his Oak Park Studio, establishing his legacy as a great and visionary architect.
Previous text from the following website: flwright.org/researchexplore/homeandstudio
A Natural Pairing, or,
Home, Home on the Range
In the days before indoor, pressurized plumbing and water heaters, it was common to draw water from the well and heat some of it on the oil-, coal- or wood-fired kitchen range or stove. Nor was it unusual, in those days of outdoor privies, to convert the kitchen into a makeshift 'bath room' by moving a large, galvanized steel tub inside to perform one's weekly ablutions. The farm family would keep the tub itself in the barn or other outbuilding, and the basin would do multiple duties in other functions.
Here we see a nice set of nested zinc-galvanized bathtubs -- one obviously toddler-sized; bassinettes being an urban phenomenon in the early 20th Century -- in front of a domestic kitchen scene. The cast-iron 'pot-belly' stove would act as a space heater, although it could also heat a large, single pot or fry pan. It could also bake, after a fashion, if the cook used a Dutch oven, although these smaller units were not frequently called upon for culinary use. The white range is also a wood stove, a rather elegant one at that; most wood ranges were bare steel coated with blacking. This one is white enamel with speckled gray highlights intended to simulate soapstone, a material known for its heat retaining properties. A stove equipped with real soapstone would continue to radiate heat long after the fire had gone out.
Just left of center against the wall is a flour safe or hopper. Since going to the store was an infrequent event, people did most of the baking at home, and the flour safe would hold ten pounds (4.5 Kg) or more of wheat flour. Some kitchens had flour hoppers built into the cabinetry. Far right is the faithful 'Hotpoint' refrigerator. This looks like a real bruiser; for a large farm family of the late 1950s.