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There were rags of many colors
But every piece was small
And I didn't have a coat
And it was way down in the fall
Momma sewed the rags together
Sewin' every piece with love
She made my coat of many colors
That I was so proud of
~Dolly Parton~
Moose doesn't look so proud but he did love the treats
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Sea trout and brown trout are the same species (Salmo trutta). A combination of genetics and environmental factors (principally lack of food), will mean that some trout will go to sea to feed before returning to spawn. This is called an ‘anadromous’ lifestyle.
These come up the river every year just ahead of the salmon.Great to see hard to get a shot of very hard lol.
Not the best shot but the light was not the best.
For Macro Monday theme - seeds
Nigella seeds, chia seeds and seed beads in miniature bottles. HMM
Also #17 for April 2017: A month in 30 pictures
erasmo "pistero kallejero" in the bike rack in the stairs entrance, just leaving pachanga party in La Chimenea with Yanclos Band performance
...."Uszyj mi słowa na miarę, niech pasują do mnie jak ciepły płaszcz. do tego rękawiczki białe, tęsknoty cieplejszej niż jedwab..."
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Carreteando en las Fondas del Estadio Nacional... en bici po loko! (pta que hizo frio)
Steve, Pancho, Manu, Ian, Manuel, Nata, Cristian, Weichafe y el fotografo todos ciclistas cheleros de chile
"cuando comienza a irse el soool... y la cerveza ya se empieza a acabar...yo me pregunto porqueeee...por que mi amor se fueeeee!!!!!"
Primera vez que subo al podio...
DE ATRÁS PICA EL INDIO!!!!!!
además de la linda polera me gane un bolsito "made in frankie nun" invisible... je
pta que toy felí
hay que editar los videos...paciencia
La segunda despedida del Klaus... todos sus amigos, las chikas lindas y pa variar aparece Cristobal al medio!
Lunch out with friends today at Wright's Food Emporium www.wrightsfood.co.uk/cafe/ in the Towy Valley Carmarthenshire .
I wish I'd taken my camera in with me because it's the best time of year to catch Sewen ( River Trout) in this river and I chose Sewin Tartine from the Specials Menu . Anyhow, we took a detour coming home crossing the river below Dryslwyn Castle so I’ve chosen this as my POTD.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are in the little maid’s room off the Cavendish Mews kitchen, which serves as Edith, Lettice’s maid’s, bedroom. The room is very comfortable and more spacious than the attic she shared with her friend and fellow maid, Hilda, in her last position. The room is papered with floral sprigged wallpaper, and whilst there is no carpet, unlike Lettice’s bedroom, there are rugs laid over the stained floorboards. The room is big enough for Edith to have a comfortable armchair and tea table as well as her bed, a chest of drawers and a small wardrobe. Best of all, the room has central heating, so it is always warm and cosy on cold nights.
Friends of Lettice, newlyweds Margot and Dickie Channon, have been gifted a Recency country “cottage residence” called ‘Chi an Treth’ (Cornish for ‘beach house’) in Penzance as a wedding gift by the groom’s father, the Marquess of Taunton. Margot in her desire to turn ‘Chi an Treth’ from a dark Regency house to a more modern country house flooded with light, has commissioned Lettice to help redecorate some of the rooms in a lighter and more modern style, befitting a modern couple like the Channons. Lettice has decamped to Penzance for a week where she is overseeing the painting and papering of ‘Chi an Treth’s’ drawing room, dining room and main reception room, before fitting it out with a lorryload of new and repurposed furnishings, artwork and objets d’arte that she has had sent down weeks prior to her arrival. In her mistress’ absence, Edith has more free time on her hands, and so she is spending the morning pleasurably laying out some new fabric that she recently bought from a haberdasher’s in Whitechapel and cutting out the pieces for a new frock she has been wanting to make for a few weeks, but hasn’t had the time to do so before now owing to Lettice having her future sister-in-law as a houseguest.
Today is Tuesday and on Tuesdays, every third Thursday of the month and occasionally after a big party, Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, comes from her home in Poplar to do all the hard jobs.
Edith is so emersed in running her hands joyfully over the soft cotton fabric featuring sprigs of pretty blue flowers that she doesn’t hear the familiar sounds of Mrs. Boothby as she climbs the service stairs of Cavendish Mews: her footfall in her low heeled shoes that she proudly tells Edith came ‘practically new from Petticoat Lane**’, nor the fruity cough that comes from deep within her wiry little body.
“Morning dearie!” Mrs. Boothby calls cheerily as she comes through the servants’ entrance door into the kitchen.
“Oh, morning Mrs. Boothby,” Edith calls in reply through her bedroom door. “I’m in here.”
The old Cockney woman’s head appears around the doorframe, her wiry grey hair hidden beneath a dark blue cloche hat, another purchase from Petticoat Lane, which frames her heavily wrinkled face. “Aye! Aye!” she says good naturedly with a cheery smile. “What ‘ave we ‘ere then? Whilst the cat’s away.”
Edith’s face flushes with embarrassment at Mrs. Boothby’s remark.
“Oh I’m only teasin’, dearie!” the old woman laughs, emitting another fruity cough from deep within her lungs as she does so. “What’s that what you’re doin’ then?”
“Well, with Miss Lettice being away,” Edith replies a little coyly. “I have a bit more free time, so I thought I’d make the most of it and cut out the pattern for a new frock I’m making. I was hoping to have it finished in time for summer, for when Frank and I went walking in Hyde Park, but I suppose Autumn is as good as summer for a new frock.”
“Course it is, dearie!” Mrs. Boothby concurs. She bends down with a groan and picks up a copy of Weldon’s*** Dressmaker magazine off the floor by the foot of Lettice’s armchair and looks at the four smart outfits on the front cover. “Any time’s the perfect time for a new frock if you ask me – ‘specially when someone is as pretty as you! What a picture you’ll look steppin’ out with Frank Ledbetter in that pretty pattern.” She scruitinises the fabric, admiring the blue flowers interwoven with stems and leaves in olive green on a cream background. “That come from Mrs. Minkin’s then?”
“It does, Mrs. Boothby,” beams Edith. “I can’t thank you enough for telling me about her. She’s a much better haberdasher than the old one I used to use in Holborn.”
“I should fink she would be,” Mrs. Boothby replies loftily with an appreciative nod. “We East Enders know better ‘n anyone ‘bout how to sew and patch a dress, and turn a silk purse from a sow’s ear, ‘cause that’s all we get.”
“Mrs. Minkin is so generous. Look. She gave me these buttons as a gift.” She withdraws a card of six faceted Art Deco glass buttons and wafts them in front of the old charwoman.
“Aye. She’s a gooden, that one. Not all Russian Yids**** is like that Golda Friedman what goes round my rookery***** wiv ‘er nose in the air like she was the Queen of Russia ‘erself. Mrs. Minkin’s taken a shine to you, that’s for certain. Tried to marry you off to one of her sons yet, ‘as she?”
Edith blushes again. “Well, she did, until I explained to her that I was stepping out with Frank.”
“Well, them Yids tend to marry uvver Yids anyways, so I s’pose it don’t matter that much. She’ll still treat you like ‘er surrogate daughter ‘til one of ‘em marries, and even then, she’ll probably still treat you special ‘cause youse so nice to ‘er, ‘cause you’re such a good girl.”
“Oh I don’t know about that, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith scoffs. “I just treat people as I’d like to be treated. Isn’t that what we all learned in Sunday School.”
“I’m not much of a church goer myself, but that’s one rule I do know and agree wiv, dearie. Nah, thinkin’ of treatin’ folk, I ain’t ‘alf parched after me trip up from Poplar this mornin!”
“Was the traffic bad again, Mrs. Boothby?”
“Bad? You should’ve seen the traffic at Tottenham Court Road, dearie! Quite bunged up it was! Nah, ‘ow about a nice reviving cup of Rosie-Lee*****, eh?”
“Oh, of course, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says cheerily, pushing herself up off her knees and standing up.
A short while later, Edith and Mrs. Boothby are seated around Edith’s deal table which dominates the floorspace of the Cavendish Mews kitchen.
“Ta!” Mrs Boothby says. “Lovely.” She accepts the cup of tea proffered to her by Edith, and sticks a biscuit from the Hunley and Palmers******* tin on the table between her teeth and then starts fossicking through her capacious beaded bag before withdrawing her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut. Rolling herself a cigarette she reaches over to the deal dresser and grabs the black pottery ash tray Edith keeps for her. Lighting her cigarette with a satisfied sigh and one more of her fruity coughs, Mrs. Boothby settles back happily in the Windsor chair she sits in with her cigarette in one hand and the biscuit in the other.
Edith shudders almost imperceptibly. She hates the older woman’s habit of smoking indoors. When she lived with her parents, neither smoked in the house. Her mother didn’t smoke at all: it would have been unladylike to do so, and her father only smoked a pipe when he went down to the local pub. Nevertheless, she knows this is Mrs. Boothby’s morning ritual, and for all the hard work that the old woman does around the flat, Edith cannot deny her one of her few pleasures.
“I do like a nice ‘Untley and Palmer******* breakfast biscuit to go wiv me Rosie-Lee?” Mrs. Boothby sighs as she munches loudly on the biscuit, spilling a shower of golden brown crumbs into her lap as she speaks.
“I’m glad Mrs. Boothby,” Edith replies genuinely pleased as she pours herself a cup of tea.
“So dearie,” Mrs. Boothby queries. “Gonna whip your frock up on the sewin’ machine this afternoon are you?”
“This afternoon?” Edith looks questioning at Mrs. Boothby.
“Yes dearie, nah that you ‘ave the time on your ‘ands. Are you gonna stitch it up on your sewin’ machine?”
“Oh, I don’t have a sewing machine, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith adds sugar and milk to her tea and stirs her cup.
“Not got a sewin’ machine, dearie?” Mrs. Boothby draws deeply on her cigarette.
“No, Mrs. Boothby. There has never been one here, ever since I came to Cavendish Mews. No, I’ll take the cut pieces down to Mum’s when I visit her later in the week. She has a little Singer******** treadle that I can use.”
“Can you buy yourself one?”
“At forty pounds? I hardly think so!”
“You could get one through hire purchase********.”
“If I can’t afford one of Mrs. Minkin’s dressed hats, how can I possibly afford a sewing machine, even on hire purchase, Mrs. Boothby?”
“Well, can’t Miss Lettice buy you one then, dearie?” A plume of bluish grey smoke bursts forth in a tumbling cloud from the old woman’s mouth as she speaks.
Edith shakes her head as she selects a biscuit from the tin. “There’s no call for it, Mrs. Boothby. I seldom have to do any mending. Miss Lettice has Mr. Bruton mend any clothes for her. If she tears one of her stockings she simply goes and orders a new pair. The same can be said for any other article of clothing Mr. Bruton doesn’t make for her.”
“Lawd, to be that rich that I could toss a torn pair of stockings in the dustbin and buy a new pair wivvout thinkin’ twice!”
“I know. It seems like a wicked extravagance to me too, but I suppose Miss Lettice has always lived her life like that.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Boothby nods sagely as she slurps her tea loudly. “The ‘aves and ‘ave nots.”
“And any repairs required to the linen are done by the commercial laundry we use. No, I’ll take the pieces down to Mum’s and I can spend the afternoon there and sew it up then. She won’t mind.”
“Course she won’t mind, dearie. I just fink it’s a shame you don’t ‘ave your own sewin’ machine to make your own frocks on.”
“I get by well enough Mrs. Boothby, and Mum knows that if she ever wants to give up using it, I’ll have her Singer.”
The old charwoman nods and contemplates as she looks at Edith over the top of her own tea cup through the curtain of blueish grey cigarette smoke as she sips her tea.
An hour and a half later when Mrs. Boothby has finished scrubbing the bathroom, washing the kitchen linoleum and polishing the drawing room and dining room floors, she pops her head around Edith’s bedroom door again, where the young maid kneels laying out crisp white tissue paper patterns that she pins to the fabric before cutting them out with her shears. “Well, I’ll be off then, Edith dearie! I’ll see you Thursday.”
Edith looks up, her shears clasped in her right hand. “Yes, see you Thursday Mrs. Boothby. Even if I go down to Mum’s on Thursday, I’ll still be here in the morning to let you in.”
“Alright dearie. I’ll do Miss Lettice’s bedroom floor and the ‘allways on Thursday, and I’ll do the black leading. I’ll ‘elp you turn Miss Lettice’s mattress too, like we talked about.”
“Very good Mrs. Boothby.”
Mrs. Boothby looks down across Edith’s little chamber and takes in the Weldon’s and Lady’s World Fancy Workbook********** magazines scattered across the floor, Edith’s precious lacquered sewing box, a gift from her mother, from which spill knitting needles, spools of thread, pins and a tape measure, cards of buttons from Mrs, Minkin’s Haberdashery, her shears and the patterns for several fashionable frocks. The old Cockney sighs.
“Is anything wrong Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks, her own face filling with concern as she stares up into the thought filled face of the older woman.
“Well, I was just thinkin’ dearie.” She squeezes her pointy chin between her thumb and index finger thoughtfully.
“Yes, Mrs. Boothby?”
“’Ow long is Miss Lettice away for?”
“At least until mid next week. She’s gone to redecorate Mr. and Mrs. Channon’s house down in Penzance and she is staying for an extra day or two afterwards to gauge their happiness with her designs and organise any changes. I think Mr. Bruton will be going down too at the end, as he is supposed to be bringing her back up to London in his motor.”
“So she’ll still be gone on Friday?”
“I certainly expect so. Why do you ask, Mrs. Boothby.”
“Well, I was just thinkin’ dearie, that I might ‘ave a solution for your sewin’ machine problem. Can you come dahn to my ‘ouse in Poplar on Friday afternoon when I finish work about midday?”
“I suppose so, Mrs. Boothby.” the young girl replies, rather perplexed. “But why?”
“Oh, never you mind nah, dearie. Give me a few days to see if I can’t sort somethin’ out. I’ll come pick you up about ‘alf twelve from ‘ere. Alright dearie?” She smiles broadly at Edith, showing her badly nicotine stained teeth, but the smile is a kindly one.
“Very well, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies with her own bemused smile. “I’ll be ready. What do I need to bring.”
“Oh just yourself, dearie. Nuffink more. Well, ta-ta then dearie. Till Friday.” And the old woman shuffles out, her familiar footfall announcing her departure.
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
***Created by British industrial chemist and journalist Walter Weldon Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was the first ‘home weeklies’ magazine which supplied dressmaking patterns. Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was first published in 1875 and continued until 1954 when it ceased publication.
****The word Yid is a Jewish ethnonym of Yiddish origin. It is used as an autonym within the Ashkenazi Jewish community, and also used as slang. When pronounced in such a way that it rhymes with did by non-Jews, it is commonly intended as a pejorative term. It is used as a derogatory epithet, and as an alternative to, the English word 'Jew'. It is uncertain when the word began to be used in a pejorative sense by non-Jews, but some believe it started in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century when there was a large population of Jews and Yiddish speakers concentrated in East London, gaining popularity in the 1930s when Oswald Mosley developed a strong following in the East End of London.
*****A rookery is a dense collection of housing, especially in a slum area. The rookeries created in Victorian times in London’s East End were notorious for their cheapness, filth and for being overcrowded.
******Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.
*******Huntley and Palmers is a British firm of biscuit makers originally based in Reading, Berkshire. The company created one of the world’s first global brands and ran what was once the world’s largest biscuit factory. Over the years, the company was also known as J. Huntley and Son and Huntley and Palmer. Huntley and Palmer were renown for their ‘superior reading biscuits’ which they promoted in different varieties for different occasions, including at breakfast time.
********The Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing machines, it was renamed Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865, then the Singer Company in 1963. In 1867, the Singer Company decided that the demand for their sewing machines in the United Kingdom was sufficiently high to open a local factory in Glasgow on John Street. The Vice President of Singer, George Ross McKenzie selected Glasgow because of its iron making industries, cheap labour, and shipping capabilities. Demand for sewing machines outstripped production at the new plant and by 1873, a new larger factory was completed on James Street, Bridgeton. By that point, Singer employed over two thousand people in Scotland, but they still could not produce enough machines. In 1882 the company purchased forty-six acres of farmland in Clydebank and built an even bigger factory. With nearly a million square feet of space and almost seven thousand employees, it was possible to produce on average 13,000 machines a week, making it the largest sewing machine factory in the world. The Clydebank factory was so productive that in 1905, the U.S. Singer Company set up and registered the Singer Manufacturing Company Ltd. in the United Kingdom.
*********The hire purchase agreement was developed in Britain in the Nineteenth Century to allow customers with a cash shortage to make an expensive purchase they otherwise would have to delay or forgo. These contracts are most commonly used for items such as automobiles and high-value electrical goods where the purchasers are unable to pay for the goods directly. However in the 1920s and 1930s, they were also available for furnishings such as lounge suites and bedroom suites.
**********Published by Horace Marshall and Son of London since the 1850s, the Lady’s World Fancy Work Book, like Weldon’s, was a magazine which supplied dressmaking knitting, crochet and embroidery patterns. It was published quarterly on the first of the month in January, April, July and October.
This cheerful and busy domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The copies of Weldon’s Dressmaker and the Lady’s World Fancy Work Book 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. In this case, the magazines are non-opening, however what might amaze you 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 Superior Quality buttons on cards are in truth tiny beads. They, along with the spool of cotton in the foreground, the sewing box, the spools of cottons pincushion, tape measure, silver embroidery scissors and the knitting needles in it all come from various online shops who sell dollhouse miniatures.
The patterns for three afternoon dresses are genuine 1922 modes and come from Chic Parisien Beaux-Arts de Modes and are modes 386, 387 and 388.
The shears with black handles on the fabric open and close. Made of metal, they came from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom.
The fabric is real, and is a small corner of a few metres I acquired to have made into a shirt. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the pattern.
The corner of Edith’s armchair that can be seen in the top of the photo is upholstered in blue chintz, and is made to the highest quality standards by J.B.M. Miniatures. The back and seat cushions come off the body of the armchair, just like a real piece of furniture.
The floorboards are a print of a photo taken of some floorboards that I scaled to 1:12 size to try and maintain a realistic look.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not in Lettice’s flat, and whilst we have not travelled that far physically across London, the tough streets and blind alleys of Poplar in London’s East End is a world away from Lettice’s rarefied and privileged world. On Tuesday Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, discovered that Edith, Lettice’s maid, didn’t have a sewing machine when the Cockney cleaner found the young maid cutting out the pieces for a new frock. Mrs. Boothby made overtures towards Edith, inviting her to her home in Poplar in London’s East End with an air of mystery, saying she might be able to help her with her predicament of a sewing machine.
Friends of Lettice, newlyweds Margot and Dickie Channon, have been gifted a Recency country “cottage residence” called ‘Chi an Treth’ (Cornish for ‘beach house’) in Penzance as a wedding gift by the groom’s father, the Marquess of Taunton. Margot in her desire to turn ‘Chi an Treth’ from a dark Regency house to a more modern country house flooded with light, has commissioned Lettice to help redecorate some of the rooms in a lighter and more modern style, befitting a modern couple like the Channons. Lettice has decamped to Penzance for a week where she is overseeing the painting and papering of ‘Chi an Treth’s’ drawing room, dining room and main reception room, before fitting it out with a lorryload of new and repurposed furnishings, artwork and objets d’arte that she has had sent down weeks prior to her arrival. In her mistress’ absence, Edith has more free time on her hands, and so she was able to agree to Mrs. Boothby’s mysterious invitation. Even though she is happy with her current arrangement to take any items she wants to sew home to her parent’s house in Harlesden, where she can use her mother’s Singer** sewing machine on her days off. The opportunity of gaining access to a sewing machine of her own is too good for Edith to refuse.
So it is that we find ourselves in the kitchen cum living room of Mrs. Boothby’s tenement in Merrybrook Place in Poplar. By her own admission, it is a haven of cleanliness amidst the squalor of surrounding Poplar. Mrs. Boothby was just about to explain to Edith who someone called Ken is, when she was interrupted by the sound of his whistle. Moments later the door to Mrs. Boothby’s house flew open and the frame was filled by a tall bulking man wearing a flat cap with a parcel beneath his right arm wrapped in newspaper and tied up with twine.
“Ken!” Mrs. Boothby gasps, releasing a fresh plume of smoke as she exhales after drawing on her lit cigarette. “You’re ‘ome at last.”
“’Ome now!” he replies loudly and laconically as he steps across the threshold.
“Well don’t just stand there in the door, lettin’ all the cold air in and the ‘ot air out!” Mrs. Boothby scolds. “Come inside wiv you, and close the door behind you.”
The man pushes the door closed behind him with rather more force than is required and it slams loudly, and his violent slamming makes the crockery in the dresser behind Edith rattle. “Closed now!” he says defiantly.
Rather startled by the arrival of this man, Edith looks up at him with wide eyes filled with concern. Without the sun from the courtyard outside blinding her, Edith can see the man towering over them is very tall and muscular beneath his clothes, and rather than being Mrs. Boothby’s age, as she thought he was at first, she finds he is actually much younger. Clean shaven, he is dressed in a long grey coat and he has a collarless blue and white striped shirt and dusty black trousers held up by suspenders on beneath. There is a bright red and white spotted handkerchief tied around his neck. His face is as white as Mrs. Boothby’s, but his face is quite unlike hers. Where her face is drawn and pinched, his is fresh and rounded. He looks to Mrs. Boothby with bright eyes which are just like hers.
“Ken!” Mrs. Boothby says admonishingly. “What ‘ave I told you ‘bout slammin’ the door! Lawd you’ll frighten Old Mr. and Mrs. Blackfriar upstairs, not to mention Mrs. Conway next door.”
“Sorry Ma!” Ken replies in the same loud and rather toneless voice. It is then that he sees the Regency china teapot on the table. “Good pot, Ma!” He exclaims. “Good pot!”
“Well of course it’s the good pot, Ken. You knew I was havin’ someone ‘ome for tea today. I told you that this mornin’. You remember don’t you?”
“Nice lady!” he says loudly, and then suddenly he notices Edith sitting, rather frightened in his presence, in her chair. Realising Mrs. Boothby has company he quickly whisks off his cap with his empty left hand, revealing a mop of unruly curly red hair.
“That’s right. The nice lady I work wiv up the West End. Nah, Ken, this his ‘er. This is Miss Watsford. Edith, this is my son, Kenneth, but we just call him Ken, don’t we son?”
“I’m Ken! That’s me!”
“Yes son,” Mrs. Boothby says soothingly. “That’s you alright. You’re my big little Ken, ain’t cha?”
“Son?” Edith gasps. It is then she suddenly sees the gormless grin that teases up the corners of his mouth and plumps his lips and the childish delight highlighting his glinting eyes as he looks down at her. Only then does she realise that Ken might be big and bulky, but he’s never hurt another living being.
“How do, Miss Watsford!” Ken says dropping his flat cap on the table and thrusting the paper wrapped parcel out in front of him like an offering.
“Nah, nah!” Mrs. Boothby fusses, dropping the cigarette she holds in her hand into the ashtray and standing up. “Miss Watsford don’t want that right nah. ‘Ere.” She takes one of the shortbread biscuits from the plate and gives it to the bulking lad. “Nah, go sit dahn on your bed and play wiv your toys for a bit, and let Miss Watsford and I ‘ave a nice chat. Then you can show ‘er what you got when I tell you. Alright?”
“Alright Ma.”
“Good boy.” She reaches up and runs a hand along her child’s soft cheek before planting a tender kiss on it. “And later, after I’ve taken Miss Watsford back ‘ome, I’ll read you one of them Beatrix Potter books you like. Alright?”
“Peter Rabbit?” Ken points to the teapot of the rabbit coming out of a watering can standing on one of the upper shelves of the dresser.
“Yes if you want, son. Nah, go sit dahn on your bed, and I’ll call you in a bit.”
Snatching up his cap, Ken quietly plods over to a bed that Edith hadn’t noticed before, in the corner of the room. Around and on it sit a few precious toys: a stuffed rabbit and a teddy bear, both clearly very well loved, and a few children’s books.
“Son?” Edith says, her eyes darting about the room as she puts the pieces of Ken’s presence together in her mind. “Oh Mrs. Boothby, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you had a son. I… I…” she stammers in an embarrassed fashion. “I just assumed that with your husband passed away, and no mention of a child.”
“That I ‘ad no children.” Mrs. Boothby completes Edith’s unspoken assumption.
“I actually thought you might have had a son who… well, who died in the war.”
“Why would you fink that, Edith dearie?” Mrs. Boothby gives her a quizzical look.
“Well, there are so many widows and grieving mothers about.”
The old woman sits back down again and releases another fruity cough. As she clears her throat roughly she picks up her cigarette and continues. “Well ‘how were you to know that I ‘ad a son, dead or otherwise, if I ain’t never told you. ‘Ere, ‘ave some more tea.” She lifts the pot and pours Edith some fresh tea into her half empty cup.
“So how old is your son, Mrs. Boothby?”
“Well that depends who you ask. If you ask me, ‘e’s fourty-two, cos that’s ‘ow old ‘e is. I brought ‘im into the world in April eighteen eighty.” Then she pauses before continuing. “But if you ask any of them fancy do-gooder doctors, they’d tell you ‘e’s six, cos that ‘ow old they say ‘e is in ‘is own ‘ead.”
The old Cockney woman sighs and takes a long drag on her cigarette, the paper and tobacco crackling as she draws deeply, the sound clear in the sudden heavy silence that hangs thickly in the room like the acrid smoke of her cigarette. Edith looks at Ken sitting in his bed a childlike smile of delight brightening his face, playing happily like a six year old holding the floppy arms of his toy rabbit, making him dance on his knee. Mrs. Boothby follows Edith’s gaze with her own sharp eyes before continuing.
“So, nah you see why it’s a bit easier for me not to mention that I ‘ave a son.” She exhales another plume of bitter blueish grey smoke. “Not that I’m ashamed of ‘im, cos I ain’t. “E’s a good lad ‘e is, but ‘e’s got ‘is own cross to bear. I ‘ad problems you see, when ‘e was born. I’d been scrubbin’ floors right up ‘till me waters broke almost, what wiv Bill bein’ away in the merchant navy and ‘is pay not coverin’ all I ‘ad to pay for. I ‘ad to make ends meet someow and ‘ave everythin’ ready for Ken when ‘e arrived. Anyway, ‘e must ‘ave been in the wrong position, ‘cos the midwife couldn’t get ‘im in the right spot and she ‘ad to get the doctor.” She takes another long drag of her cigarette before stumping it out in the ashtray as she blows out another plume of cigarette smoke. She takes out her papers and quietly begins rolling another cigarette. “Not that I wanted ‘im. I couldn’t afford a doctor, but ‘e’s one of them do-gooder doctors what don’t charge those what can’t afford to pay, and that was me. I needed every brass farvin’ I could get my grubby ‘ands on. They said Ken didn’t get enough oxygen when ‘e was being born and as such that ‘is mind wouldn’t develop much beyond a six year old. That bloody Irish Catholic priest offered to take Ken away.” Mrs. Boothby spits angrily before putting the cigarette between her lip and lighting it.
“Priest!” Ken calls angrily from his truckle bed. “Priest bad!”
“Yes son! The priest is bad, but ‘e ain’t ‘ere so don’t you trouble your pretty ‘ead about it.” Mrs. Boothby says comfortingly. She looks over at her son, and just like a cloud momentarily blocking out the sun, Ken’s angry spat dissipates and he happily mumbles something to his rabbit before laughing.
“But you kept Ken.” Edith ventures gingerly as she watches Mrs. Boothby draw the rolled cigarette paper filled with tobacco to her lips and lick it, before rolling it closed.
“I ain’t no Irish trash. I’m a Protestant, not that I’m all that bovvered wiv God, and certainly not that Irish God when the priest said I should just give Ken up and put ‘im in one of them ‘ouses for unwanted kiddies with mental problems. But Mrs. Conway next door told ‘im to clear off quick smart. She told me that all kiddies is a blessin’, and she was right.”
“So you raised him then.”
“I did!” Mrs. Boothby replies proudly. “And when Bill came ‘ome from bein’ on the sea, I knew Mrs. Conway was right. Bill and I loved Ken, faults ‘n all. Mrs. Conway was right. Kiddies are a blessin’. Bill and I became closer ‘cos of Ken. ‘E still drank, but not like ‘e did before Ken were born. It were our job to raise ‘im propper and make sure ‘e could take care of ‘imself, and Bill took that serious like. They says it takes a village to raise a child, and well, I got a village right ‘ere outside this door. Mrs. Conway looked after Ken just like any uvver kiddie when Bill went back to sea and I took up charring again.”
“So that’s why you said you owe her so much.” Edith says, suddenly understanding Mrs. Boothby’s statement about Mrs. Conway earlier.
The old woman nods. “And cos ‘e was raised wiv all the uvver kiddies, they all grew up togevva, and they protected Ken, ‘till ‘e could protect ‘imself. When ‘e were older, when Bill were ‘ome, he taught Ken ‘ow to box, not to fight like some ‘round ‘ere, but just to defend ‘imself. You know what I mean?”
Edith nods. “Somehow, I suspect Ken wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Edith muses, smiling over at Ken.
“You got that right, Edith dearie. When Ken were a bit older, course ‘e couldn’t do school wiv the uvver kiddies, not bein’ as good wiv words and numbers like them, but ‘e were a big and strong lad, so I got ‘im a job wiv the local rag’ n’ bone man***.”
“So Ken is accepted in the neighbourhood then?”
“Course ‘e is, dearie. “E’s a local lad, and we look after our own dahn ‘ere. All the ladies ‘round these parts love ‘im when ‘e comes by wiv the wagon, cos they know Ken won’t try and cheat ‘em out of nuffink, and Mr. Pargiter and ‘is boys love ‘im too cos ‘e’s good for business, and they take good care of ‘im.”
“Did he have to go to war, Mrs. Boothby?” She looks again at the happy man now playing with both his bear and his rabbit.
“Fank the Lawd, no!” Mrs. Boothby casts her eyes to the stained ceiling above. “‘E were deemed mentally unfit for service,” The old woman blows out a ragged breath full of cigarette smoke before continuing a moment later. “And Lawd knows I ain’t never been so grateful as I were that day that our Ken came out baked the way ‘e did. Lads came ‘ome from the war more mentally unfit than the way they went to it. More mentally unfit than our Ken!”
“And some never came home.” Edith mumbles, dropping her head sadly.
Mrs. Boothby reaches out a careworn hand and takes hold of Edith’s squeezing it comfortingly.
“’Ere, let’s not get all upset when the sun is shin’ outside and Ken’s ‘ere wiv us.” Mrs. Boothby says, her voice full of false joviality as she blinks back tears. “Nah workin’ for Mr. Pargiter like ‘e does, Ken comes across a lot of good stuff. Ain’t that right, Ken?”
“What Ma?” Ken asks expectantly, raising his head from his toys and looking up happily at his old mother in her chair.
“You comes across lots of nice fings when you take Mr. Pargiter’s cart ‘round, don’t you?” she asks him patiently.
“Yes Ma.”
“Includin’ somfink you wanna show to Miss Watsford, ain’t that right, Ken?”
“Yes Ma!” Ken replies excitedly bouncing on his truckle bed, making the wooden frame squeak under his weight.
“So come show what you got to Miss Watsford then.” Mrs. Boothby says to her son encouragingly.
Obediently Ken tears the newspaper and twine enthusiastically from around the parcel he was carrying when he arrived home. Moving the gilt blue and white plate of uneaten shortbread biscuits to the middle of the table, Mrs. Boothby makes way for Ken’s surprise. With a groan he deposits a hand treadle Singer sewing machine on the edge of the table. Edith gasps.
“There you go Edith, dearie!” Mrs. Boothby says proudly.
“Oh Mrs. Boothby, I… I can’t afford this on a maid’s wage.” Edith stammers.
“You don’t know ‘ow much it is yet.” the old woman counters with a doubtful look.
“Well it’s sure to be exp…” Edith begins, but is silenced by Mrs. Boothby’s raised hand.
“Ken, ‘ow much Mr. Pargiter sell this to you for?” Mrs. Boothby asks her son.
“Five bob, Mum.” Ken replies proudly, smiling his gormless grin, turning his head, first to his mother and then Edith for approval.
“Well that sounds a fair price from old Mr. Pargiter.” Mrs. Boothby confirms as she eyes up the machine. “So if we add on an extra shillin’ for Ken’s time, that’ll be six bob, Edith.”
Edith gasps. “Six shillings!” She runs her hand lovingly along the machine’s black painted treadle and admires the beautiful gold and red painted decoration. “But it’s worth so much more than that.”
“But that ain’t what it’s bein’ sold for, Edith dearie. It’s six shillins. You fink six shillins a good price to sell this ‘ere sewin’ machine to Miss Watsford, Ken my boy?”
“Yes Ma!” Ken replies, nodding emphatically.
“Well, you ‘eard the man. Six shillins, that’s the price then, Edith dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says with a cheeky smile. "Take it or leave it.”
“Oh Mrs. Boothby, Ken…” Edith breathes with delight. “How can I say no?”
“You can’t.” Mrs. Boothby concludes as she blows out a final billowing cloud of cigarette smoke and squashes the stub of her cigarette into the ashtray with the others. “Nah, just pay me the six shillins when I come in on Tuesday.”
“Oh Ken,” Edith says, looking up at the tall man with his beaming smile and glittering eyes. “How can I ever thank you?”
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**The Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing machines, it was renamed Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865, then the Singer Company in 1963. In 1867, the Singer Company decided that the demand for their sewing machines in the United Kingdom was sufficiently high to open a local factory in Glasgow on John Street. The Vice President of Singer, George Ross McKenzie selected Glasgow because of its iron making industries, cheap labour, and shipping capabilities. Demand for sewing machines outstripped production at the new plant and by 1873, a new larger factory was completed on James Street, Bridgeton. By that point, Singer employed over two thousand people in Scotland, but they still could not produce enough machines. In 1882 the company purchased forty-six acres of farmland in Clydebank and built an even bigger factory. With nearly a million square feet of space and almost seven thousand employees, it was possible to produce on average 13,000 machines a week, making it the largest sewing machine factory in the world. The Clydebank factory was so productive that in 1905, the U.S. Singer Company set up and registered the Singer Manufacturing Company Ltd. in the United Kingdom.
***A rag-and-bone man is a person who goes from street to street in a vehicle or with a horse and cart buying things such as old clothes and furniture. He would then sell these items on to someone else for a small profit.
This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.
The Singer hand treadle sewing machine with its hand painted detail I acquired from American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel as part of a lot of her miniature hats from a milliner’s tableau.
Mrs. Boothby’s beloved collection of decorative “best” blue and white china on the kitchen table come from various online miniature stockists through E-Bay. The Scottish shortbreads on the cake plate have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. They actually come in their own 1:12 miniature artisan tin, complete with appropriate labelling.
Also on the table are Mrs. Boothby’s Player’s Navy Cut cigarette tin and Swan Vesta matches, which are 1:12 miniatures hand made by Jonesy’s Miniatures in England. The black ashtray is also an artisan piece, the bae of which is filled with “ash”. The tray as well as having grey ash in it, also has a 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (it is affixed there). Made by Nottingham based tobacconist manufacturer John Player and Sons, Player’s Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf, mild being today’s rich flavour). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Player’s and two thirds of these were branded as Player’s Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Player’s sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London). Production continued to grow until at its peak in the late 1950s, Player’s was employing 11,000 workers (compared to 5,000 in 1926) and producing 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. Nowadays the brands “Player” and “John Player Special” are owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands (formerly the Imperial Tobacco Company). Swan Vestas is a brand name for a popular brand of ‘strike-anywhere’ matches. Shorter than normal pocket matches they are particularly popular with smokers and have long used the tagline ‘the smoker’s match’ although this has been replaced by the prefix ‘the original’ on the current packaging. Swan Vestas matches are manufactured under the House of Swan brand, which is also responsible for making other smoking accessories such as cigarette papers, flints and filter tips. The matches are manufactured by Swedish Match in Sweden using local, sustainably grown aspen. The Swan brand began in 1883 when the Collard & Kendall match company in Bootle on Merseyside near Liverpool introduced ‘Swan wax matches’. These were superseded by later versions including ‘Swan White Pine Vestas’ from the Diamond Match Company. These were formed of a wooden splint soaked in wax. They were finally christened ‘Swan Vestas’ in 1906 when Diamond merged with Bryant and May and the company enthusiastically promoted the Swan brand. By the 1930s ‘Swan Vestas’ had become ‘Britain’s best-selling match’.
The various bowls, cannisters and dishes and the kettle I have acquired from various online miniatures stockists throughout the United Kingdom, America and Australia.
The black Victorian era stove and the ladderback chair on the left of the table and the small table directly behind it are all miniature pieces I have had since I was a child. The ladderback chair on the right came from a deceased estate of a miniatures collector in Sydney.
The grey marbleised fireplace behind the stove and the trough sink in the corner of the kitchen come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Mrs. Boothby’s picture gallery in the corner of the room also came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop.
The green wallpaper is an authentic replica of real Art Nouveau wallpaper from the first decade of the Twentieth Century which I have printed onto paper. The floorboards are a print of a photo taken of some floorboards that I scaled to 1:12 size to try and maintain a realistic look.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not in Lettice’s flat, and whilst we have not travelled that far physically across London, the tough streets, laneways and blind alleys of Poplar in London’s East End is a world away from Lettice’s rarefied and privileged world. On Tuesday Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, discovered that Edith, Lettice’s maid, didn’t have a sewing machine when the Cockney cleaner found the young maid cutting out the pieces for a new frock. Mrs. Boothby made overtures towards Edith, inviting her to her home in Poplar in London’s East End with an air of mystery, saying she might be able to help her with her predicament of a sewing machine.
Friends of Lettice, newlyweds Margot and Dickie Channon, have been gifted a Recency country “cottage residence” called ‘Chi an Treth’ (Cornish for ‘beach house’) in Penzance as a wedding gift by the groom’s father, the Marquess of Taunton. Margot in her desire to turn ‘Chi an Treth’ from a dark Regency house to a more modern country house flooded with light, has commissioned Lettice to help redecorate some of the rooms in a lighter and more modern style, befitting a modern couple like the Channons. Lettice has decamped to Penzance for a week where she is overseeing the painting and papering of ‘Chi an Treth’s’ drawing room, dining room and main reception room, before fitting it out with a lorryload of new and repurposed furnishings, artwork and objets d’arte that she has had sent down weeks prior to her arrival. In her mistress’ absence, Edith has more free time on her hands, and so she was able to agree to Mrs. Boothby’s mysterious invitation. Even though she is happy with her current arrangement to take any items she wants to sew home to her parent’s house in Harlesden, where she can use her mother’s Singer** sewing machine on her days off. The opportunity of gaining access to a sewing machine of her own is too good for Edith to refuse.
Now the two women walk through the narrow streets of Poplar, passing along walkways, some concrete, some made of wooden planks and some just dirt, between tenements of two and three stories high. The streets they traverse are dim with the weakening afternoon light from the autumn sky blocked out by the overhanging upper floors of the buildings and the strings of laundry hanging limply along lines between them. Although Edith is not unfamiliar with the part of Whitechapel around Petticoat Lane*** where she shops for second hand clothes to alter and for haberdashery to do them, she still feels nervous in the unfamiliar maze of streets that Mrs. Boothby is guiding her down, and she sticks closely next to or directly behind the old Cockney char. The air is filled with a mixture of strong odours: paraffin oil, boiled cabbage and fried food intermixed with the pervasive stench of damp and unwashed bodies and clothes. Self-consciously, Edith pulls her three quarter length coat more tightly around her in an effort to protect herself from the stench.
“Below!” comes a Cockney female voice from above as a sash window groans in protest as it is opened.
“Ere! Look out, Edith dearie!” Mrs. Boothby exclaims, grabbing Edith by the arm and roughly pulling the maid out of the way, thrusting her behind her.
A moment later the air is filled with the harsh sound of slops splattering against the concrete path, and a pool of dirty liquid stains the concrete a dark muddy brown as it slowly dribbles down into a shallow drain that runs down the middle of the laneway.
“Wouldn’t want your nice clothes to get spoilt nah, would we dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says as she turns and smiles into Edith’s startled face.
“Was that?” Edith begins but doesn’t finish her question as she peers at the puddle draining away, leaving lumps on the path.
“I shouldn’t look too closely if I were you, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says kindly in a matter-of-fact way. “If you ‘ave to ask, you’re better off not knowin’. That’s my opinion, anyway. Come on. Not much further nah.”
“You… you will take me home, won’t you Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks a little nervously as they continue their progress down the lane which she notices is getting narrower and darker as they go.
“Course I will, dearie! You can rely on old Ida Boothby. I know these streets like the back of my ‘and. Youse perfectly safe wiv me.”
The laneway ends suddenly, and Edith is blinded for a moment by bright sunlight as they step out into a rookery**** with two storey Victorian tenements of grey stone and red brick either side of a concrete courtyard with a narrow drain running down its centre. The original builders or owners of the tenements obviously have meant for the sad buildings to be at least a little homely, with shutters painted a Brunswick green hanging to either side of the ground floor windows. Looking up, Edith notices several window boxes of brightly coloured geraniums and other flowers suspended from some of the upper floor windowsills. Women of different ages walk in and out of the open front doors, or sit in them on stools doing mending, knitting or peeling potatoes, all chatting to one another, whilst children skip and play on the concrete of the courtyard.
“Welcome to Merrybrook Place,” Mrs. Boothby says with a hint of pride in her voice. “My ‘ome. Though Lawd knows why they called it that. I ain’t never seen no brook, merry or otherwise, runnin’ dahn ‘ere, unless it’s the slops from the privvies dahn the end.” She points to the end of the rookery where, overlooked by some older tenements of brick and wooden shingling most likely from the early Nineteenth Century, a couple of ramshackle privies stand. “So just watch your step, Edith dearie. We don’t want you steppin’ your nice shoes in nuffink nasty.” She gives her a warm smile. “Come on.”
As they start walking up the rookery, one woman wrapped in a paisley shawl stands in her doorway staring at Edith with undisguised curiosity and perhaps a little jealousy as she casts her critical gaze over her simple, yet smart, black coat and dyed straw hat decorated with silk flowers and feathers.
“Wanna paint a picture Mrs. Friedmann?” Mrs. Boothby calls out hotly to her, challenging her open stare with a defensive one of her own. “Might last you longer, your royal ‘ighness!” She makes a mock over exaggerated curtsey towards her, hitching up the hem of her workday skirts.
The woman tilts her head up slightly, sniffs in disgust and looks down her nose with spite at both Edith and the Cockney charwoman before muttering something in a language Edith doesn’t need to speak to understand. Turning on her heel, the woman slams her door sharply behind her, the noise echoing off the hard surfaces of the court.
“Who was that, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks nervously.
“Lawd love you dearie,” chortles Mrs. Boothby, the action resulting on one of her fruity hacking coughs that seem remarkably loud from such a diminutive figure. “That’s that nasty local Yid***** matchmaker what I told you ‘bout.” Raising her voice she continues, speaking loudly at the closed door. “Golda Friedmann goes around wiv ‘er nose in the air wrapped up in that fancy paisley shawl actin’ like she was the Queen of Russia ‘erself. But she ain’t! She’s no better than the rest of us.”
As Mrs. Boothby trudges on up the rookery another doorway opens and an old woman with a figure that shows many years of childbirth steps out, dressed in a black skirt and an old fashioned but pretty floral print Edwardian high necked blouse. “Afternoon Ida.”
“Oh! Afternoon Lil!” Mrs. Boothby replies. “Oh Lil! I got somefink in ‘ere for you.” She opens up her capacious blue beaded bag and fossicks around making the beads rattle before withdrawing a couple of thin pieces of soap, one bar a bright buttercup yellow, a second pink and the last white. “’Ere. For the kiddies.”
“Oh fanks ever so, Ida!” the other woman replies, gratefully accepting the pieces of soap in her careworn hands.
“Edith,” Mrs. Boothby calls. “This ‘ere is my neighbour, Mrs. Conway.” A couple of cheeky little faces with sallow cheeks, but bright eyes, poke out from behind Mrs. Conway’s skirts and smile up shyly at Edith with curiosity. “Hullo kiddies.” Mrs. Boothby says to them. “Nah sweeties from me today. Sorry. Mrs. Conway, this ‘ere is Miss Watsford, what works for one of my ladies up in Mayfair.”
“Oh ‘ow do you do?” Mrs. Conway says, wiping her hands down her skirts before reaching out a hand to Edith.
“How do you do, Mrs. Conway.” Edith replies with a gentle smile, taking her hand, and feeling her rough flesh rub against her own as the old woman’s bony fingers entwine hers.
“Well, must be getting on, Lil,” Mrs. Boothby says. “Ta-ta.”
“Ta-ra, Ida. Ta-ra Miss Watsford.” Mrs. Conway replies before turning back and shooing the children inside good naturedly.
“Goodbye Mrs, Conway. It was nice to meet you.” Edith says.
At the next door, one painted Brunswick green like the shutters, Mrs. Boothby stops and takes out a large string of keys from her bag and promptly finds the one for her own front door. As the key engages with the lock the door groans in protest as it slowly opens. The old woman says, “Just stand ‘ere in the doorway, Edith dearie, while I’ll open the curtains.”
She disappears into the gloom, which vanishes a moment later as with a flourish, she flings back some heavy red velvet curtains, flooding the room with light from the front window. It takes a moment for Edith’s eyes to adjust as the old Cockney woman stands for a moment in the pool of light, so brilliant after the gloom, surrounded by a floating army of illuminated dust motes tumbling over one another in the air. As her eyes adjust, Edith discerns things within the tenement front room: a kitchen table not too unlike her own at Cavendish Mews, a couple of sturdy ladderback chairs, an old fashioned black leaded stove and a sink in the corner.
“Close the door behind you and come on in, dearie. The ‘ouse is still warmish from this mornin’.” Mrs. Boothby says kindly as she tosses her beaded handbag carelessly onto the table where it lands with a thud and the jangle of beads. “Take a seat and I’ll get the range goin’ and pop the kettle on for a nice cup of Rosie-Lee******! I dunno ‘bout you, but I’m parched.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies as she closes the door.
Shutting out the unpleasant mixture of odours outside with the closing of the door, Edith is comforted by the smells of carbolic soap and lavender. Looking about she notices a couple of little muslin bags hanging from the curtains.
“Good. Nah, give me your ‘at ‘n coat and I’ll ‘ang them up.” Mrs. Boothby says. Noticing Edith’s gaze upon the pouches she explains. “Lavender to ‘elp keep the moths and the smells from the privy at bay.”
“Oh.” Edith replies laconically.
As Mrs. Boothby hangs up Edith’s coat and hat as well as her own on a hook behind the door and then bustles about stoking up the embers of the fire left in the stove, Edith says, “Mrs. Conway seems like a nice person to have as your neighbour, Mrs. Boothby.”
“She’s a good un, that one. She takes care of all the little kiddies round ‘n ‘bout while their parents is at work.” Mrs. Boothby throws some coal into the stove and shoves it with a poker. “She’s got an ‘eart of gold she does. I owe ‘er a lot. She does ‘er best by them kiddies. Gives ‘em a meal made outta what she can, which for some might be the only meal they get. And she gives ‘em a good bath too when she can. That’s why I give ‘er the left over soap ends from the ‘ouses I go to.”
“Oh I’m sorry Mrs. Boothby. I always take Miss Lettice’s soap ends to Mum to grate up and make soap flakes from for washing.”
“Ahh, don’t worry dearie. I gets plenty from some of the other ‘ouses I go to. Some of ‘em even throws out bars of soap what’s been barely used cos they get cracked and they don’t like the look of ‘em no more. Some of them ladies up the West End don’t know just ‘ow lucky they is to ‘ave as many bars of soap as they like. Nah, you keep takin’ Miss Lettice’s ends to your mum. So long as they’s bein’ used, I’m ‘appy. Waste not, want not, I always say.”
With nothing to do whilst the older woman goes about filling the large kettle with water from the sink in the corner of the room, Edith has more time to look at her surroundings. The floor is made of wooden boards whilst the walls are covered in a rather dark green wallpaper featuring old fashioned Art Nouveau patterns. The house must one have had owners or tenants with grander pretentions than Mrs. Boothby for the stove is jutting out of a much larger fireplace surround, which although chipped and badly discoloured from years of coal dust, cooking and cigarette smoke, is marble. However, it is the profusion of ornaments around the small room that catches the young girl’s eye. Along the mantle of the original fireplace stand a piece of Staffordshire, a prettily painted cow creamer, a jug in the shape of a duck coming out of an egg and a teapot in the shape of Queen Victoria. Turning around behind her to where Mrs. Boothby gathers a pretty blue and white china teapot, some cups, saucers and a sugar bowl, she sees a large dresser that is cluttered with more decorative plates, teapots, jugs, tins and a cheese dish in the shape of a cottage.
“Not what you was expectin’ I’ll warrant.” Mrs, Boothby remarks with a knowing chuckle that causes her to emit yet another of her throaty coughs.
“Oh no Mrs. Boothby!” Edith replies, blushing with shame at being caught out staring about her so shamelessly. “I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I mean… I had no expectations.”
“Well, it’s nuffink special, but this is my ‘aven of calm and cleanliness away from the dirty world out there.” She points through the window where, when Edith turns her head, she can see several scrawny children playing marbles on the concrete of the courtyard. “And it’s ‘ome to me.”
“Oh yes, it’s lovely and clean and cheerful, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith assures her hostess. “No, I was just admiring all your pretty crockery. It reminds me of my Mum’s kitchen, actually. She is always collecting pretty china and pottery.”
“Well, who was it what told you to go dahn to the Caledonian Markets******* to buy a gift for your mum?” the old woman says with a cheeky wink. “Me that who!” She pokes her chest proudly, before coughing heavily again.
“So did you get all these from the Caledonian Markets then, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks, looking around again.
“Well, most, but not all. I got meself an art gallery from the Caledonian Markets, for when I washes the dishes.” She points to two cheap prints of classic paintings in equally cheap wooden frames hanging on the walls above the little sink. “Better than starin’ at a blank wall, even if it’s covered in wallpaper. Course, some a them ladies up the West End is awfully wasteful wiv much more than soap, and just like them soap ends, I get my share. Somethin’ a bit old fashioned or got a tiny chip in it and they’s throwin’ it out like it was a piece of rubbish, so I offer ta take it. Take that nice cow up there,” She points to the cow creamer on the mantle. “The lid got lost somewhere, so the lady from Belgravia what owned it told ‘er maid to throw it out, so I said I’d take it instead. That,” She points to the Staffordshire statue. “Was one of a pair, what the uvver ‘alf got broken, so it was being chucked, so I took it. I don’t care if it don’t ‘ave the uvver ‘alf. I like it as it is. It’s pretty. The Queen Victoria teapot was getting’ chucked out just ‘cos the old Queen died, and King Bertie was takin’ ‘er place. Well, I wasn’t ‘avin’ none of that. Poor old Queen! I said I’d ‘ave it if no-one else wanted it. And this teapot,” She withdraws the pretty blue and white china teapot from atop the stove. “This was just bein’ thrown out ‘cos it’s old and they’s no bits of the set left but this. But there ain’t nuffink wrong wiv it, and it must be at least a ‘undred years old!”
Mrs. Boothby pulls out a gilt edged blue and white cake plate which she puts on the table along with the tea cups, sugar bowl and milk jug. She then goes to the dresser and pulls down a pretty tin decorated with Art Nouveau ladies from which she takes several pieces of shortbread, which she places on the cake plate.
“That’s very lovely, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith points to a teapot in the shape of a rabbit sitting in a watering can. “It looks rather like Peter Rabbit.”
“Ahh… my Ken loves that too.” Edith’s ears prick at the mention of someone named Ken, but she doesn’t have time to ask who he is before Mrs. Boothby continues, “That bunny rabbit teapot is one of the few pieces I got what ‘as a sad story what goes wiv it. Poor lady what I cleaned for up in St. James’, it were ‘er baby’s, from the nursery, you know?” Edith nods in understanding. “Well, ‘e died. ‘E was a weak little mite ‘e were, ever since ‘e was born, and my poor lady was so upset when ‘e died that she got rid of everyfink in the nursery. She didn’t want nuffink to remind her of that little baby. So, I brought it ‘ome wiv me.” She sighs. “Well, the kettle’s boiled now, so ‘ow about a cup of Rosie-Lee, dearie?”
A short while later, Edith and Mrs. Boothby are seated around Mrs. Boothby’s kitchen table with the elegant Regency teapot, some blue and white china cups and the plate of shortbreads before them.
“Oh I tell you Edith dearie, I’m dying for a fag!” Mrs Boothby says. She starts fossicking through her capacious beaded bag before withdrawing her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut. Rolling herself a cigarette she lights it with a satisfied sigh and one more of her fruity coughs, dropping the match into a black ashtray that sits on the table full of cigarette butts. Mrs. Boothby settles back happily in her ladderback chair with her cigarette in one hand and reaches out, taking up a shortbread biscuit with the other. Blowing out a plume of blue smoke that tumbles through the air around them, the old woman continues. “Nah, about this sewin’ machine. My Ken’ll be ‘ome soon, I ‘ope. ‘E’s a bit late today.”
“Mrs. Boothby, who is Ken?” Edith asks with a questioning look on her face.
Just as Mrs. Boothby is about to answer her, she gasps as she hears a rather loud and jolly whistle.
“Well, speak of the devil, ‘ere ‘e comes nah!”
The front door of the tenement flies open and the space is instantly filled by the bulk of a big man in a flat cap with a large parcel wrapped in newspaper tied with twine under his right arm.
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**The Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing machines, it was renamed Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865, then the Singer Company in 1963. In 1867, the Singer Company decided that the demand for their sewing machines in the United Kingdom was sufficiently high to open a local factory in Glasgow on John Street. The Vice President of Singer, George Ross McKenzie selected Glasgow because of its iron making industries, cheap labour, and shipping capabilities. Demand for sewing machines outstripped production at the new plant and by 1873, a new larger factory was completed on James Street, Bridgeton. By that point, Singer employed over two thousand people in Scotland, but they still could not produce enough machines. In 1882 the company purchased forty-six acres of farmland in Clydebank and built an even bigger factory. With nearly a million square feet of space and almost seven thousand employees, it was possible to produce on average 13,000 machines a week, making it the largest sewing machine factory in the world. The Clydebank factory was so productive that in 1905, the U.S. Singer Company set up and registered the Singer Manufacturing Company Ltd. in the United Kingdom.
***Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
****A rookery is a dense collection of housing, especially in a slum area. The rookeries created in Victorian times in London’s East End were notorious for their cheapness, filth and for being overcrowded.
*****The word Yid is a Jewish ethnonym of Yiddish origin. It is used as an autonym within the Ashkenazi Jewish community, and also used as slang. When pronounced in such a way that it rhymes with did by non-Jews, it is commonly intended as a pejorative term. It is used as a derogatory epithet, and as an alternative to, the English word 'Jew'. It is uncertain when the word began to be used in a pejorative sense by non-Jews, but some believe it started in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century when there was a large population of Jews and Yiddish speakers concentrated in East London, gaining popularity in the 1930s when Oswald Mosley developed a strong following in the East End of London.
******Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.
*******The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.
I would just like to point out that I wrote this story some weeks ago, long before The Queen became ill and well before her passing. However it seems apt that this story of all, which I planned weeks ago to upload today as part of the Chetwyn Mews narrative, mentions the passing of The Queen (albeit Queen Victoria). I wish to dedicate this image and chapter to our own Queen of past and glorious times Queen Elizabeth II (1926 – 2022). Long did she reign over us, happy and glorious. God bless The Queen.
This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.
Mrs. Boothby’s beloved collection of ornaments come from various different sources. The Staffordshire cow (one of a pair) and the cow creamer that stand on the mantlepiece have been hand made and painted by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys. If you look closely, you will see that the Staffordshire cow actually has a smile on its face! Although you can’t notice it in the photo, the cow creamer has its own removable lid which is minute in size! The duck coming from the egg jug on the mantle, the rooster jug, the cottage ware butter dish, Peter Rabbit in the watering can tea pot and the cottage ware teapot to its right on the dresser were all made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson. All the pieces are authentic replicas of real pieces made by different china companies. For example, the cottage ware teapot has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched roof and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics. The Queen Victoria teapot on the mantlepiece and the teapot on the dresser to the left of the Peter Rabbit teapot come from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. All the other plates on the dresser came from various online miniature stockists through E-Bay, as do the teapot, plate and cups on Mrs. Boothby’s kitchen table.
Mrs. Boothby’s picture gallery in the corner of the room come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom.
Mrs. Boothby’s beaded handbag on the table is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. Hand crocheted, it is interwoven with antique blue glass beads that are two millimetres in diameter. The beads of the handle are three millimetres in length. It came from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
Spilling from her bag are her Player’s Navy Cut cigarette tin and Swan Vesta matches, which are 1:12 miniatures hand made by Jonesy’s Miniatures in England. The black ashtray is also an artisan piece, the bae of which is filled with “ash”. The tray as well as having grey ash in it, also has a 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (it is affixed there). Made by Nottingham based tobacconist manufacturer John Player and Sons, Player’s Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf, mild being today’s rich flavour). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Player’s and two thirds of these were branded as Player’s Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Player’s sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London). Production continued to grow until at its peak in the late 1950s, Player’s was employing 11,000 workers (compared to 5,000 in 1926) and producing 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. Nowadays the brands “Player” and “John Player Special” are owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands (formerly the Imperial Tobacco Company). Swan Vestas is a brand name for a popular brand of ‘strike-anywhere’ matches. Shorter than normal pocket matches they are particularly popular with smokers and have long used the tagline ‘the smoker’s match’ although this has been replaced by the prefix ‘the original’ on the current packaging. Swan Vestas matches are manufactured under the House of Swan brand, which is also responsible for making other smoking accessories such as cigarette papers, flints and filter tips. The matches are manufactured by Swedish Match in Sweden using local, sustainably grown aspen. The Swan brand began in 1883 when the Collard & Kendall match company in Bootle on Merseyside near Liverpool introduced ‘Swan wax matches’. These were superseded by later versions including ‘Swan White Pine Vestas’ from the Diamond Match Company. These were formed of a wooden splint soaked in wax. They were finally christened ‘Swan Vestas’ in 1906 when Diamond merged with Bryant and May and the company enthusiastically promoted the Swan brand. By the 1930s ‘Swan Vestas’ had become ‘Britain’s best-selling match’.
The meagre foodstuffs on Mrs. Boothby’s shelf represent items not unusually found in poorer households across Britain. Before the Second World War, the British populace consumed far more sugar than we do today, partially for the poor because it was cheap and helped give people energy when their diets were lacking good nutritious foods. Therefore finding a tin of treacle, some preserved fruit or jam, and no fresh fruits or vegetables was not an unusual sight in a lower class home. All the tined foodstuffs, with the exception of the tin of S.P.C. peaches, are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans. The S.P.C. tin of peaches comes from Shepherd’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. S.P.C. is an Australian brand that still exists to this day. In 1917 a group of fruit growers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley decided to form a cooperative which they named the Shepperton Fruit Preserving Company. The company began operations in February 1918, canning pears, peaches and nectarines under the brand name of S.P.C. On the 31st of January 1918 the manager of the Shepparton Fruit Preserving Company announced that canning would begin on the following Tuesday and that the operation would require one hundred and fifty girls or women and thirty men. In the wake of the Great War, it was hoped that “the launch of this new industry must revive drooping energies” and improve the economic circumstances of the region. The company began to pay annual bonuses to grower-shareholders by 1929, and the plant was updated and expanded. The success of S.P.C. was inextricably linked with the progress of the town and the wider Goulburn Valley region. In 1936 the company packed twelve million cans and was the largest fruit cannery in the British empire. Through the Second World War the company boomed. The product range was expanded to include additional fruits, jam, baked beans and tinned spaghetti and production reached more than forty-three million cans a year in the 1970s. From financial difficulties caused by the 1980s recession, SPC returned once more to profitability, merging with Ardmona and buying rival company Henry Jones IXL. S.P.C. was acquired by Coca Cola Amatil in 2005 and in 2019 sold to a private equity group known as Shepparton Partners Collective.
The rather worn and beaten looking enamelled bread bin and colander in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green, which have been aged on purpose, are artisan pieces I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.
The various bowls, cannisters and dishes, the kettle and the Brown Betty teapot I have acquired from various online miniatures stockists throughout the United Kingdom, America and Australia. A Brown Betty is a type of teapot, round and with a manganese brown glaze known as Rockingham glaze. In the Victorian era, when tea was at its peak of popularity, tea brewed in the Brown Betty was considered excellent. This was attributed to the design of the pot which allowed the tea leaves more freedom to swirl around as the water was poured into the pot, releasing more flavour with less bitterness.
The black Victorian era stove and the ladderback chair on the left of the table and the small table directly behind it are all miniature pieces I have had since I was a child. The ladderback chair on the right came from a deceased estate of a miniatures collector in Sydney. The Welsh dresser came from Babette’s Miniatures, who have been making miniature dolls’ furnishings since the late Eighteenth Century. The dresser has plate grooves in it to hold plates in place, just like a real dresser would.
The grey marbleised fireplace behind the stove and the trough sink in the corner of the kitchen come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
The green wallpaper is an authentic replica of real Art Nouveau wallpaper from the first decade of the Twentieth Century which I have printed onto paper. The floorboards are a print of a photo taken of some floorboards that I scaled to 1:12 size to try and maintain a realistic look.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today is Tuesday and we are in the drawing room of Lettice’s flat where Edith, her maid, and Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, are giving the room a good early morning spring clean whilst Lettice lies abed. Edith is grateful that Mrs. Boothby comes every Tuesday, every third Thursday of the month from her home in Poplar to do all the hard jobs. Unlike her previous positions, Edith does not have to scrub the black and quite chequered kitchen linoleum, nor polish the parquetry floors, not do her most hated job, black lead the stovetop. Mrs. Boothby does them all without complaint, with reliability and to a very high standard. She is also very handy on cleaning and washing up duty with Edith after one of Lettice’s extravagant cocktail parties, and is also handy with the dusting cloth.
“I bet this fing ‘as been riningin’ off the ‘ook, ever since that article in that fancy toff magazine, Edith dearie.” Mrs. Boothby remarks to Edith as she lifts the telephone off the small square table where it stands and wipes it over with her damp cloth.
“Oh that infernal contraption!” replies Edith with irritation as she turns around from dusting a tall vase of flowers. “It’s the constant bane of my life! Miss Lettice tells me I have to get used to answering it because any household I work in is likely to have it these days.”
“Well,” the old Cockney char answers, carefully putting the telephone on the carpet. “I have to agree wiv Miss Lettice there. They’s poppin’ up like mushrooms up ‘ere in the West End nahdays.”
“They are unnatural if you ask me.” Edith mutters. She pauses her cleaning and glares at the sparking silver and Bakelite** contraption with contempt. “Miss Lettice might be fine talking with duchesses and grand ladies, but I’m not used to it.”
“Remember, Edith dearie,” Mrs. Boothby says cheerily as she runs the cloth over the surface of the black japanned table, lifting a vase of yellow roses and lilies indispersed with Gypsophila***as she does. “No matter ‘ow ‘igh ‘n mighty they may be, they’s still gotta use the privy. Lawd knows I clean ‘em.” She winks cheekily at Edith.
Edith laughs lightly at the old woman’s remark.
“Well it’s true. They’s still ‘uman’ bein’s, even if they do fink themselves better than some of us.” A steeliness crosses her face. “You and me, we does the fings they think themselves too grand ta do, and we deserve a bit ‘a respect for that.”
“You sound like Frank, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says with a gentle and wistful smile. “He thinks the changing times mean that our class is on the way up, and Miss Lettice’s is on the way down.”
“Lawd I ‘ope not!” gasps Mrs. Boothby. “I’ll be out of a job then. If they’s comin’ dahn, they won’t be able ta afford ta employ me no more. Then what’ll I do wiv meself?”
“I think Frank is dreaming too, Mrs. Boothby. We’ll always have haves and have nots.”
“I don’t mind the ‘ave nots servin’ the ‘aves meself. Nah! I just mean that we works ‘ard for a livin’, and we should get a bit more respect. Miss Lettice is a good employer, but some of them ladies I clean for look down their snooty nose as though I was made a dirt.” The old woman starts dusting the gilded edge of an ornate picture frame. “Actually,” she adds. “Its them what’s not so far removed from us what’s often worse.”
“Who do you mean, Mrs. Boothby?”
“Its them middle-classes what’s often the worst snobs. They’s managed to keep their ‘ands nice and clean finally, and they won’t lower theyselves no more to gettin’ ‘em dirty again.” She screws up her nose and nods knowingly to Edith.
“Yes, that’s certainly true.” Edith agrees as she moves towards the Chippendale china cabinet containing all of Lettice’s fine Limoges china collection, thinking of old Widow Hounslow, her parents’ landlady in Harlesden, whom Edith worked for when she first went into service. The old woman was most certainly middle-class, and mean to boot, treating poor Edith very shabbily throughout her tenure as the woman’s cook and maid-of-all-work. “I’m certainly glad to be employed by Miss Lettice. She’s a very nice employer as far as I’m concerned.”
Edith carefully opens up the black japanned Chippendale style china display cabinet and begins to dust the dainty pieces of Limoges porcelain on its glass shelves. As she lifts an elegant jug, she admires its fine, almost translucent qualities, the finely painted bunch of flowers depicted on its bulbous side and its finely gilded lip. She sighs.
“That’s a deep sigh, dearie.” remarks Mrs. Boothby as she runs a wet cloth across the surface of Lettice’s blanc de chine vase to the left of the Chippendale cabinet. “Are you alright.”
“What?” Edith asks distractedly. “Oh, oh, yes I’m fine, Mrs. Boothby. Just daydreaming.”
“Well, we all gotta dream of somefink, don’t we, dearie?” the old Cockney woman muses with a kind smile. “Is it young Frank Leadbetter you’re dreamin’ of then?”
Edith smiles at the mention of her beau. “Actually no, Mrs. Boothby.”
“Lawd if I were you, ‘e’s all I’d be daydreamin’ about.”
“Mrs. Boothby!” Edith gasps, blushing.
“Well,” the old woman says matter-of-factly, hanging her damp cloth on the edge of the stand of the blanc de chine vase and putting her hands on her hips as she groans and stretches. “You’re a woman, and ‘e’s a dishy young man.” She winks cheekily and smiles. “Why shouldn’t yer dream of ‘im? They’s worse fings to dream ‘bout.”
“I’ll have you know,” Edith says, holding the Limoges jug out in front of her, between she and the charwoman. “I was just thinking how lovely it would be to have such a beautiful piece of china.”
Mrs. Boothby looks at the jug in Edith’s hand and screws up her nose. “It’s a bit to fine an’ fancy for me own tastes.”
“But you have lots of lovely china at your house, Mrs. Boothby. I’m in awe of how many pretty things you have, like my Mum does.”
“Well, I do like me pretty bits ‘n pieces, but I like ‘em all bein’ odd pieces of bric-a-brac: not all matchin’ like that.” She waves a finger, worn with hard graft and gnarled with arthritis at the open china display cabinet. “This ‘ere looks too much like a museum if youse asks me, all perfect and perfectly displayed.”
“Well, I suppose this is a bit of showroom for Miss Lettice.” Edith replies as she looks around. “Especially now that her work is so sought after, since her interiors appeared in Country Life. So, I suppose things have to look perfect and be well displayed, so that her clients can know that she will do a good job designing their rooms.”
“It’s all a bit too formal for my taste.” the old woman counters. “I like it when everyfink’s a bit of a hotch-potch. It’s more ‘omely, you know what I mean?” Edith nods. “Besides, that way, if somefink gets broken, it don’t matter so much. Lawd knows plenty’s been broken ‘round my house.”
“Yes, I suppose the way Ken lollops about, accidents happen.” Edith remarks, noting Mrs. Boothby’s disabled adult son who resides with the old Cockney woman at her home in Poplar.
“’E can’t ‘elp it, Lawd love ‘im.” Mrs. Boothby says with the beatific smile of an indulgent mother. “’E tries so hard ta do the right fing, but ‘e’s a clumsy one, and there’s a fact. ‘E knows not ta touch that nice blue ‘n white tea set what you drank out of when you came to my ‘ouse. I don’t mind ‘im droppin’ a bowl or plate ‘n such, but I can’t have me guests drinkin’ out of odd cups ‘n’ saucers.”
“My Mum’s the same, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith laughs as she puts the jug back and picks up the next piece to dust with her feather duster. “When it’s just Dad, or me, or my brother at home, we drink out of all the odd teacups and eat off the non matching plates she has bought from various places over the years. Yet when she has guests, she brings out the best china.”
“I should fink so, dearie!” Mrs. Boothby agrees. “It’s always ‘bout puttin’ on the very best show.”
“Yes, I suppose so, like when our awful landlady, old Widow Hounslow comes to call, or more recently when Frank came and had a Sunday roast with us for the first time. Mum pulled out all the stops for him: white tablecloth, the special gilt dinner plates that we don’t even get to eat off on Christmas Day.”
“Well, she probably wanted to make a good impression on your young Frank.”
“She certainly did that, Mrs. Boothby. The kitchen table looked beautiful, all decked out.”
“And what impression did Frank make on yer mum ‘n dad then? Are they gettin’ along?”
“Well, Dad likes him, especially since he managed to get tickets for us all to go to the White Horse Final**** at Empire Stadium*****.” Edith starts dusting the teacups on the second shelf.
“’E’s a dark ‘orse, that Frank Leadbetter!” gasps Mrs. Boothby. “’Ow did ‘e manage that, then?”
“It’s all above board, Mrs. Boothby, I can assure you. He knows someone who’s lady friend works for the ticketing office, and she supplied us with the tickets.”
“Well, if I were your Dad, I’d like Frank too, then. What about your Mum?”
“She’s less certain of Frank.”
“Why? Ain’t she ‘appy that ‘er only daughter got ‘erself a chap. They’s plenty of girls, maybe not as pretty as you, but nonetheless, what don’t ‘ave no beaus.”
“Yes,” sighs Edith, depositing a clean cup and saucer featuring a russet rose painted on them back onto the glass shelf from where they came. “Like my best friend Hilda who works for Mr. and Mrs. Channon in Hill Street.”
“Oh yes! I clean for ‘em. I knows your ‘Ilda.”
“I made her a lovely new dance frock from some russet art silk****** we bought from Mrs. Minkin’s for when Frank, she and I go to the Hammersmith Palais*******, but it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference as far as young men taking an interest in her.”
“I’m glad that sewin’ machine my Ken found ya is bein’ put to good use, Edith dearie. As for young ‘Ilda.” the old Cockney char pauses for a moment, running her tongue alongv the inside of her cheek, thinking about how to say what she wants. “She’s nice, a bit on the ‘efty side if you’ll permit me, but nice nonetheless. I suspect she likes ‘er custard buns a bit too much.” She arches an eyebrow knowingly.
“Yes, Hilda has always had a sweet tooth, spending some of her wages on lollies and chocolate. I think Hilda’s mum used to dip her dummy in treacle to get her to take it as a baby, or so Hilda tells me.”
“Well, I don’t like to say it ‘bout your friend, Edith dearie, but I think she may be dreamin’ a bit if she thinks a frock, ‘owever pretty and well made by you, is goin’ ta ‘elp her find a young man.”
“Oh, please don’t say that, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith defends her friend with a fierce sense of protectiveness. “She’s such a lovely person.”
“I know she is, dearie, but its those young men what ‘ave their pick of beauties like you, what won’t see ‘ow lovely she is.”
“Looks aren’t everything, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies seriously as she crouches down and starts dusting the bottom shelf of the Chippendale cabinet.
“I know, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby starts running her damp cloth through the nooks and crannies of the ornate back of the Chippendale chair next to the cabinet. “But they do ‘elp. Anyway, goin’ back to me question: don’t yer Mum like Frank?”
“Oh she likes him well enough, Mrs. Boothby, but she doesn’t like some of his ideas about classes coming up or going down, but he’s learning to temper his attitudes before Mum, and I think we’re slowly winning her over.”
“That’s good to ‘ear, Edith dearie.”
The two continue cleaning in companionable silence for a short while, the sound of Mrs. Boothby’s cloth slapping against the black japanned wood of the chair and the tickimng clock the only sounds breaking into the early morning quiet of the drawing room.
“Anyway, goin’ back to that china what youse love so much.” Mrs. Boothby says at length. “Who knows whatcha goin’ ta get when you get married to young Frank. I got a lovely floral dinner set from me old Mum and Dad when Bill and I got wed.”
Edith pauses her dusting. “You’re as bad as my Dad, Mrs. Boothby! He keeps going on about Frank and I getting married. We’re not making any plans just yet. I want to keep working and saving, and Frank wants to save money too so he can give me a nice home. That will be ages away yet.”
“Well,” Mrs. Boothby mumbles knowingly. “We’ll see ‘ow long it actually takes. The power of love ‘as a way of speedin’ fings up a bit, dearie.”
“Now I think it’s you who is dreaming, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith laughs good-naturedly as the clock on the mantle chimes half past seven in the morning.
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.
***Gypsophila is a genus of flowering plants in the carnation family, Caryophyllaceae. They are native to Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. Turkey has a particularly high diversity of Gypsophila taxa, with about 35 endemic species. SomeGypsophila are introduced species in other regions. Commonly known as baby's breath, it has been a popular gift for baby showers for years now, which is where some say its name originates from. However, alternative perspectives suggest that because they're small and delicate, the name Baby's breath reflects their use as a small whisper of an accent amongst other flowers.
****The first football match to be played at the newly opened Wembley Stadium in April 1923 was between the Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United. This match became known as the White Horse final, and was played just a few days after the completion of the stadium.
*****Originally known as Empire Stadium, London’s Wembley Stadium was built to serve as the centerpiece of the British Empire Exhibition. It took a total of three hundred days to construct the stadium at a cost of £750,000. The stadium was completed on the 23rd of April 1923, only a few days before the first football match, between the Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United, was to take place at the stadium. The stadium's first turf was cut by King George V, and it was first opened to the public on 28 April 1923. Much of Humphry Repton's original Wembley Park landscape was transformed in 1922 and 1923 during preparations for the British Empire Exhibition. First known as the "British Empire Exhibition Stadium" or simply the "Empire Stadium", it was built by Sir Robert McAlpine for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 (extended to 1925).
******The first successful artificial silks were developed in the 1890s of cellulose fibre and marketed as art silk or viscose, a trade name for a specific manufacturer. In 1924, the name of the fibre was officially changed in the U.S. to rayon, although the term viscose continued to be used in Europe.
*******The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.
This 1920s upper-class drawing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures including items from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The black japanned wooden china cabinet with its mirrored back is a Chippendale design. On its glass shelves sit pieces of miniature Limoges porcelain including jugs, teacups and saucers, many of which I have had since I was a child. All date from the 1950s and have green backstamps on them. They come from various Limoges miniature tea sets that I own.
The high backed back japanned chair next to the china cabinet is Chippendale too. It has been upholstered with modern and stylish Art Deco fabric.
Edith’s feather duster leaning against the china cabinet door I made myself using fledgling feathers (very spring) which I picked up off the lawn one day thinking they would come in handy in my miniatures collection sometime. I bound them with thread to the handle which is made from a fancy ended toothpick!
The vase of yellow lilies and roses on the Art Deco occasional table is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium, whilst the tall vase of flowers to the right of the china cabinet has been made by Falcon Miniatures, who are well known for their lifelike floral creations.
The small green painted lidded urn on the understorey of the round table to the right of the photo is in reality a tiny antique Chinese incense burner with several ornate holes in the lid to hold the incense sticks. I bought it at a flea market some fifteen years ago.
To the left of the Chippendale chair stands a blanc de chine Chinese porcelain vase.
The green glass comport on the coffee table is an artisan miniature made from hand spun glass and acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug. The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
In 2004 the vessel Cygnet was called to help the lifeboats and RAF helicopters search for a fishing vessel reported lost in the Bristol Channel.
The Cardiff Waterbus is a water bus service operated along the River Taff in Cardiff, the capital of Wales. Services are operated by 4 separate companies, Cardiff Cats Ltd (operating as Cardiff Waterbus), Cardiff Cruises Ltd, Cardiff Boats Ltd, and Aquabus Water Transport Solutions Ltd, both for the leisure market and for commuters, but charter services are also offered. Boats running hourly during the day carrying up to 100 passengers from Cardiff city centre to Penarth via Cardiff Bay, forming a part of Cardiff's integrated transport system. The service started in April 2000.
The Cardiff Waterbus (Cardiff Cats Ltd.) celebrated its 10-year anniversary in April 2010. The fleet has clocked up 80,000 kilometers since operating on the routes, carrying an estimated 1,000,000 passengers.
The River Taff (Welsh: Afon Taf) is a river in Wales. It rises as two rivers in the Brecon Beacons; the Taf Fechan (little Taff) and the Taf Fawr (great Taff) before becoming one just north of Merthyr Tydfil. Its confluence with the River Severn estuary is in Cardiff.
The river supports several species of migratory fish, including salmon, sewin (sea trout), and eel.
From its confluence at Cefn-coed-y-cymmer, the river flows south, passing several towns. It picks up a few tributaries, such as the River Cynon, River Rhondda, Bargoed Taf and Nant Clydach. It flows through Pontypridd and through to Taff's Well, the site of Wales' only thermal spring. It flows underneath the M4 Motorway, before turning southeastward and flowing past the Cardiff suburbs of Radyr, Whitchurch, Llandaff, Pontcanna, the city centre and Grangetown, before emptying into Cardiff Bay, near to the mouth of the River Ely.
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/decade-making-waves...
NEW at equal10 Event!
GIVEAWAY LINK: www.facebook.com/roulysl/posts/832959744042108
EBODY REBORN SIZE INCLUDED
Hii my beauties! Today I present you first ever ROULY unbuttoned jeans! One day I just sit down and think what would I do next with my jeans line...I had so many jeans in any forms and textures and I thought it will be kinda nice to make unbuttoned jeans but it's boring just sewin' them off and Rouly best known for a butt and here we are... 😃
"Babble On" - 12 colors. Each pack has control HUD for metal also somes with black panties and fullpack of chains.
"Noche Fuerta" Panties + Tresure Chains" - 15 colors. Comes together in each pack. Panties has 2 versions - base and tucked butt.
Maitreya / Legacy / Ebody Reborn / Kupra
Please try demo before purchase! Hope you like it and enjoy! With big love Rouly showroom ♥️
Makeup: Top1Salon / Hair: DOUX / Leronso / Studio Exposure /Unorthodox |
Skins: Bold & Beauty / Pepe Skins / Ives Beauty | Nails: Acendant / Lueur
15 by 15 inches
machine pieced and quilted
for www.15minutesplay.com challenge
blogged here: scrapsandstrings.blogspot.com/2011/07/little-summer-sewin...
Learn how to draft your own pattern from a Japanese pattern book here!
www.purlbee.com/the-purl-bee/2008/7/20/japanese-crafting-...
Dana Kelly stood up very slowly, holding one hand against her lower back as if even this movement pained her. She shuffled toward the stage with tiny steps on her tiptoes, seeming somehow to glide in spite of being weighted down by old age, fluttering trailing sleeves behind her. Ever the dramatic sort, she waited a few seconds before singing in a youthful voice that wasn't particularly good, but it wasn't bad either:
"SILENT, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water,
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,
While, murmuring mournfully, Lir’s lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.
When shall the swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep, with wings in darkness furled?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit from this stormy world?
"Sadly, O Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping,
Fate bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay.
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?"
"The Tragedy of the Children of Lir ish one of tha oldest talesh in Irish Mythology," Dana went on to explain, switching back to the quavery old lady voice she's been practicing for days but would promptly forget to use in about five seconds. "An' it'sh much too long till share in here with ye." She seemed a little put out by that, looking mournfully toward the clock.
"The short vershion is tha' Fionnuala an' her brothers were cursed by their stepmother to live their lives as swans an' tha transformation would only be reversed when a King from the North of Ireland married a Queen from tha South. It took nine hundred yearsh of hardship -e'en though they could still speak and sing, they only had each other until the end. Fionnuala protected her brothers in some of tha worst storms there e'er was; though their webbed feet froze to tha rocks in winter and salt water stung their cuts an' scrapes she used 'er wings an' body till shelter them until they could fly away. I thought she'd make a good Gryffindor, aye?"
She nodded to herself and gestured to her costume. "Gryffionnuala! Her tale ends very sadly so I'm not ganna spoil tha mood in here. Let's just say she an' her brothers were restored till human form and sommat turned 'em very, very old." Dana pointed to the painted-on wrinkles. "T'was a bit much till make a whole cloak 'a feathers so I did a stole instead, usin' some transfiguration till get the colours right and the shapes kind of similar? Then lots an' lots of glue." Her head tilted and she flapped her arms. "Gryffionnuala an' her brothers were princes and princesses so I liked the idea of a long dress - red fer Gryffindor an' SO MUCH SEWIN', mates - with a bit of flash I put together with rocks an' wire an' string and a bit 'a magic. Found the flowers outside till represent that she -was- young once, aye? But the paint an grey hair till show it wasn'ae all flowers an' feathers and singin' in the end."
Even though she said she wasn't going to spoil the mood in class, Dana herself looked a little crestfallen, sighing until she spotted Jeri's lollipop, caught Brianna's eye and thought about that book she's about to borrow: one with a happier ending, maybe! Flapping her arms once more, she stepped down from the stage and took her tiny mincing steps back to sit next to Jamie on the bench....
I followed the tutorial on the Liberty of London website. I added an antique button in the center of the spool holder and I reinforced the snap ends with interfacing on the back. this is the tuttorial I used, from our very own Kerry Berry. www.liberty.co.uk/blog/12437/guest-blog-kerry-green-sewin...
Blogged http://bijouxbaby.blogspot.com/2013/09/sewing-room-swap.html
This is from the Liberty of London tutorial. I made a few changes. I made it bigger to fit the patchwork panels and to hold more supplies. I also added extra stiff interfacing and quilted the exterior panels. The handle is bigger to fit the bigger size. This is the tutorial I used from our very own Kerry Berry. www.liberty.co.uk/blog/12437/guest-blog-kerry-green-sewin...
Blogged http://bijouxbaby.blogspot.com/2013/09/sewing-room-swap.html
Finally got round to framing this cross-stitch. Very happy with it.
Originally inspired by www.flickr.com/photos/cornie/1289046964/
The back can be viewed here:
www.flickr.com/photos/30207151@N07/3244851484/in/set-7215...
Hey everyone! I'm excited to share my submission for the current Spoonflower Doodle Bug challenge. I've created a whimsical illustration featuring celestial bugs, which I hope will bring a smile to your face! These delightful bugs are depicted as frolicking among the lush foliage, adding a touch of magic to the scene. I had so much fun creating this piece, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! I'm really looking forward to seeing all the amazing entries from other participants - there's always so much creativity and talent on display. Thanks for taking the time to check out my work, and happy doodling! This is available for purchase on fabric and home décor now and there is exciting 20% off site wide on Spoonflower at the moment – stock up for your lovely projects
The Millennium Stadium, known since 2016 as the Principality Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is the national stadium of Wales. Located in Cardiff, it is the home of the Wales national rugby union team and has also held Wales national football team games. Initially built to host the 1999 Rugby World Cup, it has gone on to host many other large-scale events, such as the Tsunami Relief Cardiff concert, the Super Special Stage of Wales Rally Great Britain, the Speedway Grand Prix of Great Britain and various concerts. It also hosted FA Cup, League Cup and Football League play-off finals while Wembley Stadium was being redeveloped between 2001 and 2006, as well as football matches during the 2012 Summer Olympics.
The Millennium Stadium opened in June 1999 and its first major event was an international rugby union match on 26 June 1999, when Wales beat South Africa in a test match by 29–19 before a crowd of 29,000. With a total seating capacity of 73,931, it is the largest stadium in Wales and the fourth largest (and second largest outside London) in the United Kingdom by total capacity. In addition, it is the third-largest stadium in the Six Nations Championship behind the Stade de France and Twickenham. It is also the second-largest stadium in the world with a fully retractable roof and was the second stadium in Europe to have this feature. Listed as a category four stadium by UEFA, the stadium was chosen as the venue for the 2017 UEFA Champions League Final, which took place on 3 June 2017. In 2015, the Welsh Rugby Union announced a 10-year sponsorship deal with the Principality Building Society that saw the stadium renamed as the "Principality Stadium" from early 2016.
The River Taff (Welsh: Afon Taf) is a river in Wales. It rises as two rivers in the Brecon Beacons; the Taf Fechan (little Taff) and the Taf Fawr (great Taff) before becoming one just north of Merthyr Tydfil. Its confluence with the River Severn estuary is in Cardiff.
The river supports several species of migratory fish, including salmon, sewin (sea trout), and eel.
From its confluence at Cefn-coed-y-cymmer, the river flows south, passing several towns. It picks up a few tributaries, such as the River Cynon, River Rhondda, Bargoed Taf and Nant Clydach. It flows through Pontypridd and through to Taff's Well, the site of Wales' only thermal spring. It flows underneath the M4 Motorway, before turning southeastward and flowing past the Cardiff suburbs of Radyr, Whitchurch, Llandaff, Pontcanna, the city centre and Grangetown, before emptying into Cardiff Bay, near to the mouth of the River Ely.
working my way up to classic patchwork patterns and the use of small squares. this one will be made up of 3" squares arranged in 9-patch blocks. i think this layout is a keeper. now for the sewin'.
MOMMA SEWED THE RAGS TOGETHER SEWIN' EVERY PIECE WITH LOVE
SHE MADE MY COAT OF MANY COLORS THAT I WAS SO PROUD OF
Salmon
OK so it was a long drive from our self-catering cottage in Nethy Bridge but we drove up well above Inverness to falls that we visited some thirty years ago.
We found the falls and walked down to the platform and there I stood for three hours as we watched the salmon and sewin attempting to leap up the falls thundering torrent.
There was no logic to their actions but it was it appeared to us random attempts making a click very difficult. The action was over in a nano second.
Dozens and dozens of images were deleted but I did manage one image of a large salmon leaping clear out of the foam and into the thunderous roaring flow,
Made my day and for me a click of a lifetime