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

 

Today however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is visiting her family home for Christmas and has stayed on to celebrate New Year’s Eve with them as well. Lettice is nursing a broken heart. Lettice’s beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, had organised a romantic dinner at the Savoy* for he and Lettice to celebrate his birthday. However, when Lettice arrived, she was confronted not with the smiling face of her beau, but the haughty and cruel spectre of his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia. Lady Zinnia, and Selwyn’s Uncle Bertrand had been attempting to marry him off to his cousin, 1923 debutante Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lady Zinnia had, up until that moment been snubbing Lettice, so Selwyn and Lettice arranged for Lettice to attend as many London Season events as possible where Selwyn and Pamela were also in attendance so that Lettice and Selwyn could spend time together, and at the same time make their intentions so well known that Lady Zinnia wouldn’t be able to avoid Lettice any longer. Zinnia is a woman who likes intrigue and revenge, and the revenge she launched upon Lettice that evening at the Savoy was bitterly harsh and painful. With a cold and calculating smile Lady Zinna announced that she had packed Selwyn off to Durban in South Africa for a year. She made a pact with her son: if he went away for a year, a year during which he agreed neither to see, nor correspond with Lettice, if he comes back and doesn’t feel the same way about her as he did when he left, he agreed that he will marry Pamela, just as Bertrand and Lady Zinnia planned. If however, he still feels the same way about Lettice when he returns, Lady Zinnia agreed that she would concede and will allow him to marry her.

 

Leaving London by train that very evening, Lettice returned home to Glynes, where she stayed for a week, moving numbly about the familiar rooms of the grand Georgian country house, reading books from her father’s library distractedly to pass the time, whilst her father fed her, her favourite Scottish shortbreads in a vain effort to cheer her up. However, rather than assuage her broken heart, her father’s ministrations only served to make matters worse as she grew even more morose. It was from the most unlikely of candidates, her mother Lady Sadie, with whom Lettice has always had a fraught relationship, that Lettice received the best advice, which was to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with her life: keep designing interiors, keep shopping and most importantly, keep attending social functions where there are plenty of press photographers. “You may not be permitted to write to Selwyn,” Lady Sadie said wisely. ‘But Zinnia said nothing about the newspapers not writing about your plight or your feelings on your behest. Let them tell Selwyn that you still love him and are waiting for him. They get the London papers in Durban just as much as they get them here, and Zinnia won’t be able to stop a lovesick and homesick young man flipping to the society pages as he seeks solace in the faces of familiar names and faces, and thus seeing you and reading your words of commitment to him that you share through the newspaper men. Tell them that you are waiting patiently for Selwyn’s return.”

 

Since then, Lettice has been trying to follow her mother’s advice and has thrown herself into the merry dance of London’s social round of dinners, dances and balls in the lead up to the festive season. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and has been welcomed home with open and loving arms by her family for Christmas and the New Year.

 

It is New Year’s Eve 1923 and Lord Wrexham and Lady Sadie are hosting a lavish dinner party in the Georgian Glynes dining room. The grand room is cosy and warm with a roaring fire blazing in the white marble fireplace decorated with garlands of greenery and red satin bows decorated with golden baubles. Lady Sadie has taken some of the best red and white roses from the Glynes hothouses and filled vases with them around the room, giving the entire room a very festive appearance. Their sweet fragrance fills the air, a constant that intermixes with the aromas of each of the eight courses of the New Year dinner prepared in the Glynes kitchen by the Chetwynd’s cook, Mrs, Carsterton and her staff. The Chippendale dining table has been extended by an extra two leaves to allow for additional guests, and under the glow of the crystal chandelier above and candelabras along the table, glassware, gilt edged crockery and silver flatware gleam in the golden light.

 

The room is filled with vociferous conversation and laughter as the guests sit around the table, the formality of Lord Wrexham and Lady Sadie at either end as prescribed in the etiquette required of grander dinners, replaced with the informality of a family dinner, with the guests sitting wherever they please, although the Viscount still presides from his favourite carver at the head of the table. Joining them, in addition to Lettice, are the Chetwynd’s eldest son and heir, Leslie, his wife Arabella, her mother, the now widowed Lady Isobel, and Arabella’s elder brother and best friend to Leslie, Nigel, the newly minted Lord Tyrwhitt. Also, at the table sits Lettice’s elder sister Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally) and her husband Charles Lanchenbury. Joining them at the Glynes dining table are the Brutons, whose estate adjoins the Glynes Estate: Lord Bruton, Lady Gweneth, their eldest son Roland, and Lettice’s best childhood chum, their second son Gerald, who like Lettice has moved to London, and designs gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. Finally to make up the numbers at the table is the Viscount’s younger bohemian artistic sister, Eglantyne (affectionately known as Aunt Egg by her nieces and nephews).

 

Bramley, the Chetwynd’s faithful butler, assisted by Moira, one of the head parlour maids who has taken to assisting wait table at breakfast, luncheon and on informal occasions since the war, serve the third course of the evening: beautifully cooked moist roast beef with roasted potatoes, pumpkin, boiled carrots and peas. They serve the beef course, moving adeptly between the guests, who in spite of it being an informal occasion, are still dressed in full evening wear with the men in dinner jackets and white waistcoats and women a-glitter with jewels over their gowns.

 

“You know, Tice” Lally remarks to Lettice as she accepts the white gilt edged gravy boat of Mrs. Carsterton’s thick dark gravy from Lettice. “I don’t think Pappa and Mamma have thrown a New Year’s Eve dinner party since 1919.”

 

“Oh no, they did Lally,” corrects her sister kindly as she picks up her knife and fork. “It’s just you weren’t here.”

 

“When?” Lally asks, unable to keep the slight tone of offense out of her question as she drizzles gravy over her roast beef and vegetables.

 

“Two years ago,” her sister clarifies. “But you and Charles were at another party on New Year’s Eve 1921. It was much smaller too, with only Lord and Lady Bruton, Gerald and I in attendance.”

 

“Pardon me for overhearing,” Charles, Lally’s husband pipes up from his seat to the right of his wife, leaning in slightly as he speaks, champagne glass in hand. “But that was the year Father opened up Lanchenbury House for New Year for that rather… ahem!” He clears his throat awkwardly as he contemplates the correct word to use. “Artistic ball. Remember Lally?”

 

“Oh that’s right. Lord Lanchenbury threw a party in 1921. One of his rare moments largesse.” Lally remembers.

 

“Indeed yes.” her husband concurs with a scornful scoff. “Very rare.” He then returns his attention to Lettice and Lally’s Aunt Egg to his right.

 

“It was too good an opportunity for Charles and I to miss,” Lally goes on. “With him throwing open the doors of Lanchenbury house.” She muses, “I have to take my hat off to my father-in-law: it really was a rather marvellous party, full of interesting and artistic people. I’m quite sure Aunt Egg would have loved it.”

 

“Lord Lanchenbury never struck me as the artistic type, Lally.” Lettice remarks in surprise, cutting into her slice of roasted beef. “What with his serious nature, those glowering looks of his he gives us at any sign of perceived levity, and those old fashioned Victorian mutton chops of his*.”

 

“Oh he isn’t.” Lally replies assuredly picking up her own cutlery. “I think most of them were the friends of his Gaiety Girl** paramour of the moment, and her hangers-on, and their hangers on again. It really was quite bohemian.” Lally smiles as her sister suddenly blushes over her roast beef course.

 

“Lally!” Lettice gasps, glancing anxiously first at their father sitting next to her at the head of the table and then through the sparkling icicle crystal pendalogues*** of the candelabra in front of her and looks warily at their mother. Fortunately the Viscount is too busy greedily dissecting the slice of roast beef with fervour on the plate before him, and thankfully Lady Sadie seems to be engrossed in conversation with Leslie. “Really!”

 

“What?” queries her sibling with a peal of laughter. “Don’t tell me that I’ve shocked you again, Tice, with talk of my father-in-law’s penchant for a little paid companionship?”

 

“Well no.” lettice gulps. “But,” she adds, lowering her voice. “At the dinner table, Lally? In front of…” She eyes her parents. “Really? I’d hate for Pater or Mater to hear.”

 

“Oh Pater is too deaf, and Mater too self-absorbed in her own conversation.” Lally assures her sister.

 

As if on cue, her father pipes up gruffly, “What’s that Lally?”

 

Always quick with a smooth honeyed reply, Lettice’s elder sister answers, “I was just saying how good it is of you to throw a dinner party for all of us on New Year’s Eve, Pappa.”

 

“Of course it’s good of me.” her father mutters in self-satisfied reply. “Still, what’s the point of having a big, rambling old house like this if I can’t occasionally fill it with noise, laughter and Bright Young People**** according to my whims?” He reaches out his right hand and lovingly wraps it around his youngest daughter’s left hand as she lets go of her silver fork. “Eh?” He smiles beatifically at Lettice.

 

“Thank you, Pappa.” Lettice mutters as he lets go of her hand and she retrieves her fork from where it leans against the ruffled gilt edged rim of her plate. “It’s very kind of you.”

 

“Well, after the year we’ve all had, what with poor Sherbourne being gone, I felt it was important to bring us all together as a family.” He smiles at Lettice meaningfully again before resuming the dissection of his roast beef.

 

Lally looks ponderingly first at her sister, then her father and then back at her sister again. She waits a moment or two before asking in a whisper into her sister’s diamond earring bejewelled ear, “What was that all about, Tice?”

 

“I think Pater has an ulterior motive for hosting tonight, beyond the superficial idea of gathering us all together in the wake of Uncle Sherbourne’s death.” Lettice whispers in reply.

 

“Really?” Lally asks. “Do go on.”

 

“I think he also wanted to throw it for me, you see,” Lettice elucidates quietly. “To cheer me up. He paid me so much attention when I came home to Glynes after finding out what Lady Zinnia did with Selwyn to break our association.”

 

“Ahh.” Lally remarks, placing a morsel of beef and roast potato mixed with gravy on her tongue. She chews for a few moments, contemplating, before swallowing and continuing, “Well that makes sense. It’s very good of him to do it for you. Then again, you always were his favourite.”

 

“Lally!”

 

“It’s true, Tice,” Lally replies with a shrug of her shoulders. “But I bear no grudge. I was Granny Chetwynd’s favourite. We all have our favourites in life, even if it is prescribed that we aren’t supposed to.”

 

“Well, there was never any love lost between Granny Chetwynd and I. She was always so mean to me, whilst she doted on you, Lally. I think you could have spilt the contents of the whole gravy boat into the lap of a dress she bought you, and she would fuss over you.” Lettice declares. “Whereas if I spilt so much as a drop outside the rim of my plate, she’d loudly threaten to send me back to the nursery for the transgression.”

 

“Yes, I remember that, Tice. She could be horribly cutting with that acerbic tongue.”

 

“What do you mean by it being prescribed that we shouldn’t have favourites, Lally?”

 

“Oh well, as a parent, I’m constantly reminded by my friends not to have a favourite child.”

 

“But you do?” Lettice ventures gently.

 

“Of course, my dear! As my first born, and thankfully heir to appease Lord Lanchenbury, Harrold is my favourite.” A peal of joyful laughter erupts from her lips. “Surely you knew that, Tice.”

 

“No, I didn’t suspect that at all.”

 

“Well, it all evens out,” Lally replies, popping another mouthful of roast into her mouth, before continuing after swallowing, “Because Annabelle is her father’s favourite without question. Isn’t that right, my dear?” She addresses the question to her husband as she nudges him in the ribs with her elbow to get his attention.

 

“What’s that, my love?” Charles asks, leaning over to his wife.

 

“I was just telling Tice that Harrold is my favourite and Annabelle is yours, Charles.”

 

He looks almost apologetically across at Lettice. “I’m afraid it’s true, Tice. I can’t help but have a soft spot for her.”

 

Lettice laughs at her brother-in-law’s face as it softens with love for his daughter. “Whatever will you do, now that you have a third child?” She takes a sip of sparkling champagne.

 

“Oh don’t worry,” Lally pipes up. “Whilst he’s a baby, Tarquin is Nanny’s new favourite, so it all works out rather splendidly.”

 

“Quite splendidly.” agrees Charles. “And who knows, perhaps once he has formed into a forthright young man, he may even please my father enough to become his favourite.”

 

“Now let’s not wish that upon the poor baby.” Lally protests with a laugh.

 

Lettice takes a morsel of roasted potato and allows the delicious flavour to fill her mouth as she looks around her.

 

Her father sits happily at the head of the table in his favourite carver chair, enjoying playing host for his family and extended family, the pleasure clear on his face as he takes a mouthful of roast and washes it down with some red wine from his glass. To the Viscount’s left, Lady Sadie sits, dressed in a fine silk chiné gown of pastel pinks, blues and lilacs, a glass of champagne held daintily to her lips, ropes of pearls gracing her throat and tumbling down her front, as she listens to her favourite child, Leslie. Leslie in turn, the golden child, both figuratively and literally with his sandy blonde Chetwynd hair like Lettice’s, glows in the attention of his mother’s thrall as he talks about his plans for the Glynes estate for 1924.

 

To his left, Leslie’s wife, Arabella focusses upon her own mother, Lady Isobel, next to her. The recent death of Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt has left its mark upon Arabella and Lady Isobel. Both seem somewhat diminished as they lean their heads together, Arabella’s raven waves held with diamond clips at odds to her mother’s white ones, pinned up with pearls and gold. Lettice wonders how soon it will be before Arabella announces that she is pregnant. She knows her parents are most anxious that the pair settle down to start creating a family. On the other side of their mother, the new Lord Tyrwhitt, Nigel, sits quietly paying attention to what Lady Isobel is saying, his solicitousness towards his mother creating a pang in Lettice’s heart. She silently wonders what Nigel’s plans are for the Tyrwhitt Estate that borders that of Glynes. She knows that Nigel is trying valiantly to fill his father’s shoes, but she also knows that he is struggling to do so, particularly in light of how much in debt the new young lord finds himself. What will 1924 have in store?

 

Further down the table beyond an arrangement of Lady Sadie’s best red hothouse roses, Gerald sits. He catches Lettice glancing in his general direction, and he blows her a silent kiss as he winks conspiratorially at her. Unlike Arabella, Lady Isobel and Nigel, 1923 has been a good year for her oldest and dearest childhood chum. His small couturier in Grosvenor Street is finally starting to turn a profit, giving him the independence that he has craved since the end of the Great War, freeing him from the noose of his father’s household’s somewhat straitened financial circumstances. Whilst Gerald’s Grosvenor Street premises might still be furnished with the suite from Bruton House’s drawing room, Lettice feels it will only be a matter of time before she will be designing a new interior for him. Gerald has found new purpose in life, helping his young protégée Harriet Milford to build her millinery business in Putney, whilst at the same time pursuing a romantic interlude with one of Harriet’s boarders, the fey young oboist, Cyril. Whilst Gerald and Cyril must keep their love behind closed doors, shared only with the most trusted coterie of friends like Lettice and Harriet, Lettice is still happy that Gerald has found love at last, even if it is in in middle-class Putney.

 

Next to Gerald, at the foot of the table, his father, Lord Bruton sits, gruffly masticating his roast dinner. Even with his usual growliness, Gerald’s father seems to be in a cheerier mood this evening than Lettice has seen him in as of late. Earlier in the evening, Gerald attributed his good mood to a mixture of Lettice’s father’s largesse with his wine cellar and the successful sale of yet another parcel of the Bruton Estate, the funds raised which are finally being invested in much needed repairs to Bruton Hall’s roof. Whilst Lettice cannot not say that the Brutons have shed themselves of their penurious state of financial affairs, at least this time the money has not been frittered away by Gerald’s elder wastrel of a brother Roland, who sits opposite his brother in a state of ennui that he has no wish to hide from anyone. Doubtless he has an assignation planned with a local girl from the village, Lettice surmises.

 

To Roland’s left, his and Gerald’s mother Lady Gwenyth is also in good cheer as she twitters happily away with Aunt Egg. The two women are such opposites in some ways: Ant Egg’s angular features at odds with the soft jowly folds of Lady Gwenyth, Aunt Egg dressed in the bohemian style of one of her uncorseted Delphos dresses**** – much to the distaste of Lady Sadie – in a rich cherry red that almost matches Lady Sadie’s roses, and Lady Gwenyth arrayed in an old fashioned pre-war high necked gown of fading pastel satin. Yet they have in common the shared experience of a similar timeline, and it seems to bond them together strongly.

 

Next to Aunt Egg, Charles sips champagne quietly as he contemplates what 1924 holds for the Lanchenbury Tea business. Ever since Maison Lyonses****** at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue accepted Lord Lanchenbury’s Georgian Afternoon Tea blend to serve as their own on the beverages menu, he can’t seem to supply enough of the stuff for the tea drinking populace of London. He and Charles are looking to expand the tea export business in India, and already Lally has indicated that Charles will be setting sail for Bombay yet again in the early New Year.

 

And then next to Lettice is her elder sister, Lally. The sisters were once bitter enemies, thanks to some mischievous one-upmanship put in place by their mother, injecting poison into their relationship, but luckily for them they worked out what their mother was about and now Lettice feels closer to Lally than she has ever been.

 

“I say, Tice.” Lally says, breaking into Lettice’s deep contemplations. “Look, I know what Mater suggested you do in Selwyn’s absence.”

 

“You mean getting on with things, or trying to at any rate?” Lettice replies a little downheartedly.

 

“Yes.” Lally replies. “And you’ve done a splendid job of it from what I can gather.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“But you must surely be longing for somewhere quiet just be yourself, broken heart and al, for these next few weeks after Christmas, and New Year.”

 

“Well that’s why I’ve come home to Glynes for Christmas and New Year, Lally. I always use Glynes as a place to retreat to, broken heart or not.”

 

“Yes, but you’ll be under Mater’s watchful eye.”

 

“And Pappa’s caring ministrations.” Lettice adds.

 

“Well, Pater isn’t the only one who can provide caring ministrations, Tice.”

 

“What are you trying to ask, Lally?”

 

“Well, with Charles going back to India with Lord Lanchenbury shortly, I wondered if you wouldn’t care to come and stay with me at Dorrington House for a few weeks. We had such a jolly time of it with the children after Uncle Sherbourne’s funeral, don’t you think?”

 

“Oh!” gasps Lettice, her right hand flying to her mouth. “Oh I’d love to, Lally! Thank you!”

 

“Excellent!” Lally claps her bejewelled hands together. “That settles it then. You’ll come stay with us after we leave here in a few days, and you can just be yourself. If that’s happy then all the better, and I hope that the children and I can create a good distraction for you. However, if you just want some quiet time alone with a change in scenery, then that’s perfectly acceptable too.”

 

“Ahem!” the Viscount clears his throat noisily and having finished his own plate of roast beef and vegetables, rises to his feet, the carver chair legs scraping across the parquet dining room floor shrilly. He taps his empty water glass with his marrow scoop******* “Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you all for your attention please,”

 

Everyone at the table pauses their conversation and all heads turn to the head of the table.

 

“After a year full of ups and downs,” the Viscount calls out loudly with his booming orator’s voice, usually reserved for the House of Lords, glancing first at Arabella and Lady Isobel, and then at Lettice, who blushes under her father’s concerned gaze. “I would just like to take this opportunity, whilst we are all seated together, to wish everyone here present, a very happy and prosperous nineteen twenty-four. However, since Sadie’s superstitious ideas,” He glances with mock criticism at his wife before reaching out his hand to her, which she takes lovingly. “Won’t allow me to wish you a happy new year until midnight, may I instead wish everyone good health and fortunes.”

 

“Good health and fortunes!” everyone echoes as they raise their glasses and clink them together happily.

 

*After a modest start in 1828 as a smoking room and soon afterwards as a coffee house, Simpson's-in-the-Strand achieved a dual fame, around 1850, for its traditional English food, particularly roast meats, and also as the most important venue in Britain for chess in the Nineteenth Century. Chess ceased to be a feature after Simpson's was bought by the Savoy Hotel group of companies at the end of the Nineteenth Century, but as a purveyor of traditional English food, Simpson's has remained a celebrated dining venue throughout the Twentieth Century and into the Twenty-First Century. P.G. Wodehouse called it "a restful temple of food"

 

**Nineteenth Century sideburns were often far more extravagant than those seen today, similar to what are now called mutton chops, but considerably more extreme. In period literature, "side whiskers" usually refers to this style, in which the whiskers hang well below the jaw line. The classic mutton chop is a type of beard in which the sideburns are grown out to the cheeks, leaving the moustache, soul patch, and chin clean-shaven. As with beards, sideburns went quickly out of fashion in the early Twentieth Century. In World War I, in order to secure a seal on a gas mask, men had to be clean-shaven; this did not affect moustaches.

 

***Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.

 

****Chandelier and candelabra crystals, which can be cut and polished into various shapes and sizes, are called pendalogues, though sometimes it's spelled pendeloques. Some common cuts of pendalogue include: Octagon: has eight sides and features various shapes of facet in tandem.

 

*****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.

 

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

 

*******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.

 

********The marrow scoop was one of a number of utensils designed to serve and eat marrow, the jelly from beef bones. The savoury fattiness of marrow was highly prized and with the refinement of table manners in the Seventeenth Century, new implements evolved for eating it more elegantly. Marrow scoops were made in large numbers in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. In Victorian Edinburgh, for example, enthusiasts met at the Marrow Bone Club and each member had a heavy silver scoop ornamented with marrow bones. The marrow scoop was made in two forms. The first was a single-ended scoop with one narrow channel and a handle; this was easier to hold. The second was the double-ended scoop, where the unequal width of the channel enabled marrow to be extracted from large and small bones. Early pieces were broader and smaller than the elegant, elongated scoops of the mid and late Eighteenth Century. In the next century they were often made to match the rest of the cutlery service.

 

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, this festive upper-class country house dinner party scene is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

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

 

The table is set for a lavish Edwardian dinner party of eight courses when we are just witnessing the fourth course, a meat course, as it is served, using cutlery, from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. The delicious looking roast dinner on the dinner plates, and the boat of gravy on the tabletop have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The red wine glasses bought them from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The white wine glasses I have had since I was a teenager. Also spun from real glass, I acquired them from a high street stockist of doll house and miniature pieces. The three prong candelabra with crystal lustres I acquired from the same shop at the same time. The glasses of champagne are also made from real glass and were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The empty champagne flutes, also made of real glass, I acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The central hand spun glass bowl containing Lady Sadie's red roses also came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures, as did all the roses around the room. The two single candelabras are sterling silver artisan miniatures, and came with their own hand made beeswax candles! The silver gravy boat and the cruet set on the table have been made with great attention to detail, and comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.

 

The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster. The Christmas garland hanging from it was hand made by husband and wife artistic team Margie and Mike Balough who own Serendipity Miniatures in Newcomerstown, Ohio. On the mantlepiece stand two 1950s Limoges vases. Both are stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. These treasures I found in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. A third vase stands on the edge of a bonheur de jour to the left of the photo. Also standing on the mantlepiece are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, hand painted and gilded by me. There is also a dome anniversary clock in the middle of the mantlepiece which I bought the same day that I bought the fireplace.

 

To the left of the photo stands an artisan bonheur de jour (French lady's writing desk). A gift from my Mother when I was in my twenties, she had obtained this beautiful piece from an antique auction. Made in the 1950s of brass it is very heavy. It is set with hand-painted enamel panels featuring Rococo images. Originally part of a larger set featuring a table and chairs, or maybe a settee as well, individual pieces from these hand-painted sets are highly collectable and much sought after. I never knew this until the advent of E-Bay!

 

The Hepplewhite chair with the lemon satin upholstery in the background was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

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

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

 

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

 

Whilst Edith made a wonderful impression when she met Mrs. McTavish, her young beau Frank Leadbetter’s grandmother, less can be said for Frank who whilst pleasing George, rubbed Ada the wrong way at the Sunday roast lunch Edith organised with her parents to meet Frank. Ever since then, Frank has been filled with remorse for speaking his mind a little more freely than he ought to have in front of Edith’s mother. Finally, Edith hit upon a possible solution to their problem, which is to introduce Mrs. McTavish to George and Ada. Being a kind old lady who makes lace, Edith and Frank both hope that Mrs. McTavish will be able to impress upon Ada what a nice young man Frank is, in spite of his more forward-thinking ideas, which jar with Ada’s ways of thinking, and assure her how happy he makes Edith. After careful planning, today is the day that George and Ada will meet Mrs. McTavish, over a Sunday lunch served in the Watsford’s kitchen.

 

The kitchen has always been the heart of Edith’s family home, and today it has an especially comfortable and welcoming feeling about it, just as Edith had hoped for. Ada has once again pulled out one of her best tablecloths which now adorns the round kitchen table, hiding its worn surface and the best blue and white china and gilded dinner service is being used today. At Edith’s request, because Mrs. McTavish’s teeth are too brittle to manage a roast chicken for lunch, Ada has cooked a rich and flavoursome beef stew to which she has added some of her large suet dumplings: a suitably delicious meal that is soft enough for the old Scottish lady to consume even with her weak teeth. Now the main course is over, and everyone has had their fill.

 

“Well, I hope you have all had sufficient to eat.” Ada announces, pushing her Windsor chair back across the flagstones and standing up from at her white linen draped kitchen table.

 

“Och!” exclaims Mrs. McTavish. “I’ve had plenty, thank you Mrs. Watsford.” She rubs her belly contentedly. “Thank you for cooking something I could manage with my old teeth.”

 

“It’s my pleasure, Mrs. McTavish,” Ada says with a warm smile. “My family enjoy my hearty beef stews, so it was no hardship to serve it.”

 

“Well your suet dumplings are lovely and soft, Mrs. Watsford.” the Scotswoman croons in her rolling brogue. “If you’d be willing to share the recipe, I’d like to try and make them for myself at home.”

 

“Yes, of course, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada enthuses, pleased to be able to share one of her many wonderful recipes, as she has done over the years with her daughter as she has grown up.

 

“That was a fine Sunday tea, Ada.” acknowledges her husband as he tops up his and Frank’s glasses with stout from the glazed brown pottery jug on the table.

 

“Why thank you, love.” Ada replies, blushing at the compliment as she runs her clammy hands down the front of her dress, a small outward display of nervousness known only to her family.

 

“Possibly one of your best yet, love.” George adds in an assuring fashion, noticing his wife’s action and recognising its symbolism.

 

“Yes, thank you Mrs. Watsford,” agrees Frank politely. “It was a delicious lunch, and more than enough for me. Thanks ever so!”

 

“Oh I hope you’ll have room for some of my cherry pie, Frank,” Ada says. “Edith told me you liked it so much the first time you had it here, that I made it for you again.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure I can squeeze in a slice, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank assures her.

 

“Thank you Mum.” smiles Edith up at her mother.

 

Edith is so grateful to her mother for all her efforts for the day. Not only was Ada easily convinced of the idea of meeting Frank’s grandmother, Mrs. McTavish, but that she readily agreed to hosting a Sunday lunch for her and produced a fine repast. Edith had helped her mother polish the silver cutlery on her Wednesday off, so it was sparkling as it sat alongside Ada’s best plates and glasses. To top it all off, Frank has bought a bunch of beautifully bright flowers on route from collecting his grandmother from her home in Upton Park to the Watsford’s home in Harlesden. Now they stood in the middle of the table in a glass bottle that serves as a good vase, a perfect centrepiece for Ada’s Sunday best table setting.

 

“Well!” Ada remarks in reply to her company’s satisfied commentary, picking up the now warm enough to touch deep pottery dish containing what little remains of her stew. “I think we might let tea settle down first and then we’ll have some pudding. What do you all say?”

 

Everyone readily agrees.

 

“Alright gentleman,” Ada addresses her husband and Frank, seated next to one another. “You have enough time for a smoke then, before I serve cherry pie. I’ll just pop it in the oven to warm.”

 

“Thanks awfully, Mrs. Watsford, but I don’t smoke.” Frank quickly explains.

 

“Ahh, but I do, Frank my lad.” pipes up George. He stands up and walks behind his wife and reaches up to the high shelf running along the top of the kitchen range and fetches down a small tin of tobacco and a pipe. “Come on, let’s you and I step out into the courtyard for a chat, man-to-man.”

 

“Dad!” Edith exclaims, looking aghast at her father. “Don’t!”

 

“Don’t worry Edith love, I don’t need to ask young Frank here’s intentions.” George chortles, his eyes glittering mischievously beneath his bushy eyebrows. “It’s quite clear he’s mad about you.”

 

“Dad!” Edith gasps again as both she and Frank blush deeply.

 

“That he is,” Mrs. McTavish agrees, reaching across to her grandson and pinching his left cheek as he sinks his head down in embarrassment. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face, my bonny bairn: no mistake.” She smiles indulgently. “Get along with you now Francis!”

 

“Oh Gran!” murmurs Frank self-consciously. “How many timed must I say, I’m Frank now, not Francis.”

 

“Och! Nonsense!” the old Scottish woman says sharply, slapping her grandson’s forearm lightly. “You’ll always be Francis to me, my little bairn!”

 

“Come on Frank my lad,” George encourages the younger man, patting him gently on the back in a friendly way. He picks up his glass of stout. “Let’s leave our womenfolk to chat, and they call you what they like and we’ll be none the wiser for it.”

 

As George, followed by a somewhat reluctant Frank casting doleful looks at Edith, walk out the back door into the rear garden, Ada says, “Edith love, would you mind clearing the table, whilst I set the table for pudding.”

 

“Yes of course, Mum!” Edith replies, leaping into action by pushing back her ladderback chair.

 

“I’m pleased to see you make your husband go outside to smoke, Mrs. Watsford.” the old Scottish woman remarks with a satisfied smile. “I don’t approve of men smoking indoors.” she adds crisply.

 

“No, something told me that I didn’t think you would, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada replies with a bemused smile, not admitting that George usually smokes his pipe in the kitchen after every meal. She and her husband had agreed the night before as they both sat by the kitchen range warming their feet, Ada darning one of George’s socks and George puffing on his pipe pleasantly, that perhaps to give the very best first impression, George should smoke outside in the back garden whilst Mrs. McTavish was visiting.

 

“ ’Nyree’, my husband used to say to me. ‘Nyree, why don’t you let me smoke indoors like other wives let their husbands do?’ I’d always say that Mither* never let Faither** smoke his pipe in the house, so why should I let him?” She nods emphatically.

 

“Nyree,” Ada remarks, turning around from the oven where she has just put her cherry pie, stacked with ripe, juicy berries to warm. “That’s a pretty Scottish name.”

 

“Och,” chuckles Mrs. McTavish. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Watsford, but it’s quite literally as far removed from Scottish as you can get.”

 

“Where does it come from then, Mrs. McTavish?” Ada puts her hands on her hips. “It sounds so lovely.”

 

“Well, my family were fishing people going back many generations, and Faither was a seaman, and he sailed to places far further than the Hebrides*** that took him from home for months at a time when I was a wee bairn. Just before I was born, he came back from what was then the newly formed Colony of New Zealand****. He met some of the local islanders who were struck by his blonde hair. Apparently, they were all dark skinned and had dark hair, so they found him rather fascinating to look at.” She chuckles. “The story he told me years later was that they called him ‘Ngaire’, which he was told by some of his shipmates, who knew more about the natives of the colony, on the return voyage that it meant ‘flaxen’. Some of them told him that they named their own blonde daughters Nyree after the name ‘Ngaire’. So, when I was born, I had blonde hair, if you can believe that now.” She gently pats her carefully set white hair that sweeps out from underneath her old fashioned lace embroidered cap in the style of her youth. “So Faither told Mither that I should be called Nyree. So, Nyree I was.”

 

“What a lovely story, Mrs. McTavish.” Edith remarks, gathering the lunch plates together.

 

“Thank you, Edith dearie. Now, what can I do to help, besides telling old stories?” asks Mrs. McTavish with a groan as she leans her wrists on the edge of the table and starts to push herself somewhat awkwardly out of her chair.

 

“You don’t have to do anything, Mrs. McTavish,” Ada assures her, encouraging the older Scottish woman to resume her seat with a settling gesture. “You are our guest. Edith and I are very used to working together around this old kitchen of ours, aren’t we love?”

 

“Yes Mum.” Edith agrees, gathering up the dinner plates into a stack, scraping any remnants of stew and dumplings onto the top plate using the cutlery as she gathers it.

 

“You’re a good lass, dearie, helping your mam like that.” Mrs. McTavish opines as she settles back comfortably into the well-worn chair usually sat in by George and Ada’s son, Bert.

 

“Oh not really, Mrs. McTavish.” Edith replies dismissively. “Any daughter would help her mum.”

 

“Och, not just any lass, bairn. There are plenty I know of, up round my way, especially those who are domestics like you, who won’t lift a finger unless they have to on their days off. Slovenly creatures!”

 

“Well, I agree with you, Mrs. McTavish. I think that’s very lazy of them, not to mention thoughtless. We all ought to do our bit. Mum made a lovely lunch for us, so it’s only right that I should help tidy up. I’ll help wash the dishes properly later, Mum,” Edith addresses her mother. “I’ll just rinse them and stack them by sink for now.”

 

“Thanks Edith love.” Ada replies gratefully. As she puts out some of her best blue and white floral china cups she addresses Mrs. McTavish. “Yes, Edith’s a good girl, even if she does use fancy words now.” She glances at her daughter. “Lunch rather than tea.” She shakes her head but smiles lovingly. “What next I ask you?” she snorts derisively.

 

“Mum!” Edith utters with an exasperated sigh but is then silenced by her mother’s raised careworn hand.

 

“And her dad and I are very proud of her, Mrs. McTavish.”

 

“Now, thinking of Edith and being proud of your bairns,” Mrs. McTavish starts. “When Edith and Francis came to visit me at Upton Park the other week to suggest this lovely gathering of our two clans, such as they are,” She clears her throat with a growl and speaks a little louder and more strongly. “They told me, Mrs. Watsford, that you and your husband were a bit concerned about some of Francis’ more,” She pauses whilst she tries to think of the right word to use. “Radical, ideas.”

 

“Mrs. McTavish!” Edith exclaims, spinning around from the trough where she is rinsing the dishes, her eyes wide with fear as to what the old Scottish woman is about to say.

 

“Now, now, my lass!” The old Scottish woman holds up her gnarled hands with their elongated fingers in defence before reaching about herself and adjusting the beautiful lace shawl draped over her shoulders that she made herself when she was younger. “I won’t have any secrets between your mam and me if we’re to be friends, which I do hope we will be.” She turns in her seat and addresses Ada as the younger woman puts out the glazed teapot in the shape of a cottage with a thatched roof with the chimney as the lid that Edith bought for her from the Caledonian Markets*****. “When your Edith and my Francis came to visit me at home, and broached the subject of me coming here for tea, they suggested that I might be a calming voice that would soothe your disquiet about my Francis and his more unusual ideas.”

 

“Did they indeed?” Ada asks with pursed lips and a cocked eyebrow, looking at her daughter’s back as she stands at the trough, dutifully rinsing dishes with such diligence that she doesn’t have to turn around and face her mother.

 

“Now, don’t be cross with them, Mrs. Watsford.” Mrs. McTavish reaches out her left hand and grasps Ada’s right in it, starting the younger woman as much by the intimate gesture she wasn’t expecting as by how cold the older woman’s hand is. “You mustn’t blame them.” She turns and looks with affection at Edith’s back. “They are young, and in love after all. When your bràmair***** is perceived less than favourably by the other’s mam or da, you can hardly blame them for wanting to smooth the waves of concern, can you?”

 

“Well, I don’t know if I approve of them telling you what my feelings are about your grandson behind my back.” Ada folds her arms akimbo.

 

“Ahh, now Mrs. Watsford,” Mrs. McTavish says soothingly. “You were young and in love once too. Don’t deny it!” She wags her finger at Ada. “I believe you met Mr. Watsford at a parish picnic.”

 

“Yes, we both worship at All Souls****** and met at a picnic in Roundwood Park*******.” Ada smiles fondly at the memory of her in her flouncy Sunday best dress and George in a smart suit and derby sitting on the lush green lawns of the park.

 

“And no doubt if your mam or da was set against Mr. Watsford, you would have done anything to convince them otherwise.” Mrs. McTavish continues.

 

“Well, I didn’t have to. George was, and still is, a model of a husband.” Ada counters quickly.

 

“That may well be true, Mrs. Watsford, and I’m happy for you.” The old Scotswoman pauses. “But you would have, if he had been less that the perfect specimen of husband that he is.” She cocks a white eyebrow as she looks earnestly at Edith’s mother.

 

“Yes, I suppose I would have, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada concedes with a sigh.

 

“So, I have come today to plead my grandson’s case with you.” Mrs. McTavish announces plainly.

 

“I’d hardly call your son’s attitudes a case that requires pleading before me, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada scoffs in surprise at the old woman’s words.

 

“Well, you’ll forgive me for seeing things from a different perspective, Mrs. Watsford.” the Scotswoman elucidates. “For you see, from where I am sitting, it seems to me that Mr. Watsford quite likes Francis. They both have a common enjoyment of reading books, even if my Francis likes reading more serious books than the murder mysteries your husband prefers. You on the other hand are judge and jury, sitting in judgement of my Francis’ ideas because they are at odds to your own.”

 

“I think I see where he gets some of his outspokenness, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada remarks before turning away from her guest at picking up a blue and white floral milk jug from the great Welsh dresser behind her.

 

“Aye. I’ll not deny it, Mrs. Watsford. His parents, my husband and I all taught Francis to speak his mind and not be afraid to do so. I suppose we all come across a little bit abrasively as a clan to some, but we all have,” She pauses and smiles sadly. “Or rather, had, quite strong personalities and opinions about things. We all believed in free speech, so long as it is respectful. Now, Francis’ faither was the one who really encouraged him to look beyond his place in life though. He was a costermonger******** down in Covent Garden, but he always wanted to provide a better life for his wife and son. If ever he was sick, just like if his wife, my daughter, Mairi,” she clarifies. “Or I were sick, we couldn’t earn a shilling. I taught Mairi to sew lace like me, but all we ever got was piecemeal work, and it’s still the same for me today. Anyway, Francis’ faither taught his son to look for more stable work with someone else and then to save his pennies and perhaps one day own his own shop, rather than be a costermonger with a cart on the streets like him. And that is why Francis is always looking to improve himself. He’s looking for an opportunity to provide a good and steady income and a good life for your Edith.”

 

Edith turns back from rinsing the dishes and holding her breath watches the two other women in the kitchen: Mrs. McTavish, pale and wrinkled wrapped up in a froth of handmade lace and her mother standing over her, a thoughtful look on her face as she listens.

 

“Well,” Ada remarks after a few moments of deliberation. “I do find your grandson’s desire to improve himself admirable, even if my own aspirations don’t stretch to such lofty heights as his own. George and I are quite comfortable and happy with our lot.”

 

“But…” Mrs. McTavish prompts.

 

“But I find some of his ideas… disconcerting.”

 

“Such as?”

 

“Such as his talking of our class being on their way up, and the upper classes coming down. Forgive me for saying it, Mrs. McTavish, but he does sound a little bit like one of those revolutionaries that we read about in the newspapers who overthrew the king of Russia back in 1918.”

 

“Och!” chortles the old Scotswoman. “My Francis is no revolutionary, I assure you. He may have his opinion, but he’s not a radical and angry young man who feels badly done by, by his social betters. He may lack some refinement when explaining what he believes, especially when he is excited and passionate about something, which he usually is.” She sighs. “But he just wants things to be bit better for him and your Edith, and for their bairns if God chooses to bless them with wee little ones.” She looks earnestly at Ada again. “Don’t tell me you didn’t want the same thing for your bairns, Mrs. Watsford, when you were younger and full of dreams?”

 

“Well of course George and I want the very best for Edith and Bert.” Ada admits. “I just have a different way of explaining it, and going about it, Mrs. McTavish.”

 

“These are different times, Mrs. Watsford.” Mrs. McTavish says matter-of-factly. “The world has just gone through the most terrible war we have ever known. Those who are left and didn’t pay the ultimate sacrifice expect, no deserve, better for fighting for King and country. We cannot deny them that wish, nor condemn them for having it. They deserve a better world in which to live, surely? If not, why did they fight?”

 

“Well, I cannot deny that.” Ada admits with a sniff. “All those poor young men we sent off, bright faced and excited, never to return.”

 

“Well then.” smiles Mrs. McTavish. “Although my grandson was too young to enlist, he, like you, Edith and I, is a survivor of the war on the home front, and it shaped our lives. Who can blame Francis for not wanting better in the aftermath of war?” She looks into Ada’s thought filled face. “Tell me, Mrs. Watsford. Do you think Edith has good sense?”

 

“Of course I do, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada retorts. “My Edith has a good head on her shoulders.”

 

“I’m glad you think so, Mrs. Watsford.” Mrs. McTavish replies. She turns her attentions to Edith, who still stands silently, leaning against the trough sink observing the interaction between her mother and Frank’s grandmother. “What do you think, Edith dearie?”

 

“Me?” Edith asks.

 

“Yes, you.” Mrs. McTavish says strongly. “Don’t you want and strive for more? Don’t you want a better life for you and my grandson?”

 

“Oh yes, Mrs. McTavish. I worked hard to get the position with Miss Lettice. She’s a much nicer mistress than wither old Widow Hounslow or Mrs. Plaistow were. I get better pay, and better working conditions. I think Frank is right. There are more possibilities in the world now, although we do have to work hard for them.”

 

“Well said, Edith dearie.” Mrs. McTavish agrees, turning back to Ada. “So you see Mrs. Watsford. I think that your Edith and my Francis are well matched. They both want a better life for themselves. They’ll do better working together than making valiant efforts separately. Francis may be a little headstrong sometimes, but Edith will keep him grounded.”

 

Ada remains silent, deep in thought at her companion’s argument.

 

“Well, have a pleaded my grandson’s case, Mrs. Watsford?” the old Scottish woman asks.

 

Just then, the kitchen door opens and George and Frank walk noisily back into the kitchen, chuckling amiably over a shared joke, comfortable in one another’s company.

 

“I say Ada!” George exclaims. “That cherry pie of yours smells delicious, love. Is it about ready for eating, do you suppose?”

 

“Yes, I think it’s just about ready.” Ada agrees. “Edith love, will you fetch the jug of cream from the pantry for me, please?”

 

“Yes Mum!” Edith replies as she goes to the narrow pantry door and peers inside for her mother’s garland trimmed jug.

 

“So, who is going to have the biggest slice of my cherry pie?” Ada asks as she places the pie on the table amidst her best china.

 

“I think that right goes to me, as head of the Watsford household.” pipes up George with confidence.

 

“I say, Mr. Watsford,” retorts Frank. “That isn’t very fair. Just because you’re head of the house, doesn’t mean you are automatically entitled to the biggest share of the pie.”

 

“That’s a rather radical thought, young Frank.” laughs George good-naturedly. “I’m not sure if I approve of it, though.”

 

“Who should get the biggest slice then, my bairn?” his grandmother asks.

 

“Oh you know my answer, Gran.” Frank replies. “I shouldn’t need to tell you.”

 

“Yes, but tell the others, dearie. They don’t know you quite as well as I. State your case as to who should get the biggest portion.”

 

“Yes,” encourages Ada. “Tell us, Frank. Who do you think should get the biggest slice of the pie?”

 

Frank looks at Ada as she stands, poised with the kitchen knife in her hand, ready to cut through the magnificent cherry pie full of ripe and colourful berries, edged with a golden crust of pastry. “Why you of course, Mrs. Watsford.” he says matter-of-factly. “You’re the one who made it for all of us. You deserve the biggest share for all your hard work.”

 

Ada considers the bright eyed young man sitting at her table. “I like your thinking, Frank.” she says at length with a smile as she cuts into the steaming pie before her.

 

*Mither is an old fashioned Scottish word for mother.

 

**Faither is an old fashioned Scottish word for father.

 

***The Hebrides is an archipelago comprising hundreds of islands off the northwest coast of Scotland. Divided into the Inner and Outer Hebrides groups, they are home to rugged landscapes, fishing villages and remote Gaelic-speaking communities.

 

****What we know today as New Zealand was once the Colony of New Zealand. It was a Crown colony of the British Empire that encompassed the islands of New Zealand from 1841 to 1907. The power of the British Government was vested in the governor of New Zealand. The colony had three successive capitals: Okiato (or Old Russell) in 1841; Auckland from 1841 to 1865; and Wellington, which became the capital during the colony's reorganisation into a Dominion, and continues as the capital of New Zealand today. During the early years of British settlement, the governor had wide-ranging powers. The colony was granted self-government with the passage of the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852. The first parliament was elected in 1853, and responsible government was established in 1856. The governor was required to act on the advice of his ministers, who were responsible to the parliament. In 1907, the colony became the Dominion of New Zealand, which heralded a more explicit recognition of self-government within the British Empire.

 

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

 

*****Bràmair in Gaelic is commonly used as a term for girlfriend, boyfriend or sweetheart.

 

******The parish of All Souls, Harlesden, was formed in 1875 from Willesden, Acton, St John's, Kensal Green, and Hammersmith. Mission services had been held by the curate of St Mary's, Willesden, at Harlesden institute from 1858. The parish church at Station Road, Harlesden, was built and consecrated in 1879. The town centre church is a remarkable brick octagon designed by E.J. Tarver. Originally there was a nave which was extended in 1890 but demolished in 1970.

 

*******Roundwood Park takes its name from Roundwood House, an Elizabethan-style mansion built in Harlesden for Lord Decies in around 1836. In 1892 Willesden Local Board, conscious of a need for a recreation ground in expanding Harlesden, started the process of buying the land for what is now Roundwood Park. Roundwood Park was built in 1893, designed by Oliver Claude Robson. He was allocated nine thousand pounds to lay out the park. He put in five miles of drains, and planted an additional fourteen and a half thousand trees and shrubs. This took quite a long time as he used local unemployed labour for this work in preference to contractors. Mr. Robson had been the Surveyor of the Willesden Local Board since 1875. As an engineer, he was responsible for many major works in Willesden including sewerage and roads. The fine main gates and railings were made in 1895 by Messrs. Tickner & Partington at theVulcan Works, Harrow Road, Kensal Rise. An elegant lodge house was built to house the gardener; greenhouses erected to supply new flowers, and paths constructed, running upward to the focal point-an elegant bandstand on the top of the hill. The redbrick lodge was in the Victorian Elizabethan style, with ornamented chimney-breasts. It is currently occupied by council employees although the green houses have been demolished. For many years Roundwood Park was home to the Willesden Show. Owners of pets of many types, flowers and vegetables, and even 'bonny babies' would compete for prizes in large canvas tents. Art and crafts were shown, and demonstrations of dog-handling, sheep-shearing, parachuting and trick motorcycling given.

 

********A costermonger is a person who traditionally sells fruit and vegetables outside from a cart rather than in a shop.

 

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

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

On the table the is a cherry tart 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 blue and white crockery on the table I have bought as individual from several online sellers on E-Bay. I imagine that whole sets were once sold, but now I can only find them piecemeal. The cutlery I bought as a teenager from a high street dollhouse suppliers. The pottery ale jug comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in England. The glass of ale comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The cottage ware teapot in the foreground was made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson, it has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched roof and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics. The vase of flowers came from a 1:12 miniatures stockist on E-Bay. The tablecloth is actually a piece of an old worn sheet that was destined for the dustbin.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.

 

S.P.C. is an Australian brand that still exists to this day. In 1917 a group of fruit growers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley decided to form a cooperative which they named the Shepperton Fruit Preserving Company. The company began operations in February 1918, canning pears, peaches and nectarines under the brand name of S.P.C. On the 31st of January 1918 the manager of the Shepparton Fruit Preserving Company announced that canning would begin on the following Tuesday and that the operation would require one hundred and fifty girls or women and thirty men. In the wake of the Great War, it was hoped that “the launch of this new industry must revive drooping energies” and improve the economic circumstances of the region. The company began to pay annual bonuses to grower-shareholders by 1929, and the plant was updated and expanded. The success of S.P.C. was inextricably linked with the progress of the town and the wider Goulburn Valley region. In 1936 the company packed twelve million cans and was the largest fruit cannery in the British empire. Through the Second World War the company boomed. The product range was expanded to include additional fruits, jam, baked beans and tinned spaghetti and production reached more than forty-three million cans a year in the 1970s. From financial difficulties caused by the 1980s recession, SPC returned once more to profitability, merging with Ardmona and buying rival company Henry Jones IXL. S.P.C. was acquired by Coca Cola Amatil in 2005 and in 2019 sold to a private equity group known as Shepparton Partners Collective.

 

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).

Miscouche, PEI

Holga

Offers are welcome...

 

I will collect a few offers and then I´ll decide who´s getting it!

 

:-D

 

So, I want to trade it.

It doesn´t have to be protos which you offer, but it would be best...

So, Good luck to get it!

SL Free & Offers in Second Life

 

mejoratuapariencia-mta.blogspot.com/2012/07/urban-styles-...

My blog: slfreeworldforall.blogspot.com/2012/07/urban-styles-3.html

 

.:* Him *:.

The Makeup & Tattoo Hunt

 

~Tableau Vivant~ / Salon de GLOW / Redgrave / :Wicked Tattoos: / * .:: deeR ::. / Ydea / +grasp+ / Phoebe's Piercings / :..SANTO..:

  

.:* Her *:.

Hair Fair 2012 / Things for Woman / One Voice Fundraiser

 

[ Al Vulo! ] / Calico Ingmann Creations! / .Insufferable Dastard .ID. / ::Modish:: / -FD- tattoo's / *RoTtEn DeFiAnCe* - [*RD*]* / [b.nuts] / SuPerBia / pr!tty / Phoebe's Piercings / [ S H O C K ] / ..::Energie::..

 

Pose: GOLA

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Two wells.

When the Two Wells station pastoral lease land was surveyed and offered for sale in 1856 a major land buyer was Mr Drew who bought up 145 acres where the town now stands. Drew Street commemorates Mr Drew. Then in 1856 John Cowan came to the area, built a house and opened the Two Wells Hotel. It was licensed in 1860. No town but a small settlement began to emerge. The local Aboriginal wells were used as a local water supply. The town emerged in 1869 when the private town was subdivided but several buildings emerged before then. In 1865 the Port Gawler School opened but the next year it was renamed Two Wells School. A later government school which still exists was built in 1879. The government established a Post Office in 1865 and the Court House opened in 1869. The Primitive Methodists built a chapel in Drew Street in 1866 which was enlarged in 1882 and still stands. A local committee was formed in 1866 to erect an Institute but this did not happen until 1878. In 1868 John Cowan built a second hotel, which still stands, on the corner of the road to Gawler. A flour mill also opened in 1867 marking the growing existence of Two Wells. From 1869 flour could be shipped from nearby Port Gawler. The only other major building activity in the 19th century was the general stores, bakers, butchers, farrier and other commercial premises. Two Wells remained a purely Protestant town until 1963 when the first Catholic Church opened. The beautiful Anglican Church opened in 1909 to end the domination of the Methodists. The foundation stone was laid by T Browne Esquire of Buckland Park in 1908. The 1913 railway act for a line from Salisbury to Redhill (and eventually Port Pirie) saw the arrival of train services from 1915. It was not until the emigrants from war torn Europe arrived in the district around 1950 that the population grew in any significant way. Most immigrants then came from Italy and Greece.

 

The government gave approval for the Two Wells Liberty development in August 2013. The developer is Hickinbotham Homes, a SA company who is investing $1.2 billion in the development. Over 20 years the development will add 7,000 to 9,000 people to the population of Two Wells with about 3,000 homes. The development will include a new shopping centre and a private Catholic Xavier College Two Wells, a Reception to year 12 college as the nearest high schools are in Gawler or Balaklava. Currently Xavier College offers reception to year 10 studies for 160 students. The area is to the north of old Two Wells and a second development will extend across the railway line towards Gawler. It is relatively modest and construction began in 2018 with a current population of 400 people. The biggest issue is flood mitigation from the Light River. The local council is Mallala Regional Council. Probably because of this big growth (1,400 people) in the population of Two Wells a major new shopping centre is planned for the old town. Drakes in 2025 announced the development of a $150 million supermarket and shopping centre in injunction with Adelaide Plains Council which has headquarters in Mallala. The new shopping centre will be opposite the Two Wells Hotel and the current old oval area. Average houses cost in Two Wells Liberty range from $850,000 to $950,000. Street names include libertarians like Adam Smith (natural liberty), Frederic Bastiat ( French liberal), Emmeline Pankhurst, Mary Lee ( SA suffragette), Catherine Helen Spence, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke (philosopher), Wilberforce ( anti-slavery), Buchanan and Washington( American Presidents), George Mason ( American revolutionary), John Lilburne ( 1640s religious liberty) etc.

 

Cry in the Wilderness

 

By Arthur Broomhall

  

Late in 1969 the Broomhall family - a mom, dad, four kids, dog, with tent trailer and canoe, reacted to an advertisement in BC Outdoors about Alexis Lake. Always ready for another adventure in wilderness, what the ad promised appealed to all. It offered an image of a serviced campsite (ice available), three other lakes accessible to canoes by portage, good fly fishing, and, no outboard motors allowed! Having experienced, by that time, many summer holidays in the Cariboo, our family had already fallen in love with the remoteness and quiet of BC’s Central Interior. This ad triggered a desire for even more - next season – but in the unfamiliar Chilcotin Country!

  

In 1970 the main road west from Williams Lake, Highway 24, was not paved, except for the ‘Sheep Creek Hill’ up from the Fraser River Bridge to the Chilcotin plateau. This part of the road, with its many switchbacks, was on the northeast face of the hill, always thawing out more slowly in the spring than more sun-exposed parts. To correct the inevitable slumping that came with every spring thaw, the Highways Department put in culverts for drainage in the critical places and paved that stretch.

 

Otherwise the road west to Bella Coola was mostly gravel or hard mud. In some places the gravel was like very coarse river bottom, in others, deep ruts added to drivers’ misery. It was hard on ‘regular’ automobiles, especially those pulling trailers. This, we were often told by disparaging locals, was truck country! For us, driving those one hundred miles from Williams Lake was always a challenge, but arrival at serene and beautiful Alexis Lake was the ultimate reward.

 

What we found that first visit was not quite all the advertisement promised. In some respects it was even more. We were expecting wilderness, but the character of it was so much more pristine, unspoilt, with more wildlife than anything we experienced before. Although we were supplied with drinking water, we later found the lake water clean enough to drink. We learned the ad’s statement of ‘no motors’ was not backed up with regulations, but the absence of boat ramps made it virtually impossible for large boats with motors to be launched. And, as far as having ice for our food storage, it was not going to be available in subsequent seasons.

 

One could hear the silence, the animals, and the wind in the trees. The swimming and fishing was good. It was dry belt, and what rain came in summer was in heavy showers, with thunder and lightning. Exploring was always a bit spooky, because the odds were great that we would never encounter anyone else. This also meant that we expected to run into big game – deer and bears. We found the country so wide open, if one wandered off a known, marked trail, it was easy to get lost. Away from camp there were few natural boundaries or landmarks to indicate where ‘home’ might be. And, in that the climate in this high country could change very quickly from the sublime to harsh, it was a bush country to be respected.

 

Happy with that first adventure, it was an easy family decision to return again. Thoughts of doing more than ‘just camping’ came into our family discussions. We searched out a lakeshore property we wanted for our own. In 1971 there were, perhaps, ten properties with cabins on the east shore of the lake. We filed our papers with the government’s Land Branch for a lot we had selected, and were kept on tenterhooks while the approval process wound its way through the bureaucracy. Approval took a long time coming and finally came through late in 1972. The lease required a habitable cabin to be built upon the land within three years. Earlier, in the summer of that year, already confident that the property would be ours, we camped on it, tidied up, and staked out its four corners. By the end of the 1973 summer season, as we departed, our property was fenced to keep out the cattle and, within, was a sealed-up, but unfinished frame cabin.

 

In the twenty-eight years since (I write this in year 2001), as property owners, we have learned much about the land, climate, and vicissitudes of settling in wilderness. Our lake is near the summit of the Alexis Creek watershed. It is at about 3,500 ft. above sea level, enough to offer cool nights after the hottest of summer days. The surrounding land is mainly high plateau, with a few gently rounded peaks that extend upward another thousand feet or so. A few rocky, volcanic outcroppings dot the terrain here and there. In recent times, it has mainly been forested land, covered by scrubby, overcrowded pine trees, white spruces in wet areas, some aspens, and here and some small stands of ancient Douglas firs. Many areas have been opened up for cattle pastures and growing hay. Logging and free-range cattle ranching have been the region’s mainstay for about a century.

 

About 65 years ago, a rancher downstream sought and obtained a water license on Alexis Creek to allow for irrigation and other water use on the lower reaches. Included in the license was provision for a small earth-filled dam and valve at Alexis Lake’s outlet. Once the dam and control were in place the lake effectively became a reservoir for the ranch’s water requirements. If the creek were ever to dry up, the license permitted water to be drawn from the lake.

 

It has been said, apart from some testing, the water control system on the dam was never used. Apparently, the normal summer flow of water down the creek was always sufficient for the needs of the ranch. It is possible the existence of the dam evened out seasonal water fluctu-ations. In high water seasons, lake water rises between two to three feet higher than pre-dam levels. This has been enough to kill off many spruce trees in low spots. And, over the years the beaver population has always caused the lake levels to fluctuate even more. Their dam building activity at the lake outlet continues to be a nuisance.

 

In 1986, the water license was abandoned. Despite that license, people seeking waterfront property upstream before and after 1986 were granted (indeed, encouraged to obtain) leases (and in a few cases obtained land in fee simple) by government – all subject to that license. So when the water license ended, riparian rights in a sense transferred from the ranch, downstream, to upstream and lakeshore property holders. The latter, we, in effect, became the water’s stakeholders.

 

A wake-up call faced Alexis Lake property owners when liabilities for the dam structure and valve no longer were the responsibility of the ranch. The abandonment of the license conferred those liabilities somewhere, but where? Faced with repairing a deteriorating dam mainly because of the road access it provided to the east lakeshore properties, the government’s Highways Department suggested the dam be removed and be replaced by a bridge. It would, they said, be less costly than having to replace the old dam with a new one built to standards required by the Environment Department.

 

Faced with the uncertainties of cost, and how a reduced water level might affect the shoreline or, for that matter, property values, many, perhaps most, owners objected strenuously to the removal of the dam. Also having to face this conundrum, government eventually settled upon having the Highways Dept. patch up the old dam and punch through a culvert. We were assured this would preserve existing water levels. Surprisingly, this arrangement has worked – but it still leaves us wondering about the future!

 

By the mid 80’s, logging companies were well into clear-cutting the Chilcotin. In 1970 it did not occur to us that it was only a matter of time before their operations would catch up to the plateau 70 miles west of the Fraser River. The impact of the hundreds of loaded logging trucks we encountered on our drives in and out did not register upon us for quite a while. For the kids counting trucks became a game. But, ominously, the effects of the logging became visible. We were not mistaken any longer – large swaths of denuded hills were appearing everywhere.

 

Off the main road our climb up to the plateau was at first through thick forest, mostly Douglas Firs in the lower elevations, but further up this changed to pine forest. There were large grassy openings here and there - well populated by free ranging cattle. Around Alexis Lake most of the forest was of poor quality. Either very dense, the native pines were so crowded they stretched tall and thin, reaching for available light, or they were undernourished from poor soil – possibly both. Most took fifty years or more to grow less than 25 feet. To our less than practised eye, they were good for little more than fence rails and posts.

 

During the time we were busy with building and finishing off our cabin, we took breaks to explore the territory around us. By hiking and driving around we saw the construction of a major logging road not half a mile from the north end of the lake, (now called the ‘4600’) and from it saw the approach of clear-cut logging. We watched, each year, as more and more of the once endless, far-as-the-eye-could-see forest was decimated.

 

From talking to Ministry of Forests people, we learned of loggers’ plans for our immediate area – round-the-clock, highly automated cutting, bundling, and removal of trees – with cleanup (slash burning) in the fall when the forest fire season had passed. We received assurances private property would not be trespassed, and a fringe of trees would be left standing around the shores of the lake. We were not told about the 24 hour-a-day noise.

 

The forestry department staff made a point of telling us about the natural disasters, too, and their role in cleaning up after them. They pointed out the forest on the east side of Alexis Lake had been badly scorched in a forest fire in the early 40’s. At that time many older, large trees survived, but most living trees are scarred at ground level. Much of the remaining area was left open with little undergrowth – good for nothing but cottage development, they said.

 

They told of pine beetle scourges that infected the Chilcotin. Little is known about such infestations, why they arise or how they are best controlled. In some areas older trees were attacked while younger ones somehow remain unaffected, in other areas it was the opposite. A year or two after pine beetle grubs get into tree bark, the trees die and become a fire hazard. In nature, wildfires eventually take care of this. From the fertile ashes of an old forest, a healthier generation of trees grows.

 

In the Chilcotin, however, where, like everywhere else, the human population is growing slowly but inexorably, vast areas of dead forest have become a menace for ranches and people with cottages. It is a country where summer lightning starts forest fires. It has been decreed (by environment and forestry departments of government) that it is better to be rid of pine beetle damaged trees than it is to allow them simply to fall and rot or be incinerated. And, in that bug diseased trees, if recovered for processing within a year or two of dying, have commercial value, cutting licenses required ‘conditions’. Loggers found themselves bound to take out bad wood with the good. This imposition gave the lumber industry another argument in favor of using the ‘most modern’ clear-cutting logging techniques.

 

Today, the old forests in the Alexis Creek district have largely disappeared; little remains of what we encountered when we first arrived. In addition to the many stands of trees that became diseased, other natural events contributed to the forest decline. It has been said that as forest cover disappears, damage from thunderstorms and wind is more severe. Simply put, vast cleared-off areas leave built-up properties and unprotected stands of trees on the periphery of these cleared-off areas much more vulnerable to the elements.

 

As if to add insult to our injury, in the early 90’s, one particularly bad summer storm, a tornado, devastated a two to three mile strip of forest, perhaps 300 acres, along the crest of land paralleling the west shore of the lake. This precipitated a need for a further cleanup, and the logging crew that eventually arrived removed many more trees than just the blow-downs.

 

If there has been an upside from all this, it is the improvement to the roads in and out of the territory. The main highway is now paved, and the roads into the bush have been upgraded to standards that are safe for logging activity – which, in turn, has been good for our access. Tree removal and road straightening, more gravel, ditches, culverts, and better drying out, have made it easier to get about on these bush roads.

 

A true account of that access, however, would never be complete without mention of what one sees when driving through. For many years, now, the countryside has been an eyesore, looking more like a moonscape. Replanting has slowly changed that; the hills are greening up. But, like before, once done, there has been a noticeable absence of follow-through. Replanted trees now need thinning. Without this, the forest will revert into another in ‘decadent’ state and become susceptible again to insect infestations.

 

At the higher elevations of the Alexis Creek drainage, on the plateau, the land is relatively flat. Besides many lakes, there are hundreds of large and small bogs, creating wetlands with their own distinctive environments. The disappearance of the forests, generally, is causing much of this to dry out. Stands of trees adjacent to these wetlands, now more accessible, have been among the last to be opened up for timber removal. These are not large, profitable cut-blocks, and we wonder why this timber must be removed.

 

After witnessing (with varying degrees of consternation or horror) the highly automated round-the-clock forest cutting we could not fail to notice harmful environmental effects. A tree supporting many great blue heron nests (near Lake Two) simply disappeared, as did the blue herons. After rainstorms the lakes soon became silt-ridden (brown). Nearby clear-cuts, the follow-up slash burning, and even the building of the logging road, caused further soil erosion.

 

In that virtually no mature forest remains, the existing wetlands around us are bound to suffer from dry seasons. When I say ‘suffer’, I mean the chains of animal and plant life will be adversely affected. In turn, the aquifer, underground water, like everywhere else in the world suffering from clear-cut logging, will sink lower – and we, humans, will face difficulties like never before. Despite recent high water levels in the lake, some neighbors reported their wells drying up. Thus, there is no doubt what patches of forest that have been left standing must remain.

 

The collective “we” of property owners and campers at Alexis Lake, by receiving much deep joy and pleasure from the area’s unique serenity, have taken up the cause of preserving it from further adversity. But we cannot ignore the array of forces that simply don’t regard the fragility of an environment an issue that demands such commitment. Unfortunately, the ENVIRONMENT has no single advocate, and our government will never be a champion of it. The government sees land - and what’s in, on, or under it, as something it has a duty to exploit – to extract revenue from. It actually encourages business to bid for the use of land, and sees its role as one of sorting out competing interests over it, where they occur.

 

The Alexis Lake community already has established a somewhat substantial economy, given the private investment in property and improvements – and despite its remoteness. This economy benefits not only from the assessed values of the properties, or from cottagers’ continuing need for goods and services, but also from itinerant campers and other tourists who come up to enjoy the many remote forestry campsites. But despite the tax revenues, and infusion of outside money, many ‘locals’, who live year-round nearby, dismiss our claims that the region benefits more from our presence than if we had not settled there.

 

Throughout Canada loons have become a wilderness bellwether. If we hear the sound of loons at Alexis, we know all is well. If Ontarians hear them - the same may not be true. The press of human population upon ‘lake country’ in Ontario is so great that many families of loons have been driven away. Whether it is motorboats constantly disturbing their nesting sites, absence of feed, lowering water levels, or mercury pollution, or a combination of all these things, something is destroying that environment.

 

The notion of closing Alexis Lake to internal combustion motorboats was not a new one when it arose years ago. When our family saw the ad in 1969 (although having no ‘official’ validity) we knew someone cared, and also that it was consistent with the growing movement in BC for closing lakes to boats having outboard motors. The impetus was always one of having to protect pristine environments from noise, fouled water, and the disturbance of wildlife. And it was a foregone conclusion that without motorboats lakes were safer for swimmers.

 

At first, in the mid 70’s closing ‘our’ lake to motorboats became an obsession with a few, but as the issue was discussed among neighbors, it received growing support. A campaign developed. Many had a part to play. What was interesting was the ‘opposition’; it appeared unexpectedly from among the ranks of government officials. They declared they had a duty to balance our interests with those in opposition. Before they could do this, they said, they wanted evidence to substantiate our claims that loons were disturbed by the wakes of motorboats and would be driven away.

 

It did not matter how hard we argued that anyone knowing something about loons’ would know that their nests, right at water level, were little more than rafts of moss and lakeshore debris. This made them vulnerable to destruction by wave action. Common sense, we argued, had to prevail, and some environmental principles had to be developed for all ‘small lakes’ before the loons here and elsewhere were gone. First, we offered, motorboats should simply not be allowed on lakes with less than (say) 10 miles of shoreline, or (say) 1000 acres of surface water. Second, all such lakes, indeed watersheds, needed mandated ‘green spaces’ (no logging) for at least 500 meters back from watercourses – the riverbanks or lakeshores.

Officialdom didn’t take kindly to being lectured about principles. They wanted to make judgments without having them questioned. They had little else of consequence to offer - other than a desire to get on with their work - principles notwithstanding. Such officials often make the mistake of assuming that people in dispute over environment issues will be satisfied with compromises, or by becoming subject to regulation, rather than by a ‘correct’ decision that will leave people divided.

 

So, we wonder just how any official, put in a position of having to discuss, promote, or negotiate alternatives, can ever really serve as an unbiased advocate for the environment. We have yet to meet people working for government, even those in ‘Environment’, who, despite evidence of pollution, are really free to declare: ‘motorboats, operating in small BC lakes, are instruments of environmental destruction and will, henceforward, be banned’.

 

Fortunately our group of property owners, brandishing a strong consensus, were successful with their own efforts in closing the lake to internal combustion outboard motors. Their lengthy letter writing and lobbying efforts paid off. Government, at the receiving end of this constant harangue, eventually changed its focus. An official somewhere summoned up the courage to declare the case for motorboats was less compelling than the case against them.

 

We became empowered! That achievement made many of us wonder what more we could do. Today we maintain a careful watch over events that could be harmful to our interests. Just as there should be no procrastination over obvious carelessness, such as a discovery of a cow’s carcass floating in the lake, or of dead animals abandoned in the trap line (incidents which we learned about in the late 70’s), we must communicate quickly with one another about matters that arise which may be cause for concern - like the recent proposal for an airstrip adjacent to our lake.

 

Privately some of us harbor lofty expectations. We wish for the return of blue herons after their disappearance. (We saw just one last summer – after many years of wondering if they would ever return!). We yearn for more visits from the rare pelicans, hoping that they might acquire the confidence to nest in our waters. We wish to experience again the diving ‘swoosh’ of the peregrine falcon as it preys on small ducks – not for the duck’s sake, but for the balance in nature this represents. And year after year, despite the terrible depredations in the ospreys’ winter habitat in Central America, we celebrate their return to nest in a favoured refuge nearby.

 

As I write, the incumbent provincial government is facing an election. It is hard not to be cynical about the sudden priority it has given to improving its own ‘green’ image. It is clear Greenpeace (and other agencies) have succeeded in embarrassing it - and the lumber industry – for their lack of action over what have been broadcast about as unacceptable logging practices.

 

Politicians have awakened to the fact (probably too late for re-election in year 2001) that they must win more votes. They declared a three-year moratorium on hunting grizzly bears, and agreed in principle with Greenpeace’s proposal for protecting a large part of the Central Coast from clear-cut logging. Within the latter decision, stands of 1,000-year-old coastal rain forest trees, and the rare white Kermode (‘Spirit’) bears that live among them, will be spared forever. About the moratorium, feelings run high among the supporters of hunting. Maybe this will cost votes.

 

Speaking of politicians, laws and bears, odds are stacked against recreational property owners’ interests when their environment is threatened - for laws have been enacted by governments in such a hodgepodge fashion. One would think and hope the ‘senior government’s’ interest, as expressed by the federal Canadian Environment Assessment Act, would have enough status to attract legal testing in Canada, and to provide real environmental guidelines. There is a similar statute in the United States – which receives constant testing. In a recent enactment case concerning powered boats (April 2000), the US National Parks Service brought into effect ‘new restrictions that ban the use of Jet Skis in 66 parks, including Olympic National Park’. Although a limited step, it was challenged, but, on appeal, found within the National Parks’ mandate.

 

We learn from the stated purposes of the Canadian Act (which includes ‘opportunity for public participation in the environmental assessment process’) that most ‘participation’ winds up at the discretion of provincial or local authority, and is hardly ever exercised.

 

In the example of a recent application by a business for an airstrip, at Alexis Lake, (to which many of us objected) it was necessary for the applicant to have the Federal Department of Transport notified about the particulars. Fed-Transport’s main interest in such matters lies in public safety. So any concerns about environmental damage were transferred to BC authorities to review. Ultimately, they were dismissed as minimal. The latter’s focus, in this case, was (or remains) on the economics of land use and development.

 

Mixed government jurisdictions have caused no end of problems. Closing Alexis Lake to motorboats took twenty years to accomplish. Strident arguments from the opposition at first concerned ‘peoples’ rights’ - like with tobacco products, outboard motors, they had never been deemed illegal and were for sale everywhere. The argument went: as there were no restrictions on the purchase of motors, customers ought to be free to use them, with no restrictions. It was an argument compelling enough to bring the proceedings to a halt, not once but several times.

 

Provincial and federal authorities were wary about having this argument tested. However, as precedents (from settlements in other lake-closing cases) were finally factored in, especially where lakes served as drinking water reservoirs, pollution based concerns at last received some official recognition as a valid reason for closing lakes to motors.

 

Now, to the mention of bears... Most of us at the lake have no desire to encounter bears during walk-abouts. The Johnsons, during the years they lived full-time at Alexis Lake, had many encounters, and even disposed of one or two troublesome bears. I don’t know if we should be thankful Alexis Lake bears are ‘just’ black bears. Their numbers are increasing and we see their sign everywhere. It is likely what attracts them is the smell of food, so as the human presence in the wilderness increases, it is doubly important to dispose of waste properly, and to clean our barbecues! And, large dogs are useful to have around for insurance!

 

They say grizzly bears don’t live with us anymore. In the late ‘70’s when logging began in earnest, an elderly rancher, Paxton, whose entire life was spent in the Alexis Creek region, declared that with the arrival of ‘big’ logging there would be no more grizzlies. He talked about the last one killed in the territory, near his home at Spain Lake, in the late 60’s. It was a monster bear which, following the hunt, received recognition as a trophy animal. Despite Paxton’ prophecy, 30 years or so later, in the fall of 2000, horseback riding tourists in the Nazko high country – not far from us – reported a pair of grizzlies gambolling about in a meadow. So, maybe, they will appear close by again. How this will be received remains to be seen!

  

THE END

4350 words

 

Shocasing items offered at the wonderful Fetish Fair event and the Hair via Luxe Box

 

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Mid Bob Shaved Nape

Mid Bob Shaved Nape articles. Lovely Bob Hair Style Ideas ... Bob hairstyles are highly versatile and offer a timeless elegance combined with an incredible ...

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 just a short distance from Cavendish Mews, in front of Mr. Willison’s grocers’ shop. Willison’s Grocers in Mayfair is where Lettice has an account, and it is from here that Edith, Lettice's maid, orders her groceries for the Cavendish Mews flat, except on special occasions, when professional London caterers are used. Mr. Willison prides himself in having a genteel, upper-class clientele including the households of many titled aristocrats who have houses and flats in the neighbourhood, and he makes sure that his shop is always tidy, his shelves well stocked with anything the cook of a duke or duchess may want, and staff who are polite and mannerly to all his important customers. The latter is not too difficult, for aside from himself, Mrs. Willison does his books, his daughter Henrietta helps on Saturdays and sometimes after she has finished school, which means Mr. Willison technically only employs one member of staff: Frank Leadbetter his delivery boy who carries orders about Mayfair on the bicycle provided for him by Mr. Willison. He also collects payments for accounts which are not settled in his Binney Street shop whilst on his rounds.

 

Edith, is stepping out with Frank, so as she nears the shop, she hopes that the errand she has to run for today will allow her to have a few stolen minutes with Frank under the guise of ordering a few provisions required immediately. As she crosses Binney Street, Edith is delighted to see Frank busily decorating the front window. Mr. Willison always has a splendid window display of tinned and canned goods, but as she approaches the window she can see that it is especially festive, draped with patriotic bunting of Union Jacks and blue and red flags. As Frank, crouched in the window, carefully places a jar of Golden Shred marmalade next to a box of Ty-Phoo tea and in front of a jar of Marmite where it glows in the light pouring through the plate glass, Edith taps gently, so as not to startle her beau.

 

Frank smiles broadly and waves enthusiastically as he looks up and sees his sweetheart on the other side of the glass and he beckons her in as he slips back into the shadowy confines of the grocer’s.

 

“Please come in, milady!” he says cheekily as he opens the plate glass shop door for her, bows and doffs an invisible cap as the bell tinkles prettily overhead. “Pray what may we get to you? Let Willison’s the Grocer’s satisfy your every whim.”

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith giggles as she steps across the threshold. “Get along with you!”

 

Stepping into the shop she immediately smells the mixture of comforting aromas of fresh fruits, vegetables and flour, permeated by the delicious scent of the brightly coloured boiled sweets coming from the large cork stoppered jars on the shop counter. The sounds of the busy street outside die away, muffled by shelves lined with any number of tinned goods and signs advertising everything from Lyon’s Tea* to Bovril**.

 

“Where is Mrs. Willison?” Edith continues warily, her eyes darting to the spot behind the end of the return counter near the door where the proprietor’s wife usually sits doing her husband’s accounts, looking imperiously down her nose at Edith through her gold framed pince-nez***.

 

“Luckily the old trout is out with Mr. Willison attending Miss Henrietta’s school.” Frank explains.

 

“Don’t tell me that impudent little minx is in trouble?” Edith asks with a cheeky spark of hope in her voice. She knows that it’s uncharitable, and unchristian of her to wish the young girl ill, but she is still riled over the last time Edith met Frank near the rear door of Mr. Willison’s grocers, where, as he stole a kiss from her, Henrietta spied upon them. Henrietta, who had seen the young couple from a lace framed upstairs window where she was often seen spying on the comings and goings of the neighbourhood, called out loudly to her disapproving mother downstairs in the shop that Edith and Frank were loitering in the back lane, which caused the woman with her old fashioned upswept hairstyle and her high necked starched shirtwaister**** blouse to come hurrying to the back door as fast as her equally old fashioned whale bone S-bend corset***** and button up boots would allow her, where she promptly berated both Edith and Frank with her acerbic tongue, accusing them of lowering the tone of Mr. Willison’s establishment by loitering with intent and fraternising shamelessly. Edith’s cheeks flush at the mere memory of that embarrassing moment with Mrs. Willison.

 

“No,” Frank goes on. “Miss Henrietta is receiving an award at school today for an essay she penned.”

 

“With poison, no doubt.” mutters Edith. She sighs heavily before continuing, “I hate how you call her ‘Miss Henrietta’. She’s no better than you, Frank. In fact she’s a darn sight lesser if you ask me.”

 

“Now, now, Edith. Calm down.” Frank places his slender hands on her forearms and wraps his long and elegant fingers around them comfortingly. “You may well be right, but she is my employer’s daughter.”

 

“And full of her own self-importance.” Edith interrupts.

 

Frank politely ignores her outburst as he continues, “So I must address her as such.”

 

“Well, it’s not right, Frank.” Edith sulks.

 

“That much is true too,” Frank agrees with a sad nod. “And you know I am a man who wants to right the wrongs dealt to hardworking fold like you and I, but this is one fight I can’t have yet, Edith. This bit of deference I need to keep up if I want to keep my job.”

 

“All the same, Frank. I don’t think it’s right.” Edith opines again.

 

“Anyway, let’s not let Henrietta Willison spoil this wonderfully rare moment where we find each other alone together, Edith.” Frank says, pulling her into an embrace. Quickly looking around the quiet shop interior filled with groceries to make sure no-one will see them, Frank gently kisses Edith lovingly on the lips.

 

After a few stolen moments, Frank reluctantly breaks their kiss.

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith exclaims, her head giddy with pleasure and voice heady with love.

 

“Now, Miss Watsford,” Frank asks in a mock businesslike tone. “What can I do for the maid of the Honourable Miss Chetwynd today?”

 

“Well, it’s a funny coincidence, but you happened to be putting what I need in your window display, just as I arrived, Frank.” Edith elucidates. “I need a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade urgently.”

 

“Urgently?” Frank queries. “Gosh, that does sound extreme.”

 

“But I do, Frank. Miss Lettice has a potential new client coming up from Wiltshire today, and being a somewhat impromptu visit, I haven’t any cake to serve them. I was just about to make my Mum’s pantry chocolate cake when I realised that I’m out of orange marmalade.”

 

“Well that does sound like a serious situation.” Frank agrees.

 

“Don’t tease me Frank! I’m serious.” Edith’s pretty pale blue eyes grow wide. “If I don’t provide something nice to eat for Miss Lettice’s potential new client, everything could go awry, and then I’d get into such trouble.”

 

“Well, I can’t have my best girl getting into trouble because she is missing the essential ingredient to her mum’s delicious chocolate cake, can I?” Frank says. “However I don’t understand why you have marmalade in a cake. It sounds a bit odd to me.”

 

“That’s because you aren’t a baker, Frank. Mum taught me this recipe for chocolate cake which is based on cheap everyday staples you have in the pantry, and that’s why she calls it a pantry chocolate cake.”

 

“Go on,” Frank says, placing his elbows on the counter and resting his smiling face in his hands. “You have my full attention.”

 

“Well, I use the marmalade to give the cake a nice citrus flavour in addition to the chocolate, and it keeps it moist, so it doesn’t dry out when baking. This way, I don’t have to worry about peeling or squeezing oranges either.”

 

“Fascinating!” Frank breathes, smiling broadly as he listens to Edith.

 

“And that’s why I need the marmalade, Frank.” Edith says nervously. “I’ll be lost without it.”

 

“Well, that is a problem, but it’s one I think I can remedy easily.” He smiles as he fossicks behind the counter and withdraws a jar of orange marmalade from somewhere unseen beneath it. Smiling proudly, as though he is a magician who has just conjured his best magic trick, he places it on the surface of counter.

 

“Oh you’re a brick, Frank!” Edith exclaims with eyes sparkling at the sight of the jar as she reaches out and takes it, placing it carefully into her basket.

 

“I’ll add that to Miss Lettice’s account, shall I?”

 

“If you would, Frank.”

 

As Frank writes the purchase on a scrap of lined paper to give to Mrs. Willison to enter into Mr. Willison’s ledger in her fine looping copperplate when she returns, he asks, “So do you like my window display then, Edith?”

 

“Oh yes!” gushes Edith. “Very much so, Frank. It’s wonderfully gay and patriotic.”

 

“I should hope it would be!” Frank replies, as he finishes scrawling Edith’s purchase on the paper with a slightly blunt pencil.

 

“Why, what’s it in aid of, Frank?”

 

“Edith!” Frank gasps. “I must have failed abysmally if you can’t tell.” He frowns, lines of concern furrowing his young brow. “Mr. Willison will never let me arrange the window again if you’re anything to go by.”

 

“Oh, get on with you, Frank!” Edith laughs.

 

However, Frank doesn’t join in her light hearted laughter and continues to look dourly at the back of the window display he has set up. “I’m serious, Edith. Mr. Willison finally let me arrange a window on my own because I implored him that I wanted to do it, and you can’t even identify what it’s promoting.”

 

“Well,” Edith defends, blushing as she does so. “To be fair, I was more concentrating on you, Frank.” When the worried look still doesn’t vanish from his face she adds. “Now that you aren’t standing in it, distracting me, I’ll go and take another look.”

 

She turns around and walks over to the window and peers through the side over the tops of a pyramid of Sunlight soap and a stack of Twinings tea varieties. An equally high pyramid of biscuit varieties, all in bright and colourful tins stands on the other side, whilst several more tins of biscuits appear at the back of the wide window ledge used for advertising. In front of them stand tins of golden syrup and black treacle, jars of marmalade, packets of tea and jelly crystals, containers of baking powder and cocoa, and at the very front of the window, almost flush against the glass, a cardboard cut out of a gollywog advertising Robertson’s marmalade and a little boy smiling as he promotes Rowntree’s clear gums, which Edith knows Mr. Willison keeps safely out of reach behind the shop counter and away from sticky little fingers. Edith gasps as she realises why Frank had hung bunting in the window, for at the back of the display, where usually there would be an advertisement for Lyon’s Tea or Bisto Gravy******, there is a poster promoting the British Empire Exhibition******* at Wembly********. A crowd of figures from British history and the nations of the British Empire crowd for space along several rows, many proudly waving the flags of Empire, whilst the exhibition name and dates are flanked by two very proud stylised Art Deco lions.

 

“The British Empire Exhibition!” Edith gasps, as Frank’s head appears next to a Huntley and Palmer********* biscuit tin on the opposite side of the display to her. “Now that you aren’t crouched in the window, I can see it clearly, Frank.”

 

“Mr. Willison gave me strict instructions to fill the window with only British made products.”

 

“And you’ve done a splendid job, Frank.” Edith replies, causing her beau to smile with pride and blush with embarrassment at her effusive compliment. As she looks at all the products again, she adds, “And I’m glad to see McVite and Price********** at the top of the pyramid of biscuits.

 

“Well, I couldn’t very well step out with the daughter of a McVitie and Price Line Manager and not have it on the top, could I, Edith?”

 

“Indeed no, Frank.” Edith smiles. “Dad will be pleased as punch when I tell him.”

 

“Well, I’m glad to hear that, Edith.” Franks says with a sigh.

 

“I think it will be quite a spectacle,” Edith muses, as she stares at the poster. “I’ve read in the newspapers that there will be fifty-six displays and pavilions from around the Empire! Imagine that! There will be palaces for industry, and art.”

 

“And housing and transport too***********, don’t forget.” adds Frank. “Each colony will be assigned its own distinctive pavilion to reflect local culture and architecture.”

 

“I would like to see the Queen’s Dolls’ House************.” Edith sighs. “I hear it is a whole world in miniature, and it even has electric lights.”

 

“Well, isn’t that fortunate?”

 

Edith pauses mid thought and looks quizzically at Frank. “I suppose it would be,” she considers. “If you were a doll living in the Queen’s Doll House.”

 

Frank starts laughing, quietly at first before growing into louder and louder guffaws.

 

“What, Frank?” Edith asks, blushing. “What have I said? What’s so funny?”

 

After a few moments, Frank manages to recover himself. “You do make me laugh, dear Edith.” He wipes the tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes. “Thank you.” He sighs. “I was really saying it’s fortunate because, I was going to ask you whether you would like to go and see the British Empire Exhibition. I’m just as keen to see all the marvellous wonders of Empire as you are.”

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith gasps, any discomfort and displeasure at her beau laughing at her forgotten as she runs around to his side of the window and throws her arms around his neck. “Frank, you’re such a brick! I’d love to!” And without another word, she places her lips against his and kisses him deeply.

 

*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.

 

**Bovril is owned and distributed by Unilever UK. Its appearance is similar to Marmite and Vegemite. Bovril can be made into a drink ("beef tea") by diluting with hot water or, less commonly, with milk. It can be used as a flavouring for soups, broth, stews or porridge, or as a spread, especially on toast in a similar fashion to Marmite and Vegemite.

 

***Pince-nez is a style of glasses, popular in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, "to pinch", and nez, "nose".

 

****A shirtwaister is a woman's dress with a seam at the waist, its bodice incorporating a collar and button fastening in the style of a shirt which gained popularity with women entering the workforce to do clerical work in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.

 

*****Created by a specific style of corset popular between the turn of the Twentieth Century and the outbreak of the Great War, the S-bend is characterized by a rounded, forward leaning torso with hips pushed back. This shape earned the silhouette its name; in profile, it looks similar to a tilted letter S.

 

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

 

*******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.

 

********A purpose-built "great national sports ground", called the Empire Stadium, was built for the Exhibition at Wembley. This became Wembley Stadium. Wembley Urban District Council was opposed to the idea, as was The Times, which considered Wembley too far from Central London. The first turf for this stadium was cut, on the site of the old tower, on the 10th of January 1922. 250,000 tons of earth were then removed, and the new structure constructed within ten months, opening well before the rest of the Exhibition was ready. Designed by John William Simpson and Maxwell Ayrton, and built by Sir Robert McAlpine, it could hold 125,000 people, 30,000 of them seated. The building was an unusual mix of Roman imperial and Mughal architecture. Although it incorporated a football pitch, it was not solely intended as a football stadium. Its quarter mile running track, incorporating a 220 yard straight track (the longest in the country) were seen as being at least equally important. The only standard gauge locomotive involved in the construction of the Stadium has survived, and still runs on Sir William McAlpine's private Fawley Hill railway near Henley.

 

*********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.

 

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

 

***********The Palace of Engineering was originally called the Palace of Housing and Transport when the British Empire Exhibition opened. It contained a crane capable of moving 25 tons (a practical necessity, not an exhibit) and contained displays on engineering, shipbuilding, electric power, motor vehicles, railways, including locomotives, metallurgy and telegraphs and wireless. In 1925 there seems to have been less emphasis on things that could also be classified as Industry, with instead more on housing and aircraft. The Palace of Industry was slightly smaller. It contained displays on the chemical industry, coal, metals, medicinal drugs, sewage disposal, food, drinks, tobacco, clothing, gramophones, gas and Nobel explosives.

 

************Queen Mary's Dolls' House is a dollhouse built in 1:12 scale in the early 1920s, completed in 1924, for Queen Mary, the wife of King George V. It was designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, with contributions from many notable artists and craftsmen of the period, including a library of miniature books containing original stories written by authors including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and A. A. Milne illustrated by famous illustrators of the time like Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. The idea for building the dollhouse originally came from the Queen's cousin, Princess Marie Louise, who discussed her idea with one of the top architects of the time, Sir Edwin Lutyens, at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1921. Sir Edwin agreed to construct the dollhouse and began preparations. Princess Marie Louise had many connections in the arts and arranged for the top artists and craftsmen of the time to contribute their special abilities to the house. It was created as a gift to Queen Mary from the people, and to serve as a historical document on how a royal family might have lived during that period in England. It showcased the very finest and most modern goods of the period. Later the dollhouse was put on display to raise funds for the Queen's charities. It was originally exhibited at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 and again in 1925, where more than 1.6 million people came to view it, and is now on display in Windsor Castle, at Windsor, as a tourist attraction.

 

This bright window display may look like it is full of real products from today and yesteryear, but just like Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, these items are all 1:12 scale miniature pieces from my own collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The window is full of wonderful British household brands, some of which like Robertson’s Golden Shred Marmalade, Marmite, Oxo stock cubes and Twinings tea we still know today. All these pieces have been made by various artisans including Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire and Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, or supplied from various stockists of 1:12 miniatures including Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop and Shephard’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom, or through various online stockists. I created the Union Jack bunting that is draped to either side of the display. I also recreated the British Empire Exhibition poster.

 

The two carboard displays at the very front for Rountree’s Gums and Golden Shred Marmalade are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. The Golliwog advertising Robertson’s Golden Shred Marmalade in particular has some nostalgia for me, and takes me back to my own childhood. The famous Robertson's Golliwog symbol (not seen as racially charged at the time) appeared in 1910 after a trip to the United States to set up a plant in Boston. His son John bought a golliwog doll there. For some reason this started to appear first on their price lists and was then adopted as their trade mark. I have pins with the Robertson’s Golliwog on it that I collected as a child. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. However, he did not make books exclusively. He also made other small pieces like these advertising pieces for miniature shops. What might amaze you, looking at these cardboard stand-ups is that they are just like their real life equivalents, both front and back! To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a real miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

Golden Shred orange marmalade and Silver Shred lime marmalade still exist today and are common household brands 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 Silver Shred is a clear, tangy, lemon flavoured shredded marmalade. Robertson’s marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Twinings is a British marketer of tea and other beverages, including coffee, hot chocolate and malt drinks, based in Andover, Hampshire. The brand is owned by Associated British Foods. It holds the world's oldest continually used company logo, and is London's longest-standing ratepayer, having occupied the same premises on the Strand since 1706. Twinings tea varieties include black tea, green tea and herbal teas, along with fruit-based cold infusions. Twinings was founded by Thomas Twining, who opened Britain's first known tea room, at No. 216 Strand, London, in 1706; it still operates today. Holder of a royal warrant, Twinings was acquired by Associated British Foods in 1964. The company is associated with Earl Grey tea, a tea infused with bergamot, though it is unclear when this association began, and how important the company's involvement with the tea has been. Competitor Jacksons of Piccadilly – acquired by Twinings during the 1990s – also had associations with the bergamot blend. In April 2008, Twinings announced their decision to close its Belfast Nambarrie plant, a tea company in trade for over 140 years. Citing an "efficiency drive", Twinings moved most of its production to China and Poland in late 2011, while retaining its Andover, Hampshire factory with a reduced workforce. In 2023, Twinings ceased production of lapsang souchong, replacing it with a product called "Distinctively Smoky", widely considered to be inferior quality.

 

In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Bournville is a brand of dark chocolate produced by Cadbury. It is named after the model village of the same name in Birmingham, England and was first sold in 1908. Bournville Cocoa was one of the products sold by Cadbury. The label on the canister is a transitional one used after the First World War and shared both the old fashioned Edwardian letter B and more modern 1920s lettering for the remainder of the name. The red of the lettering is pre-war whilst the orange and white a post-war change.

 

Peek Freans is the name of a former biscuit making company based in Bermondsey, which is now a global brand of biscuits and related confectionery owned by various food businesses. De Beauvoir Biscuit Company owns but does not market in the United Kingdom, Europe and United States; Mondelēz International owns the brand in Canada; and English Biscuit Manufacturers owns the brand in Pakistan. Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd was registered in 1857 by James Peek (1800–1879) and his nephew-in-law George Hender Frean. The business was based in a disused sugar refinery on Mill Street in Dockhead, South East London, in the west of Bermondsey. With a quickly expanding business, in 1860, Peek engaged his friend John Carr, the apprenticed son of the Carlisle-based Scottish milling and biscuit-making family, Carr's. From 1861, Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd started exporting biscuits to Australia, but outgrew their premises from 1870 after agreeing to fulfil an order from the French Army for 460 long tons of biscuits for the ration packs supplied to soldiers fighting the Franco-Prussian War. After hostilities ended, the French Government ordered a further 16,000 long tons (11 million) sweet "Pearl" biscuits in celebration of the end of the Siege of Paris, and further flour supplies for Paris in 1871 and 1872, with financing undertaken by their bankers the Rothschilds. The consequential consumer demands of emigrating French expatriate soldiers, allowed the company to start exporting directly to Ontario, Canada from the mid-1870s. On 23 April 1873, the old Dockhead factory burnt down in a spectacular fire,[1] which brought the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) out on a London Fire Brigade horse-drawn water pump to view the resulting explosions. In 1906, the Peek, Frean and Co. factory in Bermondsey was the subject of one of the earliest documentary films shot by Cricks and Sharp. This was in part to celebrate an expansion of the company's cake business, which later made the wedding cakes for both Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten (later Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh) and Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles III), and Lady Diana Spencer. In 1924, the company established their first factory outside the UK, in Dum Dum in India. In 1931, five personnel from the Bermondsey factory went to Australia to train the staff in the new factory in Camperdown, in Sydney. In 1949, they established their first bakery in Canada, located on Bermondsey Road in East York, Ontario, which still today produces Peek Freans branded products. After 126 years, the London factory was closed by then owner BSN on Wednesday 26 May 1989.

 

Carr's is a British biscuit and cracker manufacturer, currently owned by Pladis Global through its subsidiary United Biscuits. The company was founded in 1831 by Jonathan Dodgson Carr and is marketed in the United States by Kellogg's. In 1831, Carr formed a small bakery and biscuit factory in the English city of Carlisle in Cumberland; he received a royal warrant in 1841. Within fifteen years of being founded, it had become Britain's largest baking business. Carr's business was both a mill and a bakery, an early example of vertical integration, and produced bread by night and biscuits by day. The biscuits were loosely based on dry biscuits used on long voyages by sailors. They could be kept crisp and fresh in tins, and despite their fragility could easily be transported to other parts of the country by canal and railway. Carr died in 1884, but by 1885, the company was making 128 varieties of biscuit and employing 1000 workers. In 1894 the company was registered as Carr and Co. Ltd. but reverted to being a private company in 1908. Carrs Flour Mills Limited was incorporated after acquiring the flour-milling assets. It became part of Cavenham Foods in 1964 until 1972, when it was sold to United Biscuits group, along with Cavenham's other biscuit brands Wright's Biscuits and Kemps for $10 million. United Biscuits was sold by its private equity owners to the Turkish-based multinational Yıldız Holding in 2014; in 2016 all UB brands including Carr's were combined with Yildiz's other snack brands to form Pladis Global.

 

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 & 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.

 

A co-operative wholesale society, or CWS, is a form of co-operative federation (that is, a co-operative in which all the members are co-operatives), in this case, the members are usually consumer cooperatives. The best historical examples of this are the English CWS and the Scottish CWS, which are the predecessors of the 21st Century Co-operative Group. Indeed, in Britain, the terms Co-operative Wholesale Society and CWS are used to refer to this specific organisation rather than the organisational form. They sold things like tea, cocoa and biscuits.

 

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

 

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

I revisited this magnificent nature reserve today 10th August 2018, many visitors to our city miss its glorious offerings, thinking all we have to offer is the beach front at the main boulevard , its a pity as this reserve is a short drive from the main tourist area and has its own charm, attraction and wealth of nature on offer, I love it .

 

Donmouth Local Nature Reserve is a beach site in the historic Old Aberdeen part of the City where the River Don meets the sea.

 

A great place to see seals and a range of interesting birds. The beach area has changed over time as the river has changed its course. There are lots of interesting plants in the dunes and beach area. Bird hide is an excellent shelter from which to watch the wildlife. The paths run across King Street to the Brig 'o Balgownie., the original bridge in to the City from the North, then down the other side of the river to the sea.

 

The site was designated a Local Nature Reserve in 1992

 

Paths are good although wheelchair access to the beach would be difficult as the boardwalk can get covered with sand.

 

There is plenty of free car parking on the Beach Esplanade and at the car park in Donmouth Road. There are cycle racks on Beach Esplanade

 

Bridge Of Don has five spans of dressed granite, and rounded cutwaters that carry up to road level to form pedestrian refuges. The spans are 75 feet (23 m), with a rise of 25 feet (7.6 m).

 

It was widened in 1958-59, from 24 feet (7.3 m), to 66 feet (20 m) by the construction of a new concrete bridge adjacent to the old one.

 

It now carries four lanes of the A956 road, and is the last bridge on the River Don before it meets the sea. The bridge is just downstream from a substantial island in the river. Around the area of the bridge is the Donmouth Local Nature Reserve, designated as a LNR in 1992.

Near to the bridge are a number of World War II era coastal defences, including a pill box.

Mudflats

Mudflats are formed when fine particles carried downstream by the river are deposited as it slows down before entering the sea, and to a lesser extent by fine particles washed in by the tide. The sand spit at the mouth of the Don provides shelter from the wind and waves allowing this material to build up. The mud flats are a very rich and fertile environment. Despite their rather barren appearance they support a surprisingly diverse invertebrate fauna which includes; worms, molluscs and crustacea. These invertebrates are vitally important to wildfowl and wading birds within the estuary.

 

Salt marsh

Along the upper shore of the south bank saltmarsh has developed. This habitat would once have been much more extensive prior to the tipping of domestic and other refuse in the area and the formation in 1727 of an artificial embankment to prevent flooding of the river into the Links. This habitat is now reduced to a narrow strip of vegetation along the river margins upstream from the Powis Burn.

 

The species composition of the salt marsh varies according to the salinity of the water i.e. the proximity to the sea. Close to the Powis Burn this habitat is dominated by reed sweet-grass (Glyceria maxima) with reed canary-grass (Phalaris arundinacea), sea club-rush (Scirpus maritimus), spike-rush (Eleocharis palustris), hemlock water-dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) and common scurvygrass (Chochlearia officinalis).

Further inland reed sweet-grass continues to dominate but hemlock water-dropwort is more abundant with meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) and valarian (Valariana officinalis),

 

Sand dunes

Sand dunes are found in the more exposed parts of the estuary at the river mouth. Again, this habitat was once much more extensive in this locality with dune grasslands stretching from Aberdeen Beach inland as far as King Street, southwards from the estuary of the Dee, northwards to the Sands of Forvie and beyond. Many of the dunes formed part of Seaton Tip, and following tipping the area was grassed over. Other areas have been formally landscaped to form golf courses or planted with native trees in 2010 to create a new woodland area.

 

Some remnants of the natural dune flora can be seen in the 'roughs' on the Kings Links golf course and near the mouth of the river.

 

Above the high water mark, fore dunes with thick clumps of the pioneer grass species including sea lyme grass (Elymus arenarius) and marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) occur. Few other species are able to cope with the shifting sand. The largest area of these young dunes is to the north and west of the headland. Further inland where the dunes are sheltered from the actions of the wind and waves, and soils are more developed, more stable dunes are present supporting a more diverse grassland habitat.

 

Strand line plants which are able to tolerate occasional coverage by sea water include sea rocket (Cakile maritima), frosted orache (Atriplex laciniata), sea sandwort (Honkenya peploides) and knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare). Bur-reed (Sparganium sp.) has been recorded; presumably washed down by the river.

 

Marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) and sea lyme grass (Elymus arenarius) dominate the fore dunes. The latter species is not native to this area but appeared in 1802. It is thought to have been unintentionally introduced into the area by fishing boats. For a number of years it remained uncommon but from 1870 onwards it spread rapidly along the coastline (Marren, 1982).

 

In the more stable dunes red fescue (Festuca rubra), sand sedge (Carex arenaria), yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor), wild pansy (Viola tricolour), harebell (Campanula rotundifolia), bird's-foot-trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) and lesser meadow-rue (Thalictrum minus) are abundant. Small amounts of kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria), valerian (Valeriana officinalis) and spring vetch (Vicia lathyroides) are present.

 

Scattered willows (Salix sp.) and sycamore (Acer pseudoplantanus) have seeded into this area. Gorse (Ulex europaeus) scrub has colonised the dunes in some areas and appears to be spreading.

 

Scrub

This habitat is almost entirely artificial with only the gorse scrub on the inner dunes being a semi-natural habitat. Alder and willow were planted along the south bank of the river in about 1970 and these shrubs are now generally well established. Further shrub planting on the south bank was carried out in 1990.

 

Willow (Salix sp.) and alder (Alnus glutinosa) were planted in the 1970's along the south bank of the River Don eastwards of the Bridge of Don. The trees to the west of this strip are doing considerably better than those to the east. More recent planting was carried out in 1990 with hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) elder (Sambucus nigra), goat willow (Salix caprea) and alder.

 

Underneath the scrub neutral grassland is present with cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata), false oat-grass (Arrhenatherum elatius), cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata), hedge woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) and hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium).

 

Grassland

Much of the grassland within the reserve is formed on imported soil and is intensively managed. This includes grassland on the north and south sides of the Esplanade. Daffodils are present in the grassland on the north side of the road. On the north bank to the east of the Bridge of Don is rank grassland on a steep south-facing slope. This is unmanaged and contains some patches of scrub.

 

Rough grassland is present on the headland. This area has been modified by tipping, with rubble to the east and with grass cuttings to the west. The grassland contains a mixture of neutral grassland, dune grassland, ruderal, and introduced garden species. This area attracts flocks of seed eating birds in late summer and autumn.

 

Improved grassland is present on the headland and along the south bank of the estuary downstream from the bridge of Don. Much of this vegetation has developed on imported soil and contains a high proportion of ruderal species and garden escapes. On the headland, broadleaved dock (Rumex obtusifolius), nettle (Urtica dioica), coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare), cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), hemlock (Conium maculatum) and hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) are abundant. Sweet cicely (Chaerophyllum bulbosum) is widespread and in late summer fills the air with the scent of aniseed.

 

To the south of the Esplanade the grassland is managed with an annual cut.. The grassland does flood to form pools. Early in the year cuckoo flower (Cardamine pratensis) is common, meadow foxtail (Alopecuris pratensis)is known to occur around the margins of these pools.

 

Woodland

Semi-mature woodland is present on the steep sided south bank of the river upstream from the Bridge of Don. Most of this woodland has been planted in the mid 1930's though some older oak and elm trees are present. These may be relicts of former woodland cover. The woodland in the reserve is part of a strip of woodland along the River Don corridor which continues upstream from the Brig 'o' Balgownie.

 

Woodland is present on the south bank upstream from the Bridge of Don.

 

Much of the woodland consists of even aged stands with willow (Salix sp.), sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), ash (Fraxinus excelsior), beech (Fagus sylvatica) and alder (AInus glutinosa). At the top of the slope mature oak (Quercus sp.) and elm (Ulmus glabra) are present. The ground flora contains tufted hair-grass (Deschampsia caespitosa), red campion (Silene dioica), ramsons (Allium ursinum) and lady fern (Athyrium felix-femina) .In a few areas dense shading is caused by the trees and in these areas the ground flora is poor.

 

On the north bank scattered trees are present, mainly willow and sycamore with some scrub.

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(Thailand, South) Kuti, monk's home

Wat Suan Mokkh is one of the most renowned forest temples in Thailand, founded in 1932 by the venerable Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. This Buddhist monk sought to revitalize Thai Buddhism by returning to the original teachings. The temple offers meditation retreats focused on mindfulness and understanding of nature. Surrounded by gardens and forests, it has a library rich in Buddhist and interreligious texts. Buddhadasa was a pioneer of interreligious dialogue and his influence endures, inspiring many practitioners. Wat Suan Mokkh is a refuge and inspiration for meditation and contemplation.

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 to the west of London, in nearby Buckinghamshire, at Dorrington House, a smart Jacobean manor house of the late 1600s built for a wealthy merchant, situated in High Wycombe, where Lettice’s elder sister, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), resides with her husband Charles Lanchenbury and their three children, Harrold, Annabelle and baby Piers. Situated within walking distance of the market town’s main square, the elegant red brick house with its high-pitched roof and white painted sash windows still feels private considering its close proximity to the centre of the town thanks to an elegant and restrained garden surrounding it, which is enclosed by a high red brick wall.

 

Lettice is nursing a broken heart. Lettice’s beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, had organised a romantic dinner at the Savoy* for he and Lettice to celebrate his birthday. However, when Lettice arrived, she was confronted not with the smiling face of her beau, but the haughty and cruel spectre of his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia. Lady Zinnia, and Selwyn’s Uncle Bertrand had been attempting to marry him off to his cousin, 1923 debutante Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lady Zinnia had, up until that moment been snubbing Lettice, so Selwyn and Lettice arranged for Lettice to attend as many London Season events as possible where Selwyn and Pamela were also in attendance so that Lettice and Selwyn could spend time together, and at the same time make their intentions so well known that Lady Zinnia wouldn’t be able to avoid Lettice any longer. Zinnia is a woman who likes intrigue and revenge, and the revenge she launched upon Lettice that evening at the Savoy was bitterly harsh and painful. With a cold and calculating smile Lady Zinna announced that she had packed Selwyn off to Durban in South Africa for a year. She made a pact with her son: if he went away for a year, a year during which he agreed neither to see, nor correspond with Lettice, if he comes back and doesn’t feel the same way about her as he did when he left, he agreed that he will marry Pamela, just as Bertrand and Lady Zinnia planned. If however, he still feels the same way about Lettice when he returns, Lady Zinnia agreed that she would concede and will allow him to marry her.

 

Leaving London by train that very evening, Lettice returned home to Glynes, where she stayed for a week, moving numbly about the familiar rooms of the grand Georgian country house, reading books from her father’s library distractedly to pass the time, whilst her father fed her, her favourite Scottish shortbreads in a vain effort to cheer her up. However, rather than assuage her broken heart, her father’s ministrations only served to make matters worse as she grew even more morose. It was from the most unlikely of candidates, her mother Lady Sadie, with whom Lettice has always had a fraught relationship, that Lettice received the best advice, which was to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with her life: keep designing interiors, keep shopping and most importantly, keep attending social functions where there are plenty of press photographers. “You may not be permitted to write to Selwyn,” Lady Sadie said wisely. ‘But Zinnia said nothing about the newspapers not writing about your plight or your feelings on your behest. Let them tell Selwyn that you still love him and are waiting for him. They get the London papers in Durban just as much as they get them here, and Zinnia won’t be able to stop a lovesick and homesick young man flipping to the society pages as he seeks solace in the faces of familiar names and faces, and thus seeing you and reading your words of commitment to him that you share through the newspaper men. Tell them that you are waiting patiently for Selwyn’s return.”

 

Since then, Lettice has been trying to follow her mother’s advice and has thrown herself into the merry dance of London’s social round of dinners, dances and balls in the lead up to the festive season. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and was welcomed home with open and loving arms by her family for Christmas and the New Year. On New Year’s Eve, Lally, sitting next to Lettice, suggested that she spend a few extra weeks resting and recuperating with her in Buckinghamshire before returning to London and trying to get on with her life. Lettice happily agreed, and since arriving at Dorrington House with her sister and brother-in-law, she has enjoyed being quiet, spending quality time with her niece and nephews in the nursery, strolling the gardens with her sister or simply curling up in a window seat and reading.

 

This morning we find ourselves in one of Dorrington House’s ten guest bedrooms: a pretty and cosy one overlooking the elegant rear garden in which Lettice has been accommodated since her arrival from Glynes. Lettice lies beneath the beautifully embroidered satin comforter, luxuriating in the joy of being allowed to have breakfast in bed at her sister’s house. If she were at home in Glynes, there is no way known that her mother would let her take her breakfast in her boudoir, never mind in bed, since Lettice is unmarried and therefore undeserving of such a privilege**. She sighs contentedly as she listens to the blackbirds and robins chirping in the greenery beyond the sash window of her comfortably appointed room. In the hearth a fire, lit for her by one of Lally’s lower house maids long before Lettice was awake, crackles cheerfully, its heat warming the room enough that Lettice may sit up against a nest of her pillows and have her bare arms exposed without feeling cold. In the distance she can hear the clock on the landing ticking away the minutes and hours of the day, and still further away the muffled sound of a childish squeal indicates that Lettice’s nephew and niece are awake and playing in the day nursery with their nanny. Lettice sighs again and stretches her legs beneath the covers, her left foot connecting with the wooden breakfast tray placed at the foot of the bed by Lally’s cook, Mrs. Sawyer, nudging it slightly, causing the breakfast china and the ornate Indian silver teapot on it to rattle in protest at being pushed out of the way. She picks up a current copy of Vogue that has been sent to her from London and silently peruses the latest frocks from Paris whilst she contemplates reaching down and taking up her breakfast tray to put on her lap to commence her breakfast, but just the thought of doing so seems like too much of an effort. So, she casts a desultory gaze over the newest designs by Jeanne Lanvin*** instead and dreams about dancing with Selwyn arrayed in such a gown.

 

As she admires a robe de style**** design in black with embroidered red poppies, Lettice’s morning daydreams are interrupted by a gentle tapping at her door.

 

Quickly tossing the copy of Vogue aside, Lettice snatches up her pale pink bed jacket trimmed in marabou feathers from the other side of the large bed, and drapes it across her bare shoulders and arms as the tapping begins for a second time. “Yes?” she asks as calmly as possible.

 

The door opens and Lally pokes her head around it. “It’s only me, Tice darling. May I come in?”

 

“Lally!” Lettice exclaims as she shuffles herself into a more upright position against the nest of pillows behind her. “Yes, of course! Do, do come in, darling.”

 

“Thank you.” Lally replies quietly, slipping into her sister’s room and closing the door behind her.

 

Lally looks around what she and Charles call the ‘Chinese Bedroom’ because of all the Eighteenth Century chinoiserie furnishings filling it, still unused to the best guest bedroom in the house being occupied. Traces of her little sister lie about everywhere. Her travelling set of brushes and a mirror sit on the dressing table’s surface, along with bottles of Lettice’s favourite perfumes and a selection of her cosmetics. A blue hatbox sits against the Chinese dressing screen with the hat Lettice wore to the wedding of Mary, Princess Royal***** to Viscount Lascelles in 1922 sitting atop it. Her peacock blue embroidered robe hangs from the end of the screen, whilst a row of dainty shoes sit just behind it, the latter obviously organised into neat order by one of the housemaids, since Lettice is not known for the organisation of her own wardrobe. The room is filled with the comforting fug of sleep intermixed with the scent of woodsmoke and roses brought in especially for Lettice from the Dorrington House greenhouse. And there, on the left side of the bed is Lettice, draped in her delicate bedjacket, her golden tresses spilling freely across the pillows behind her.

 

“I hope you don’t mind me popping in like this.” Lally says a little defensively. “Oh, you haven’t touched your breakfast.” She observes the undisturbed pot of tea, hard boiled egg, triangle of toast, square of butter from the home farm and orange from the Dorrington House orangery******. “Is everything alright?”

 

“Oh it’s fine, Lally, and yes,” Lettice lurches towards the breakfast tray, dragging it across the orange and yellow embroidered flowers of the counterpane towards her. “Breakfast is perfect. I was just about to start. I was just so engrossed in my latest copy of Vogue.”

 

“I see.” Lally purrs with a satisfied smile. “I see you received your post this morning then.”

 

“Yes, thank you Lally.” Lettice indicates with an open hand to the two copies of Vogue as well as a card sent down from London sitting atop a silver salver next to a silver letter opener near the raised mound of her feet beneath the covers.

 

“I received some post this morning too.” Lally admits, holding up a postcard featuring an idealised photographic scene of a couple in a donkey cart.

 

“Not a postcard from Charles, opining about me having breakfast abed, surely? He and Lord Lachenbury only left for India a few days ago.”

 

“Oh!” Lally says, laughing as she looks at the postcard. “No! No, Charles and Lord Lachenbury will still be en route abord the P&O*******. No, it will be ages before the arrive in Bombay.”

 

“Then what is it?” Lettice enquires.

 

“It’s an invitation for the two of us to attend a luncheon party at Mrs. Alsop’s down at Shalstone Cottage.”

 

“That sounds rather dull. A cottage? Who is Mrs. Alsop, Lally?”

 

“Head of the local branch of the WI********.” Lally pulls a face. “She’s a dreadful gossip, and rather a bore, I’m afraid. I can say you’re indisposed if you like, but as treasurer of the WI, I had better go.”

 

“Well,” Lettice says with a sigh, reaching down to the silver salver near the foot of the bed and snatching up the card from atop its envelope. “Even if I didn’t want to come, I’d go to support you, Lally. However, you may have to pass on my excuses anyway.” She holds the card out to her elder sister.

 

“What is it, Tice?”

 

“It’s from Aunt Egg.” Lettice wags the card in her sister’s direction. “Read it.”

 

Approaching the bed, Lally accepts the card from her sister. She smiles and snorts in amusement as she stares at the stylised gilt decorated Art Nouveau card featuring a woman in a long russet coloured tea gown facing away from the viewer, her old fashioned upswept hairstyle with its topknot clearly a feature of the design. “God bless Aunt Egg. Anyone would think she was living in 1904 not 1924.”

 

“I know.” agrees Lettice with a smile as she starts buttering her toast, the crisp scrape of her knife against the slice cutting through the air.

 

“She’s going to leave you all her jewellery, you know, Tice.” Lally says with a knowing look.

 

“Oh!” Lettice scoffs, waving her sister’s remark away dismissively with a wave of her hand. “She teases all of us with her flippant remarks about her jewellery. No, she plays her hand close to her chest.”

 

“But you’re the most like her, Tice: the most artistic. I’m just like all the other Chetwynd cousins – a rather pedestrian country squire’s wife who attends luncheons at the behest of the head of the WI – unlike you, who has her own successful interior design business and socialises with a smart and select London set.”

 

“Read the card, Lally.” Lettice hisses as she takes a bite of her toast.

 

Lally reads aloud, “’Dearest Lettice, I’m sorry to write like this, but I really can’t have you lolling about at Dorrington House, being pandered to, and mollycoddled by Lally.’” Lally drops her arms, the card still clenched tightly in her right hand. She stares wide eyes in astonishment at their aunt’s statement. “Mollycoddling! What a cheek, Aunt Egg!”

 

“Well,” Lettice indicates down to the breakfast tray across her lap as she gulps down a slice of toast. “Charles would doubtless agree with her. Let’s be honest, Lally, that whilst I have adored staying here with you, being feted, and waited upon hand and foot, you are pandering to me.”

 

“Well…” mutters Lally, blushing as she speaks.

 

“Keep reading.” Lettice insists as she takes up the silver teapot and pours hot tea into her dainty blue sprigged china teacup.

 

Lally takes up the card again. “Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, ‘being pandered to, and mollycoddled by Lally. It’s time you stopped hiding away in the bucolic bosom of Buckinghamshire’,” Lally pauses again. “Aunt Egg does have a way with words, doesn’t she?” She sniggers and shakes her head.

 

“Keep reading!” Lettice insists.

 

“’And come home to London, where I will admit, you are missed by your Embassy Club coterie of friends. Only last week I heard from Cilla Carter Minnie Palmerston, and Margot Channon three times, asking when you were coming home. I simply must insist that you come back post haste. However, like me, I know you are a woman of your own will,’” Lally looks across at her sister as she sips her tea in bed. “She’s right there. The two of you are by far the most stubborn of the women in the Chetwynd family.”

 

“Keep reading, Lally!”

 

“’So, well aware of the fact that you won’t return solely upon my request, I have had to make arrangements to compel you out of your broken hearted stupor in the stultifying countryside and thrust you back into the beating heart of London society. I’ve managed to wrangle an invitation for you, and Dicke and Margot Channon, to attend one of Sir John and Lady Caxton’s amusing Friday to Monday long weekend parties at Gossington along with a host other notable Bright Young Things********. It will do you good to be with some people of your own age.’” Lally drops her arms again. “People your own age?” she blusters. “Does Aunt Egg suddenly think me ninety, rather than thirty five?”

 

“You know how she is, dear Lally.” She’s just trying to create a compelling reason for me to leave you and go back to London as she bids. Don’t take it personally.” Lettice implores as she takes another dainty bite of her toast. “Keep reading.”

 

“’The Channons will be expecting dinner at Cavendish Mews on Monday evening to discuss arrangements. Apparently, Dickie has enough money for petrol for the motor to be able to drive three of you up to Gossington! Will wonders never cease? Please wire, if indeed you can find a telegraph office in the wilds of Buckinghamshire, what train you will be arriving on at Victoria Station and I will arrange to collect you. With love, Aunt Egg.’”

 

“So you see, Lally darling, I’ll have to arrange a journey back to London.” Lettice says apologetically. “Perhaps you can drop me at High Wycombe railway station on your way to luncheon this afternoon, and then send Tipden back to fetch me after he drops you off at Mrs. Whatsit’s.”

 

“Mrs. Alsop.” Lally reiterates.

 

“Exactly!” Lettice sighs. “Quite right! By the time he’s back I’ll have sent a wire.”

 

“Well of course, Tipden and my car are at your disposal, Lettice darling,” Lally says in a disappointed voice. “But it really is too beastly of Aunt Egg to charge in and spoil our plans like this. I was arranging for us to visit Lady Verney********* at Claydon House********** in Aylesbury Vale whilst you were stopping with me. Oh well!” She sighs and raises her hands in despair. “I shall simply have to telephone her and cancel.”

 

“I’m sure you could still visit Lady Verney, even without me, Lally darling.”

 

“You’d like Lady Varney. She’s been a campaigner for girls’ education for decades now, and is really quite intelligent and independent.”

 

“Oh that is a pity, but I’m afraid it can’t be helped, Lally. An invitation from the Caxtons cannot be refused.”

 

“And who are Sir John and Lady Caxton?” Lally queries. “I don’t think I know them.”

 

“Oh, Sir John and Lady Gladys are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their amusing weekend parties at their Scottish country estate and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John, so they attract a mixture of witty writers and artists mostly.”

 

“Oh!” Lally gasps. “So that’s who it is!”

 

“Who, Lally?”

 

“Aunt Egg mentioned to me when we were at Glynes over Christmas and New Year, that she was arranging something for you with a lady novelist. It must be this, Lady Gladys.”

 

“I suppose the artistic connection is how Aunt Egg knows the Caxtons, although, I didn’t actually know that they were acquainted.”

 

“Well she must be more than acquainted with them if Aunt Egg could,” Lally scans the message on the card in her aunt’s spidery cursive handwriting. “Wrangle you an invitation, Tice darling.” Lally sighs disappointedly before snatching the half eaten slice of toast off her sister’s plate and takes a large bite from it. After swallowing her mouthful she continues, “I don’t see why, if she has organised an invitation for Dickie and Margot Channon, why she couldn’t have arranged one for me. She knows Charles has set sail for India and that I’ll be alone without you.”

 

“You’re hardly alone, Lally darling. What about Mrs. Alsop?” Lettice says with a cheeky grin as she takes back what is left of her triangle of toast.

 

“Oh, ha-ha!” replies Lally sarcastically.

 

“But in all seriousness Lally, you aren’t alone here. There are Nettie Fisher and Alice Newsome, and all those other lovely friends of yours who have been so hospitable to me since I arrived. They are all quite wonderful.”

 

“I suppose.” Lally replies deflatedly.

 

“Well, this is all rather thrilling!” Lettice says excitedly, pushing aside her breakfast tray and throwing back the covers with a sudden surge of gusto. “The Caxtons are quite eccentric characters, especially Lady Gladys, and from what I’ve read of them, they are refreshingly different and amusing. Thus, there is never a shortage of guests for their Friday to Monday house parties, and invitations to Gossington are a highly desirable, yet all too rare commodity. Margot will be beside herself!”

 

“Well then, however sad it is, I shall bid you a fond farewell, dear Tice.”

 

Lettice climbs out of bed and embraces her sister lovingly, inhaling her familiar scent of Yardley’s English Lavender. “Don’t worry, Lally darling.” She kisses her affectionately on the left cheek. “I’ll come back down again as soon as this weekend with the Caxtons is over.”

 

“I bet you won’t, Tice!” Lally retorts resignedly. She holds her sister at arm’s length, taking in the sudden vitality that has put a sparkle back into her eyes and roses into her cheeks. “This will be the beginning of a welcome distraction for you.” Then she adds sadly, “And one that is far better than any remedy I can provide you with. Best you follow Aunt Egg’s instructions and go back to London.”

 

“Oh thank you, Lally Darling!” Lettice cries joyfully, throwing her hands around her elder sister’s neck and clinging tightly to her. “You are a brick!”

 

“Yes, you’ll get all of Aunt Egg’s jewellery, Tice darling. You are her favourite by far.”

 

*The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.

 

**Before the Second World War, if you were a married Lady, it was customary for you to have your breakfast in bed, because you supposedly don't have to socialise to find a husband. Unmarried women were expected to dine with the men at the breakfast table, especially on the occasion where an unmarried lady was a guest at a house party, as it gave her exposure to the unmarried men in a more relaxed atmosphere and without the need for a chaperone.

 

***The House of Lanvin was named after its founder Jeanne Lanvin in 1889. Jeanne Lanvin was born in 1867 and opened her first millinery shop in rue du Marche Saint Honore in 1885. Jeanne made clothes for her daughter, Marie-Blanche de Polignac, which began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people, who requested copies for their own children. Soon, she was making dresses for their mothers, which were included in the clientele of her new boutique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. In 1909, Jeanne Lanvin joined the Syndicat de la Couture, which marked her formal status as a couturière. The Lanvin logo was inspired by a photograph taken for Jeanne Lanvin as she attended a ball with her daughter wearing matching outfits in 1907. From 1923, the Lanvin empire included a dye factory in Nanterre. In the 1920s, Lanvin opened shops devoted to home decor, menswear, furs and lingerie, but her most significant expansion was the creation of Lanvin Parfums SA in 1924. "My Sin", an animalic-aldehyde based on heliotrope, was introduced in 1925, and is widely considered a unique fragrance. It would be followed by her signature fragrance, Arpège, in 1927, said to have been inspired by the sound of her daughter's practising her scales on the piano.

 

****The ‘robe de style’ was introduced by French couturier Jeanne Lanvin around 1915. It consisted of a basque bodice with a broad neckline and an oval bouffant skirt supported by built in wire hoops. Reminiscent of the Spanish infanta-style dresses of the Seventeenth Century and the panniered robe à la française of the Eighteenth Century they were made of fabric in a solid colour, particularly a deep shade of robin’s egg blue which became known as Lanvin blue, and were ornamented with concentrated bursts of embroidery, ribbons or ornamental silk flowers.

 

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

 

******An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very large form of greenhouse or conservatory.

 

*******In 1837, the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company first secured a Government contract for the regular carriage of mail between Falmouth and the Peninsular ports as far as Gibraltar. The company, established in 1835 by the London shipbroking partnership of Brodie McGhie Willcox (1786-1861) and Arthur Anderson (1792-1868) and the Dublin Ship owner, Captain Richard Bourne (1880-1851) had begun a regular steamer service for passengers and cargo between London, Spain and Portugal using the 206 ton paddle steamer William Fawcett. The growing inclination of early Twentieth Century shipping enterprises to merge their interests, and group themselves together, did not go unnoticed at P&O, which made its first major foray in this direction in 1910 with the acquisition of Wilhelm Lund’s Blue Anchor Line. By 1913, with a paid-up capital of some five and half million pounds and over sixty ships in service, several more under construction and numerous harbour craft and tugs to administer to the needs of this great fleet all counted, the P&O Company owned over 500,000 tons of shipping. In addition to the principal mail routes, through Suez to Bombay and Ceylon, where they divided then for Calcutta, Yokohama and Sydney, there was now the ‘P&O Branch Line’ service via the Cape to Australia and various feeder routes. The whole complex organisation was serviced by over 200 agencies stationed at ports throughout the world. At the end of 1918, the Group was further strengthened by its acquisition of a controlling shareholding in the Orient Line and in 1920, the General Steam Navigation Company, the oldest established sea-going steamship undertaking, was taken over. In 1923 the Strick Line was acquired too and P&O became, for a time, the largest shipping company in the world. With the 1920s being the golden age of steamship travel, P&O was the line to cruise with. P&O had grown into a group of separate operating companies whose shipping interests touched almost every part of the globe. By March 2006, P&O had grown to become one of the largest port operators in the world and together with P&O Ferries, P&O Ferrymasters, P&O Maritime Services, P&O Cold Logistics and its British property interests, the company was, itself, acquired by DP World for three point three billion pounds.

 

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

 

********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.

 

*********Lady Margaret Maria Verney, was an English-born Welsh educationist. Verney was the daughter of Lady Sarah Elizabeth Amherst and her husband John Hay-Williams, 2nd Baronet Williams of Bodelwyddan. On the death of her father in 1859, she inherited his house "Rhianfa", on Anglesey, which she retained as a family home. In 1868 she married Sir Edmund Hope Verney, MP, then merely Captain Verney. She became a leading campaigner for girls' education in Britain. In 1894 she became a member of the Statutory Council of the University of Wales, holding the position until 1922.

 

**********Claydon House is a country house in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England, near the village of Middle Claydon. It was built between 1757 and 1771 and is now owned by the National Trust. Claydon has been the ancestral home of the Verney family since 1620. The present Verney family, are the descendants of Sir Harry Calvert, 2nd Baronet who inherited the house in 1827. He was very tenuously related to the Verneys only through marriage. However, he adopted the name Verney on inheriting. The house was given to the National Trust in 1956 by Sir Ralph Verney, 5th Baronet. His son, Sir Edmund Verney, 6th Baronet, a former High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, lived in the house until 2019.

 

This cosy boudoir may look real to you, but it is in fact made up of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The mahogany stained breakfast tray came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. On its surface the crockery, serviettes with their napkin rings came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The teapot also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. It is sterling silver, hallmarked Birmingham 1910 and has a removable lid, so it was probably a commissioned piece of Edwardian whimsy for someone wealthy, be they an adult or child. The cutlery came from an online stockist of miniatures. The orange comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The egg cup come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The egg in the egg cup is amongst some of the smallest miniatures I own, and came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The square of butter in the glass dish 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.

 

The two copies of Vogue, the Art Nouveau style card and the addressed and postmarked envelope on the silver tray are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. However, he did not make books exclusively. He also made other small pieces like the card and envelope. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make these miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The small silver letter salver is a 1:12 artisan miniature piece of sterling silver. The artist is unknown. Being made of silver, it is very heavy for its size. The sterling silver letter opener is made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures.

 

Lettice’s comforter is in fact a piece of beautiful vintage embroidered sari silk from the 1970s, laid over a box to give the appearance of the corner of a bed. I even put my fingers under the covers to give the impression of a body as you can see in the bottom right-hand corner of the image, where the comforter is raised slightly.

 

Lettice’s elegant straw hat sitting on the French blue hatbox in the background is decorated with an oyster satin ribbon, three feathers and an ornamental flower. The maker for this hat is unknown, but I acquitted it through Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in the United Kingdom. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism as this one is are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable.

 

The blue hatbox in the background on which the hat sits is a 1:12 artisan miniature and made of blue kid leather which is so soft to the touch, and small metal handles, clasps and ornamentation. It has been purposely worn around their edges to give it age. It also comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in England.

 

The Chinese screen is made of black japanned wood and features hand painted soapstone panels, so it is very heavy. I picked it up at an auction some twenty years ago.

 

The dressing table featuring fine marquetry banding appears to have been made by the same unknown artisan who made the round table. This piece I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The brush on its surface is part of a set painted by miniature artisan Victoria Fasken, and was also acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The vase on the dressing table surface is a 1950s Limoges piece. The vase is stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. I found this treasure in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. The pink roses it contains came from beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.

 

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

Fiat 124 Spider

 

The 124 Sport Spider was one of the longest-lived of the Fiat cars built in the last century. Styled by Pininfarina in 1966, it enjoyed a dual career of unflagging success in Europe and America until 1985. Twenty years in which the curvy, compact Spider was modified in response to the mechanical upgrading of various Fiat models, remaining in production for the States alone from 1975 onwards. In 1982, its ceaseless success and demand from the European market led Pininfarina to reintroduce the car on this side of the Atlantic. It was appropriately updated and called the "Spidereuropa" to distinguish it from the version for the US market. The Pininfarina Spidereuropa was equipped with a two litre, four cylinder engine producing 105 HP, and had electronic injection and ignition. A real featherweight - weighing only just over 1000 kg - this lightweight roadster with just two seats easily reached a top speed of more than 180 km/h.

The car on show has undergone meticulous restoration of its bodywork, mechanicals and interior. Certified by the FCA Heritage team of experts, it is offered for sale within the "Reloaded by Creators" programme.

 

1.995 cc

4 in-line

105 HP @ 5.500 rpm

Vmax : 180 km/h

 

Techno Classica 2019

Essen

Deutschland - Germany

April 2019

Hey, hey, its the weekend again!

 

And, if I'm honest here, the weather was going to be grim. So, unclear what we would do for fun, other than watch wall to wall cup football, as it is that time of the year again.

 

We sleep in to seven, by which time we're normally at Tesco on a Saturday, but not this week, doubly so as the mad pre-Christmas rush was over, though as it would turn out they had Easter Eggs and Valentine's Cards on display. But turkey stuffing flavour crisps were on offer....

 

After coffee, I set out for Whitfield, fill up the car with fuel, then drive round to Tesco to park and go shopping. And as it the norm these days, our simple basic shopping list now comes to nearly £100.

 

And I forgot to buy peppers for hash!

 

I come home, we unpack and have breakfast of fruit before I have a shower and I say what I would like to do, and Jools says what she would like to do. She wanted to do some wave watching as a storm was indeed raging outside, and I wanted to visit a couple of churches.

 

Out down Jubilee Way, where we could see white horses just the other side of the breakwater, so we change plans to go to St Martin's Battery to see if waves were breaking over the Admiralty Pier and the old Western Docks station. Not quite as bad as I have seen it, but impressive.

 

We drive on, but turn off at Capel to stop at the cliff top overview, with the railway, The Warren and Wear Bay bread out below us. And then there was the wind, roaring and trying to blow us over the edge. Jools didn't fall over this time, but I did take a video, though there is no sound other than the deep screaming of the wind.

 

Our desire for wave watching was sated.

 

We drove back to the A20 and along to Folkestone and the start of the motorway.

 

Our destination was Brabourne, a small village situated below the green hulk of Wye Down, home to a fine old church. I have been here before, but it seems I missed the ancient glass high in the north wall of the Chancel. The glass is 12th century, and made for this very window, though it was reset in the 19th Century. It was tricky to see, but I had the big lens with me.

 

Jools stayed in the car, as there was no parking, so she would be on hand to move the car if it was blocking the drive we were parked on. I met a guy coming out, I waved to let him know if he was going to lock the door, but no worries, its always open, he says.

 

He also tells me there is a button as you enter which pressing would turn the lights on for 15 minutes. Now, I hadn't thought how the bright lights would make photographing the ancient glass. So, that meant I had to wait 15 minutes for the lights to go out so I could get the shots I came for. So, while I wated, I retake shots of the fixtures and fittings.

 

The light went out, the poorly defined glass became clear, so I got my shots. Glass of the 12th century was made of earth tones, and although it looks like fragments, it was as designed, the glass making geometric shapes and flower-like patterns.

 

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St Mary's is a very tall church, more Saxon in its proportions than Norman. The church dates in its present form from the twelfth century, with typical decoration in the form of pilaster buttresses on the outside north wall of the chancel. In the thirteenth century a south aisle was added and the present arch to the tower rebuilt; the remains of the original Norman arch may still be seen. In the chancel is a remarkable survivor - a twelfth-century window with its original glass. It has been reset and restored, but vividly recalls the dusky colours of the period. The pattern is purely geometric, of flowers and semi-circles, and may be compared to the contemporary glass in Canterbury Cathedral. Also in the chancel is one of the two thirteenth-century heart shrines in Kent. This little piece of sculpture consists of a plain shield - originally painted - under decorated and cusped tracery, the whole squeezed between thin pinnacles. It is uncertain whose heart was buried here, but it dates from about 1296 and may be associated with the de Valence family. The other Kent heart shrine is at Leybourne (see separate entry).

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Brabourne

 

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A Church has existed here since Saxon times - mention is made of one at 'Bradeburna' soon after the coming of Archbishop Lanfranc to Canterbury in about 1070.

 

The present St Mary's Church is of Norman design, and dates from the twelfth century.

 

Most of the original Norman nave can be seen on the north side, and the Chancel is pure Norman. Notice the priest's doorway and the twelfth century window in the Chancel - this still has its original glass. It is almost certainly unique in the country as most were smashed during the reign of Henry VIII, or later, during the Civil War. It was also left when other stained glass from the Church was sold in 1774. It is believed to be England's oldest complete Norman window still in its original setting with light falling through.

 

Additions were made in the thirteenth century , including the rebuilt arch to the tower. The staircase in the tower is of great antiquity: halves of an oak tree 31ft long form the sides, with another tree for the base and a forked branch as a support.

 

The Chancel also holds one of only two thirteenth century heart shrines in Kent (the other is in Leybourne). The sculpture consists of a plain shield (the original paint has long since worn away) under fine decorated arches. In the back there is a recess, which would have been used to contain a heart encased in silver or ivory. It is thought that the shrine was built for the heart of John Baliol, founder of Balliol College, Oxford. Whether it served its intended purpose is unknown, but it was found to be empty when opened in the early 1900s.

 

The tomb of Sir John Scott, made of Caen stone, stands in the north wall of the Chancel. Sir John, who died on October 17th 1485, was a Privy Councillor and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Above the tomb hangs a trophy helmet, carried at the funeral of a knight, most probably Sir Thomas Scott, Commander of the Kentish Forces during the reign of Elizabeth I.

 

Another helmet (in the south east corner of the Chancel) is thought to have belonged to Sir William Scott, who died in 1433.

 

The altar is a tomb, topped with a slab of Bethersden Marble, and dates from around 1600. It is decorated with the arms of the Scott family.

 

www.brabournepc.kentparishes.gov.uk/default.cfm?pid=1140

 

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LIES the next parish to Bircholt north-eastward, being written in Domesday both Breburne and Bradeburne, and taking its name from its situation on the broad bourne or rivulet which rises in it.

 

THE PARISH is situated at the foot of the upper range of the chalk or down-hills, which reach from hence to the sea shore at Folkestone, and here take the name of Braborne downs; it is an unfrequented place, and from the soils of it not a pleasant one, for near the downs it is mostly chalk; the middle part, though there are various soils in it, consists mostly of a stiff, though not unfertile clay, and the southern part is a deep red sand. It is about two miles across from north to south, and somewhat more from east to west, stretching itself along a narrow slip beyond Hampton, almost as far as the village of Brooke, and on the other part within a very little of Stowting court-lodge. The village of Braborne, having the church and court-lodge in it, lies at the foot of the Down-hill, on the side of a wide valley, which extends below it southward. At the foot of the hills westward are Combe, Bedlestone, the hamlet of West Braborne-street and Hampton. The parish is well watered by several rivulets, one of them, which rises in and near Braborne-street, runs southward into that branch of the Stour below Scottshall, and so on by Sevington to Ashford; and there are others, which from the foot of the hills, more towards the west, which join the stream which runs by Swatfield bridge towards Ashford likewise.

 

In the southern part of the parish is the heath called Braborne-lees, one half of which only is within the bounds of it; across these lees the high road goes from Ashford towards Hythe. Here is a noted warren for rabbits, belonging to the Scotts-hall estate, they are of a remarkable fine flavor, from which Canterbury, and all the neighbouring towns are plentifully supplied with them. A fair is held in the village on the last day of May, for pedlary and toys.

 

That part of it which is within the borough of Cocklescombe, is in the hundred, and within the liberty of the royal manor of Wye.

 

THE MANOR OF BRABORNE, soon after the dissolution of the Saxon heptarchy, was, according to a very antient record, the inheritance of a lady called Salburga, who is stiled in it Domina de Brabourne, and by her will, in the year 864, ordered that the future possessors of it should give yearly to the monastery of St. Augustine, a quantity of provisions, on condition of their performing certain religious services for the health of her soul; which provisions were forty measures of malt, fifteen rams, twenty loaves of bread, one measure of butter, one measure of cheese, four cart loads of wood, and twenty hens. Who were the possessors of this manor afterwards till the time of the Norman conquest, does not appear; but at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, it was become part of the pos sessions of Hugo de Montfort, on whom that prince had bestowed likewise more than thirty other manors and estates in the neighbourhood of it. Accordingly he is numbered in that record as one of the thirteen, (for there are no more) who held lands in this county at that time, and under the general title of his lands this manor is thus entered in it.

 

In Wivart lath, in Berisout hundred, Hugo himself holds Breburne, Godric de Burnes held it of king Edward, and it was taxed at seven sulings, and now for five sulings and an half and half a yoke, because another part of it is without the division of Hugo, and that the bishop of Baieux holds. The arable land is fifteen carucates. In demesne there are two, and thirty-one villeins, with ten borderers having ten carucates. There is a church, and eight servants, and two mills of seven shillings, and twenty acres of meadow. Wood for the pannage of twenty-five bags. In the time of king Edward the Confessor it was worth twenty pounds, and afterwards eight pounds, now sixteen pounds.

 

That part mentioned above, as without the division of Hugo de Montfort, is likewise noticed in the same book, in the description of the adjoining manors of Hastingligh and Aldelows, belonging to the bishop of Baieux, as may be seen hereafter, in the account of them.

 

On the voluntary exile of Robert de Montfort, grandson of Hugh above-mentioned, in the reign of king Henry I. this manor, among the rest of his possessions, came into the king's hands, whence it was soon afterwards granted to Robert, son of Bernard de Ver, constable of England, who had married Adeliza, daughter of Hugh de Montfort, and was the founder of the priory of Horton, in the next adjoining parish. (fn. 1) After which it appears to have come into the possession of Henry de Essex, who was constable likewise of Eng land, from his succession to which, as well as from other circumstances, it should seem that he became entitled to this manor by inheritance Henry de Essex, before-mentioned, was baron of Raleigh, in Essex, his chief seat, and hereditary standard-bearer of England; but by his misbehaviour in a battle against the Welsh, in the 10th year of that reign, he forfeited all his possessions to the crown. (fn. 2) Before which he had confirmed to the priory of Horton all the former grants of his ancestors. And by another charter he granted to it, in free and perpetual alms, the pasture of twelve oxen in his park of Braborne, with his own oxen, for so long as they should be at feed, whether within his park or without; and all tithe of his hay, to be taken wholly and fully with his carriages to the barns of the monks. After which this manor appears to have been held by Baldwin de Betun, earl of Albermarle, who, in the 5th year of king John, granted it to William Mareschal, earl of Pembroke, with Alice his daughter in frank marriage, to hold to them and their heirs. William, earl of Pembroke, in the 10th year of king Henry III. his first wife being deceased, married Alianore, the king's sister, and in the 14th year of that reign had a confirmation of this manor, on condition that Alianore his wife, if she survived him, should enjoy it for life. He died in the 15th year of that reign, and she became possessed of it, and afterwards remarried Simon, earl of Leicester, who was slain fighting on the part of the discontented barons at the battle of Evesham. After which the countess and her children were forced to forsake the realm, and she died abroad in great poverty. In the mean time the four brothers of William, earl of Pembroke, successively earls of Pembroke, being dead s. p. their inheritance became divided between their five sisters and their heirs, and upon the division of it, the manor of Braborne, among others, was allotted to Joane, the second sister, then the widow of Warine de Montchensie, by whom she had one son William, and a daughter Joane, married to William de Valence, the king's half brother, who afterwards, through the king's favour, on William de Montchensie's taking part with the discontented barons, and his estates being confiscated, became possessed of this manor, of which he died possessed in the 23d year of king Edward I. leaving Joane his widow surviving, who had it assigned to her as part of her dower. She died in the 1st year of king Edward II. holding it in capite by knight's service, as of the king's marechalsy, and leaving one son Adomar or Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, and three daughters; Anne, married to Maurice Fitzgerald, secondly to Hugh Baliol, and lastly to John de Avennes; Isabel, to John de Hastings, of Bergavenny; and Joane, to John Comyn, of Badenagh. (fn. 3) Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, on her death, succeeded to this manor, and in the 6th year of that reign, obtained a charter of privileges for it, among which were those of a market, fair, and free-warren. He was a nobleman greatly favoured by king Edward I. and II. but in the 17th year of the latter reign, attending the queen into France, he was murdered there that year. He died possessed of this manor, and without issue; so that John de Hastings, son of Isabel, one of the earl's sisters, and John Comyn, of Badenagh, in Scotland, son of Joane, another of the earl's sisters, were found to be his coheirs and next of kin; and the latter of them, on the division of their inheritance, had this manor, in his mother's right, allotted to him. He died s. p. in the 19th year of king Edward II. leaving his two sisters his coheirs, of whom the eldest, Joane, married to David de Strabolgie, earl of Athol, possessed this manor as part of his wife's inheritance, and died next year. His descendant David de Strabolgie, earl of Athol, died in the 49th year of that reign, possessed of this manor, (fn. 4) leaving by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Henry, lord Ferrers, who died the same year, anno 1375, and was buried in the high chancel of Ashford church, two daughters his coheirs, the youngest of whom Philippa, married to John Halsham, of Halsham, in Sussex, by her father's will, became entitled to this manor. The Halshams bore for their arms, Argent, a chevron engrailed, between three leopards heads, gules. Their grandson Sir Hugh Halsham, died anno 21 Henry VI. leaving Joane, his only daughter and heir, who entitled her husband John Lewknor, esq. of Sussex, to the possession of it; in whose descendants it continued till the latter end of king Henry VII.'s reign, when Sybilla, daughter of Sir Thomas Lewknor, carried it in marriage to Sir William Scott, K. B. and in his descendants, resident at Scotts-hall, this manor, with the rents, services, courtlodge, and demesne lands, remained, till at length George Scott, esq. about the year 1700, sold the manor-house, called Braborne court-lodge, with the demesne lands belonging to it, being enabled so to do by an act passed anno 10 and 11 William III. to Tho. Denne, of Patricksborne, whose grandsons Daniel and Thomas Denne, of Sittingborne, in 1768, conveyed this estate to William Deedes, esq. of St. Stephen's, (who was before possessed of an estate in this parish, which had been purchased of George Scott, esq. by his grandfather William Deedes, M. D. of Canterbury) and his eldest son of the same name, now of Hythe, esq. is the present owner of it.

 

BUT THE MANOR RENTS AND SERVICES remained in the family of Scott for some time afterwards, and till Edward Scott, esq. some few years ago, alienated the quit-rents of this manor, together with the Park and Pound farms, in this parish, to Thomas Whorwood, esq. of Denton, who by will devised them for life to Mrs. Cecilia Scott, of Canterbury, daughter of George Scott, esq. before-mentioned, on whose death in 1785 the property of them became vested in lady Markham, widow of Sir James Markham, bart. of Lincolnshire, who was Mr. Whorwood's heir-at-law, and she sold them in 1787 to Sir Edward Knatchbull, bart. the present owner of them.

 

BUT THE MANOR OF BRABORNE ITSELF, with the court baron and other manerial rights belonging to it, remained in the descendants of George Scott, esq. down to Francis Talbot Scott, esq. whose trustees, about the year 1784, conveyed it, with his other estates in this neighbourhood, to Sir John Honywood, bart. of Evington, who is the present proprietor of it.

 

HEMINGE is a manor, lying at the south-east corner of this parish, next to Horton, which in antient time gave both surname and residence to a family so called, as the deeds without date belonging to it plainly shew. At length, after this manor had been in the possession of this name, as might be traced out fully by these evidences for almost three hundred years, it was conveyed by William Heminge, in the 2d year of Edward VI.'s reign, to Peter Nott, in whose descendants it continued till the 16th year of Charles II. when one of them alienated it to Avery Hills, by whose daughter and heir it went in marriage to Hobday, whose descendant sold it, in the year 1713, to Mr. John Nethersole, who left three sons surviving, John, who was of Barham; Stephen, who was of Wimlinswold; and William, who was of Canterbury, in whose three daughters, or their representatives, this manor at length became vested. They agreed on a partition of their inheritance, on which the whole of this manor was allotted to Jacob Sharpe, esq. of Canterbury, the surviving son of Mr. Jacob Sharpe, by Elizabeth, the eldest of the three daughters, who in 1796 sold it to Mr. Thomas Ken nett, of Brabourn, who is the present possessor of it. A court baron is held for this manor.

 

COMBE is another manor, in the northern part of this parish, close at the foot of the downs, which name it had from its situation, cumbe signifying in the Saxon a bottom or valley, and to distinguish it from other manors of the same name in this neighbourhood, it was called Braborne Combe. About the year 990, one Edward de Cumbe, whose son Leofard was a monk in St. Augustine's monastery, by his will bequeatned the land of Cumbe to that monastery. Whether the abbot and convent ever gained the possession of it, or if they did, how long it staid with them, I do not find; but at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, in the Conqueror's reign, it was parcel of the possessions of the bishop of Baieux, under the general title of whose lands it is entered in it as follows:

 

The same Wadard holds of the bishop, Cumbe. It was taxed at one suling. The arable land is two carucates. In demesne there is one, and nine villeins, with five borderers having one carucate and an half. There are fourteen acres of meadow. Wood for the pannage of five hogs. In the time of king Edward the Confessor it was worth sixty shillings, and afterwards fifty shillings, now four pounds, and the service of one knight. Leuret de rochinge held it of king Edward.

 

After this, on the bishop of Baieux's disgrace, this manor was held of the crown, by a family who took their name from their residence at it; of whom Richard de Combe, and Simon his son, served the office of sheriff, as assistants to Sir John de Northwood, in the 20th year of king Edward I. and bore for their arms, Sable, three lions passant-guar dant, in pale, gules. At length by a female heir of this name, it went by marriage, in the reign of king Richard II. to John Scott, who afterwards resided at it, as did his descendants till Sir William Scott removed to Scotts-hall at the latter end of king Henry IV.'s reign; and in his descendants, of Scotts-hall, this manor continued down to George Scott, esq. of Scotts-hall, who procured an act anno 10 and 11 king William, to vest this manor, among his other estates, in trustees, to be sold for payment of his debts, in pursuance of which it was soon afterwards sold to Brook Bridges, esq. of Goodnestone, afterwards created a baronet, whose great-grandson Sir Brook Bridges, bart. of Goodnestone, is the present possessor of it.

 

HAMPTON is the last manor to be described in this parish, being situated in the north-west corner of it, adjoining to Brooke. It has the name in antient deeds of Hampton Cocklescombe, and sometimes is described by the name of the manor of Cocklescombe only, being so called from its situation in the borough of that name, and within the hundred of Wye. This manor was given by Robert de Ver, constable of England, and lord of Braborne, to Osbert his marshal, and Emeline his wife, who gave it again to the priory in the adjoining parish of Horton, by the description of the land of Hanetone; which gift was confirmed to the priory by the same Robert de Ver, and Adeliza de Montfort his wife, and afterwards by Henry de Essex, (fn. 5) as appears by the register of it; of the priory of Horton this manor was afterwards again held, at the rent of forty shillings in perpetual fee farm, by a family who took their name of Hampton from their residence at it, as appears not only by the above register, but by antient deeds and court-rolls, and that they remained here till the reign of king Henry VI. when John Hampton pasted it away to one of the name of Shelley, by whose heir general it became the property of John May, of Bibroke, in Kennington, whose son of the same name leaving an only daughter Alice, the carried it in marriage to John Edolph, of Brenset, and his daughter Elizabeth entitled her husband William Wil cocks, esq. of New Romney, to it, who died possessed of this manor in the 16th year of queen Elizabeth, holding it in free socage. His widow survived him, and afterwards married Ralph Radcliffe, esq. of Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, who survived her. She died in the 39th year of that reign, and by her last will devised this manor to her only son by her first husband, John Wilcocks, who dying s. p. his two sisters became his coheirs, of whom Martha married Sir Edward Radcliffe, of Sevington, in this county, and physician to king James I. and Elizabeth married William Andrews; and on the partition of their inheritance, Sir Edward Radcliffe became entitled to the sole possession of it, in whose descendants it continued down to John Radcliffe, esq. of Hitchin priory, who dying in 1783, s. p. this manor, among his other estates, came to Sir Charles Farnaby, bart. of Sevenoke, in right of his wife Penelope, sister and heir-at-law of the above mentioned John Radcliffe. Sir Charles Farnaby afterwards took the name of Radcliffe, (fn. 6) and removed to Hitchin, where he died in 1798, and his heirs are now entitled to it.

 

Charities.

 

WILLIAM FORDRED, by will in 1550, gave to this parish, among others, a proportion of the rents of 25 acres of land in St. Mary's parish, in Romney Marsh; which portion to this parish is of the annual produce of 4l. 12s. 4¾d. to be distributed annually to the poor, and vested in trustees.

 

MR. KNOTT gave for the use of the poor, a sum of money, vested in Robert Goddard, of Mersham, now of the annual produce of 8s.

 

The poor constantly relieved are about fifty-five, casually twenty-five.

 

BRABORNE is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Elham.

 

The church, which is dedicated to St. Mary, is a large handsome building, consisting of two isles and two chancels, having a square tower steeple at the west end, in which are five bells. The northern isle is much lostier than the other, having an upper story, choir-like, with the three upper windows to the south; below which is the roof of the north isle. Both chancels are full of the interments of the Scott family; but the brasses and inscriptions are almost all gone. Against the north wall is a tomb, with an arch and recess over it; against the back have been two figures, with inscriptions, and two shields of brass, now gone; on the side of the tomb are two shields carved in stone, one Pympe, the other Scott. Against the opposite wall is a kind of altar, the form of which is given before, P. I. At the east end, within the rails, is a large altar-tomb against the wall, of Bethersden marble; on it the marks of a figure, the brass gone; on the front five shields, with the arms of Scott, and their several impalements. Over the tomb is a kind of altar-piece, ornamented with stone carve-work, and three shields of arms; I. Scott impaling oblit. over it the date 1290; 2, being the middle shield, Scott and the following quarterings, Beaufitz, Pympe, Pashley, Normanville, Warren, Sergeaux, Gower, and Cogan In which arms of Scott it is noted, all the bordures are plain. In the south chancel belonging likewise to the Scott family, the brasses on the gravestones, with which the pavement is covered, are all gone. In the south wall is a very antient tomb with an arch over it; underneath this tomb the late Edward Scott, esq. was buried. Against this wall is a monument for Arthur Scott, commissioner of the navy, third son of Geo. Scott, of Scotts-hall. Against the north wall a monument for lieutenant-colonel Cholmeley Scott, esq. youngest son of George Scott, esq. of Scotts-hall. Weever mentions several memorials of this family in the body of the church remaining in his time, all which have been long since obliterated, and their brasses destoryed. In the south isle is a stone, with the figure of a man in brass, habited in armour, with sword and spurs on, the latter having the rowels much like the figure of a catherine wheel; a greyhound under his feet; the inscription gone, excepting the words of Brabourne, armigr. and anno Dni mil. Against the north wall, a monument for William Richards, put up by Gabriel Richards, gent. of Rowling, in 1672; arms, Sable, a chevron between three fleurs de lis, argent; a crescent for difference. Another for John Richards, vicar, obt. 1727. In the south scite of the body of the church, is a memorial for Dionisia, daughter of Vincent Fynche, alias Harbert, esq. obt. 1458; arms, Finch impaling Cralle; and in the same isle is a stone, robbed of the figure on it, but the brass inscription remains, for Joane, daughter of Sir Gervas Cliston, married to John Diggs; arms, Clifton impaling Fineh, and Diggs impaling Clifton. The tower at the west end is of a large size, but flat at top, and only of equal height with the roof of the north isle.

 

Mr. Evelyn, in his Discourse on Forest Trees, mentions a superannuated yew-tree growing in this churchyard, which being 58 feet 11 inches in circumference, bore near 20 feet diameter; and besides which there were goodly planks, and other considerable pieces of square and clear timber, which he observed to lie about it, which had been hewed and sawn out of some of the arms only, torn from it by impetuous winds. This tree has been many years since gone, and a fine stately young one now flourishes in the room of it.

 

The church was formerly appendant to the manor, and continued so till it was given, in the beginning of king Henry II.'s reign, by Robert de Ver, lord of the manor of Braborne, to the priory of Horton, at his first foundation of it; and it was appropriated to the priory before the 8th year of king Richard II. the priory being bound to pay the tenth of the vicarage. But there does not seem to have been any endowment made till anno 1445, when there was one assigned by the prior to Thomas de Banstede, the vicar of it. (fn. 7) In which state this church, with the advowson of the vicarage, continued till the dissolution of the priory in the reign of king Henry VIII. when it came into the king's hands, and remained there till it was granted in exchange to the archbishop, where it still continues, the parsonage being at this time parcel of the see of Canterbury, and his grace the archbishop the present parton of the vicarage.

 

The parsonage is a very handsome brick house, standing at a small distance from the church-yard, to which the vicarage adjoins likewise, being a neat small brick building. The family of Kennet have been lessees for many years, Mr. Claude Kennet being the present lessee of it, who resides at it.

 

¶The vicarage of Braborne is valued in the king's books at 11l. 12s. 6d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 3s. 3d. And there is annually, by the endowment of it, paid out of the parsonage to the vicar, one seam or quarter of wheat, and the like of barley; and archbishop Juxon, anno 15 Charles II. augmented it sixteen pounds per annum, to be paid by the lessee of the parsonage. In 1640 this vicarage was valued at sixty-four pounds, communicants one hundred and six. In 1733 it was valued at one hundred pounds. There is one acre of glebe land belonging to it.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol8/pp14-27

My first rug hooking pattern is free for YOU, if you contact me at r.m.square@bigpond.com.au or go to my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/au/shop/RobyneMeliaIsBobbyLa

FOR SALE $45K or best offer

  

LSU Maverick Max

 

power steering

Stage 5 Elka shocks

Custom Paint Job, color matched every piece possible

8" Custom CATVOS lift w/turner level 2 axles

4" Portal Lift

24" Rockstar II Wheels

42" BKT Tires

6x6 Transmission (for gear reduction)

Custom front and rear bumpers, front has color matched KFI 4500lbs winch

Custom Tiger Emblem Headlights

Tiger Eye Painted on Roof

Custom Seats with Tiger Emblem stitched in

Light Bar front and Rear

 

Custom Audio Top and Bass Box by All Terrain Audio

All Wetsounds speakers, eq, amp, wetwire, custom digital sound processor tuned by owner of Wetsounds ~ 120 decibel

 

6 Wetsounds amps

1 EQ w/Loudspeaker mic

PS8 (digital sound processor)

1 -XXX 12" sub in triple ported box

1 - SS10-B (10" subwoofer in ssv box)

2 - rev410 (dual 10" speaker with projection horn)

4 - rev10 (10" speaker)

2 - rev8 (8" speaker)

4 - 808 (8" speaker)

8 - xs65 (6.5" speaker)

 

4 - 2150 amp Stinger Batteries

1 - Stinger SPS70 (70 amp power supply booster/charger built in)

 

Bike has never been in mud, was built as is with no miles off showroom floor.

Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.

 

This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.

I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.

 

You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.

Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)

To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.

 

East Java (Jatim) Park is located in Jl. Kartika 2 Batu offers recreation tourism of new entertainment amusement for all level. It begins from children, finite adolescent until grandmother and grandfather. Of course, this tourism object has drawn up as family tour area in East Java. To get to the location, is not too difficult, because, the object only 2, 5 kilos meters from Batu city. This tourism object is about 22 hectares width with 850 meters height to sea level, save the multifarious knowledge, and recreation area with various supporting facilities for having relax.

 

Jatim Park may have said as the different tourism object in East Java province, besides offering a recreation place and study center, we will get many kind new knowledge. Jatim Park has at least 36 kinds of facilities which able to be enjoyed visitor. Before enjoy all supporting facilities for recreation area, the visitors will find an interesting view of ‘Galeri Nusantara’. Then stepped into ‘Taman Sejarah’, which contained of miniature temple in East Java like Sumberawan temple (Singosari- Malang regency), customhouse of Kiai Hasan Besari Ponorogo and Sumberawan Statue.

 

The other facility which able to be enjoyed is ‘Agro Park’ presenting crop and rareness fruits, animal diorama, which consists of unique animals that have been conserved, supporting games (bowling, throw ball, scooter disco), Ken Dedes and Ken Arok food centre, etc.

Jatim Park is suitable for family recreation. The recreation area sites here offer unforgettable tour and can used as alternative media of study for your children.

 

More info visit: www.eastjava.com

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The original shot is offered by Martian Haemoglobin x....For Act III ....Many thanks;)))...

 

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How time will heal

Make me forget

You promised me

Time will heal

Make me forget

You promised me

Love will save us all

And time will heal

You promised me...

How love will save

Make me forget

You promised me

Love will save

Make me forget

You promised me

Time will heal us all

And love will save

You promised me...

I trusted you

I wanted your words

Believed in you

I needed your words

Time will heal

make me forget

And love will save us all

You promised me another wish

Another way

You promised me another dream

Another day

You promised me another time

You promised me another life

You promised me..

So I swallowed the shame and I waited

I buried the blame and I waited

Choked back years of memories...

I pushed down the pain and I waited

Trying to forget...

You promised me another wish

Another way

You promised me another dream

Another day

You promised me another time

You promised me...

Another lie

Oh you promised me...

You promised me... You promised me...

And I waited... And I waited... And I waited...

And I'm still waiting...

  

www.deezer.com/listen-953727 - The Cure - The Promise

Teals

Leaf Bottom Combats

Hercules

Ringers

She was sorry not to offer us some milk...they have very few because of the drought.

 

Every eight years under a full moon, a tribe of Karrayyu priests gather in the Methara region, south of Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, for a ceremony to transfer power, this ceremony is named Gada. Five families share and govern the power.

 

In two days, 10,000 people come, mainly by foot to help with the running of the ceremony. Absolutely no tourists are allowed in the proximity. After weeks of negotiation with the tribe’s leader, I managed to obtain access to help at the ceremony. Throughout the entire negotiation process, it was never a matter of money, as is often the case with tribes, it was simply that the ceremony has never been open to foreigners.

 

The chiefs finally accepted, the Karrayyus are living in particularly difficult times and their position is precarious. They want to make the world aware of their predicament ; the drought killing off their livestock and the government selling their fertile land to Saudi-Arabia, India and South Korea.

Their former tribal wars with their neighbours, the Afars and the Sidamos, are beginning again. The number of young fighters wearing an ostrich feather in the hair acts of a badge of having killed another man, this acts as evidence of renewed conflict.

 

The ceremony takes place in the desert with hundreds of temporary houses having been constructed specially for the Gadda. In front of each house there is cow fencing, the cow being a sacred animal, each one being named like one of their children.

A mound of dry cow pat decorated with yellow fruit draws the boundary and the limit that nobody will dare to pass.

Inside the house, each family has brought their bugée mataas, a strip of artistically, studded leather, their only valuable object.

In front of the fences, the home owner waits for the ritual gifts that the visitors have come to offer them : milk, butter, sorghum …

An accurate list of what has been offered is kept by a sort of official or clerk.

 

As night falls, Karrayuus who have not managed to find the friends begin to shout their names, walking up and down in front of the houses. Some send texts from the mobiles, the only infringement of tradition.

At midnight, the tribal danses begin, the mass circle forms, the warriors, the Qondallas with their afro hair style leap up and down to show their power. The desert is no longer just an immense dust cloud.

 

At the same time, a group of other men look for the daughter of the future chief. She hides and they must find her, they are fortunate enough to have help, a full moon. Everybody else waits. All of a sudden at 3am, the women who were sleeping using their dresses as duvets leap to their feet and start singing : the chief’s daughter has been found !

The presents are then bought into the houses and the monstrous feast begins.

 

In the early hours of the morning, one hundred cows are sacrificed. Their throats cut by the Gille, a long traditional blade. The Karrayuus smear blood on the foreheads of the children as a sign of protection.

 

Later on towards midday, all of the men of power including the chief shave the heads meanwhile the women pierce their ears with acacia thornes. Dozens of cows are again sacrificed, and once again the hot blood is smeared on the mens’ freshly shaven heads, even babies have their heads smeared.

At this point, women are allowed to leave the camp.

 

Then comes the solemn, formal moment of the ceremony, the two families face one another. Each holding blades of wildgrass, irrechas and symbols of power. In a mad scramble, the exchange takes place in just a few seconds. The new chief declares power and disappears immediately !

The former chief leaves with tears in his eyes, the warriors pump themselves up in every sense. Drunk with happiness, the chants and songs start again. Everyone agrees to repeat the ceremony, in just 8 years time.

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

Bubble teas are generally of two distinct types: fruit-flavored teas, and milk teas. However, some shops offer a hybrid "fruit milk tea." Milk teas may use dairy or non-dairy creamers. Some more healthy varieties are 100% crushed fruit smoothies with pearls and signature ice cream shakes made from local ice cream sources. Many American bubble tea vendors sell "milk smoothies", which is similar to bubble tea but does not actually contain any tea ingredients. Some small cafes offer sweetener substitutes such as honey, agave, stevia, and aspartame upon special request.

 

The oldest known bubble tea consisted of a mixture of hot Taiwanese black tea, small tapioca pearls (粉圆), condensed milk, and syrup (糖浆) or honey. According to the contested originator (春水堂) from Taichung, the drink was not popular at first, but after being featured on a Japanese TV-show, the concept started to be adopted and popularized by drink vendors throughout Asia.[2][3] Many variations were created, the most common of which is to serve the drink cold rather than hot. The tea type is frequently replaced. First was the bubble green tea, which uses jasmine-infused green tea (茉香绿茶) instead of black tea. Big tapioca pearls (波霸/黑珍珠) were adapted and quickly replaced the small pearls.[2][3] Peach or plum flavoring appeared, then more fruit flavors were added until, in some variations, the tea was removed entirely in favor of real fruit. These fruit versions usually contain colored pearls (and/or "jelly cubes" as in the related drink taho), the color chosen to match whatever fruit juice is used. Flavors may be added in the form of powder, fruit juice, pulp, or syrup to hot black or green tea, which is then shaken in a cocktail shaker or mixed with ice in a blender until chilled. Cooked tapioca pearls and other mix-ins are added at the end.

 

Today one can find shops entirely devoted to bubble tea, similar to the juice bars of the early 1990s. Some cafes use plastic dome-shaped lids, while other bubble tea bars serve it using a machine to seal the top of the cup with plastic cellophane. This allows the tea to be shaken in the serving cup. The cellophane is then pierced with an oversize straw large enough to allow the pearls to pass through

for more en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea

I would add on a trade

Tigers size 7.5

Absolutes size 8

Takedowns size 8.5

Rulons size 8

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

 

Lettice is nursing a broken heart. Her beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, has been sent to Durban for a year by his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wants to end so that she can marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lettice returned home to Glynes to lick her wounds, however it only served to make matters worse as she grew even more morose. It was from the most unlikely of candidates, her mother Lady Sadie, with whom Lettice has always had a fraught relationship, that Lettice received the best advice, which was to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with her life and wait patiently for Selwyn’s eventual return. Since then, Lettice has been trying to follow her mother’s advice and has thrown herself into the merry dance of London’s social round of dinners, dances and balls. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and on New Year’s Eve, her sister, Lally, suggested that she spend a few extra weeks resting and recuperating with her in Buckinghamshire before returning to London and trying to get on with her life. Lettice happily agreed, however her rest cure ended abruptly with a letter from her Aunt Egg in London, summoned Lettice back to the capital and into society in general. Through her social connections, Aunt Egg has contrived an invitation for Lettice and her married Embassy Club coterie friends Dickie and Margot Channon, to an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party of Sir John and Lady Caxton, who are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their amusing weekend parties at their Scottish country estate and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John, so they attract a mixture of witty writers and artists mostly.

 

The weekend party has proven to be every bit as amusing and entertaining as Lettice, Dickie and Margot has hoped for, with lively literary, artistic, social and political discussions, driven mostly by the gathering of artists drawn to Gossington, Sir John and Lady Gladys’ Scottish baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland, for the weekend. In addition to that there have been lively games of sardines*, charades and a scavenger hunt that had all the houseguests overrunning Kershopefoot in efforts to gather such items as a baked apple pie, a Union Jack and a chimney pot. It also served as a great distraction for Lettice, drawing her mind away from her troubles, and enabling her to enjoy herself with a happy heart. Across the course of the weekend, Sir John and Lady Gladys cajoled Lettice into redecorating the Bloomsbury pied-à-terre** belonging to Lady Gladys’ niece and ward, Pheobe, who is pursuing a career in garden design, and has been accepted to a school in Regent’s Park associated to the Royal Academy.

 

However, the most surprising thing for Lettice over the course of the weekend, was her dinner companion on the Friday evening. Deliberately seated to the right of Pheobe, to enable them to discuss interior design ideas, Lettice found the place card to her left read ‘Nettie’. Imagining this was short for Antoinette, she was surprised when instead of a woman, she was seated next to Sir John Nettleford-Hughes. Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a time when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico, and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Luckily Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. However, over the weekend, Lettice has come to know Sir John better, and whilst far from the romantic match she found in Selwyn, Lettice surprisingly found herself enjoying the company of “Nettie” – Lady Gladys’ nickname for Sir John when the pair were lovers – discovering his avid interests in the arts and architecture, enjoyment of reading and support of universal women’s suffrage***. He made her laugh and turned out to be quite a companionable person to take strolls around the grounds of Gossington with.

 

Now the Caxton’s pleasurable Friday to Monday has come to an end, and the guests who arrived by train have been returned to nearby Carlisle to catch the London, Midland and Scottish Railway**** services home, leaving only those who arrived via private motor car, which includes Lettice, who ventured up to Gossington from London in Dickie and Margot’s Brunswick green 1922 Lea Francis***** four seater tourer and Sir John Nettleford-Hughes who drove up from Fontengil Park in his maroon and black Austin Twenty Allweather coupé******, amongst a handful of other guests. So we find ourselves in the grand entrance hall of Gossington with its barrel vaulted ceiling, ornate wood panelling and William Morris****** ‘Poppies’ wallpaper where the remaining guests have amassed their luggage for loading back into their cars and have gathered to bid farewell to their gracious host and hostess.

 

“Well, goodbye Gladys,” Lettice addresses her hostess informally, as per the relaxed style established by Sir John and Lady Gladys, who are both members of the Fabian Society********. “Thank you so much for a marvellous weekend!”

 

“We’re so glad you could come, dear Lettice!” Lady Gladys replies, enveloping Lettice in an embrace that smells lightly of Yardley’s face powder and English Lavender perfume.

 

“And not just because you have agreed to redecorate Pheobe’s little Bloomsbury pied-à-terre.” Lord Caxton assures her. “It really has been such a pleasure to have such a pretty, and witty guest in our midst.”

 

“Oh John!” Lettice colours at his compliment. “I’m sure you’ve had far more pretty and witty guests here than me.”

 

“Whether we have or haven’t,” Lady Gladys states. “It has been a delight to have you, and we’re so pleased you enjoyed your stay at Gossington, even if it is frightfully old fashioned in its interior designs.”

 

“It’s lovely, Gladys.” Lettice assures her. “It wouldn’t be as cosy or charming if it were decorated any other way.”

 

“Perhaps not.” Lady Gladys agrees. “Now, I’ll telephone you ahead of time when I’m back in London, and we’ll go around to Bloomsbury and you can take a look at the place.”

 

“I say Margot,” Dickie’s voice opines loudly, interrupting Lady Gladys’ conversation with Lettice. “Are you sure you haven’t acquired more luggage since we arrived?”

 

Lettice and Gladys turn and look across the hall to where Dickie stands looking perplexed on the William Morris ‘Strawberry Thief’ carpet surrounded by a red leather steamer trunk and several vermillion hatboxes and a pillbox makeup case belonging to his wife.

 

“You haven’t decided to appropriate an urn or two from here belonging to John and Gladys, that you fancy for the décor of Hill Street, have you?” he continues.

 

“As if I would ever stoop to something so wicked!” exclaims Margot as she glides elegantly down the stairs in a French blue frock and matching travel cape that matches Lettice’s own portmanteau and hatbox, with a neat cloche adorned with blue and white feathers, made by their Embassy Club coterie friend Gerald Bruton’s friend Harriet Milford.

 

Lettice laughs and shakes her head. “You know Margot never travels lightly, Dickie.”

 

“One never knows what one will need,” Margot opines, smiling cheekily at her husband as she reaches the foot of the staircase. “So, it is best to travel prepared for every occasion. I’m sure you agree, Gladys.”

 

“How very wise, Margot dear.” their hostess agrees.

 

“I’m sure we came up here with less.” Dickie mutters. “God knows how we’re going to get all our luggage back in the car.”

 

“Well Lettice,” The well enunciated syllables of Sir John Nettleford-Huges’ voice catches Lettice’s attention and she turns to see the older gentleman, dressed impeccably in a tweed suit striding across the entrance hall, swinging his silver topped walking stick and oozing the confidence of male privilege that his sex, class and enormous wealth bestows. “Our sojourn at Gossington concludes. How frightfully sad.”

 

“It is rather. I’ve had such an enjoyable stay.” Lettice agrees.

 

“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone complain about a weekend spent here with Gladys and John.”

 

“I should hope you haven’t.” pipes up Lady Gladys.

 

“All the same, I think I shall be pleased not to call you ‘Nettie’, Sir John.” Lettice admits somewhat guiltily, still struggling to use the nickname given Sir John by their hostess.

 

“Perhaps then, we might settle on, John, Lettice.” Sir John suggests politely. “Now that we know each other a little better, I’d hate to go back to ‘Sir John’ and ‘Miss Chetwynd’.” He smiles at her hopefully. “Only if you agree, and only in select company of course.”

 

“Of course, Si… John.” Lettice smiles a little awkwardly in return. “I’d like that.”

 

“Excellent! Excellent!” Sir John says, clapping his grey glove clad hands lightly, slipping his cane underneath this right arm like a swagger stick.

 

Sir John looks Lettice up and down appraisingly, and for the first time, she does not feel like he is mentally undressing her, but rather admiring her choice of outfit.

 

“Is something the matter, John?” she asks.

 

“No, no!” he assures her in return. “Not at all. I was just admiring that green colour you are wearing. It suits your complexion.”

 

“Thank you. It’s sage, Si… John.”

 

“You’ll forgive me if I also remark on how rather fetching you are in that smart and select hat, my dear. Is it one of Bruton’s?”

 

“Thank you.” Lettice automatically raises her right sage green glove clad hand to the crown of her head and self-consciously pats the dyed sage straw of the hat she is wearing. Also made by her old school chum Gerald’s friend Harriet Milford at her house in Putney, her stylish headwear is decorated with a green grosgrain band, a cluster of silvery silk roses and iridescent peacock feathers which curl and sweep around the top of the hat elegantly. “No. Gerald doesn’t make hats: only frocks. However it does come from a friend of his, Harriet Milford, who happens to be an acquaintance of Gerald’s.”

 

“I’ve always considered Bruton as being rather a queer fish, designing frocks for women.” Sir John remarks. “But then again, who other than a man is better equipped to judge what looks fetching on a girl?”

 

Behind Sir John, one of the Caxton’s liveried footmen meekly carries his chocolate brown valise. He instructs the young man to put the case in his car as he hands him the keys to open the boot, slipping him a small tip as he does, before returning his attentions to Lettice. “I always find a small vail********* paid to the staff loading your luggage infinitely useful at these little country house weekend parties.”

 

“How so, John?” Lettice asks.

 

“Well, I usually find that it ensures a case isn’t packed upside down, or that a latch isn’t inexplicably unfastened prior to departure, thus avoiding the spilling of clothes throughout the boot en route to the next destination.”

 

“And where is your next destination?” Lettice asks him.

 

“Oh, just home to Fontengil Park, my dear, where, as the local squire, I have matters that must be attended to. I could easily swing by your parents’ house and give them a message from you, if you like.”

 

“No thank you, John; but thank you for the thought.” Lettice replies.

 

“I say, Lettice.” Sir John remarks after a few moments. “I don’t suppose you have plans back in London do you?”

 

“Not definite plans, John. No. Why do you ask?”

 

“Look here, Lettice, I’ve been meaning to ask you something all weekend, and I’ve just been trying to work up the courage to ask it.”

 

“I hope this isn’t a marriage proposal, John.” Lettice replies warily.

 

“You could do far worse than Nettie, my dear Lettice.” Lady Gladys buts in, overhearing their conversation. “He’s fabulously wealthy you know. If I hadn’t met my own John,” she adds wistfully. “I feel sure that Nettie and I should have married. We would have made a perfect match.”

 

“Nonsense Gladys.” Sir John retorts. “You are far too hedonistic for me. We’re both frightfully self-indulgent. It would never have worked.” He returns his attentions to Lettice. “No, I was hoping you could find time in your schedule for my nephew, Alisdair Gifford, to pay a call on you.”

 

“I remember Mr. Gifford. You brought he and his wife to my mother’s Hunt Ball, didn’t you?”

 

“Yes, whilst not exactly neighbours of your parents, they live nearby at Arkwright Bury, and as members of Wiltshire county society, they were invited, so we came as a party together.”

 

“His wife is Australian, isn’t she?”

 

“How clever of you to remember. Yes, Adelinde comes from some dusty part of Australia.”

 

“And why does Mr. Gifford wish to pay a call on me, John?” Lettice queries, cocking an eyebrow and squeezing her lips together in a tight purse quizzically.

 

“Well, I had luncheon with Alisdair and Adelinde last week and mentioned in passing that I was going to be seeing you, as a fellow member of Wiltshire county society, here at Gossington .” Sir John admits. “He asked me to put in a good word for him.”

 

“A good word?” Lettice asks.

 

“He read the favourable article Henry Tipping********** wrote about you in Country Life***********.”

 

“Didn’t everyone?” Lettice rolls her blue eyes, thinking of John and Gladys and their request for her to redecorate Pheobe’s London flat, but smiles at Sir John as she does so.

 

“And so they should, Lettice.”

 

“Did you read it, John?”

 

“Of course I did! Anyway, Alisdair asked me to put in a good word because he wants a room done up as a surprise for Adelinde. She collects blue and white porcelain, and now that he and Adelinde have inherited Arkwright Bury and moved in, Alisdair wants a proper home for her ever-expanding collection. They had it nicely displayed when they lived at Briar Priory, but since moving into Arkwright Bury, they haven’t settled on a place. They have been too busy managing their own restoration of the house, which had fallen into some disrepair when Cuthbert had it.”

 

“Cuthbert was Alisdair’s elder brother, wasn’t he?”

 

“Yes, my other Gifford nephew. He died a few years ago, but the house began to fall into disrepair when Cuthbert went away to fight at the beginning of the Great War. Being unmarried, he didn’t have a wife to manage Arkwright Bury in his absence, so he just dismissed all the staff, save for an elderly housekeeper and her husband who was some kind of odd-job man, shut it up, and decamped. When Cuthbert came back from the war, well,” A sadness clouds Sir John’s face. “Well, he was never quite the same.”

 

“So many of them weren’t.” Lettice murmurs in agreement with Sir John.

 

“Indeed.” Sir John concurs seriously. “And thanks to the evident uselessness of the housekeeper and her husband, the rot had already settled in, literally.”

 

“And now?”

 

“And now Arkwright Bury has arisen, like a phoenix from the ashes as it were. They are almost at the end of their extensive restoration, so Alisdair has an idea for his wife’s collection.”

 

“And they’d like me to decorate a room for them for that purpose?”

 

“You needn’t sound so surprised, my dear Lettice!” Sir John scoffs. “As Gladys has said, your skills as an interior designer have become very much in demand now that people are aware of you and what you can create.” He pauses. “Oh, and just to clarify the point with you, Lettice, if I may: it is only my nephew who wishes to engage your services as an interior designer. Adelinde knows nothing about his plans. He wants to decorate the room as a surprise for Adelinde: a sort of thank you for coming along willingly on the odyssey of renovating Arkwright Bury.”

 

Lettice considers Sir John’s offer. It is true that she has no definite plans in London once she returns to Cavendish Mews. A dinner with Gerald perhaps, assuming he isn’t too busy with his gentleman friend Cyril and the other theatrical types boarding at Harriet Milford’s rather unorthodox house in Putney. A night at the theatre, maybe. She knows that being such good friends, Dickie and Margot will try and entertain her by filling her evenings with dinners at their flat in Hill Street, around the corner from Cavendish Mews, but she doesn’t want to intrude too much on their lives. A visit from Mr. Gifford as a potential new client may be just the thing to distract her until Gladys returns to London and shows her Pheobe’s Bloomsbury flat.

 

“Very well, John. Please ask Mr. Gifford to call me in London, and we’ll arrange a suitable time for him to pay a call at Cavendish Mews.”

 

“Oh splendid!” Sir John taps his cane against the worn and faded William Morris carpet. “Alisdair will be thrilled!”

 

“I make no promises though.” Lettice quickly adds. “I’ll join you at Arkwright Bury to have a look at, and consider, Mr. Gifford’s ideas. I’ve just agreed to redecorate Pheobe’s flat.”

 

“Of course! Of course, Lettice. Your consideration is all Alisdair is asking for.”

 

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

 

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

  

***Suffrage refers to a person's right to vote in a political election. Voting allows members of society to take part in deciding government policies that affect them. Women's suffrage refers to the right of women to vote in an election. In 1924 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.

 

****The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) was a British railway company. It was formed on the 1st of January 1923 under the Railways Act of 1921, which required the grouping of over 120 separate railways into four. The companies merged into the LMS included the London and North Western Railway, the Midland Railway, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (which had previously merged with the London and North Western Railway on 1 January 1922), several Scottish railway companies (including the Caledonian Railway), and numerous other, smaller ventures.

 

****The Austin Twenty is a large car introduced by Austin after the end of the First World War, in April 1919 and continued in production until 1930.

 

*******William Morris (24th of March 1834 – 3rd of October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he helped win acceptance of socialism in fin de siècle Great Britain. In 1861, Morris founded the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. decorative arts firm with Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Webb, and others, which became highly fashionable and much in demand. The firm profoundly influenced interior decoration throughout the Victorian period, with Morris designing tapestries, wallpaper, fabrics, furniture, and stained glass windows. In 1875, he assumed total control of the company, which was renamed Morris & Co.

 

********The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fabian Society was also historically related to radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.

 

*********A vail is an archaic word for a tip or gratuity paid to servants of country houses, used commonly in Edwardian times.

 

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

 

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

 

This interior may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

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

 

The blue travel de necessaire and its matching hatbox in the foreground on which the black and white hat and the present is sitting are 1:12 artisan miniatures and made of blue kid leather which is so soft to the touch, and small metal handles, clasps and ornamentation. They have been purposely worn around their edges to give them age. They come from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in England. The peach pillbox boxes are made by the same artisan, but were acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. The brown leather gladstone bag next to the blue and travel de necessaire is also a 1:12 artisan miniature acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop. and unlike the blue pieces, it is made to open and be fully functional and has a cream satin lining. All three pieces come from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in England.

 

The furled umbrella with the luggage is a 1:12 artisan pieces made of silk, with a wooden lacquered handle. It comes from specialist artisan miniature makers in England. The silver knobbed walking stick is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. The top is sterling silver. It was made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures.

 

The beautifully printed carpet featuring William Morris’ “Strawberry Thief” pattern was a birthday gift to me from a very close friend of mine. It was hand made in Australia by Kristina Truter of Golightly Miniatures.

 

The beautiful dinner gong in the background made of pitted and patinaed brass with its wooden stand comes complete with its own mallet striker (not pictured). It was made by the Little Green Workshop in England.

 

The green majolica umbrella stand in the background comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in England. It is filled with a collection of umbrellas and walking sticks which also come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop, the Little Green Workshop and several online specialist stockists on dolls’ house miniatures.

 

The Arts and Crafts chair in the background has been hand japanned and decorated and comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop.

 

The wallpaper is William Morris’ ‘Poppies’ pattern, featuring stylised Art Nouveau poppies. William Morris papers and fabrics were popular in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period before the Great War.

12" x 12" oil on copper (center) and on panel, 2008

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

 

Today however we have headed south-west across London, away from Cavendish Mews and Mayfair, over Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to the comfortably affluent Kensington High Street. Here, amidst the two and three storey buildings that line either side of the street, Edith, Lettice’s maid, walks amidst the other pedestrians with purpose. Dressed in her three-quarter length black coat which she bought from a Petticoat Lane* second-hand clothes stall and remodelled herself, and wearing the black straw cloche decorated with purple satin roses and black feathers she picked up from Mrs. Minkin’s - a Whitechapel haberdasher recommended by Lettice’s char**, Mrs. Boothby – she tries to blend in with the other affluent local women on pleasant pre-Christmas shopping outings. However, if she is concerned about how fashionably she is dressed, no-one else around her seems to give it a thought. Christmas is not far away now, with only a few weeks until Christmas Day, and signs of festive cheer abound with bright and gaudy tinsel*** garlands and stars cut from metallic paper hanging in shop windows on either side of the busy thoroughfare. The windows themselves are full of the latest fashions, toys and gadgets for the ladies of Kensington to choose their perfect Christmas gifts from. The shops are busy, and the pavement is crowded with meandering shoppers and window shoppers alike. Yet as her heels clip along the footpath, Edith has no time to tarry admiring window displays. She has an important errand to run in Kensington on her Wednesday off before heading north to the working-class London suburb of Harlesden, where she will pay her usual weekly visit to her parents.

 

Finally Edith reaches the splendid blue and white tile decorated façade she has been walking brusquely towards. Stylised and elegant gilt lettering on the windows to either side of the central double doors reads: ‘Langham’s – meat, fish, poultry, game and ice’. She peers through the large plate glass window at the splendid Christmas fare on display. A huge turkey sits in pride of place on a large silver platter, decorated with ornamental feathers and surrounded by greenery and raw vegetables. She sighs and walks quickly through the door of the butcher’s shop. The shop bell releases a cheery tingle as the wood and glass door closes behind her, shutting out the constant chugging of the engines of passing traffic and red double-decker London motorbuses, and the burble of human traffic passing by, and enveloping her in serene silence. Edith closes her eyes for a moment before opening them again. As her eyes adjust to being indoors the now familiar layout of the butcher’s shop emerges. Edith remembers with awkward embarrassment the first time Frank had brought her into Mr. Langham’s butcher’s shop and how intimidated she was by it. Unlike Mr. Chapman’s, the local butcher’s shop in Harlesden where she grew up, which has a warm and cosy feel to it, Mr. Langham’s establishment is spacious, stylish all about show. The floors are tiled in luxurious black and white chequered linoleum, just like the kitchen floor at Cavendish Mews, with not a wood shaving**** in sight, as most of the butchering is done by Mr. Langham and his sons out of sight of customers in a back room. The walls are lined from floor to ceiling with white tiles with a few bands of decorative green ones, and hung with brightly painted metal signs advertising condiments. Rather than a wooden counter like Mr. Chapman’s, which encouraged shoppers to lean in and tarry for a gossip, Mr. Langham’s counter is made of panelled glass and filled with the most wonderful displays of meat, fish and poultry. Yet as soon as Frank introduced Edith to his friend Percy, dressed in a uniform of a navy blue vest and a blue and white striped apron just like Mr. Chapman’s, her nerves fell away. He smiled at her broadly and welcomed her warmly, even if she was most likely the only girl from Harlesden ever to be served by him in his establishment. A mature, rather portly man with a jolly disposition to match his apple cheeks, Mr. Langham was delighted to meet his friend Frank’s young lady, and was only too happy to be of service to her once Frank explained what Edith’s plans were. And ever since then, a fortnightly ritual had occurred where she visited Mr. Langham before going on to see her parents on her Wednesdays off.

 

“Well, if it isn’t my favourite maid from Mayfair!” Mr. Langham remarks with his usual smile and easy manner from behind the counter as he sees Edith walk through the door.

 

“Oh Mr. Langham!” Edith blushes at his compliment. “You do know how to make a maid feel like a lady!”

 

“Come to get away from the Christmas rush out there then, have you, Miss Watsford?” the butcher chortles as he carefully adjusts the position of a fat turkey on a white raised platter on his counter, fussing over several large feathers used to decorate it until they fan out perfectly.

 

“Oh yes,” remarks Edith with a timid chuckle. “It’s so busy out there this week.”

 

“Never get between a Kensington housewife and her Christmas shopping, Miss Watsford.” Mr. Langham says jovially. “That’s my advice.”

 

“And very wise and welcome it is too, Mr. Langham.” Edith replies with a sigh as she walks up to the counter.

 

Over the ensuing months since Frank first brought her to Mr. Langham’s butcher’s shop in Kensington, Edith has discovered, much to her delight, that whilst it might be glass and used for the successful display and promotion of his fare, Mr. Langham’s counter is every bit as welcoming as a place to perch and chat as Mr. Chapman’s is in Harlesden. Edith places her green leather handbag across the glass countertop and hooks her black umbrella over the slightly raised maple edging and she leans in to peer at what lies under the glass. Trays of fat sausages and rich beef mince sit alongside steaks and chops, whilst a whole boar’s head with an apple stuck in his mouth peers back at her from another raised platter with squinted eyes and a broad smile.

 

“Fancy having that sitting in the middle of your Christmas table, Miss Watsford?” the butcher says in an ebullient voice, noting where Edith’s eyes have strayed to.

 

“No fear, Mr. Langham!” Edith replies, holding up her purple glove clad hands in defence. “I’d rather not have my meal looking at me as Dad prepares to carve it!”

 

“Well,” Mr. Langham says, looking down upon the boar. “He’s destined for a house in Rosary Gardens in Chelsea next week for a pre-Christmas dinner party. Mrs. Phyllida Cavendish is hosting a cocktail party, and he is to be the centre of her light buffet supper. To amuse her guests, he will be sporting a festive Christmas crown that she is making for him,” He sniffs. “Or so I have been told by Mrs. Cavendish several times.”

 

“That sounds positively frightful, Mr. Langham!” Edith pulls a face.

 

“Quite so, Miss Watsford.” agrees the butcher. “But then again, Phyllida Cavendish is an artist, so no doubt she and her odd bohemian friends will find some macabre humour in it. Perhaps they shall dance some pagan rights with him in her rear garden after midnight.”

 

“You do have some odd customers, Mr. Langham.” Edith remarks, clasping at the scarf at her throat.

 

“Only the ones from bohemian Chelsea.” he replies with a chuckle.

 

“Well, I think I’ll just stick to a nice old fashioned and succulent turkey from your shop this Christmas, Mr. Langham.”

 

“Come to pay off the final instalment have you, Miss Watsford?”

 

“Just as we agreed, Mr. Langham.” Edith nods cheerfully.

 

“I’ll just go and fetch my accounts book from the office.” he replies as he moves away from Edith, almost gliding across his elegant black and white linoleum floors as befits the owner of this elegant establishment.

 

As he does, Edith smiles to herself. How surprised her whole family will be when a fine, fat turkey arrives at her home in Harlesden just before Christmas, big enough to feed her parents, her brother – who will be home for Christmas on shore leave, Frank, Frank’s Scottish grandmother Mrs. McTavish and herself, and have leftovers for after Christmas. Christmas in the Watsford household has never been a lean one, even during the Great War with rationing, especially with her father’s canny ability to procure certain foods at a reasonable price, like the smaller turkey he acquired two Christmases ago, and her mother’s ability to make a feast out of anything left laying around her kitchen. However, even with those skills, George and Ada have expressed concerns about being able to feed everyone sufficiently on Christmas Day, even with Mrs. McTavish suphome-madee of her homemade Christmas puddings. Edith had caught her mother looking through old recipe books for imitation foodstuffs to supplement or replace real ones usually used by her at Christmas, and seen her carefully count the housekeeping money, scrimping and saving where she feels she can, to allow for extra expenditures for Christmas. Despite her mother’s refusal to take any of her wages from her, Edith wanted to contribute to Christmas this year especially since it was she who had suggested inviting Frank and his grandmother to Christmas lunch. When Frank mentioned how Mr. Langham was a butcher friend he had, and it was from him that he procured a small roast chicken for he and his grandmother every year, Edith knew immediately how she was going to contribute to Christmas 1923.

 

“Well, Miss Watsford,” Mr. Langham announces as he returns with her account. “I’m very pleased to accept your final payment for your family’s Christmas turkey. And a fine one he is too, if I may say!”

 

“Thank you, Mr. Langham. You may.” Edith replies with pride in her voice as she fetches out her small reticule***** from her handbag and counts out the last few shillings payment for the turkey.

 

“No, thank you, Miss Watsford, for being such a polite and promptly paying customer. I wish more of my customers were like you.”

 

“Oh I’m sure the likes of Mrs. Cavendish spend far more than I do.” Edith replies, indicating to the boar’s head.

 

“Oh, Phyllida Cavendish is very good at filling up my account book, but she is far less prompt paying what she owes.” Mr. Langham says with a cocked eyebrow and a knowing look. “No,” the butcher continues cheerfully as he accepts Edith’s shillings and pops them with a clink into his gleaming brass till. “I wish I had a daughter like you. It isn’t every day a daughter buys a turkey for her whole family for Christmas.”

 

“Well,” Lettice replies, blushing again. “Langham and Sons sounds and looks far more impressive over the front door than Langham and daughter.”

 

“Be that as it may, I’d give anything for my lads to offer to pay for our Christmas turkey, Miss Watsford, let me assure you!”

 

“Will you be supplying your own turkey then, Mr. Langham?”

 

“If not me, then who else, Miss Watsford? Mrs. Langham is expecting a fine turkey this year, and that is what she shall have if I know what’s good for me and want a peaceable festive season.”

 

“Oh you are a wag, Mr. Langham!” Edith laughs, flapping her hand at the middle-aged butcher. “I’m sure Mrs. Langham is the most charming and delightful wife in Kensington.”

 

“That she is, Miss Watsford,” agrees the older man. “But if you don’t mind me saying, she isn’t half as pretty as you.”

 

“Oh Mr. Langham!” Edith puts her hands to her cheeks as she feels the warmth of the colour filling them.

 

“I know! I know!” Mr. Langham raises his hands in defence. “You’re spoken for. That Frank Leadbetter is a lucky chap, stepping out with a girl as thoughtful and beautiful as you.”

 

In an effort to change the subject, Edith asks, “So the turkey will be delivered on what day, Mr. Langham?”

 

“Friday the twenty-third, Miss Watsford,” the butcher replies. “To the address you’ve given me here.” He taps George and Ada’s address in Harlesden on the top of Edith’s account with his grey lead pencil. “When will you tell your Mum?”

 

“Well, now that it’s paid off, I might tell her today.” Edith contemplates. “I’m off to visit her now. And,” she adds. “If I tell her and Dad today, then Dad won’t go and organise something else in the meantime, like he usually does.”

 

“Good thinking, Miss Watsford.” Mr. Langham replies cheerily, tapping his nose in a knowing fashion.

 

“Well, I must be going, Mr. Langham.” Edith announces, taking up her handbag and umbrella from the shop counter. “I have to get over to Harlesden, and that’s no short trip from here.”

 

“Well, you must take a slice of Mrs. Langham’s Christmas fruit cake for the journey.” the butcher replies, indicating to four thick slices of cake encased in a thick layer of white royal icing sitting on a tray directly below one of his wife’s beautifully decorated Christmas cakes on a raised platter sitting on the counter next to the till.

 

“Oh I couldn’t possibly, Mr. Langham!” Edith declines vehemently. “They are for your customers to promote your wife’s excellent baking skills. Have you sold many of Mrs. Langham’s Christmas cakes this year?”

 

“Quite a few as a matter of fact.” he announces proudly. “Certainly enough to have had her baking a few extra cakes in the last few months.” He smiles at Edith. “But at this late stage in the lead up to Christmas, no-one is going to want to buy one of her cakes now. Those slices will only go to the children who visit me with their parents, or go to waste as they dry out sitting there.” He goes on, “And since this will be the last time I see you before Christmas, Miss Watsford, consider it a Christmas present, and a small token of both mine, and my wife’s esteem.”

 

He picks up the square silver dish and holds it out to Edith.

 

“Well…” Edith acquiesces hesitantly.

 

“That’s my girl!” Mr. Langham’s eyes light up. “Take a slice for your Mum too. I’m sure it isn’t every day she gets the treat of a cake baked by someone other than her.”

 

“Indeed no, Mr. Langham. She taught me how to bake, but even I don’t dare serve her one of my cakes. She’s a seasoned baker is my Mum.”

 

“Well, so is Mrs. Langham, Miss Watsford.” He smiles broadly. “I’ll just wrap them up in some brown paper and twine. Merry Christmas Miss Watsford.”

 

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Langham.” Edith answers happily.

 

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

 

**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.

 

***One of the most famous Christmas decorations that people love to use at Christmas is tinsel. You might think that using it is an old tradition and that people in Britain have been adorning their houses with tinsel for a very long time. However that is not actually true. Tinsel is in fact believed to be quite a modern tradition. Whilst the idea of tinsel dates back to Germany in 1610 when wealthy people used real strands of silver to adorn their Christmas trees (also a German invention). Silver was very expensive though, so being able to do this was a sign that you were wealthy. Even though silver looked beautiful and sparkly to begin with, it tarnished quite quickly, meaning it would lose its lovely, bright appearance. Therefore it was swapped for other materials like copper and tin. These metals were also cheaper, so it meant that more people could use them. However, when the Great War started in 1914, metals like copper were needed for the war. Because of this, they couldn't be used for Christmas decorations as much, so a substitute was needed. It was swapped for aluminium, but this was a fire hazard, so it was switched for lead, but that turned out to be poisonous.

  

****Regardless of where the butchers shop was, whether a suburban or up-market shop or a small concern in a village, the standard practice was to dust the wooden floorboards of the shop behind the counter where the butchering was done with sawdust. The idea was that the sawdust would sop up any spilled blood or dropped offcuts of meat that was easy to sweep away and helped prevent slips.

 

*****A reticule also known as a ridicule or indispensable, was a type of small handbag or purse, typically having a drawstring and decorated with embroidery or beading, similar to a modern evening bag, used mainly from 1795 to before the Great War.

This smart and stylish upper-class Edwardian butchers is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The dressed turkey on the counter and the stuffed pig’s head and trays of cuts of meat inside the counter come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The joints of meat in the background, on the bench, in the meat safe and hanging from hooks above it also come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.

 

The cranberry glass footed platter on the counter is made of real, finely spun glass, and comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The beautifully decorated Christmas cake atop it is a 1:12 artisan miniature which also comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The slices of fruitcake in front of it on the silver plate is a 1:12 artisan miniature I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

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

 

The shiny metal cash register comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The red and black painted scales and weights, I have had since I was a teenager.

 

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. The black umbrella came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

 

The advertising signs in the background come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.