French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès "Carboplane", no. 796.

 

During our trip to Italy, the French actress Françoise Arnoul passed away after a long illness in Paris on 20 July 2021. In the early 1950s, the cute and pretty actress was presented as the new French sex symbol. Soon she was overshadowed by the spectacular Brigitte Bardot, but Arnoul had enough talent and range to forge a decent film career for herself. Françoise Arnoul was 90.

 

Françoise Arnoul was born as Françoise Annette Marie Mathilde Gautsch in Constantine, France (now Algeria), in 1931. Her father was a general in the army, Charles Gautsch; her mother was a former stage actress, Jeanne Gradwohl, who worked before her marriage under the name of Jeanne Henry. Françoise grew up in Rabat and Casablanca, and after WWII she returned to Paris. Her mother proved to be valuable support when her daughter expressed a desire to take courses in drama. She attended the drama classes of Andree Bauer-Thérond, and made her film debut as an extra in Rendez-vous de Juillet/Rendezvous in July (Jacques Becker, 1949). Her first bigger role was in L'Épave/Sin and Desire (Willy Rozier, 1949) in which she had some undressed scenes. It made her a star overnight. She was touted as the newest French sex symbol in films like Nous irons à Paris/We Will All Go to Paris (Jean Boyer, 1950) opposite nice and attractive Philippe Lemaire. In the morally rigid 1950s, she played sexy and sensuous characters, that were also often troubled and destructive. She was the perverse femme fatale in films like the Georges Siménon adaptation Le Fruit défendu/Forbidden Fruit (Henri Verneuil, 1952) in which she seduces a country doctor played by Fernandel, La Rage au corps/Tempest in the Flesh (Ralph Habib, 1953) in which she is the unfaithful wife of Raymond Pellegrin, and especially in the wildly successful Film Noir La Chatte/The Cat (Henri Decoin, 1958) in which she played a black leather-clad resistance fighter during World War II. Arnoul made of her questioning scene by the Nazis an erotic extravaganza as she slowly removes her stockings under the officer's lecherous eyes.

 

The unusually pretty and petite Françoise Arnoul proved her talent and range in such highly regarded films as Michelangelo Antonioni’s episode film I Vinti/The Vanquished (1953), the wonderful Fernandel comedy Le Mouton à cinq pattes/The Sheep Has Five Legs (Henri Verneuil, 1954), and Jean Cocteau's Le Testament d'Orphee/The Testament of Orpheus (1960). In Jean Renoir's classic French Cancan/French Can-Can (1955), she played Nini, a young laundress from Montmartre, who conquers the Moulin Rouge with her sexy dance. In 1964, during the shooting of Compartiment tueurs/The Sleeping Car Murder (Costa-Gavras, 1965), she met director Bernard Paul who would become her life partner. From 1956 till 1960, she had been married to publicity agent Georges Cravenne, the future father of the César and Mollière awards. In the following years, she focussed on assisting Paul with his first films. Together with Marina Vlady, they founded in 1968 the production company Francina, which would produce films like Dernière sortie avant Roissy/Last Exit Before Roissy (Bernard Paul, 1977). Paul died in 1980. His loss affected Francoise dearly and she had difficulty regaining a foothold in the cinema. During the 1970s, her film career had tapered off, but she appeared in Raul Ruiz’ Diálogos de exiliados/Dialogues of the Exiled (1975) and Violette & François (Jacques Rouffio, 1977) as the mother of Violette (Isabelle Adjani). She also had some success as a television actress. In the late 1990s, Françoise Arnoul returned on the screen in character roles in such films as Temps de Chien/Dog Days (Jean Marboeuf, 1996), Post coitum animal triste/Smell of Geraniums (Brigitte Roüan, 1997) and Merci pour le geste/Thanks for the Gesture (Claude Faraldo, 2000). She published her autobiography entitled 'Animal doué de Bonheur' (Animal Endowed with Happiness) in 1995. In 1997, she was the president of the jury of the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Françoise Arnoul remained active as a TV actress. In his bio at Les Gens de Cinéma, Yvan Foucart wrote: "The young vamp has given way to a blooming woman whose wonderful face radiates serenity. She kept her beautiful smile, her eyes still have the same sparkle and she kept an admirably slim silhouette. (...) So, dear Francoise, you understand why we can not forget you. And why we are still in love with you." At the age of 90, Françoise Arnoul passed away after a long illness in Paris on 20 July 2021.

 

Sources: Yvan Foucart (Les Gens de Cinéma - French), Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), AlloCiné (French), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

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.

 

This morning Lettice is entertaining a neighbour, of sorts, of her parents, Mr. Alisdair Gifford, nephew of 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 Spencely, the handsome eldest son of the Duke of Walmsford, rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice recently reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. As she was leaving to return to London on the Monday, Sir John approached her and asked if she might meet with his nephew, Mr. Gifford, as he wishes to have a room in his Wiltshire house, Arkwright Bury, redecorated as a surprise for his Australian wife, Adelina, who collects blue and white porcelain but as of yet has no place to display it at Arkwright Bury. With a smile Lettice agreed, and thus Mr. Gifford now sits opposite her in her Mayfair drawing room.

 

She appraises Mr. Gifford as he helps himself to a biscuit from the plate on the low coffee table between them. He is a slight man, probably not more than ten years older than herself with pale patrician skin over a fine bone structure, and a mop of auburn hair which is streaked with silvery white hairs, possibly prematurely owing to his experiences in the war. He is dressed in a very smart morning suit with a silver fob watch chain hanging from his cherry red waistcoat pocket. He movements are as delicate as his frame, and his sparking blue eyes are further enhanced by the strong prescription of the glasses persistently sliding down his nose.

 

“Now, this is what I wanted to show you, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Gifford says in well educated and modulated tones from the comfort of one of Lettice’s round backed Art Deco arm chairs.

 

He reaches down with his elongated fingers into the slightly battered and worn brown leather case at his feet, which he arrived with, but refused to allow Edith, Lettice’s maid, to take from him. From it he withdraws an old photograph album. Covered in vibrant green Morocco leather, Lettice notices its bumped corners, which have worn down over many years losing their sharp edges, and a sun faded spine that tells of sitting for many a year, closed on a bookshelf. There is no writing on the cover, but glancing at the thick creamy card pages contained within the covers, she recognises it as a photograph album.

 

“This is a very precious piece of Arkwright Bury’s, and my own family’s, history.” Mr. Gifford goes on.

 

“I’m very looking forward to seeing it then.” Lettice remarks with curiosity as she leans forward in her own armchair.

 

“I don’t know whether my Uncle John told you or not when you were at the Caxton’s country house party at Gossington, but Arkwright Bury was badly damaged in a fire in 1879.”

 

“No,” Lettice admits. “Your uncle didn’t tell me a great deal about Arkwright Bury at all, Mr. Gifford, other than it fell into some disrepair when your elder brother went off to war, and that since you and your wife inherited it, you have been restoring it.”

 

“Quite right, Miss Chetwynd,” Mr. Gifford passes over the album to Lettice, who takes it with reverence into her elegant hands. “However, this will give you an idea of what Arkwright Bury used to look like in the 1860s and 70s, before the fire. It’s an album rescued from the conflagration which consists mostly of photographs of the house and its interiors, and not family photographs.”

 

“How very unusual.” Lettice remarks.

 

“Well, my grandfather was very passionate about architecture and photography, so I think this may have been a pet project of his.”

 

“And thus, perhaps why it was saved, Mr. Gifford?” Lettice asks tentatively.

 

“Perhaps, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Gifford replies with a gentle shrugging roll of his shoulders.

 

Lettice finds an old photograph of an unassuming Regency style country house, partially overgrown with creepers, set amidst a simple English park style garden on the front page. The house has a low pitched roof which is hidden from view by the building’s parapets. It has five bays of large sash windows over its two storeys and an Ionic columned portico.

 

“We think Arkwright Bury may have been designed by Anthony Keck*,” Mr. Gifford explains, assuming that Lettice will know who the Georgian architect is. “Although we cannot confirm it. Like so many things, the precious architectural drawings of Arkwright Bury went up in flames in the 1897 fire. I mean, his work isn’t found in Wiltshire, and if it is his, then it most probably was built after his retirement, and would be the only example in the county. I do know it was built in 1796, and Anthony Keck died just a year later.”

 

“And you have brought me this album because?” Lettice queries as she starts to turn the page.

 

“Well, because this has the only known surviving photograph of the Pagoda Room.” Mr. Gifford answers.

 

“The Pagoda Room?” Lettice asks.

 

“Yes. Just flip through the first few pages.” The gentleman says helpfully as he leans forward over the black japanned coffee table covered with Lettice’s Art Deco Royal Doulton tea set and tray of biscuits. “It should be on page six or so.” Lettice does as he says, counting the pages in her mind silently as she turns them. “Ahh! There it is.”

 

Lettice looks to where he points, and there, on a thick card page, beige and greyish and mottled with age, framed by flowers hand painted by one of the more artistic Gifford females of history, is an old photograph, underneath which is written in a delicate looped hand, ‘The Pagoda Room – July 1876’.

 

“Being from 1876, I’m sure my grandfather took this photograph.” Mr. Gifford explains. “It was called the Pagoda Room because as you can see on the walls, there is some Georgian wallpaper, hand painted and imported from China we assume, which features Pagodas on it. Of course I wasn’t born until after the fire, but my father remembers he and his sister, my Aunt Eugenia, making up stories about Chinese people who lived inside the pagodas.”

 

“I say!” Lettice laughs. “How frightfully jolly.”

 

Lettice looks at the image. It depicts the corner of what must have been a larger room with a high dado, papered with the Georgian wallpaper Mr. Gifford mentioned, featuring the stylised pagodas that gave the room its name. The corner is filled with Georgian and Regency furniture that is intermixed with pieces from later periods, the surfaces of tables and the shadowy interiors of a Georgian corner cabinet are cluttered with a collection of decorative porcelain that owed much to the conscientious consumption of the wealthy in the mid Victorian era. Paintings of Gifford ancestors hang on the walls in thick gilt frames, whilst a top heavy elaborate floral display of roses and ferns sits atop a heavily carved Victorian pillar. Overstuffed, yet comfortable looking chairs and sofas fill the space, their owners gone, but their presence marked by a stack of leatherbound books with decorative covers, a sewing basket and embroidery hoop, and a silver teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl and dainty china teacups on a galleried silver tray.

 

“My grandmother loved needlework, so I’m sure that’s her embroidery frame and basket in the photograph, and my grandfather was an avid reader.”

 

“Indeed.” Lettice remarks, lowering the page and allowing the well loved album to sit comfortably open across her lap as she reaches over to the black japanned side table on which her telephone stands and picks up her teacup. “And besides for its interesting historical context, you have brought me this album, why, Mr. Gifford?”

 

“Well, the Arkwright Bury fire tore through that part of the house and destroyed it entirely, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“Mmmm…” Lettice sips her tea.

 

“Or at least I thought it had until recently.” Mr. Gifford continues.

 

“Go on, Mr. Gifford.”

 

“Well, as my uncle explained to you, Adelinde and I have almost completed a full restoration of Arkwright Bury, and we only have a small amount left to do. This includes my brother, Cuthbert’s, study.”

 

“He died before the end of the war, didn’t he, Mr. Gifford?” Lettice asks gently.

 

“He did, Miss Chetwynd. He was honourably discharged after the Battle of Ypres**, but he came back a very changed man.”

 

“You never went to France yourself, did you, Mr. Gifford?”

 

“No,” Mr. Gifford admits a little guiltily. “But please don’t hold that against me, Miss Chetwynd. I wasn’t accepted because of my appalling eyesight.” He pushes his pair of thick lensed glasses up the bridge of his aquiline nose with awkward embarrassment. “I did however work under Mr. Churchill*** in the Admiralty.”

 

“I won’t hold your not going to battle in Flanders Fields**** against you, Mr. Gifford.” Lettice assures him with a comforting smile.

 

“Thank you.” he sighs. “That’s a relief.”

 

“Anyway, the war has been over for more than five years now.”

 

“Not for some people, it hasn’t.” Mr. Gifford says sadly. “And just because I’m not maimed physically like those poor returned soldiers you see selling matches at the top of Tottenham Court Road or in Piccadilly Circus, there is a certain amount of stigma against me: people thinking I didn’t do my bit during the war.”

 

“Well, I won’t jump to any incorrect conclusions about what you did, or didn’t do, during the war. My eldest brother returned from the conflict with all his limbs intact, both his eyes and most importantly his mind unaltered, thank god, so I’m hardly in a position to judge you for a lack of injuries.”

 

“Well, many others feel differently, especially those young, embittered war widows or fiancées, of which there are so many about. You were not affianced to a young officer or captain yourself, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“Thankfully no, Mr. Gifford.”

 

“Poor Cuthbert came back with all his limbs and his sight, but his mind was disturbed from what he witnessed over in France, and he killed himself: shot himself in the temple with his gun before Armistice Day*****.” Mr. Gifford says dryly.

 

“Yes, I had heard the rumour.” Lettice murmurs quietly in admission.

 

“And that’s why his study is one of the last places Adelina and I have to deal with.”

 

“Too many painful memories, Mr. Gifford?”

 

“Yes,” he admits. “But also, too much mess quite frankly. As I said, Cuthbert came back from the Western Front with his mind addled and his study reflects that, with piles of papers and books in all kinds of disorder, the meaning of which known only to him, so it’s just been too hard to deal with. In fact, Adelina and I closed the door on it, and more often than not have been using it as a storage room whilst we’ve been restoring other parts of Arkwright Bury, shoving furniture and boxes of things between Cuthbert’s belongings. Recently Adelina has been using it to store her boxes of blue and white porcelain that we brought over from Briar Priory, plus a few newly acquired pieces.” He sighs. “It’s actually only been recently that I have had the stomach to start sorting out Cuthbert’s things. Adelina wants to turn the study into a display room for her collection, since we can’t seem to find anywhere else suitable in Arkwright Bury to display it, which seems odd,” He laughs. “When you think that Briar Priory was so much smaller than Arkwright Bury is.”

 

“And that’s why you’ve come to see me?” Lettice asks, trying to get Mr. Gifford to explain himself and share his intentions.

 

“Yes.” Mr. Gifford agrees. “If you’re willing to take it on, I’d love for you to redecorate Cuthbert’s study as a surprise for Adelina. It would make it a happy space to be in, rather than a sad and neglected one.”

 

“Although that still doesn’t explain the necessity for this.” Lettice half raises the green Morocco leather photo album in her lap with her spare left hand.

 

“Well, I wanted you to look at the photo of the Pagoda Room because, I thought it had been completely destroyed by the fire, until I started going through Cuthbert’s study. Before it was Cuthbert’s study, it was my father’s study, and my grandfather’s before him. So much Gifford history was lost with the fire that my grandparents didn’t have the heart to try and replicate what they had, and the study was created from part of the shell of the Pagoda Room.”

 

“How do you know this, Mr. Gifford?”

 

“Well, do you see that corner cabinet?” Mr. Gifford points to a glass door decorated with delicate fretwork, half hidden in the shadows behind the elaborate floral arrangement on the pedestal. When Lettice affirms with a nod he continues, “Well I didn’t recognise it at first, but this is what my brother, father and grandfather all used as a corner bookcase. It was only when I was doing an inventory of Cuthbert’s books in it, that I suddenly looked at the door, and I recognised it as being the same one from the photograph of the Pagoda Room. So, I took out my penknife******.” He withdraws a small blade with an ebony handle from his pocket. “So useful. I never go anywhere without it being in my pocket, and I took to the red wallpaper just next to the cabinet. I cut away a little, and what do you think I found beneath it, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“The Chinese pagoda paper, I presume, Mr. Gifford.” Lettice laughs.

 

“Just so, Miss Chetwynd!” Mr. Gifford exclaims, bouncing on his seat excitedly. “It’s badly degraded of course, but I thought it would make a splendid backdrop to Adelina’s blue and white porcelain collection!”

 

“Aah… then I’m very sorry, Mr. Gifford,” Lettice begins to apologise. “But you have wasted your journey up to London from Wiltshire. I’m a redecorator and designer, not a restorer.”

 

“Oh I know that, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Gifford replies. “However, I also know from what I read in Mr. Tipping’s******* article in Country Life******** that you are a fine artist. You painted a demilune table********** for Mr. and Mrs. Channon, did you not?”

 

“I did Mr. Gifford. But what of it?”

 

“I had rather thought you might paint the design of the pagoda wallpaper from this photograph for me.”

 

“A demilune table is entirely different to a mural, Mr. Gifford!” Lettice exclaims in horror. “I’m hardly a muralist!”

 

“Oh I’m sorry, Miss Chetwynd, if I in any way implied that I wanted you to paint a mural.” Mr. Gifford defends raising his hands in concern. “No. I thought that because you have connections with wallpaper manufacturers who produce papers based on individual designs submitted, I was rather hoping you would design a panel of the pagoda wallpaper, which could then be reproduced as wallpaper to hang.”

 

Lettice ruminates on Mr. Gifford’s idea for a moment. “Well,” she says cautiously. “I suppose I could speak to Jeffrey and Company***********. They do produce bespoke wall hangings. Mind you, to be frank, it isn’t at all inexpensive, Mr. Gifford.”

 

“Oh I don’t mind, Miss Chetwynd. The Pagoda Room may have been large once, but I can assure you that Cuthbert’s study isn’t a terribly large space. I certainly don’t mind paying the cost to have it papered.”

 

“Well, I know it’s precious to you, but may I have this photograph then, Mr, Gifford?”

 

“Of course you may, Miss Chetwynd. Just slip it out of the album.”

 

As Lettice carefully extracts the old black and white photograph from the album she says. “I can see if I can recreate a design as close to the original as I can make out from this photograph. I take it you can tell me what the colours of it are from the little bit of paper you exposed?”

 

“I have it here, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Gifford replies with a sigh, delving into his satchel once more and withdrawing a crumbling piece of paper that shows a small piece of the pagoda door and some roof tiles in French blue and sage green on an ecru background that must once have been white, which he carefully hands over to Lettice with trembling fingers.

 

“Yes, well. Using this, I could come up with a panel, that once it meets your approval, I can then take to Jeffrey and Company, and see if they are willing to reproduce it, and at what price.”

 

“Capital, Miss Chetwynd! Capital!” Mr. Gifford enthuses excitedly.

 

“I’d have to see the room as well, Mr. Gifford.” Lettice says. “To establish the amount of wall space we are discussing to have papered.”

 

“Are you by chance coming down to Wiltshire to visit your family soon, Miss Chetwynd?” asks Mr. Gifford with a toothy smile.

 

“As a matter of fact, I am, Mr. Gifford.”

 

“Then perhaps I could extend an invitation to you, to take tea with my wife and I at Arkwright Bury, whilst you are in residence at Glynes.”

 

“That sounds splendid, Mr Gifford.”

 

“Of course, you cannot let on to Adelina about this, Miss Chetwynd. This would be strictly between us. I want this redecoration to be a surprise for her.”

 

“You are being presumptuous, Mr. Gifford. I haven’t said that I will take you on as my client yet.” Lettice cautions with a wagging finger. “There are many dependencies and counter-dependencies yet to consider. But I will consider your request after I have seen the room for myself.”

 

“Oh thank you, Miss Chetwynd!” Mr. Gifford replies, clapping his hands in delight.

 

“I said, consider, Mr. Gifford.” Lettice says again, attempting to temper Mr. Gifford’s enthusiasm.

 

“Well, thinking of consideration, Miss Chetwynd. I do have one final titbit that might just make you consider my request a little more favourably.” He pauses for affect.

 

“And what might that be, Mr. Gifford?” Lettice asks with intrigue.

 

“Well, Mr. Henry Tipping is my godfather.” Mr. Gifford says with a smile that makes him look like the cat who just ate the cream. “And when I mentioned your name to him as a potential candidate for redecorating Cuthbert’s study, he said to me that he would happily consider writing an article on your redecoration of the room for Country Life, if you agreed.”

 

“Well!” Lettice replies, her expertly shaped eyebrows arching over her glittering blue eyes. “That is an interesting incentive, Mr. Gifford.”

 

“I thought that might pique your interest, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Gifford replies with a satisfied sigh as he settles back in his armchair again.

 

*Anthony Keck (1726 – 1797) was an Eighteenth Century English architect with an extensive practice in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and South Wales. He designed at least fifty country houses in the South-West of England and South Wales.

 

**The Battle of Ypres was a series of engagements during the First World War, near the Belgian city of Ypres, between the German and the Allied armies (Belgian, French, British Expeditionary Force and Canadian Expeditionary Force). During the five engagements, casualties may have surpassed one million.

 

***Sir Winston Churchill (30th if November 1874 – 24th of January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. In October 1911, Prime Minister Asquith appointed Churchill First Lord of the Admiralty, and he took up official residence at Admiralty House. He created a naval war staff and, over the next two and a half years, focused on naval preparation, visiting naval stations and dockyards, seeking to improve morale, and scrutinising German naval developments. As First Lord, Churchill was tasked with overseeing Britain's naval effort when the First World War began in August 1914. In the same month, the navy transported 120,000 British troops to France and began a blockade of Germany's North Sea ports. Churchill sent submarines to the Baltic Sea to assist the Russian Navy and he sent the Marine Brigade to Ostend, forcing a reallocation of German troops. In September, Churchill assumed full responsibility for Britain's aerial defence. In May, Asquith agreed under parliamentary pressure to form an all-party coalition government, but the Conservatives' condition of entry was that Churchill must be removed from the Admiralty. Churchill pleaded his case with both Asquith and Conservative leader Bonar Law but had to accept demotion and became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

 

****The term “Flanders Fields”, used after the war to refer to the parts of France where the bloodiest battles of the Great War raged comes from "In Flanders Fields" is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, written in 1915.

 

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

 

******A penknife, or pen knife, is a small folding knife. Today penknife is also the common English term for both a pocketknife, which can have single or multiple blades, and for multi-tools, with additional tools incorporated into the design.

 

*******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.

 

**********A demilune is a half-moon shaped table that was created and very popular in the Eighteenth Century. With no hard edges or corners and a shallow profile, this type of accent table works well in so many tight spaces. Georgian rooms were often quite small, so they were a useful surface to have in bedrooms, hallways and entryways.

 

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

 

This may look like an old photograph taken in the Victorian era and inserted into a photograph album, affixed with corners, but it is in fact a photograph made up completely of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my teenage years, which has then been post produced as an old black and white photograph.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The embroidery frame, which features a partially completed embroidery, complete with a 1:12 miniature needle inserted into it was made by Falcon Miniatures, who are known for their detail in relation to their miniature pieces. I acquired it from Doreen Jeffrey’s Small Wonders Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The sewing basket sitting next to it on the overstuffed sofa is a 1:12 artisan miniature which I have had since I was a teenager. I acquired it from a high street dolls’ house and miniatures supplier and it is amongst my very first artisan pieces I purchased.

 

The silver tea set on the pedestal table, consisting of milk jug, sugar bowl and teapot come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The silver tray upon which they stand also comes from Warwick Miniatures. The two dainty floral teacups with gilt edging are part of a larger tea set that I acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.

 

The books on the table, by the slipper chair and on the sofa in the forefront of the picture are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. These books are amongst the rarer exceptions that have been designed not to be opened. Nevertheless, the covers are copies of real Victorian bindings. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s books and magazines are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The overstuffed white settee and matching slipper chair, the two pedestal tables, the demilune table upon which the three vases sit, the three vases themselves, the corner cabinet and the china inside it, the hand embroidered footstool in front of the slipper chair, the two pillows on the sofa in the foreground, the paintings on the walls the extravagant floral arrangement and the two matching ornamental Victorian pillars I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The hand painted oriental ginger jar on the pedestal in the background next to the corner cabinet I acquired from Melody Jane’s Doll House Suppliers in the United Kingdom.

 

The floral sofa in the foreground I obtained from Crooked Mile Cottage Miniatures in the United States.

 

The oriental rug is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug and has been machine woven. The wallpaper is an Eighteenth Century chinoiserie design of pagodas and would have been hand painted in its original form.

Temple offered by Egypt to Spain to thank them for the help in the reconstruction of the Abou Simbel temple.

This nice old building is in Madrid

  

© All rights reserved

  

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.

I would add on a trade

Tigers size 7.5

Absolutes size 8

Takedowns size 8.5

Rulons size 8

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

@designeour : Party Edition - Custom Scene by Román Jusdado Licenses Offered Standard Extended File Types… bit.ly/1ZoXzUB (via Twitter twitter.com/designeour/status/728771280753790976)

We woke at half five, I mean we had gone to bed at eight the day before, so that amount to quite some sleep. All we wanted was a shower, breakfast and a huge city to explore. Just as well, as that is what the day had on offer.

At seven in the morning, the city had yet to wake up, the streets were oddly quiet, and lined with piles of trash bags waiting to be collected.

 

Nowhere seemed to be open, but we walked south along a cobbled street until we saw the bright lights of a 24 hour day café/restaurant.

 

We went in and ordered lots of food; a smoothie, a huge coffee and an everything bagel with cream cheese. Service was great and swift, and soon we were eating and drinking, the coffee putting lots of energy into our legs.

 

We cut across the main streets of Lower Manhattan, including Broadway, past City Hall until we came to the approach roads to the Brooklyn Bridge. Could we find the way to the footway as half the roads around it seemed to be closed?

 

Yes we could, up some steps and onto the footway that runs between the two carriageways of traffic, up walking on concrete until the bridge for real starts, at which point the walkway is of wood.

 

At first it wasn’t too busy, but there were groups of folks following a guide holding an umbrella or something, and they blocked the views, or were talking selfies with their I pads. I mean, everyone’s a photographer these days.

I get shots, then we carry on over the bridge into Brooklyn to visit an area called DUMBO, Down Under Brooklyn something Underpass.

 

It was here I hoped to find the shot of what I thought was the Brooklyn Bridge, but turned out to be the Manhattan Bridge, and I wasn’t the only one with the idea of snapping the scene, as two photographers had set up tripods on the crossing.

I got my shots handheld, then we set about looking for a place to have coffee as we had already done 8,000 steps that day.

 

We ended up having a coffee and a slice of cake, having our cake and eating it, in a corner store in DUMBO, we ate and drunk that, then I went out to take a clearer shot of the bridge, but found half of New York were there trying to get the same shot.

 

----------------------------------------

 

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest roadway bridges in the United States. Started in 1869 and completed fourteen years later in 1883, it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, spanning the East River. It has a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) and was the first steel-wire suspension bridge constructed. It was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and the East River Bridge, but it was later dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge, a name coming from an earlier January 25, 1867 letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle[8] and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since opening, it has become an icon of New York City and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964[7][9][10] and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972.

 

Although the Brooklyn Bridge is technically a suspension bridge,[12] it uses a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge design. The towers are built of limestone, granite, and Rosendale cement. The limestone was quarried at the Clark Quarry in Essex County, New York.[13] The granite blocks were quarried and shaped on Vinalhaven Island, Maine, under a contract with the Bodwell Granite Company, and delivered from Maine to New York by schooner.[14]

 

The bridge was built with numerous passageways and compartments in its anchorages. New York City rented out the large vaults under the bridge's Manhattan anchorage in order to fund the bridge. Opened in 1876, the vaults were used to store wine, as they were always at 60 °F (16 °C).[15] This was called the "Blue Grotto" because of a shrine to the Virgin Mary next to an opening at the entrance. When New York magazine visited one of the cellars in 1978, it discovered on the wall a "fading inscription" reading: "Who loveth not wine, women and song, he remaineth a fool his whole life long.

  

The bridge was conceived by German immigrant John Augustus Roebling in 1852,[17] who spent part of the next 15 years working to sell the idea.[citation needed] He had previously designed and constructed shorter suspension bridges, such as Roebling's Delaware Aqueduct in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, and the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky. While conducting surveys for the bridge project, Roebling sustained a crush injury to his foot when a ferry pinned it against a piling. After amputation of his crushed toes, he developed a tetanus infection that left him incapacitated and soon resulted in his death in 1869, not long after he had placed his 32-year-old son, Washington Roebling, in charge of the project.[18]

 

In February 1867, the New York State Senate passed a bill that allowed the construction of a suspension bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan.[19] Two months later, the New York and Brooklyn Bridge Company was incorporated. The company was tasked with constructing what was then known as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge.[20][21]

 

Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began in 1869.[12] The bridge's two towers were built by floating two caissons, giant upside-down boxes made of southern yellow pine, in the span of the East River, and then beginning to build the stone towers on top of them until they sank to the bottom of the river. Compressed air was pumped into the caissons, and workers entered the space to dig the sediment, until the caissons sank to the bedrock. The whole weight of the bridge still sits upon 15-foot-thick southern yellow-pine wood under the sediment.[22]

 

Many workers became sick with the bends during this work.[23] This condition was unknown at the time and was first called "caisson disease" by the project physician, Andrew Smith.[24][25] Washington Roebling suffered a paralyzing injury as a result of "caisson disease" shortly after ground was broken for the Brooklyn tower foundation on January 3, 1870.[26] Roebling's debilitating condition left him unable to physically supervise the construction firsthand.

 

As chief engineer, Roebling supervised the entire project from his apartment with a view of the work, designing and redesigning caissons and other equipment. He was aided by his wife, Emily Warren Roebling, who provided the critical written link between her husband and the engineers on site.[27] Warren Roebling studied higher mathematics, calculations of catenary curves, strengths of materials, bridge specifications, and intricacies of cable construction.[28][27][29] She spent the next 11 years helping to supervise the bridge's construction.

 

When iron probes underneath the caisson for the Manhattan tower found the bedrock to be even deeper than expected, Roebling halted construction due to the increased risk of decompression sickness. He later deemed the sandy subsoil overlying the bedrock 30 feet (9.1 m) below it to be firm enough to support the tower base, and construction

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Bridge

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

This evocative collection offers a cinematic journey through the Spanish Golden Age, a period defined by immense cultural flourishing and profound social contrasts. Each image serves as a window into the 16th and 17th centuries, blending historical atmosphere with dramatic chiaroscuro lighting. The set explores the diverse strata of imperial society: from the majestic galleons preparing for transoceanic voyages in misty harbors to the quiet, focused intensity of master painters and scholars in their studios.

 

The visual narrative traverses the opulence of the royal court and its noblemen, the spiritual silence of Gothic cloisters, and the gritty, vibrant life of the streets where "pícaros" share bread and veterans gather in dim taverns. High-stakes drama is captured through the clash of rapiers in shadowed alleys and the grand theatrical performances in a traditional "Corral de Comedias." Together, these frames pay homage to the era of Velázquez, Cervantes, and Lope de Vega, reimagining the textures, emotions, and legends of Spain’s most influential historical epoch.

 

The images have been generated by Artificial Intelligence.

 

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Warmer weather around Chicago.. these past two days have been pouring with rain. It started on Easter Sunday (Orthodox Easter) and continued later in that night.

 

We found this in a alley after visiting a few shops: antiques, bicycles, paper, and everything that Highland Park offered.

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.

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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.

Offered for sale on Chairish.

Pasha Hawaii offers container and roll-on/roll-off (Ro/Ro) service for automobiles, buses, trucks, and/or other large and oversize rolling stock in the Mainland/Hawaii trade. A combination container/roll-on/roll-off ("ConRo") vessel, the Marjorie C is the only one of its type to ply the Mainland/Hawaii trade lane.

 

The 26,000-ton vessel was engineered from a proven design by Grimaldi in Croatia at Uljanik Shipyard and is the largest ever built at VT Halter in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

 

Length: 692 feet

Beam: 106 feet

Draft: 31 feet

Deadweight: 21,132.5 metric tons

Stern ramp capacity: 350 metric tons

Number of decks: 9

Quarter stern opening: 39'4" wide x 20'8" high

Crane capacity: 40 metric tons

Container capacity: l,400 TEU

Oversize cargo space: 104,000 sq. ft.

Automobile capacity: 1,200

Size 9

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French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 1000. Photo: Paramount. Publicty still for The Geisha Boy (Frank Tashlin, 1958).

 

American singer and actress Marie McDonald (1923–1965) was nicknamed 'The Body'. During World War II, she became one of Hollywood's most popular pin-up girls.

 

Marie McDonald was born Cora Marie Frye in Burgin, Kentucky, in 1923. She was the daughter Everett 'Ed' Frye and Marie Taboni née McDonald who performed in the Ziegfeld Follies. After her parents divorced, she eventually moved with her mother and stepfather to Yonkers, New York. At the age of 15, Marie began competing in numerous beauty pageants and was named 'The Queen of Coney Island'. She dropped out of school and began modelling. In 1939, McDonald was named 'Miss New York State', but subsequently lost at the 'Miss America' pageant. She debuted in George White's Scandals of 1939. The following year, at age 17, she landed a showgirl role in the Broadway production at the Earl Carroll Theatre called Earl Carroll's Vanities. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Hollywood hoping to develop a film career. She continued modelling and to work for the owner of the Broadway theatre as a showgirl at his Sunset Boulevard nightclub. She was the model used by illustrator Alex Raymond for the Dale Arden and Princess Aura creations for the Flash Gordon comic strip. After auditioning for Tommy Dorsey in 1940, she joined Dorsey & His Orchestra on his radio show and she later performed with other big bands. Dorsey suggested that she change her last name from 'Frye' to her mother's maiden name 'McDonald' which she used professionally for the rest of her life. In 1942, she was put under contract by Universal for $75 a week and immediately appeared in several minor roles. Her part in the Abbott and Costello comedy Pardon My Sarong (Earle C. Kenton, 1942) earned her the nickname 'The Body' for her curvaceous physique. She was eventually dropped by Universal and signed with Paramount Pictures, earning $100 a week. While at Paramount, McDonald appeared in Lucky Jordan (Frank Tuttle, 1942) starring Alan Ladd. The following year, she was loaned to Republic Pictures where she co-starred in A Scream in the Dark (George Sherman, 1943), a B detective mystery that met with reasonable success.

 

During World War II, Marie McDonald became one of Hollywood's most popular pin-up girls and she posed for the United States military magazine, Yank. While she initially did not mind being called 'The Body', McDonald soon grew tired of the nickname and expressed a desire to be known for her acting and singing skills. McDonald returned to Paramount where she appeared in supporting roles. In 1944, McDonald co-starred in the Film Noir Guest in the House (John Brahm, 1944), in which she received the first positive reviews in her career. Her next starring role came when she worked for independent producer Edward Small as the title character in the screwball comedy Getting Gertie's Garter (Allan Dwan, 1945). Tom De Felice at IMDb: "a mostly overlooked gem. If you are into comedy, it is a must see." In 1947, McDonald signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and co-starred with Gene Kelly in the musical Living in a Big Way (Gregory LaCava, 1947). McDonald and Kelly did not get along while shooting and the film was a financial failure. McDonald bought out the rest of her contract at M-G-M and went to Colombia Pictures where she appeared in a supporting role in the romantic comedy Tell It to the Judge (Norman Foster, 1949). In 1950, McDonald appeared in the Film Noir Once a Thief (W. Lee Wilder, 1950) and Hit Parade of 1951 (John H. Auer, 1951) which would be her final films for the next eight years. For the remainder of the 1950s, McDonald focused on theatre and music. McDonald recorded an LP for RCA Victor in 1957, The Body Sings, backed by Hal Borne and His Orchestra, which consisted of twelve standard ballads. She also toured the world in a very successful nightclub act. She returned to the screen in 1958 when she was cast as actress Lola Livingston in a slapstick comedy opposite Jerry Lewis in The Geisha Boy (Frank Tashlin, 1958). In 1963, she made her last film appearance in the sex comedy Promises! Promises! (King Donovan, 1963). She replaced sexpot Mamie Van Doren, but had numerous fights on the set with the other bombshell star Jayne Mansfield. She married the producer of the film, Donald F. Taylor, who would be her last husband.

 

When her film career dried up, Marie McDonald did some rather desperate publicity stunts. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: " at one point, she ripped a page from the repertoire of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, claiming that she'd been kidnapped and bundled off to the desert. Even when her unorthodox behavior didn't make the headlines, McDonald could count upon her seven marriages to keep her name in print." McDonald's first marriage was to sportswriter Richard Allord in 1940. The marriage was annulled after three weeks. In January 1943, McDonald married her agent, Victor Orsatti, in Reno, Nevada. They divorced in May 1947. While awaiting her divorce from Orsatti, McDonald had an affair with mobster Bugsy Siegel. Siegel reportedly dumped McDonald because of her chronic tardiness. McDonald's third and fourth marriages were to millionaire shoe manufacturer Harry Karl. They initially married in September 1947. After McDonald suffered several miscarriages, the couple adopted two children, Denice and Harrison. They separated in August 1954 and were divorced that November. McDonald and Karl remarried in Arizona in June 1955. They separated in March 1956 and, in May, Karl filed for divorce claiming that McDonald had beat him causing him "grievous mental suffering". At the time of their separation, McDonald was pregnant with the couple's first biological child. Karl dropped the divorce suit in June. In July, McDonald filed for divorced from Karl and was granted an interlocutory divorce decree later that month but their divorce was never finalized. Their daughter, Tina Marie, was born in September 1956. During their separation, McDonald dated Michael Wilding. McDonald and Karl reconciled again in 1957 but separated again in December 1957. They divorced for good in 1958. In 1959, McDonald married television executive Louis Bass in Las Vegas. She filed for divorced after ten months charging Bass with "mental cruelty". In 1961, she married banker and attorney Edward Callahan in Las Vegas. On September 17, 1962, Callahan filed suit in Los Angeles asking for a divorce from McDonald for mental cruelty or that the marriage be annulled due to fraud. Callahan claimed that the two had only lived together for two days because McDonald had no intention of making a home with him or having his children. Callahan also charged that McDonald would not convert to Roman Catholicism. McDonald counter sued dismissing Callahan's claim, stating that they had lived together until September 7. She also claimed that Callahan had committed adultery and borrowed $2600 from her to finance their wedding and honeymoon which he did not repay. McDonald married for the sixth time to Donald Taylor in 1963. They met while McDonald was appearing in Promises, Promises, the final film which Taylor produced. They remained married until McDonald's death. IMDb quotes McDonald: "Husbands are easier to find than good agents." In 1965, Taylor, found McDonald's body slumped over her dressing table in their Hidden Hills, California home. The coroner announced that McDonald's death was caused by "active drug intoxication due to multiple drugs" and was determined to be an accident or a suicide. In December 1965, the suicide team classified her death as 'accidental' after determining that McDonald likely did not choose to commit suicide. She was 42. Three months after McDonald's death, her widower, Donald F. Taylor, died of an intentional overdose of Seconal. McDonald's three surviving children were raised by Harry Karl and his wife, Debbie Reynolds.

 

Source: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Pakistan offers some of Asia's most mind blowing landscapes , extrordinary treking , the spectacular karakoram highway , a multitude of cultures , and a long tradition of hospitality .

  

Kalash lady , ethnic group of the hindu kush .

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Paul “Jack’ Pollard was an old time collector who had a focus on minor league cards. Much of his collection was offered and is still being offered by REA - Including his 1909-1911 T212 Obak Sets. SGC tagged many of these slabs with his name. (Pollard Collection)

 

The Vancouver Beavers were a Class-B minor league baseball team based in Vancouver, British Columbia that played on and off from 1908 to 1922. The team played in the Northwestern League, Pacific Coast International League, Northwest International League and Western International League. From 1913 on, they played their home games at Athletic Park.

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Si ? / Irv / Irving Jensen

Position: Outfielder

Bats: Unknown • Throws: Left

Height: 5' 11" / Weight - 165 lbs

Born: March 28, 1881 in Millcreek, UT

Died: December 30, 1952 (Aged 71) in Salt Lake City, UT

Full Name: Erven Leslie Jensen

 

(Idaho State Journal from Pocatello, Idaho - January 1, 1953) Erven Jensen, one of the most ardent baseball supporters In the area. Jensen died late Tuesday, in the Salt Lake Veterans Hospital after a long Illness. He was 71. A native of Utah, Jensen broke into organized baseball as a pitcher near the turn of the century while working on the West Coast. He began as a pitcher for Oakland. In 1905, he was signed by Clark Griffith's Highlanders, then In the major leagues, but was turned over to a farm team because his knuckle ball was loo easy to detect.

 

Link to his minor league stats - www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=jensen...

 

Link to his minor league stats from 1906 - www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=jensen...

 

(San Francisco Call, 17 April 1903) - Jensen, the left-hander from Salt Lake, did the slab trick for the visitors (Butte Miners). Just like most of the southpaws on the new grounds, he was real cream cheese for the native talent. They began to do a few things to Mr. Jensen early In the battle, and never for a moment did they let up on him. He seemed to have big curves and wonderful speed, but still the home batters fell upon his assortment and tent it all over the lot. San Francisco won the game against Butte 9-4.

 

(Sporting Life - 28 May 1904) - With Salt Lake City - John A. Ward, Erven Jensen.

 

(The Salt Lake Tribune, June 09, 1906) - Jensen Goes to Pocatello - Irving Jensen, who pitched a winning game for the Tailors last Saturday and again yesterday leaves for Pocatello today. Sunday he will twirl for tho Soda Springs team, which plays tho Pocatello aggregation for a $100 side bet. Victory for the Soda Springs team is said to mean a good piece of money for Jensen. After the game Jensen will return and resume his work with the locals.

 

(San Francisco Call, 6 September 1906) - JENSEN GOES TO SPOKANE. - CINCINNATI, Sept 5 — The National Baseball Commission in a decision handed down today awarded player Jensen, now with the New York American League Club, to the Spokane Club. The Spokane Club contended that Jensen accepted terms and transportation from it and then joined the New York Club. The New York Club did not submit any evidence in the case.

 

(The Spokane Press, September 05, 1908) - JENSEN CLEAR OUT - After winning 13 out of the first 15 games he pitched, Irv. Jensen lost 16 straight and has been released on pay for the rest of the season. Overwork and worry caused the southpaw's slump. He is losing weight rapidly and is so weak he may be forced to take to bed.

 

(The Spokane Press, September 10, 1908) - Irv. Jensen, after a short rest, is back In the game again, and yesterday, although his pitching was not remarkable, he won over Aberdeen, 2 to 1. The Indians got only four hits off big Gus Thompson, but bunched them in the second inning and got the tallies.

 

(The Salt Lake Herald-Republican, March 18, 1910) - JENSEN TO VANCOUVER - Irving Jensen the local boy who has made good in the box with the Spokane club of the Northwestern league for the past three years leaves next week to join the Vancouver club. Jensen received a better offer from the Canadian club and accepted it.

 

(The Yakima Herald, April 20, 1910) - Sidewheeler Trotted Out.

Irving Jensen, the only southpaw on the Squad, was trotted out on the mound by the Vancouver manager to give the slugging Beavers a trial of a sidewheeler. Jensen was in great form and the sluggers had their troubles locating his curve ball. However. Brown figures that the Beavers are not going to be bothered by sidewheelers this year. In as much as there is only two of the left-handed hitters that are troubled by southpaws, Adams and Capron, and Swain can be used in place of Adams, the Beavers are well fortified against the slabsters with the southern delivery.

 

(Morning Oregonian, May 13, 1910) - TACOMA SHUTS OUT VANCOUVER - Jensen Strikes Out 1 1 Men, but Poor Support Loses Game. VANCOUVER, B. C. May 12. Tacoma won a loosely played game today. Jensen pitched a good game for Vancouver, striking out 11 men, but his support was poor. Tacoma bunched hits in the latter part of the game, driving in the winning run after having been shut out for seven innings. Score: Tacoma 2 - Vancouver - 0.

 

(The Tacoma times., July 10, 1911) - Portland gets Jensen from Vancouver and Seattle gets Ort from Portland.

 

(Sporting Life - 9 March 1912) - President Dick Cooley, of the Salt Lake (Union Association) Club, has signed southpaw pitcher Erven L. Jensen; late of the Northwestern League; and pitcher J. E. Lewis, late of Oakland, California.

 

(Morning Oregonian, May 28, 1912) - Erven Jensen, former Portland slabster, now with the Union Association, once carried around in his mouth a $900 diamond belonging to Harry Ostdick, of the Indians. Ostdick and Jensen were in an altercation last season at Seattle and words led to blows. Ostdick punched the pitcher In the mouth and after the combatants were separated, discovered that his three-carat stone had been separated from a ring in the melee. He went on a hunt for the "rock," but in the meantime Jensen plucked the $900 beauty out of his mouth, where It had lodged after a tooth had plucked it from its original mooring.

 

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I traveled with about 20 friends and family members to Cozumel and basically only shot people for a change. This is one of about 6 shots that I took that didn't have someone in the frame. I was avoiding the shots of Tequila that were being offered. Even the smell grossed me out!