Maine Bird List
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European Robin (Erithacus rubecula) known simply as the Robin or Robin Redbreast in Ireland.
Robins are found throughout Ireland, and are common in towns and cities as well as in the country.
Unusual among birds the female robin also sings, and the robin is the only bird in Ireland that keeps singing right through the winter. Adult male and female Robins look identical, but immature birds lack the red breast and have spotted brown plumage with a scalloped golden pattern on the breast.
Robins are wonderful opportunists, and take full advantage of their proximity to people to supplement their diet – particularly during the winter months. When the days are cold and short, Robins will be among the first to visit our bird-tables and feeders to boost the meagre pickings available in nature. At any time of the year they will flit restlessly around gardeners feet as they turn the soil, eager to cash in on a free meal of earthworms and insect larvae. Robins get bolder with repeated offers of food, and some become so tame that they will even enter houses or feed from the hand.
Irelands Wildlife by Calvin Jones
"Drosera, commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surfaces. The insects are used to supplement the poor mineral nutrition of the soil in which the plants grow. Various species, which vary greatly in size and form, are native to every continent except Antarctica.
Charles Darwin performed much of the early research into Drosera, engaging in a long series of experiments with Drosera rotundifolia which were the first to confirm carnivory in plants. In an 1860 letter, Darwin wrote, “…at the present moment, I care more about Drosera than the origin of all the species in the world.”
Both the botanical name (from the Greek δρόσος: drosos = "dew, dewdrops") and the English common name (sundew, derived from Latin ros solis, meaning "dew of the sun") refer to the glistening drops of mucilage at the tip of the glandular trichomes that resemble drops of morning dew. The Principia Botanica, published in 1787, states “Sun-dew (Drosera) derives its name from small drops of a liquor-like dew, hanging on its fringed leaves, and continuing in the hottest part of the day, exposed to the sun.”
Santa Cruz Island
Galapagos
South America
The Galapagos land iguana (Conolophus subcristatus) is a species of lizard in the family Iguanidae. It is one of three species of the genus Conolophus. It is endemic to the Galápagos Islands (Ecuador), in the dry lowlands of Fernandina, Isabela, Santa Cruz, North Seymour, Baltra, and South Plaza.
Charles Darwin described the Galapagos land iguana as "ugly animals, of a yellowish orange beneath, and of a brownish-red color above: From their low facial angle they have a singularly stupid appearance." The Galapagos land iguana grows to a length of 3 to 5 ft (0.9–1.5 m) with a body weight of up to 25 lb (11 kg), depending upon which island they are from. Being cold-blooded, they absorb heat from the sun by basking on volcanic rock, and at night sleep in burrows to conserve their body heat. These iguanas also enjoy a symbiotic relationship with birds; the birds remove parasites and ticks, providing relief to the iguanas and food for the birds.
Land iguanas are primarily herbivorous; however, some individuals have shown that they are opportunistic carnivores supplementing their diet with insects, centipedes and carrion. Because fresh water is scarce on the islands it inhabits, the Galapagos land iguana obtains most of its moisture from the prickly-pear cactus that makes up 80% of its diet. During the rainy season it will drink from available standing pools of water and feast on yellow flowers of the genus Portulaca.
It is estimated that the Galapagos land iguana has a 50 to 60-year lifespan. – Wikipedia
A supplement to the series "Azumino and its vicinity in winter."
Kita Alps is half-hidden by snow clouds but this area does not have much snow unlike its neighbours of Hakuba and Otari.
Ikeda-Matsukawa Bridge over the Takasegawa river is locally known as a good view point of Kita Alps peaks, but the bridge itself is rarely shot.
It is so named as it is a boundary between Ikeda and Matsukawa municipalities.
Mt.Fuji-like peak near the centre is called Ariakesan (有明山 2,268 m). It is not very high but looks prominent. Hence it is regarded as a sacred mountain, and there are shrines at the foot and at the peak in Matsukawa village. It is not a volcano.
It is nicknamed Shinano Fuji. Shinano is the old name of Nagano prefecture. It is one of dozens of local Fuji mountains in Japan.
Coming to Whore Couture - March 1st
Supplements Set Includes:
Bottle
2 bento holds
left and right
Earrings
Unrigged
left and right
Animated Mouthie
2 versions included
Unrigged
All are Copy / Modify
Sold in 7 Options + Fatpack
Just something a little dorky and fun really ♥
“The construction of beams
brings the fruition of dreams.
The casting of steel
makes your fantasy real…”
Read this post on a little virtual keyhole ☂
Love and sparkles,
Dea
What I assume to be KN33 heads south down the former WV Secondary, aiming for a turn at Deep Water down the former Virginian towards Elmore. KNWA uses NS run thru power most often and supplements the climb up from Deep Water with their second hand SD60 models. This is the rear 4 units out of six, giving a soft push past the load out at Mammoth. This load originated at Quincy, located right at the east end of Dickinson Yard outside of Charleston, WV.
The going starts to get tough in the next 7 miles.
A male Rufous Hummingbird, his face obscured by his extended wings (likely in an attempt to not offend any vegan friends), opens wide in the pursuit of protein in the form of a tiny, flying Gnat. Though the majority of their diet consists of nectar, hummingbirds regularly supplement protein through the consumption of a wide variety of small insects, many of which they catch in mid-flight due to their incredible speed and flight agility.
This beautiful king penguin is having a little nap, despite the frenzy of people milling about the Grytviken area.
As I mentioned in a previous post, there were not many penguins at this location. They were not nesting, so it is likely the group are all younger or non-mating for some other reason. Many were moulting, but this individual didn't show evidence of that.
For a while after whalers stopped using these penguins as a fuel source, their numbers increased quite a bit. They are in decline again, possibly for a few reasons. One may be climate change affecting food availability. Another is the commercial krill harvest. Krill makes up a large portion of the food for many fish species, penguins, and whales, but krill are being scooped up by the billions of tons for creating supplemental oils (which really is not needed by anyone) and food meal for use on fish farms. I'm guessing there is money involved in there somewhere.
These giants are the second largest species of tortoise in the world following the Galapagos giant tortoises. Aldabras can reach several hundred pounds with males weighing upwards of 600lbs and females averaging around 300-400lbs. They can reach ages of more than 100 years. It is believed that tortoises are the longest lived of all animals although is hard to prove because they have outlived the scientists who were studying them, and proper records were not kept.
Aldabra tortoises are able to go without food or water for long periods. They are grazers and browsers, feeding mainly on grasses and woody plants. However, they will eat meat when it is available and possibly even eat the carcasses of dead tortoises.
At the Zoo, Aldabra tortoises eat salad and hay three days per week. In the summer, they have access to the outdoor enclosure where they graze on grass and weeds. Their diet is supplemented with cactus pad, carrots, sweet potatoes and assorted browse.
I went for a nice ride on the e-trike today and saw this little scene. We have many little herds of cattle around us, but this one got a special treat. We have a local business here in Mount Gambier that makes delicious sweet and savoury scrolls, but when they don't sell on the day when they are at their freshest, they sometimes get donated to the cows who thoroughly enjoy their occasional sweet treat! Although the "delivery guy" had just dropped these scrolls over the fence, the cows would not come closer while I was there, possibly due to my day-glo safety jacket, but as soon as I left, the scrolls were quickly devoured and enjoyed!
It was finally a nice day for a ride after all the gale force winds we have had, but it also brought out the magpies. I had my first series of swoops for the season!
First trip out with the new 16mm ultra wide lens on the full frame RP body. A nice and very light weight lens to use!
Overview of Codex Alimentarius
by Rima Laibow, M.D.
At the request of the United Nations (UN) in 1962, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) took on the joint role of running and administering the Codex
Alimentarius Commission (CAC) to establish standards and remove barriers to trade for all food and
food products. Having declared that nutrients are toxins from which we must be protected, the CAC
has been busy establishing enforceable international guidelines for upper limits of nutritional
supplement dosing. Codex has goals that affect every person in the UN’s 170+ member nations,
including the United States. As a tool for furthering these goals, member nations are urged to adopt
Codex standards and guidelines as domestic policy. The United States has already committed itself to
doing so despite U. S. law which prohibits this compliance.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has adopted Codex as a standard for the adjudication of foodrelated
international trade disputes and has the authority to enforce Codex standards through
implementation of harsh economic sanctions on non-Codexcompliant member nations. Pre-existing
international treaty laws dictate that WTO rulings will override the domestic laws already in place in
its member nations and, in fact, the WHO has successfully taken both states and the U. S. government
to court in the U. S. to force changes in our domestic laws eleven times. This means our nation’s hard
won laws that give you access to over-the-counter, natural health supplements will become
meaningless. Codex’s original mandate to remove barriers to trade and assure a clean food supply has,
under the influence of private, economically-driven multinational pharmaceutical, agricultural and
chemical corporations, self-expanded far beyond its original mandate. The result is a body of highly
dangerous and restrictive policies that threaten to become domestic law in the U. S. and, as such, are
a threat to your health and freedom.
The FDA has stated explicitly that its goal is complete "harmonization" with Codex and, in order to
bring that about, international regulations i.e., Codex will be given preference over domestic ones!
(Federal Register, 10/ 11 /95)
If Codex gets its way, as it already has in the EU, we can expect that, ultimately, only 18 or so dietary
supplements will be available over-the-counter in doses which are, by design, far too small to have any
discernible impact on any human being since codex classifies nutrients as toxins. High potency
nutrients will not be available either with or without physician’s prescription since these molecules
and compounds will be forbidden under any circumstances. The big surprise? Once in the hands of
pharmaceutical companies, consumer supplement costs are expected to more than quadruple. This
has, in fact, been the experience in Europe where this process is already underway and micro-dose
nutrient prices have increased 10 to 100 fold or more (e.g., in Norway a bottle of zinc lozenges which
previously cost $2 now costs $54; in France 12 Vitamin C tabs of just10 mg cost $117; while 10 Vitamin
E caps of only 10 IU each cost $110).
Australia and the European Union (EU) are in the process of enacting harmonized Codex policies that
restrict consumer access to nutritional supplements. America is next. Though Americans value
personal freedom, the fact Codex meets infrequently (and almost always offshore) and is bogged
down in highly technical language that is difficult to understand has resulted in many Americans
being unaware of this threat. The nearly total media blackout on Codex and its activities helps to
keep the U. S. uninformed and therefore, pliant.
While there have been rare serious adverse reactions to nutritional supplements during the past
decades, (usually when taken far in excess of the recommended dosing), numerous severe and even
fatal reactions to drugs (usually when taken at the recommended dosing) occur every day and are the
fourth leading cause of death in hospitalized clients in the United States when properly
used. When improperly used, they are, in fact, far and away the leading cause of death in
the United States. Even so, drug deaths are very likely underreported. Drugs are
inherently dangerous; nutrients are not. This fact makes it clear why the drug culture
2
needs to eliminate all access to natural health options, including nutritional supplements,
in order to expand and intensify its influence and thus its profitability. Healthy people
take fewer drugs and thus are poor customers.
The global pharmaceutical powers -that-be have already purchased a large piece of the
lucrative global nutritional supplement pie but the considerable size of this pie keeps the
hugely profitable pharmaceutical profit -share-pie from reaching its maximum size so the
competing nutrient pie must be destroyed. Though unable to patent a natural substance,
pharmaceutical corporations can hold patents on synthetic versions of vitamins and
minerals that, unfortunately for the consumer, often do not act like their natural vitamin
counterparts in the body and often act in unpredic table and harmful ways. If Codexcompliant
Europe is any guide, the permitted micro-doses of permitted nutrients will be
only synthetic ones.
In addition to regulatory and/or administrative takeover and destruction of the dietary
supplement market and consumer access, Codex also mandates irradiation of food;
mandatory use of antibiotics, hormones and growth stimulants in all animals raised for
food, is expected to legalize the unlabeled inclusion of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) (whose
safety has never been established while their serious dangers have) into our seed and food supplies and
will increase the allowable maximum tolerated levels of pesticides, herbicides, veterinary drugs and
other dangerous industrial toxins in food, likely driving up degenerative illnesses, including cancer,
diabetes, cardiovascular disease, macular degeneration, MS, etc. All of these policies are made under
the guise of free and equal access to trade for all nations and protection of the public.
Some people have “Codex Anesthesia,” a state of overwhelming, numb confusion that occurs just
before people lose their health freedom. Many otherwise well-informed people from the manufacturing
and retailing sectors of natural healthcare believe that the Dietary Supplement Health and Education
Act (DSHEA), passed in 1994 to protect Americans’ access to natural healthcare substances, will still be
in place to protect them. This is not the case: Fundamental health freedoms afforded the American
public by DSHEA, which classifies supplements as food which, as such, can have no upper limit set on
their use, are now under well orchestrated legislative and/or administrative attack. Health nuts and
junk food devotees alike are not immune from this legislative attack on health freedom.
The following is a link to Dr. Laibow's website which gives a self-prompting 5-minute presentation that
tells you about Codex: http: //www.healthfreedomusa.org/aboutcodex.shtml
More in-depth information can be found on her website, www.healthfreedomusa.org, and on
the highly informative "Nutricide: the DVD" http: /
/www.healthfreedomusa.org/aboutcodex/dvd.shtml
Hummingbirds love nectar from flowers, but will come to the feeders as long as the sugar water is clean and fresh.
These RAW photos were taken while lying on my back, looking up with my camera, under the hummingbird feeder hanging from the corner of the screened-in porch. I only cropped them.
For more information about Ruby-throated hummingbirds that visit my garden, please click here:
Hummingbirds love nectar from flowers, but will come to the feeders as long as the sugar water is clean and fresh.
These RAW photos were taken while lying on my back, looking up with my camera, under the hummingbird feeder hanging from the corner of the screened-in porch. I only cropped them.
Kloster Reichenbach is a monastery of the Brothers of Mercy on the Regen river near Regensburg.
Founded in 1118 by Benedictines and acquired and occupied by the Brothers of Mercy in 1890.
At the end of the 19th century they set up a sanatorium and nursing home for the mentally and physically handicapped - today supplemented by schools for curative education.
Locomotive Services Limited 90001 INTERCITY (Royal Scot) made a visit to London Euston to supply power to GWR's Night Riveria Sleeper that was diverted away from London Paddington. It is seen photographed having uncoupled from 57605/57603 as it prepares to head back to Crewe on 0Z53.
PLEASE DO NOT FAVE WITHOUT LEAVING A COMMENT. THANK YOU.
IF YOU DO, MY PHOTOS WILL BE REMOVED FROM YOUR FAVES AND/OR YOU WILL BE BLOCKED
Latin Name: Centranthus ruber - Red Valerian
A lovely rich pink Valerian growing in an area of our tiered section of garden leading down to our garden river walkway.
Valerian (Valeriana officinalis, Caprifoliaceae) is a perennial flowering herb plant native to Europe and Asia. In the summer when the mature plant may have a height of 1.5 metres (5 ft), it bears sweetly scented pink or white flowers that attract many fly species, especially hoverflies of the genus Eristalis. It is consumed as food by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species, including the Grey Pug and Hummingbird Hawk Moth.
Crude extract of valerian root may have sedative and anxiolytic effects, and is commonly sold in dietary supplement capsules to promote sleep.
Taken with my Canon EOS 7D and Canon EF 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens, and framed in Photoshop.
Better viewed in light box - click on the image or press 'L' on your keyboard.
“The construction of beams
brings the fruition of dreams.
The casting of steel
makes your fantasy real…”
Read this post on a little virtual keyhole ☂
Love and sparkles,
Dea
You can watch video on my YouTube channel too - see link below.
Please visit my YouTube, 500px, Instagram & Facebook channels
www.youtube.com/channel/UCt5wf3DvvWAqgUd9NMUItVw
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Original video was recorded by persons unknown.
While it's entertaining to watch, it is an abuse of wild animals right to live in the wild unhindered.
These Macaque monkeys are likely poached from the wild as babies.
Their training regime is cruel using starvation, hanging, beating and chaining methods. They are forced to wear masks, dressed as dolls and made to stand on 2 legs for hours.
They are trained to do dance steps, ride bicycles and perform tricks for shoppers and tourists on the streets or at homes. When they aren’t dancing, they are often kept in tiny single cages for prolonged periods of time.
This cruel practice not only raises concerns about animal welfare, but it also poses a high risk of diseases that can spread from animals to humans such as tuberculosis and salmonella.
The macaques (/məˈkɑːk, -ˈkæk/) constitute a genus (Macaca) of gregarious Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques inhabit ranges throughout Asia, North Africa, and (in Gibraltar) Europe. Macaques are principally frugivorous (preferring fruit), although their diet also includes seeds, leaves, flowers, and tree bark. Some species such as the long-tailed macaque (M. fascicularis; also called the crab-eating macaque) will supplement their diets with small amounts of meat from shellfish, insects, and small mammals. On average, a southern pig-tailed macaque (M. nemestrina) in Malaysia eats about 70 large rats each year. All macaque social groups are arranged around dominant matriarchs.
Macaques are found in a variety of habitats throughout the Asian continent and are highly adaptable. Certain species are synanthropic, having learned to live alongside humans, but they have become problematic in urban areas in Southeast Asia and are not suitable to live with, as they can carry transmittable diseases.
Most macaque species are listed as vulnerable to critically endangered on the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
Several species of macaque are used extensively in animal testing, particularly in the neuroscience of visual perception and the visual system.
Nearly all (73–100%) captive rhesus macaques are carriers of the herpes B virus. This virus is harmless to macaques, but infections of humans, while rare, are potentially fatal, a risk that makes macaques unsuitable as pets.
Urban performing macaques also carried simian foamy virus, suggesting they could be involved in the species-to-species jump of similar retroviruses to humans. House trained Macque monkey-d.mp4
Another STP working captured on a Sunday, as 66569 works north towards Craven Arms with a spent ballast engineers from Severn Tunnel Junction to Crewe Basford Hall. The former Onibury Station House is visible at the rear of the train.
The Marches is pretty devoid of freight traffic with the lack of coal workings, and less frequent steel trips to Shotton too, so anything is a bonus. Sunday 7.2.16
For the Phoenix Railway Photographic Circle on-line Journal - click on the link:
Range: throughout north America,except the arctic.
it is considered a noxious plant because it can cause photodermatitis in animals that graze on it.
people who take this as a supplement can develop a sensitivity to sunlight.
Hummingbirds love nectar from flowers, but will come to the feeders as long as the sugar water is clean and fresh.
These RAW photos were taken while lying on my back, looking up with my camera, under the hummingbird feeder hanging from the corner of the screened-in porch. I only cropped them.
This is a top-to-bottom pano, inspired by MJ Northern's bikini stitching technique. With a rented 24mm PC-E I was able to try out MJ's technique on a subject that needed it. This is an exposure fusion of 2 images, with a SB-800 thru Gary Fong lightsphere CR to spotlight the drawers. Cropped to 4:5 aspect ratio.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid, is paying an unexpected call on her beloved parents whilst her mistress is away visiting her own parents in Wiltshire. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith. Usually even before she walks through the glossy black painted front door, Edith can smell the familiar scent of a mixture of Lifebuoy Soap, Borax and Robin’s Starch, which means her mother is washing the laundry of others wealthier than she in the terrace’s kitchen at the rear of the house. Yet with her father’s promotion, Edith’s mother is only laundering a few days a week now, and today, rather than soap and starch greeting her on the street, she can hear familiar laughter.
“Mum!” Edith calls out cheerily as she opens the unlocked front door and walks in. “Mum, it’s me! Is that Bert with you?”
She takes a deep breath and holds it with anticipation as she runs down the narrow corridor with excited footsteps past the front room and down into the kitchen, which serves as the heart of Edith’s parent’s home. Bursting through the kitchen door she beams and gasps with delight, for there at Ada’s old and worn round kitchen table sits her mother and her brother Bert. Edith’s little brother works aboard the SS Demosthenes as a dining saloon steward, sailing between England and Australia. Australia was where Bert spent Christmas 1922, so he wasn’t with his family for Christmas. Yet now, just like in the postcard he sent from Queensland showing a bird called a kookaburra inside the shape of the great southern continent surrounded by yellow wattle flowers, he is home on shore leave.
“Bert!” Edith gasps in delight. “You’re home!”
“Hullo Edith!” Bert says with an equally happy smile as he leaps out of the comfortable Windsor chair usually inhabited by their father and enfolds his sister in an embracing hug.
“Oh Bert.” Edith presses herself against her brother, the comforting smell of their mother’s lux soap flakes filling her nostrils. Pressing her hands against his hips, she breaks their embrace and pushes herself back. “Let me look at you then!”
Although a year younger than his sister, Bert is taller than Edith now, after a final growth spurt when he was in his late teens. Dressed in one of their mother’s home knitted jumpers and a pair of grey flannel trousers his skin looks sun kissed after spending a few days ashore in Melbourne during the height of summer in the southern hemisphere before sailing back, and the sun has given his sandy blonde hair some natural highlights.
“The sea air agrees with you, Bert.”
“More likely the Australian sun!” Ada remarks as she picks herself up out of her own chair with a slight groan. “Just look at those colourful cheeks and those freckles.” She waves her hand at her son lovingly. “We don’t usually see them until high summer.”
“Hullo Mum!” Edith walks up and embraces her mother. ‘How are you?”
“Oh, I’m grand now our Bert is home, and you are too, Edith love.” Ada says in reply, a broad smile gracing her lips and a happy brilliance in her brown eyes. “Now, put that basket down and have a seat. I’ll pop the kettle on and brew us a fresh pot.” She begins to bustle around the great blacklead range and moves the heavy kettle onto the hob. Turning back to the table she picks up the beautiful, glazed teapot in the shape of a cottage with a thatched roof with the chimney as the lid, which Edith bought for her from the Caledonian Market**, and makes a grand sweeping gesture to show Edith it’s presence. “See Edith, a special occasion calls for the use of my special teapot.”
“Any day should be a special enough day for you to use that pretty teapot that Edith gave you, Mum.” Bert says, sitting back down at the table.
“That’s what I tell her!” Edith agrees.
“But then it wouldn’t be a special teapot any more, would it?” Ada says, stepping behind Bert and going to the small tough sink the corner of the kitchen where she turns the squeaky taps and rinses out the pot. “No. It’s a special teapot for special occasions.” She takes up the yellow tea towel with red stitching that hangs over a metal rail above the range and dries the pot. “I used it on Christmas Day didn’t I, Edith love?”
“Yes,” Edith agrees. “But you haven’t used it a day since then.”
“That’s because there hasn’t been a special occasion worthy of using it,” Ada defends. “Until Bert came home, that is.” She gently squeezes her son’s left shoulder.
“I give up!” Edith throws her hands in the air. She shucks off her black three quarter length coat and hangs it on a hook by the back door. She then places her hat on one of the carved knobs of the ladderback chair drawn up to the table next to her mother’s usual seat.
“Oh I told you, Edith!” Ada chides. “Don’t put your pretty hat there, love.” She walks over to the Welsh dresser that dominates one wall of the crowded kitchen and pulls out the battered tea cannister. “It might get damaged. Such a pretty hat should sit on the table where it’s safe. You know Edith made that, don’t you Bert?”
“Yes, I do, Mum.” Bert acknowledges cheerfully. “Our Edith is the cleverest girl I know.”
“I keep saying Mum, the hat’s nothing special. And besides, I didn’t make it. It came from Petticoat Lane***, just like my coat, and it’s not new. I simply decorated the hat with bits and bobs I picked up from a Whitechapel haberdasher Miss Lettice’s char****, Mrs. Boothby, told me about.”
“Well, homemade or not, it’s still too pretty to hang there.”
“It’s my hat, Mum. I always hang it there and it’s always fine, and I promise you, it’ll be fine there today.”
“Well, suit yourself, love. You’re an adult now, just the same as Bert.” Ada remarks dismissively but looks at her daughter doubtfully as she scoops out some black dried tea leaves and puts the heaped spoonfuls into the pot. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“So,” Bert sinks back into his seat and toys with his teacup decorated with pink roses, slowly turning it in its saucer. “What’s the gossip with you then, Edith? How’s your Frank then? Mum says that she and Dad haven’t met him yet.”
“It’s become quite the mute point.” Ada remarks as she turns back from the dresser and folds her arms akimbo, frowning at her daughter.
“And I hope,” Edith defends herself, challenging her mother’s steely stare. “That she told you why.”
“I did!” Ada says crisply.
“Word is you’re meeting his mum soon, Edith.” Bert says excitedly.
“Well, not his mum. His parents died of the Spanish Flu, but I’m meeting his Granny, who is a bit like his surrogate mum.”
“That’s nerve wracking.” Bert replies.
“I know! I’m so nervous.” Edith confides, lowing her voice as she leans across the table conspiratorially and reaches for the battered McVitie and Price biscuit tin.
“That’s why I can’t get a girl to come home here.” Frank says with a wink and slight indicating nod to their mother. “Imagine meeting Mum.” He lifts the lid off the tin for his sister and lets her make her selection. “They’re all too scared of her.”
“Cheeky!” Ada says, laughing good naturedly and swatting her son with the tea towel. “Any girl would be lucky to have me as a prospective mother-in-law.” She shuffles her shoulders and tilts her head upwards as her face forms into a dignified expression. “Or boy.” she adds with undisguised meaning and importance.
“So, me and Frank are just fine, thanks Bert. We’re just tickety-boo.*****!” Edith tells her brother before popping a biscuit into her mouth.
“Tickety-boo!” Bert enthuses. “You are up on all the latest small talk and phrases, living with your Miss Chetwynd up in Mayfair.”
“She comes home with new phrases all the time.” Ada places the freshly refilled cottage ware teapot down on the table between them all. “Goodness knows I can’t keep up with her. It’s the influence of all those fine ladies and gentlemen and moving picture stars that frequent Mis Chetwynd’s flat.”
“Moving picture stars? Really” Bert asks excitedly.
“Oh Bert!” Edith scoffs, flapping her hand playfully at him. “I only answer the door to them, or serve them tea. And Miss Lettice has only had one moving picture star to tea since I’ve been there: Wanetta Ward.” She sighs. “She’s so beautiful! She works for Gainsborough Pictures******. You’re more likely to have a longer conversation with a moving picture star on board your ship as a dining saloon steward, Bert, than ever I will at Miss Lettice’s.”
“I doubt that. There aren’t that many moving picture stars sailing between Australia and home, well none that I know of. Although they are mad for moving pictures over there. There are picture houses everywhere, and they even make their own films there, just like here.”
“Anyway, I’m not the interesting one, Bert.” Edith says, seeing a way to turn the conversation to her brother and his news. “You are. Tell me about life on the ship this voyage.”
A short while later over tea and biscuits, Edith is brought up to date with Bert’s latest adventures on board his ship, and the interesting people he has served as a first-class saloon steward.
“Oh!” Ada suddenly gasps. “Bert! Aren’t you going to give Edith her present?”
“Present?” Edith asks with a querying look to her brother.
“Yes, Edith love. Don’t you remember Bert wrote it in his last postcard to us?”
Edith casts her mind back a few weeks to when her mother showed her the postcard Bert had sent from Australia.
“Right you are Mum!” Bert agrees. “So Edith, on Christmas Day, the Second Officer, Mr. Collins, organised a trip for we lads and some of the girls on the ship’s staff who were away from home for Christmas and that were at a loose end. A lot found their own amusements in Melbourne. It’s such a big and vibrant city, full of fun things to do. But about twenty of us didn’t have anywhere to go, so we said yes.”
“What did you do, Bert? What had Mr. Collins organised?” Edith asks in suspense.
“Well, Mr. Collins was born in Melbourne. Well no, actually he was born a few hours outside of Melbourne in the country at a place called Yarra Glen. It’s quite famous and lots of toffs go there to holiday, not that was where Mr. Collins took us.” Bert quickly adds, seeing the excitement in his sister’s face. “No, Mr. Collins was born on a farm out there – something they call a cattle station – and he took us all out there for a picnic on his parent’s station.”
“But a station is a railway station.” Edith mutters, shaking her head, her face crumpling in disbelief.
“Well in Australia there are railway stations and cattle station, which are big farms. So, Mr. Collins packed us all into a railway carriage at Flinders Street Railway Station and off we went. We left at ten in the morning and we didn’t get to the railway station at the Yarra Glen until nearly midday.”
“Was it hot?” Edith asks. “You always say Australia is hot around this time of year.”
“Well it was, but it was alright because we opened up our window in our carriage and poked our heads out so we could look at the passing countryside, so we had a nice breeze. The countryside is so different to here. It’s all yellow grasses and funny trees with washed out leaves: no real greenery at all so to speak, but it’s still really beautiful in its own way.”
“Hmph!” Ada snorts from her chair. “Nothing beats the Kentish countryside for beauty.”
“Well I guess beauty is a subjective thing, Mum.” Bert goes on, “Mr. Collins was telling us on the train trip down that sometimes travelling artists set up camp on his parent’s property just so that they can paint the landscape.”
“Fancy that, Frank!” Edith enthuses. “Did you like it?”
“Oh yes! It’s very pretty, in a foreign kind of way. Not many flowers. But we saw jumping kangaroos from the train on the trip down. They sat in the grass and watched us pass, and then some of them just up and jumped away. They can move very quickly when they jump. Anyway, we finally pulled into Yarra Glen. We had to wait whilst a big party of toffs and all their mountains of luggage were taken care of and packed up into cars. Mr. Collins says that there is a famous opera singer who lives out there, named Nellie Melba*******.”
“I’ve heard nellie Melba sing before!” Ada exclaims, dropping her pink and yellow floral teacup into her saucer and clapping her hands.
“You have, Mum?” Edith asks, the look of lack of comprehension on her face matching her brother’s as they both look to her.
“Well, not live of course!” Ada says, taking up her cup of tea before continuing. “But once when I was at Mrs. Hounslow’s, I heard her sing. She was playing records on her gramophone, and I asked who it was, and she invited me to stand in her parlour and listen to her recording of Nellie Melba sing ‘Ave Maria’.” Her children pull a face at the mention of their landlady, the rich and odious old widow whom they both grew up hearing about regularly, and seeing on the rare occasions she would deign to stop by to collect their rent in person, rather than her rent collector. “Now don’t be like that, children! Mrs. Hounslow’s husband died a hero in the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War.”
“And neither you, nor she will ever let us forget it.” Bert drones, rolling his eyes.
“Now I won’t have a bad word said about her, Bert.” Ada wags her finger admonishingly at her son. “She’s helped pay for many a meal in this house with her sixpences and shillings over the years, especially during the war when things were hard. You should be grateful to her. We all should be.”
“Pshaw!” Edith raises her eyes to the ceiling above. “Enough about old Widow Hounslow! Go on with your story, Bert.”
“Well,” Bert continues. “Miss Melba must have been home and hosting a big house party, but once they were all packed off, we were ushered to a charabanc******** which took us out to Mr. Collins’ family farm. Once we got to the house – which they call a homestead – Mrs. Collins, Mr, Collins’ mum, had picnic baskets for us, full of delicious sandwiches and pies and cakes. There was even beer and stout for us to drink. When Mr. Collins lead us away from the house to where we were to take our picnic, he took us to a place where there was a stream, so we could dunk the bottles of beer and stout into it to keep them warm. We tethered them to the bank with string he gave us. And so, we sat under these big trees with white bark and ate and drank and had a jolly time of it, all at Mr. Collin’s expense.”
“That was nice of him, Bert.” Edith remarks.
“It was! We were ever so grateful. He had brought a cricket bat and stumps from the house with him, so we played some cricket after luncheon until it got too warm, and then we sang Christmas carols.”
“It must have felt odd, singing Christmas carols in the summer sunshine.”
“Not really Edith.” Bert replies. “Christmas is Christmas all over the world, no matter what the weather, if you are in high spirits.”
“And the gift?” Ada says, patting her son’s arm as a reminder.
“So, when we were walking back from out picnic by the stream, I was carrying one of the picnic baskets, and I noticed what a pretty painted lid it had. When we arrived back at the homestead, I asked Mr. Collins’ mother about it. It turns out that Mr. Collin’s brother and his wife live on the property as well. She cooks for the farmhands and helps keep house for old Mrs. Collins, and she also makes picnic baskets from the reeds growing around the stream we used to keep our beer and stout warm. Her husband carves the lids and she paints them, and she sells them in Yarra Glen.” Bert reaches under the table and pushing his seat backwards, he stands up and places a picnic basket on the table. “So this is for you. It’s the picnic basket I brought back to the house, and then brought all the way from Australia for you. A belated Merry Christmas, big sister.”
Edith gasps and raises her hands to her mouth as a smile fills her face. The beautiful picnic hamper sitting proudly on the table has woven pale reed sides and two hinged lids on the top, both painted with stylised leaves and creamy yellow daisies.
“Oh Bert!” Edith gasps, as tears well in her eyes. “Oh it’s lovely!” She gets up and hurries over to her brother and embraces him. “Thank you so much!”
“I’m so glad you like it, Edith.” Bert replies. “I got more than a bit of ribbing from the other chaps on the sailing home. They took up calling me ‘Basket Bert’.”
“Oh they didn’t, Bert?” Edith cries. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing for you be sorry for, Edith, but I afraid that I think it will stick,” Frank adds. “However it’s worth it, if you like the basket. I thought if things were still going well with Frank, you two might use it to go on a picnic in summer.”
“Oh, I will Bert!” Edith replies as she runs her hand along the thin and elegant handle. “It’s wonderful! Thank you so much!”
*The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.
**The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.
***Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
****A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
*****Believed to date from British colonial rule in India, and related to the Hindi expression “tickee babu”, meaning something like “everything's alright, sir”, “tickety-boo” means “everything is fine”. It was a common slang phrase that was popular in the 1920s.
******Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
*******Dame Nellie Melba was an Australian operatic lyric coloratura soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early Twentieth Century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town. Melba studied singing in Melbourne and made a modest success in performances there. After a brief and unsuccessful marriage, she moved to Europe in search of a singing career. She succeeded in London and Paris. Her repertoire was small; in her whole career she sang no more than 25 roles and was closely identified with only ten. She was known for her performances in French and Italian opera, but sang little German opera. She returned to Australia frequently during the Twentieth Century, singing in opera and concerts, and had a house, “Coombe Cottage” built for her in the Yarra Valley outside of Melbourne.
********A charabanc or "char-à-banc" is a type of horse-drawn vehicle or early motor coach, usually open-topped, more common in Britain, but also found in places like Australia during the early part of the Twentieth Century. It has benched seats arranged in rows, looking forward, commonly used for large parties, whether as public conveyances or for excursions.
This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The central focus of our story, sitting on Ada’s table, is the wicker picnic basket that Bert brought home for Edith. In truth it is not Australian made, but was made by an unknown miniature artisan in America. The floral patterns on the top have been hand painted. The hinged lids lift, just like a real hamper, so things can be put inside.
In front of the basket stands Ada’s cottage ware teapot. Made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson, it has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched rood and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics.
Surrounding the cottage ware teapot are non-matching teacups, saucers, a milk jug and sugar bowl, all of which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Sitting on the table in the foreground is a McVitie and Price’s Small Petite Beurre Biscuits tin, containing a selection of different biscuits. The biscuits were made by hand of polymer clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. McVitie's (Originally McVitie and Price) is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie and Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Harlesden, London (where Edith’s father works). McVitie and Price's first major biscuit was the McVitie's Digestive, created in 1892 by a new young employee at the company named Alexander Grant, who later became the managing director of the company. The biscuit was given its name because it was thought that its high baking soda content served as an aid to food digestion. The McVitie's Chocolate Homewheat Digestive was created in 1925. Although not their core operation, McVitie's were commissioned in 1893 to create a wedding cake for the royal wedding between the Duke of York and Princess Mary, who subsequently became King George V and Queen Mary. This cake was over two metres high and cost one hundred and forty guineas. It was viewed by 14,000 and was a wonderful publicity for the company. They received many commissions for royal wedding cakes and christening cakes, including the wedding cake for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip and Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Under United Biscuits McVitie's holds a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.
Edith’s black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers was made by an unknown artisan. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. This hat is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.
In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table, the Windsor chair and the ladderback chair to the left of the photo, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. There are also some rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and a bread tin in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces I recently acquired from The Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a tin of Macfie’s Finest Black Treacle, two jars of P.C. Flett and Company jam, a tin of Heinz marinated apricots, a jar of Marmite, some Bisto gravy powder, some Ty-Phoo tea and some Oxo stock cubes. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.
Robert Andrew Macfie sugar refiner was the first person to use the term term Golden Syrup in 1840, a product made by his factory, the Macfie sugar refinery, in Liverpool. He also produced black treacle.
P.C. Flett and Company was established in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands by Peter Copeland Flett. He had inherited a small family owned ironmongers in Albert Street Kirkwall, which he inherited from his maternal family. He had a shed in the back of the shop where he made ginger ale, lemonade, jams and preserves from local produce. By the 1920s they had an office in Liverpool, and travelling representatives selling jams and preserves around Great Britain. I am not sure when the business ceased trading.
The American based Heinz food processing company, famous for its Baked Beans, 57 varieties of soups and tinend spaghetti opened a factory in Harlesden in 1919, providing a great deal of employment for the locals who were not already employed at McVitie and Price.
Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.
In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.
The first Bisto product, in 1908, was a meat-flavoured gravy powder, which rapidly became a bestseller in Britain. It was added to gravies to give a richer taste and aroma. Invented by Messrs Roberts and Patterson, it was named "Bisto" because it "Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One". Bisto Gravy is still a household name in Britain and Ireland today, and the brand is currently owned by Premier Foods.
Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.
The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).
Here are several add-on lenses and their home-made adapters for mounting on my Nikon 105mm f/2.5 AI-S lens. I keep an inventory of damaged filters for scavenging rings to make a variety of adapters for working with a number of primary lenses.
On the left is an RMS thread to 52mm adapter, shown fitted with a Gaertner 80 mm microscope objective. Below is an unmounted 60mm. Their knurled mounting "position" rings have been color coded with a marker for quick reference... red = very short working distance, blue = longer working distance. The mounted objective / aluminum disc (fitted with a 52mm ring), is ready to be mounted on the front of the 105mm with the Gaertner objective facing the subject.
At top center is an adapter made from empty 58mm filter rings, and a Zeiss Microscope "dove-tail" accessory adapter (silver ribbed screw). The adapter is shown fitted with a Voss 75mm enlarging lens, below is an unmounted Laminex 90mm. An enlarging lens is screwed into a lens mounting ring locked in place by the silver knob, its aperture always at its widest setting... to minimize vignetting. This mounting ring remains locked in place allowing for quick changing of a number of enlarging lenses. The short stack of empty rings on the right is screwed onto the lens adapter just above the red ring, serving as a spacer to prevent the enlarging lens from contacting the Nikon 105mm objective, the adapter being mounted with the enlarging lens facing the camera.
Both adapters have threaded rings that face the subject, for mounting a home-made frozen dinner bowl flash diffuser fitted with an empty Raynox UAC 2000 snap on lens mount adapter.
These lenses provide very good magnification when used on the 105mm, which is always used focused at infinity to provide the greatest working distance.
DSC-9298
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.
With a loud buzz, the electric doorbell announces the unexpected arrival of someone at the front door. Putting down the piece of table silver she is polishing, Edith, Lettice’s maid, goes to answer the front door, all the while wondering who is calling. Lettice usually advises Edith of any clients, existing or potential, who may be visiting, particularly because Edith needs to make sure that there are cakes and biscuits in the pantry to offer to them. Walking across the thick Chinese silk rug in the flat’s hallway, she can hear her mistress speaking animatedly on the telephone to a representative of Jeffrey and Company* from whom she is ordering papers for the dining room of her friend Minnie Palmerston. Lettice agreed to redecorate it before Christmas after Minnie asked her to, and work is now underway.
Edith opens the door to the dashing figure of Selwyn Spencely, the only son of the Duke of Walmsford, whom Lettice has been stepping out with, when their busy social diaries allow, since meeting him at her parent’s Hunt Ball last year. In his hands he holds a thick bunch of roses, a usual accessory every time he crosses the Cavendish Mews threshold.
“Good day, Edith. Is Miss Chetwynd home?”
“Mr. Spencely!” she gasps in surprise. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Yes, do come in.” She closes the front door and shuts out the cold January in the process. “It’s freezing out there. She’s just speaking with someone on the telephone in the drawing room, Sir, but I’ll announce you’re here.”
Shrugging out of his thick and expertly cut navy blue barathea coat, damp around the shoulders and down the back due the downpour outside, he lets it fall into Edith’s waiting arms. “Oh, don’t bother, Edith. I know my way. But if you could put these in some water for Miss Chetwynd.” He hands her the deep red roses which release a sweet fragrance as he does.
“Of course, Sir.” Edith replies, dropping a curtsey to her mistress’ guest.
As she turns to go, Selwyn calls after her, “Oh Edith! There will be a man with a large package knocking at the servants’ entrance shortly. When he does, just show him into the drawing room, will you?”
“Well yes, Sir.” Edith answers, her brow furrowing slightly. “But I…”
“It’s a surprise for Miss Chetwynd,” Selwyn interrupts her, giving her a winning smile and ending the conversation.
“Now just to confirm, it is the red dioxide metallic you are ordering, not the gold. Is that right?” Lettice asks in clearly enunciated tones down the telephone receiver as she sits at her Hepplewhite desk. “I don’t want the gold. It is rather expensive paper, and I’d hate for you to make a costly error.” She listens to the representative of Jeffrey and Company at the other end as he assures her that he has the correct details for her order. “Very well. And you’ll let me know when it arrives?” She listens again. “Very good. Good afternoon then.”
Lettice hangs up the receiver of the telephone with a half frustrated and half relieved sigh. In response the telephone utters a muffled ting of its bell as she hangs up. She begins scribbling notes in her black leather notebook with her silver fountain pen and with a rasp of nib against paper, she crosses off several things from her list for Minnie Palmerston’s dining room redecoration.
“I do like to see my favourite society interior designer, hard at work.” Selwyn pronounces, announcing his presence.
“Selwyn!” Lettice spins around in her chair, her eyes wide with shock as she sees him comfortably settled in one of her round white upholstered ebonised wood tub chairs. “What on earth are you doing here?” She self consciously pats the side of her elegantly marcelled** blonde hair and brushes her manicured fingers across the Peter Pan collar*** of her navy blue frock. “I wasn’t expecting you. What a delightful surprise!”
“Yes, your charming little maid was saying just the same thing not a moment ago when she answered the door to me.” Selwyn says, rising to his feet as Lettice rises to hers. “I just happened to be in the neighbourhood, and I thought I’d pop in, just on the off chance that you were here, to see how you are, my Angel. After all, I haven’t seen you since before Christmas.” He smiles warmly at his sweetheart who blushes prettily under his observant eye. “So I wanted to wish you all the very best for the season.”
“Oh yes!” Lettice breathes. “Happy 1923, Selwyn darling!” She stands up. “Are you stopping for long?”
“For a little while, my Angel.” he replies with an amused smile.
“Shall I ring for tea then?”
“Tea would be capital, my Angel. Thank you.”
Lettice depresses the servant’s call bell by the fireplace which she can hear echoing distantly in the kitchen. Edith appears moments later carrying a bulbous white vase containing the red roses Selwyn brough for Lettice as a gift.
“Oh Selwyn!” Lettice gasps. “Are these from you?” When he nods in acknowledgement, she adds. “They’re gorgeous!”
“Where would you like them, Miss?” she asks.
“Oh, on the telephone table, I think, Edith.” Lettice pronounces, as she picks up the telephone from her desk and walks it across the room, dragging the flex behind her, back to where it belongs.
“Very good, Miss.” Edith busily removes the vase of slightly withered yellow lilies and roses that were sitting on the table and replaces them with the roses. Picking up the other vase from where she placed it in the polished parquet floor she remarks, “There’s plenty of life left in these. I’ll pick through them and rearrange them in a smaller vase for you.”
“Oh no, you keep them, Edith. It will help brighten the kitchen up.” Lettice replies.
“That’s very kind of you, Miss. Thank you.”
“Oh, and could you please bring us some tea.”
“Yes Miss,” Edith answers with a bob curtsey. “Oh, and Mr. Spencely, that gentleman you mentioned is here. He’s in the kitchen at present. Shall I send him through?”
“Man? What man?” Lettice asks, glancing first at Edith and then at Selwyn.
“Yes, if you would, Edith. Thank you.”
“What man, Selwyn?” Lettice repeats to her beau as Edith retreats through the dining room and disappears through the green baize door into the service part of the flat.
Selwyn’s smile grows broader. “All will be revealed shortly, my Angel.” he assures her calmly.
The door Edith walked through opens and a workman carrying a large cardboard box steps across its threshold. Dressed in a flat cap damp from the rain outside and taupe coloured apron over a thick dark woollen jumper and black trousers, his face is florid with exertion as he breathes heavily and walks slowly.
“Ahh, put it down over here,” Selwyn commands as the deliveryman nears them, pointing with an indicating finger to the floor next to the table where Edith put the roses.
“You might ‘ave warned me I was goin’ ta have ta climb four flights of stairs with this, Guv!” the man huffs as he lowers the box onto the floor. He groans as he returns to an upright position and removes his cap. Withdrawing a grubby white kerchief from his pocket he wipes his brow before returning his cap to his head. He dabs his face with his kerchief as he inhales and exhales with laboured, rasping breaths.
“Good heavens!” Lettice gasps. “What on earth is in that box that’s so heavy?”
“Oh it’s not that ‘eavy, Mum,” the deliveryman pants. “If youse only takin’ it from room ta room.” He wipes the back of his neck with his kerchief. “Only if youse ‘oistin’ it up four flights of stairs!”
Selwyn ignores the deliveryman’s protestations as his focuses his attentions solely on Lettice. “I promised you when I had to withdraw from accompanying you to Priscilla’s wedding, that I was going to make it up to you, and this,” He taps the top of the box. “Is it!”
“What on earth is it?” Lettice asks with excitement and intrigue.
The red faced workman opens the box lid and delves into its interior. Newspaper scrunches noisily as he withdraws a shining lump of burnished brass with three fine finials which he places with a heavy laboured huff onto the telephone console.
“It’s a wireless, my Angel!” Selwyn says with a sweeping gesture towards the apparatus gleaming under the light of the chandelier overhead. “Merry Christmas, happy New Year,” He pauses. “And I’m sorry, all in one!”
“A wireless!” Lettice gasps. “Oh Selwyn, darling!” She jumps up from her seat next to the wireless and runs around the black japanned coffee table, throwing her arms around his neck. She looks over at the gleaming piece of new machinery with three knobs on the front below an ornamental piece of fretwork protecting some mesh fabric behind it. “How generous! I love it, darling!” She breaks away from Selwyn, her face suddenly clouding. “Oh, don’t you need a licence to have a radio?”
“The gent’s already paid fur it, Mum.” the workman says, reaching into the front pocket of his apron and withdrawing a slightly crumpled envelope. “Ten shillin’s, paid for through the General Post Office****.” He hands her the envelope.
“Ten shillings!” Lettice looks at Selwyn aghast. “On top of the apparatus itself. It must have cost a fortune!”
“Oh, it does, Mum!” the workman begins before being silenced by a sweeping gesture and a steely look from Selwyn. “Sorry, Guv.” He falls silent.
Turning back to Lettice, Selwyn continues, “It’s worth it to provide some pleasure to you, my Angel.”
“Oh Selwyn darling! You are a brick!” Lettice exhales in delight as she feels his hands pull her closer to him and kisses the top of her head tenderly. “But how does it operate?”
“Our good man here can tell you that better than I can, my darling.” Selwyn replies.
“Oh its really quite easy, Mum.” the workman assures Lettice. “It runs on a battery, oh, but just be careful! It’s an acid battery,” He points to his apron where his knees are. “So just watch yerself when youse moves it. Better youse ‘n yer maid move it togevva, side by side like, than youse on yer own, Mum.” He adds. “Turn it on ‘n off wiv this knob.” He points to the button on the left-hand side. “Turn the volume up or down wiv this knob.” He turns the button left and right. “And use the middle one to tune the wireless in.”
“Tune it in?” Lettice asks.
“Yes, Mum. ‘Ere I’ll show yer.” He leans down and turns the left knob to the right and it releases a satisfyingly crisp click. “We’ll just wait for the valves to warm up.” Slowly a quiet crackle begins behind the mesh. “This ‘ere’s the speaker, Mum.” He points to the fretwork covered mesh at the top of the wireless. “Sound‘ll come outta ‘ere.” he continues, feeling the need to clarify.
Just as Edith walks into the drawing room with a silver tray laden with tea things, the wireless releases a strangulated roar, making a juddering cacophony of discordant racket.
“Good heavens what’s that awful noise?” the young maid gasps, her eyes wide in horror as she allows the tray to clatter roughly onto the surface of the coffee table.
“It’s just the wireless warming up, Edith.” Selwyn assures her in a calm voice. “Do stay and watch this marvel of the modern age.”
“Marvel of the modern age!” Edith scoffs. “That infernal contraption is more than enough,” She glares at the shiny silver and black Bakelite***** telephone. “Without us having more gadgets around here.”
“Oh, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud, Edith.” Lettice chides her maid mildly over the sound of the wireless static.
“This, my dear Edith,” Selwyn pronounces with a satisfied sigh. “Is the sign of the new age! Soon everyone will have one of these.”
“Heaven help us all then!” Edith rolls her eyes.
“And like I says, yer tune it wiv this knob, Mum.”
The workman starts to slowly turn the knob to the right, and as he does, the static sounds change, growing momentarily louder and then softer, and then slowly the discordant cacophony of harsh sounds starts to dissipate as music begins to be heard in its place. Very quickly the static is gone and the strains of violins and piano stream through the wireless speaker as ‘Londonderry Air’****** plays.
“Well, I never!” gasps Edith. “Its like having your own private band to play for you in that little box!”
“That it is, Miss.” agrees the workman.
“Oh, it’s wonderful, Selwyn darling!” Lettice exclaims, throwing her arms around his neck before kissing him with delight on the cheek.
And just for a little while, Lettice, Selwyn, Edith and the workman all stand and look at the shiny new wireless, enjoying the beautiful music drifting from its speaker.
The introduction of a radio, or a wireless as it was then known as, is the first real change we have seen to Lettice’s drawing room since we first met her two years ago, and in many ways it represents the spirit of change that the 1920s have become synonymous with. The British Broadcasting Company, as the BBC was originally called, was formed on the 18th of October 1922 by a group of leading wireless manufacturers including Marconi. Daily broadcasting by the BBC began in Marconi's London studio, 2LO, in the Strand, on November the 14th, 1922. John Reith, a thirty-three-year-old Scottish engineer, was appointed General Manager of the BBC at the end of 1922. Following the closure of numerous amateur stations, the BBC started its first daily radio service in London – 2LO. After much argument, news was supplied by an agency, and music drama and “talks” filled the airwaves for only a few hours a day. It wasn't long before radio could be heard across the nation, especially when radio stations were set up outside of London, like on the 6th of March when the BBC first broadcast from Glasgow via station 5SC.
*Jeffrey and Company was an English producer of fine wallpapers that operated between 1836 and the mid 1930s. Based at 64 Essex Road in London, the firm worked with a variety of designers who were active in the aesthetic and arts and crafts movements, such as E.W. Godwin, William Morris, and Walter Crane. Jeffrey and Company’s success is often credited to Metford Warner, who became the company’s chief proprietor in 1871. Under his direction the firm became one of the most lucrative and influential wallpaper manufacturers in Europe. The company clarified that wallpaper should not be reserved for use solely in mansions, but should be available for rooms in the homes of the emerging upper-middle class.
**Marcelling is a hair styling technique in which hot curling tongs are used to induce a curl into the hair. Its appearance was similar to that of a finger wave but it is created using a different method. Marcelled hair was a popular style for women's hair in the 1920s, often in conjunction with a bob cut. For those women who had longer hair, it was common to tie the hair at the nape of the neck and pin it above the ear with a stylish hair pin or flower. One famous wearer was American entertainer, Josephine Baker.
***A Peter Pan collar is a style of clothing collar, flat in design with rounded corners. It is named after the collar of Maude Adams's costume in her 1905 role as Peter Pan, although similar styles had been worn before this date. Peter Pan collars were particularly fashionable during the 1920s and 1930s.
****With the advent of radio, as of the 18th of January, 1923, the Postmaster General granted the BBC a licence to broadcast. A licence fee of ten shillings was charged per wireless set sold, purchased through the General Post Office. Amateur wireless enthusiasts avoided paying the licence by making their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets.
*****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.
******The "Londonderry Air" is an Irish air that originated in County Londonderry. It is popular among the North American Irish diaspora and is well known throughout the world. The tune is played as the victory sporting anthem of Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games. The song "Danny Boy" uses the tune, with a set of lyrics written in the early Twentieth Century.
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:
Central to our story, the brass wireless, which is remarkably heavy for its size, comes from Melody Jane’s Doll House Supplies in the United Kingdom.
Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. The green tinted glass comport on the coffee table , spun from real glass, is also from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature of a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling chord does stretch out.
In front of the telephone sits a paperback novel from the late 1920s created by miniature British 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. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books 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 these books miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The vase of red roses on the Art Deco occasional table is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium.
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The black japanned wooden chair is a Chippendale design and has been upholstered with modern and stylish Art Deco fabric. The mirror backed back japanned china cabinet is Chippendale too. 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.
To the left of the Chippendale chair stands a blanc de chine Chinese porcelain vase, and next to it, a Chinese screen. The Chinese folding screen I bought at an antiques and junk market when I was about ten. I was with my grandparents and a friend of the family and their three children, who were around my age. They all bought toys to bring home and play with, and I bought a Chinese folding screen to add to my miniatures collection in my curio cabinet at home! It shows you what a unique child I was.
The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews, although we are still in Mayfair, moving a few streets away to Hill Street, where Edith, Lettice’s maid, and her beau, grocery boy Frank Leadbetter, are visiting Edith’s friend and fellow maid Hilda. It is a beautiful, sunny Sunday and Sundays all three have as days off from their jobs as domestic servants and delivery boy. Taking advantage of this, all three are going to spend the afternoon at Hammersmith Palias de Danse*. As usual, Frank collects Edith from Cavendish Mews and the pair then go to the home of Lettice’s married friends Margot and Dickie Channon, where Hilda works as a live-in maid.
Being Hilda’s day off, her employers usually decamp for the day, and today they are visiting their friend Priscilla who recently married American dry goods heir Georgie Carter. The pair have just returned to London from their honeymoon which took in much of Europe before visiting Georgie’s family in Philadelphia. The quartet will dine at the Café Royal**, doubtless at the expense of Georgie since the Channons seem perpetually to have financial difficulties, but as a result, the Channons have invited the Carters back to their Hill Street flat for after supper coffee, which means that Hilda must do one of her most hated jobs: grind coffee beans to make real coffee for Georgie Carter, who is particular about his American style coffee. We find the trio in the kitchen of the Hill Street flat, the ladies’ dancing frocks and Frank’s suit at odds with their surrounds as Hilda grinds the coffee beans sitting in a white china bowl in the large wooden and brass coffee grinder. By preparing the coffee, ready to make before she goes out, it will be easy to serve when her employers and their guests return after dinner, and the beans will still be fresh enough for Georgie’s liking.
“You know,” Frank remarks as he stands at Edith’s elbow and watches Hilda turn the handle of the coffee grinder with gusto. “I don’t see why they can’t just drink Camp Coffee*** like the rest of us.”
“Oh Frank!” gasps Edith, looking up at her beau and patting his hand with her own as he squeezes her left shoulder lovingly. “You know perfectly well why not, Frank. Mr. and Mrs. Channon’s friend, Mr. Carter is an American gentleman, and just like Miss Wanetta Ward the American moving picture star, he doesn’t like British coffee.”
“What rot!” Frank scoffs at the suggestion. “There’s nothing wrong with British coffee! If British coffee isn’t to Mr. Carter’s taste, let him have tea then, and save poor Hilda the effort of having to grind up coffee beans for his lordship.” He slips off the jacket of his smart Sunday blue suit, revealing his crisp white shirt, red tie and smart navy blue vest. He drapes it over the back of the Windsor chair Edith sits in. “Come on old girl,” he says to Hilda as he moves around the deal pine kitchen table. “Give me a go then. Give your arms a chance to recuperate before we go dancing.”
“You’re such a Socialist, Frank Leadbetter.” pipes up Hilda as with a grunt, she pushes the handle of the grinder mechanism over a particularly recalcitrant coffee bean.
“What?” gasps Frank as he takes over grinding from the grateful maid. “I thought you’d come to my defence, Hilda, especially as I’m being so chivalrous as to grind coffee beans for you.”
“Oh I am grateful, Frank, ever so.” Hilda replies, rubbing her aching forearms with her fat, sausage like fingers. “But just because you are being gallant, doesn’t mean I can’t call you a Socialist.”
“Because a hard working man like me thinks I’m every bit as good as this friend of your Mr. and Mrs. Channon, I’m now a Socialist?” Frank asks in an appalled voice. “You’re as bad as Edith’s mum.” He nods in his sweetheart’s direction.
“Mum thinks Frank might be a Communist.” Edith explains. “Even though we’ve both told her that he isn’t.”
“Handsome is as handsome does.” remarks Hilda with a cheeky smile as she glances at Frank winding the red knob topped brass handle of the grinder.
“I’m neither, I’ll have you know, Hilda Clerkenwell!” Frank retorts. “I’d prefer to think of myself as more of a progressive thinker when it comes to the rights and privileges of the working man,” He looks poignantly at Hilda. “And woman.”
“Same thing.” Hilda retorts matter-of-factly as she starts to straighten the russet grosgrain bandeau**** embellished with gold sequins which has slipped askew whilst she has been grinding coffee beans.
“Pardon my ignorance,” Edith begins gingerly. “But what exactly is a Socialist?”
“Socialism is a political movement that wants to reform various economic and social systems, transferring them to social ownership as opposed to private ownership.” remarks Hilda as she runs her hands down the back of her hair.
“Well done, Hilda!” Frank congratulates her.
“You sound surprised, Frank.” Hilda says with a cheeky smile. “Don’t they have smart girls where you come from, present company excluded, Edith!” Hilda adds hurriedly so as not to offend her best friend.”
“Oh, you know I’m not very political,” Edith assures Hilda, yet at the same time self consciously toys with her blonde waves as she speaks.
“I must confess, Hilda, I am a little surprised.” Frank admits. “I don’t know many girls who are interested in social rights and can give explanations so eloquently.”
“I’m so sorry Frank!” Edith defends herself. “I know you’ve tried to teach me, but I can’t help it. I get confused between this ist and the other ist. They all seem the same to me.” She blushes with mild embarrassment at her own ignorance.
“No, no, Edith!” Frank assures her as he stops grinding the coffee beans and reaches out his left hand, clasping her right one as it rests on the tabletop and squeezes it reassuringly. “This isn’t a criticism of you! It was a compliment to Hilda. You’re wonderful, and there are things that you understand and are far better at than me.”
“Than both of us, Edith.” adds Hilda quickly, the look of concern about her friend taking umbrage clear on her round face.
“Yes, inconsequential things.” Edith mumbles in a deflated tone.
“No, not at all.” Frank reassures her soothingly as he takes up grinding coffee again. “What good am I to myself if I can’t cook a meal to feed myself.”
“And for all my love of reading, Edith, you know I can’t sew a stitch.” Hilda appends. “I could never have made this beautiful frock.” She grasps the edge of the strap of her russet coloured art satin***** dress as she speaks. “Not in a million years. We’re all good at different things, and no-one could say you weren’t smart, Edith.”
“That’s right.” Frank concurs, smiling at his sweetheart. “One of the reasons why I’ve always admired you is because you aren’t some silly giggling Gertie****** like some of the housemaids I’ve known. You aren’t turned by just a handsome face, and your head isn’t filled with moving picture stars and nothing else.”
“Well, I do like moving picture stars, Frank.” Edith confesses.
“Oh I know, Edith, and I love you for that too.” Frank reassures her. “But it’s not all that is in there. You have a good head on your shoulders.”
“And a wise one too.” Hilda interjects. “How often do I ask you for advice? I’ve always asked you for your opinion on things for as long as we’ve been friends.”
“You are clever, and insightful, and you want a better life for yourself too, and that’s why I really love you. We want the same things from life.” Frank says in a soft and soothing tone full of love as he gazes at Edith. “You are very pretty, and no-one can deny that – not even you,” He holds out an admonishing finger as Edith goes to refute his remark. “But beauty, however glorious will fade. Just look at our Dowager Queen Mother*******. When beauty fades, wit and intelligence remain, and you have both of those qualities in spades, Edith.”
“Oh Frank.” Edith breathes softly. “You aren’t ashamed of me then?”
“Of course I’m not Edith! How could I ever be ashamed of you? I’m as proud as punch******** to step out with you! You’re my best girl.”
Frank winds the gleaming brass coffee grinder handle a few more times before stopping. He pulls out the drawer at the bottom and as he does, the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee beans fills the air around them, wafting up his, Edith and Hilda’s nostrils. He sighs with satisfaction at a job well done.
“Good enough for his American lordship?” Frank asks Hilda.
She peers into the drawer. “Good enough.” she acknowledges with another of her cheeky smirks, nodding affirmatively.
“I still think he could jolly well grind his own, you know, Hilda!” Frank opines.
“Socialist.” she laughs in reply as she walks around Frank, withdraws the drawer of ground coffee and knocks the contents into the small, worn Delftware coffee cannister with careful taps, so as not to spill and waste any of the hard-won grinds.
“I bet you, your Wanetta Ward doesn’t grind her own coffee, Edith.” Frank goes on as he walks back around to Edith and slips his jacket on again.
“I bet you she does, Frank!” Edith counters.
“What? A moving picture star grinding her own coffee? I don’t believe it!”
“Miss Ward is a very unorthodox person, Frank, even for an American.” she assures him. “I think she might surprise you if you ever get the pleasure of meeting her one day.”
“Maybe.” Frank says doubtfully. “Well now that coffee is ground, we should really get going.” He runs his hands around the back of his jacket collar to make sure it is sitting straight. “The Hammersmith Palais waits for no-one, not even those who slave for undeserving Americans.” He laughs good heartedly. “Shall we go?”
“Oh yes!” enthuses Edith as Frank chivalrously pulls out her chair for her as she stands up. “I’ll fetch our coats.”
With her pretty blue floral sprigged frock swirling about her figure, Edith hurries over to the pegs by the door where Frank’s, Hilda’s and her own coat and hats hang. She moves lightly across the floor, practicing her dance steps as she goes, silently moving to the music she hears the band playing in her head.
“I really wonder why I bother sometimes.” Hilda says despondently as she pulls her brown coat on over the top of the luxurious man-made silk frock that Edith made for her and decorated with lace trimming and small bursts of sequins.
“Like I said,” Frank mutters. “He should settle for Camp Coffee like the rest of us, or have tea.”
“Not grinding coffee, Frank!” Hilda scoffs in reply. “I mean go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais week after week. What’s the point?”
“What do you mean, Hilda?” Edith asks gently, slipping her arms into her own black three-quarter length coat as Frank holds to open for her.
“I mean why do I bother going dancing when no man at the Palais ever looks at me, even in this beautiful new frock you made me, Edith.” She picks up the lace trimmed hem of her dance dress and lifts it despondently.
Edith and Frank both glance anxiously at one another for a moment. Both know they are thinking exactly the same thing. What Hilda says is true. Whenever the three of them go to the Hammersmith Palais de Danse there are always far more women in attendance than men. The Great War decimated the male population, and almost drove an entire generation of young men into extinction. Sadly, this means that more and more women are finding themselves without a gentleman to step out with, and are deemed surplus to needs by society. In spite of any of his faults, Edith knows how lucky she is to have a young man like Frank. Even the attentions of pretty girls are less in demand with fewer men in circulation desiring their company. Unlike Edith, Hilda is a little on the plump side, enjoying the indulgence of sticky buns from the bakers and an extra serving of Victoria Sponge at the Lyons Corner Shop********* at the top of Tottenham Court Road. Her face is friendly, with soft brown eyes and a warm smile, but she isn’t pretty. Even with the judicious application of a little powder and rouge acquired from the make-up counter of Selfridges********** her skin lacks the fresh gleam that Edith has, and for as long as she has known her, Edith has always found Hilda to have a very pale complexion. When the three of them do go dancing, Frank is often the only man she dances with when he partners her around the dancefloor, and more often than not, Hilda ends up taking the part of the man, dancing with any number of other neglected wallflowers, just to ward of the tedium of waiting for someone to ask her to dance. The plight, for plight it was, of women like Hilda was all too common, in the post-war world of the 1920s.
“Perhaps you’re looking in the wrong place, Hilda.” Frank says.
“What do mean, Frank?”
“Well, a girl with brains like you needs a man who will stimulate her mentally. Perhaps you might find the man of your dreams at a library.”
“A library!” Hilda’s mind conjures up images of pale bookish young men in glasses with phlegmatic characters who would much rather shake her hand limply and discuss the benefits of Socialism, rather than sweep her off her feet romantically.
“Not at all helpful, Frank!” hisses Edith as she watches her best friend’s face fall.
“I was only joking.” Frank shrugs apologetically, unsure what to say.
Edith hurries over and wraps her arm around Hilda’s slumping shoulders consolingly. “A faint heart never won a fair lady, Hilda.” She pulls Hilda to her lovingly. Hilda looks up at her friend sadly, yet thoughtfully. “And I think it works the same in reverse.”
Seeing a way to make amends for his ill-timed joke, Frank pipes up, “That’s exactly right, Hilda. Edith wouldn’t have been anywhere near as attractive to me if she hadn’t had a bit of pluck.”
“And you look splendid in the dance frock I made for you, Hilda,” Edith adds. “Really you do.”
“Do you really think so, Edith?” Hilda asks, looking at her friend.
“Of course I do! I’m a professional seamstress, and you are my best friend. I wouldn’t make something that didn’t suit you!”
“No, no of course not.” Hilda replies.
“And didn’t Mrs. Minkin say that russet satin would suit your colourings?”
“She did.”
“Well then,” Edith replies matter-of-factly. “There is nothing more to be said.”
“That’s right.” agrees Frank, and without further ado, he sweeps Hilda into his arms.
With the ease of a natural dancer, Frank begins to waltz his partner carefully across the black and white chequered linoleum floor of the Channon’s kitchen, guiding her around the kitchen table and the chairs gathered around it, past the black and white stove and the dresser cluttered with crockery and provisions.
“Oh Frank!” Hilda says, laughing joyously as she allows herself to be swept away. “You really are a one!”
Edith smiles as she sees a light return to her best friend’s eyes, and a smile appear upon her pert lips. She considers herself so fortunate not just because she has a chap to step out with, but because Frank is so kind and considerate. Not just any man would understand or appreciate Edith’s wish to include Hilda in their excursions to the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, and not every man would be as willing to take a turn with her on the dancefloor, as has been proven. Then again, Frank is no ordinary man, and as time goes on and she gets to know him better, the more she is becoming aware that her sweetheart is a very special man indeed. She laughs as Frank dips Hilda, making her squeal in delight, before raising her up again and restoring her to her feet.
“There!” Frank says with a huff as he catches his breath. “Now that your feet are suitably warmed up, you’re ready to go, Miss Clerkenwell. We’ll have no more talk of you not wanting to come dancing with us.”
“Today might be the day you meet someone, Hilda. Don’t give up on the chance.” Edith enthuses.
“Oh alright you two!” Hilda acquiesces. “I give up. Let’s go then.”
“That’s the spirit, Hilda!” Frank says. “That pluck will win you a fine and handsome gentleman with a brain that you deserve.”
“I can hardly battle both of you, can I?” Hilda laughs as she carefully places her floppy brimmed brown velvet and copper faille poke-style bonnet decorated with a beige rose and leaves atop her head.
The three friends walk out of the kitchen door that leads out onto the flat’s back stairs and begin to descend to the street. Hilda locks the door behind her and the coffee grinder and the as of yet to be ground coffee beans sit on the table, ready for when she returns later that day to serve to Margot, Dickie and their friends Priscilla and Georgie Carter.
*The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.
**The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.
***Camp Coffee is a concentrated syrup which is flavoured with coffee and chicory, first produced in 1876 by Paterson & Sons Ltd, in Glasgow. In 1974, Dennis Jenks merged his business with Paterson to form Paterson Jenks plc. In 1984, Paterson Jenks plc was bought by McCormick & Company. Legend has it (mainly due to the picture on the label) that Camp Coffee was originally developed as an instant coffee for military use. The label is classical in tone, drawing on the romance of the British Raj. It includes a drawing of a seated Gordon Highlander (supposedly Major General Sir Hector MacDonald) being served by a Sikh soldier holding a tray with a bottle of essence and jug of hot water. They are in front of a tent, at the apex of which flies a flag bearing the drink's slogan, "Ready Aye Ready". A later version of the label, introduced in the mid-20th century, removed the tray from the picture, thus removing the infinite bottles element and was seen as an attempt to avoid the connotation that the Sikh was a servant, although he was still shown waiting while the kilted Scottish soldier sipped his coffee. The current version, introduced in 2006, depicts the Sikh as a soldier, now sitting beside the Scottish soldier, and with a cup and saucer of his own. Camp Coffee is an item of British nostalgia, because many remember it from their childhood. It is still a popular ingredient for home bakers making coffee-flavoured cake and coffee-flavoured buttercream. In late 1975, Camp Coffee temporarily became a popular alternative to instant coffee in the UK, after the price of coffee doubled due to shortages caused by heavy frosts in Brazil.
****A bandeau is a narrow band of fabric worn round the head to hold the hair in position. Although bandeaus existed long before the 1920s, there was a resurgence in popularity for embroidered grosgrain ribbons to be worn around the head across the forehead in the 1920s, and they are synonymous with 1920s flapper fashion.
*****The first successful artificial silks were developed in the 1890s of cellulose fibre and marketed as art silk or viscose, a trade name for a specific manufacturer. In 1924, the name of the fibre was officially changed in the U.S. to rayon, although the term viscose continued to be used in Europe.
******Although obscure as to its origin, the term “giggling Gertie” is of English derivation and was often used in a derisive way to describe silly children and young people, usually girls, who were deemed as being flippant and foolish.
*******Queen Alexandra was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from the twenty-second of January 1901 to the sixth of May 1910 as the wife of King-Emperor Edward VII. Daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark, at the age of sixteen Alexandra was chosen as the future wife of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the son and heir apparent of Queen Victoria. When she arrived in England she was famed for her beauty and her style of dress and bearing were copied by fashion-conscious women. From Edward's death, Alexandra was queen mother, being a dowager queen and the mother of the reigning monarch. Alexandra retained a youthful appearance into her senior years, but during the Great War her age caught up with her. She took to wearing elaborate veils and heavy makeup, which was described by gossips as having her face "enamelled".
********Although today we tend to say as “pleased as punch”, the Victorian term actually began as “proud as punch”. This expression refers to the Punch and Judy puppet character. Punch's name comes from Punchinello, an Italian puppet with similar characteristics. In Punch and Judy shows, the grotesque Punch is portrayed as self-satisfied and pleased with his evil actions.
*********J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.
********** Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of upscale department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1908. Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. was an American-British retail magnate who founded the London-based department store. His twenty year leadership of Selfridge’s led to his becoming one of the most respected and wealthy retail magnates in the United Kingdom. He was known as the 'Earl of Oxford Street'.
***********Faille is a type of cloth with flat ribs, often made in silk. It has a softer texture than grosgrain, with heavier and wider cords or ribs. Weft yarns are heavier than warp, and it is manufactured in plain weaving. It was especially popular in the Nineteenth Century, and its popularity, although somewhat dwindling, did carry through into the early decades of the Twentieth Century.
This cosy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Hilda’s deal table stands her coffee grinder with its brass handle, wooden base and drawer, and red knobs. It comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The little Delftware canister and the white china bowl also come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The coffee beans in the bowl are really black carraway seeds. The vase of flowers comes from an online shop on E-Bay.
Hilda’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we have not strayed far from Cavendish Mews and are still in Mayfair, but are far enough away in her mind that Lettice has chosen to take a taxi, hailed for her by her maid Edith from the nearby square, to Bond Street where the premises of the Portland Gallery stand. She is sharing the taxi with her friend Minnie Palmerston, a banker’s wife whom she met at the Embassy Club, which is also on Bond Street. Minnie decided to attempt to redecorate her own dining room with disastrous results, so she has enlisted the assistance of Lettice, who has already established a colour palette and has ordered wall hangings and fabric for new dining chairs, to repair the damage she has done. As the taxi pulls up to the kerb, Lettice and Minnie both peer through the window at the impressive three storey Victorian building with Portland stone facings, which is where the gallery takes its name from. The ground floor part of the façade has been modernised in more recent times, and now sports magnificent plate glass windows through which passers by may look at the beautiful objets d’art artfully presented in them. Currently one window is full of brilliantly painted pottery which reminds Lettice of her Aunt Eglantine’s works, whilst the other has a single modernist statue of white marble set up against a rich black velvet curtain, bathed in light from a spotlight, giving it a very dramatic look.
“That’ll be four and six, mum.” the taxi driver says through the glass divider between the driver’s compartment and the passenger carriage as he leans back in his seat. Stretching his arm across the seat he tips his cap in deference to the well dressed ladies swathed in fox furs and stylish hats in the black leather back seat.
After paying the taxi fare for them both, Minnie encourages Lettice to alight from the taxi first. As they spill from its door, they are both mid laugh over an amusing story about a mutual acquaintance that Minnie shared with Lettice.
Minnie remarks excitedly as the taxi chugs away belching out fumes, “And thinking of gossip, I read in the newspapers that your friend Elizabeth* is going to be the Princess of Wales**.”
“You’re such a gossip, Minnie darling.” Lettice chides her friend mildly as she guides them both across the busy footpath and towards the door. “You’d be the last person I’d share Elizabeth’s confidences with.”
“So she has…”
“If she had shared any with me!” Lettice quickly extinguishes Minnie’s burrowing for gossip with a definite statement in serious and well modulated tones. “As it is, I haven’t seen her since she went to spend Christmas at St Paul’s, Walden Bury. Now come along. We are here to pick objets d’art for your dining room, not prattle about idle gossip.”
“You’re such a spoil sport!” Minnie sulks.
“I’m not when it comes to interior design.” Lettice assures her. “Now let’s find something to go with those wonderful paintings of your husband’s.”
Lettice ushers Minnie through the full length plate glass doors on which the Portland Galleries’ name is written in elegant gilt font along with the words ‘by appointment only’ printed underneath in the same hand. As the door closes behind them, shutting out the sound of noisy automobiles and chugging busses and the clatter of footsteps on the pavement and the chatter of shoppers, the air about them changes. In the crisp and cool silence of the gallery the ladies’ heels click across the black and white marble floor.
“Now, I’ve ordered wall hangings from Jeffrey and Company*** to deck out the dining room. It’s metallic and red dioxide in colour,” Lettice enthuses, suddenly aware of how her well modulated tones bounce off the hard surfaces and objects on display in the gallery. “It’s so striking, I know you’re just going to love it.”
“Hhhmmm,” Minnie muses in a non-committal fashion as her eye flits around the red painted gallery hung with paintings and populated with tables, cabinets and pillars upon which stand different sculptures and other artistic pieces.
“The wallpaper, Minnie,” Lettice sighs in exasperation, misunderstanding Minnie. “I’ve ordered it. Goodness, I do wish you’d concentrate for more than five minutes for a change.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that, Lettice darling.”
“About what?”
“About the wall hangings Lettice darling.” Minnie purrs. “I’m wondering whether we shouldn’t reconsider how the dining room is to be furbished.”
“Reconsider, Minnie?” Lettice looks with shocked and wide eyes at her friend. “What on earth do you mean, reconsider?”
“Well, I was just wondering whether it mightn’t be better to have gold wallpaper instead.”
“Gold wallpaper?”
“You know darling, to represent the golden sands of Egypt.” Minnie says with a dramatic air, raising her right hand to her forehead, her eyes drifting upwards in the affected stance of a silent film star. “Everyone I know is going positively wild over anything Egyptian after the discovery of that boy king’s tomb****. Simply mad for it, darling! All of Charles’ frightfully boring banking friends can talk of nothing else, and nor can their wives.” She giggles. “They’ve finally got something interesting to talk about.”
“But we’re here today, Minnie darling, to pick ornaments to decorate the room with. The papers are already ordered at great expense.” Lettice looks with concern at her friend. “You can’t go and change your mind now.”
“Of course I can, Lettice darling!” Minnie scoffs with a wave of her maroon coloured leather glove clad hand. “Charles is footing the bill. He’ll pay for whatever you ask, carte blanche.” She cocks one of her well manicured eyebrows over her glittering eye. “He’s convinced that anything you choose will be a patch on anything I’ve done thus far, which in reality probably isn’t too far from the truth.”
“Exactly!” Lettice retorts. “And I’ve chosen red dioxide as the colour for the dining room, not gold.”
“But gold would be so fashionable, Lettice darling!” Minnie insists. “So now!”
“And it might just as quickly be yesterday, tomorrow.” Lettice retorts, irritated at little by the fickle nature of her friend. “I’m trying to help you come up with a dining room that won’t need redecorating for a while.”
“But I…”
Lettice silences Minnie by holding up her navy glove clad hands in protestation. “I promise that it will be modern and fashionable, and yet timeless too.” She plays her trump card knowingly. “Don’t you trust me, Minnie darling?” She gazes at her friend with dewy eyes. “After all, you did ask me to redecorate the room for you. Don’t you trust my judgement any more?”
“Oh… oh no!” Minnie stutters in reply. “No! Of course I do. Your taste is excellent. Of course, you’re right.”
“Then metallic red dioxide wallpaper it will be.” Lettice says with a satisfied sigh.
“Well, I’ll settle for some rather exotic looking Egyptian statues then,” Minnie says. “Like that one you have on your mantle.”
“My ‘Theban Dancer’***** do you mean?”
“Yes, yes! She’s the one!” Minnie enthuses. “Or that daringly modern one you have on your dining room sideboard.”
“Well, they both came from the Portland Gallery, so I’m sure we can find some beautiful examples to suit you here.” Lettice assures her as she entwines her arm with her friend. “Come on, let’s see what there is.”
“Ah! Miss Chetwynd!” a mature frock coated man greets Lettice with a broad smile. Taking her hand, he kisses it affectionately, yet with respect. “How do you do.”
“Mr. Chilvers!” Lettice greets the smartly dressed man with a warm smile and the familiarity of the regular client that she is. “How do you do.”
“And to what do we owe this great pleasure of your visit today, Miss Chetwynd?” Mr. Chilvers asks obsequiously, releasing Lettice’s fingers and clasping his hands together in front of him.
Born Grand Duke Pytor Chikvilazde in the Russian seaside resort town of Odessa, the patrician gallery owner with the beautifully manicured and curled handlebar moustache fled Russia after the Revolution, escaping aboard the battleship HMS Marlborough****** from Yalta in 1919 along with the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and other members of the former, deposed Russian Imperial Family. Arriving a in London later that year after going via Constantinople and Genoa, the Russian emigree was far more fortunate than others around him on the London docks, possessing valuable jewels smuggled out of Russia in the lining of his coat. Changing his name to the more palatable Peter Chilvers, he sold most of the jewels he had, shunned his Russian heritage, honed his English accent and manners, to reinvent himself as the very British owner of an art gallery in Bond Street, thus enabling him to continue what he enjoyed most about being Grand Duke Pytor Chikvilazde and enjoy a thriving arts scene. As one of his more high profile customers, Mr. Chilvers happily fawns over Lettice, delighted that she chooses to patronise his very exclusive gallery for pieces to decorate the interiors of her clients’ homes with.
“Mr. Chilvers, this is my friend Minnie Palmerston. I’m redecorating her St John’s Wood dining room. Minnie, this is Mr Chilvers. He owns and runs the Portland Gallery.”
“Charmed, I’m sure.” Mr. Chilvers raises Minnie’s hand to his lips and kisses it, all the while admiring the beautiful redhead with striking green eyes, swathed in maroon and draped in red fox furs.
“Minnie’s taken rather a shine to my ‘Theban Dancer’ and my ‘Modern Woman’, Mr. Chilvers,” Lettice explains. “Perhaps you can show us something of a similar vein?”
“It would be my pleasure, Miss Chetwynd, Miss Palmerston,” Mr. Chilvers croons. “Right this way. I think I might have just the thing.”
“He’s the gallery owner,” Lettice whispers to her friend behind her hand. “He always thinks he has something.” She pauses. “Although to be fair, this is an amazing gallery and he often does.”
Minnie looks at Lettice with a hopeful smile.
Indicating for them to follow him with an open palm gesture, Mr. Chilvers leads the ladies through the gallery.
The rich red walls are hung with all kinds of modern paintings, many not dissimilar to those that grace the walls of Minnie and Charles’ dining room. Lettice’s own drawing room paintings come from the gallery. Dour street scenes and vibrant abstract still lives hang alongside dynamic portraits. Most of the furnishings are black japanned wood and made in a very stark, yet stylish way, so as not to distract from the artworks that sit upon their surfaces. Hand painted pottery in bright colours and ornate spun glass pieces sit upon tables and buffets and inside mirrored cabinets whilst statues stand proudly on pillars and stands. The air is rich with the fragrance of ornate floral arrangements strategically set about the gallery as colourful foils to compliment various artworks. Everywhere there is colour and interest.
“What kind of display are you looking for, ladies?” Mr. Chilvers asks as Lettice and Minnie follow in his sweetly spiced eau de cologne wake.
Minnie looks alarmingly at Lettice, who quickly answers for them both, “I have two rather tall pillars that will stand either side of an existing new tile fireplace. I also have a simple black japanned sideboard.”
“Is there a mantle on the fireplace?” the gallery owner asks as they walk.
“A small central recess only, Mr. Chilvers.” Lettice says knowledgably, much to Minnie’s surprise, for even as the owner of the fireplace she has never so much as considered whether it has a mantle or not.
“And the specifics of the room?” Mr. Chilvers asks, running his index finger along the edge of a display table as he does, rubbing his clean thumb and forefinger together and releasing a satisfied sigh as he does.
“It’s my dining room.” Minnie begins. “I tried to do the redecoration myself but…”
Lettice quickly places a forbidding arm across Minnie’s chest, silencing her. Minnie glances at her friend whose eyes widen as she shakes her head to indicate that the gallery owner doesn’t need to know about Minnie’s decorative disasters.
“The room,” Lettice says smoothly over the top of her friend. “Is in an early Victorian townhouse, so it has high ceilings and is tall rather than wide. I have metallic red dioxide papers embossed with leaves and flowers on order from Jeffrey and Company. Mr. and Mrs. Palmerston are devotees of modern art, Mr. Chilvers, so the paper, whilst striking, is really there to support their paintings already chosen for the room.”
“Always the arbiter of smart and select taste, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Chilvers replies with a smile as he glances back at the two ladies and tweaks his moustache. “So, something tall, perhaps, with some gilding?”
“Quite so, Mr. Chilvers.” Lettice agrees.
“And nothing too ornate, of course.” he adds.
“Indeed no, Mr. Chilvers.” Lettice concurs.
“You are very fortunate in your choice of interior designer, Mrs. Palmerston.” He turns back and keeps walking. “Too many women with too much time on their hands take it upon themselves to redecorate rooms, creating a disastrous and gauche pale imitation of what they have seen elsewhere, which simply doesn’t suit their homes.”
Minnie’s eyes grow wide as she glances at Lettice in alarm. Lettice silently raises he finger to her lips to indicate that she hasn’t said anything about Minnie’s attempt to redecorate her dining room herself, which makes Minnie sigh with relief.
“Rather like creating a Maida Vale dining room in St John’s Wood, would you say, Mr. Chilvers?” Minnie asks a little nervously.
“Quite so, Mrs. Palmerston. Well said.” he agrees as his pace slows. “I do so dislike bored ladies like that. I have no time for artless women who dabble in art, and I won’t have them in my gallery.”
“Oh!” Minnie bluffs with false joviality. “Oh, my husband and I quite agree with you. There is nothing worse than a poorly decorated room, Mr. Chilvers, full of tasteless tatt.” She is so grateful that the imposing gallery owner has his back to her so that he cannot see the colour of her face betraying the truth of Minnie’s experience.
“Indeed, Mrs. Palmerston,” he agrees. “But that is something you won’t have to suffer under the skilled artistic eye and adept hands of Miss Chetwynd. She has found the profession that suits and showcases her skills admirably.”
“Yes,” Minnie says, blushing deeper and smiling coyly. “I’ve seen the work she has done to the home of friends of ours.”
“Ah,” Mr. Chilvers purrs as they reach a corner of the gallery. He stops in front of a beautiful, and unusually, round flame wood cabinet on a large pedestal. “I think, ladies, you might find something to your liking in here.” He opens up the doors and turns to the two ladies. “A selection of modern sculpture and some of my finest Venetian glass*******. There are also some rather fetching sculptures to either side.” he adds with a wave of his elegant hand. “Well, I’ll leave you to discuss your choices with your client, Miss Chetwynd. I do hope, Mrs. Palmerston, that you will find something to please you.”
The two ladies watch him sweep away before turning to the cabinet.
“Thank you for not telling Mr. Chilvers about my… you know.” Minnie starts gesticulating wildly.
“You nearly gave the game up yourself, Minnie.” Lettice chides her friend kindly in a conspiratorial whisper. “Mr. Chilvers is a frightful snob. It’s almost like he comes from the highest echelons of some European aristocracy, and yet even with Leslie’s help I’ve been unable to trace him prior to opening this gallery in 1920. He’s quite the mystery! And,” she adds. “He doesn’t let just anyone shop here, even by appointment.”
“Which would explain why Charles and I have never been here.” Minnie replies.
“Indeed. Well, I think Mr. Chilvers would refuse Charles automatically on face value. Being a banker, I think he would consider him far too gauche and newly minted for his establishment.”
“Oh.” Minnie casts her eyes downwards.
“Don’t do that, Minnie darling!” Lettice puts a comforting arm around her friend. “You are a good person, and so is Charles.” She rubs Minnie’s arm. “Don’t worry about Mr. Chilvers snobbery. I can already tell that he likes you. I knew he would admire you for your striking fiery red tresses and stunning green eyes. He finds you intriguing.”
“He does?”
“Yes. He didn’t even acknowledge poor Margot on the one occasion I brought her here.”
“But she’s richer and better connected than I am.”
“Sshhh!” Lettice shushes her friend with a finger to her lips. “He obviously doesn’t think so.”
“It’s a funny way to run a business, I must say.” Minnie says as she picks up a beautiful glass comport of aqua blue and toys with it in her hands, feeling the cool material between her fingers.
“Mr. Chilvers seems to rise above all that, which is why I think he is from a very aristocratic European family. Italian perhaps?” She picks up a tall Venetian glass vase with amber decoration around its base, holding it up as if it serves as proof as to Mr. Chilver’s lineage.
“With a name like Chilvers, he can hardly be Italian, Lettice darling!” Minnie replaces the comport on the shelf.
“Oh, you can be so dense sometimes, Minnie darling!” Lettice giggles. “You don’t imagine that Chilvers is his real name, do you?”
“Well…” Minnie gulps.
“Of course it’s not! If he’s an Italian prince, or count, he probably has a real family name of Chiavaroli or Chiodini.” Lettice giggles girlishly as the syllables roll around like a foreign language in her mouth. “Anyway, going back to what I was saying before, if through being connected with me, you receive a foray into the joys of exclusive shopping here, I know you will find many a fine piece to ornament your home with. Once Mr. Chilvers knows you have taste.”
“He hasn’t seen the disaster I made of my dining room.” Minnie blurts out, interrupting her friend.
“And he doesn’t have to know about it.” Lettice soothes quietly. “Just keep mum.”
“Yes!” Minnie sighs. “Me and my big mouth. One day you won’t be around, and I’ll get myself into real trouble.”
“Well, luckily I was here, Minnie darling.” Lettice says with a smile. “Anyway, once Mr. Chilvers knows you, he’ll forgive you if you bring Charles: especially if Charles brings an open chequebook.”
“Do you think he might be Russian?” Minnie asks quietly, looking discreetly over her shoulder to Mr. Chilvers as he sits at his black japanned desk in the middle of the gallery, scribbling notes into a ledger.
“Who?” Lettice asks, wide eyed as she removes the copy of the ‘Theban Dancer’ from the middle shelf of the cabinet and considers whether it will fit onto the recess of Minnie’s dining room fireplace.
“Mr. Chilvers, of course, Lettice darling! Now who’s being dense?”
“Good heavens no!” Lettice scoffs. “He’s English is far too good and his manners too impeccable to be a Russian emigree. Have you ever met any? They can be quite horrible and so terribly haughty, even if they are now all as poor as church mice.” She too looks over to Mr. Chilvers, who either doesn’t know he is being scrutinised, or is far too polite to acknowledge it. “No, he’s Italian, I’m sure of it.” She sighs as she admires his dark hair, pale skin, and sharp cheekbones. “Now, this isn’t helping us pick any pieces for your dining room, Minnie darling. I was thinking that the ‘Theban Dancer’ you like might just fit on the small recess on your fireplace. Do you really like her enough to want her? Is she exotic enough for your current tastes?”
The two women begin to look earnestly at the objects around them to select pieces for Minnie’s dining room, and all the while, Mr. Chilvers writes in his ledger, the nib of his fountain pen scratching across the surface of the page, his ears ever alert to every whisper of conversation in his gallery, but his eyes remaining downcast out of deference for Lettice, one of his favourite customers.
*Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, as she was known at the beginning of 1923 when this story is set, went on to become Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from 1936 to 1952 as the wife of King George VI. Whilst still Duke of York, Prince Albert initially proposed to Elizabeth in 1921, but she turned him down, being "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to". He proposed again in 1922 after Elizabeth was part of his sister, Mary the Princess Royal’s, wedding party, but she refused him again. On Saturday, January 13th, 1923, Prince Albert went for a walk with Elizabeth at the Bowes-Lyon home at St Paul’s, Walden Bury and proposed for a third and final time. This time she said yes. The wedding took place on April 26, 1923 at Westminster Abbey.
**In early January 1923 a newspaper ran a gossip item that Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was soon to be engaged to Prince Albert the Duke of York’s elder brother, the Prince of Wales – a story that reportedly annoyed her. Rumour has it that part of Elizabeth’s hesitance to marry Albert was due to her being in love with David – the loftier “catch” – however, these stories are highly unlikely and probably have more to do with trying to explain her later hatred for Wallis Simpson. More likely, she knew that the story meant more pressure for her to make up her mind about Albert and she knew the rumour would wound him
***Jeffrey and Company was an English producer of fine wallpapers that operated between 1836 and the mid 1930s. Based at 64 Essex Road in London, the firm worked with a variety of designers who were active in the aesthetic and arts and crafts movements, such as E.W. Godwin, William Morris, and Walter Crane. Jeffrey and Company’s success is often credited to Metford Warner, who became the company’s chief proprietor in 1871. Under his direction the firm became one of the most lucrative and influential wallpaper manufacturers in Europe. The company clarified that wallpaper should not be reserved for use solely in mansions, but should be available for rooms in the homes of the emerging upper-middle class.
****On the 4th of November 1922, English archaeologist Howard Carter and his men discovered the entrance to the boy king, Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, sparking a worldwide interest in all things Egyptian. The craze he started became known as Tutmania, and it inspired everything from the architecture of public building and private houses alike to interior design and fashion. Famously at the time, socialite Dolores Denis Denison applied one of the earliest examples of getting the media of the day to pay attention to her because of her dress by arriving at the prestigious private view of the King Tut Exhibition in London, dressed as an Egyptian mummy complete in a golden sarcophagus and had to be carried inside by her driver and a hired man. Although it started before the discovery of the tomb, the Art Deco movement was greatly influenced by Egyptian style. Many of the iconic decorative symbols we associate with the movement today came about because of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
*****The exquisite sculpture “Theban Dancer” was cast by the esteemed Belgian-French sculptor Claire Jeanne Roberte Colinet, and is one of the most recognised figures representing the exoticism and frenetic energy and movement of the 1920s. Cast in the 1920s, the “Theban Dancer” is gilt and enamelled bronze, usually sitting upon a marble plinth.
******In 1919, King George V sent the HMS Marlborough to rescue his Aunt the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna after the urging of his mother Queen Dowager Alexandra. On the 5th of April 1919, the HMS Marlborough arrived in Sevastopol before proceeding to Yalta the following day. The ship took Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and other members of the former, deposed Russian Imperial Family including Grand Duke Nicholas and Prince Felix Yusupov aboard in Yalta on the evening of the 7th. The Empress refused to leave unless the British also evacuated wounded and sick soldiers, along with any civilians that also wanted to escape the advancing Bolsheviks. The Russian entourage aboard Marlborough numbered some 80 people, including forty four members of the Royal Family and nobility, with a number of governesses, nurses, maids and manservants, plus several hundred cases of luggage
*******Venetian glass is glassware made in Venice, typically on the island of Murano near the city. Traditionally it is made with a soda–lime "metal" and is typically elaborately decorated, with various "hot" glass-forming techniques, as well as gilding, enamel, or engraving. Production has been concentrated on the Venetian island of Murano since the Thirteenth Century. Today Murano is known for its art glass, but it has a long history of innovations in glassmaking in addition to its artistic fame - and was Europe's major centre for luxury glass from the High Middle Ages to the Italian Renaissance. During the Fifteenth Century, Murano glassmakers created cristallo—which was almost transparent and considered the finest glass in the world. Murano glassmakers also developed a white-coloured glass (milk glass called lattimo) that looked like porcelain. They later became Europe's finest makers of mirrors.
Whilst this up-market London gallery interior complete with artisan pieces may appear real to you, it is in fact made up completely with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces I have had since I was a teenager.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On the top shelf of the round Art Deco display cabinet are a selection of 1:12 artisan glass pieces. Each one is made from real blown glass and is decorated with spun glass patterning in a different colour. They all come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
On the middle shelf is a miniature artisan hand painted Art Deco statue on a “marble” plinth. Made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality of the detail in their pieces, it is a 1:12 copy of the “Theban Dancer” sculpture created by Claire-Jeanne-Roberte Colinet in 1925. She is flanked by two hand coloured spun glass comports. These I have had since I was a teenager. I acquired them from a high street shop that specialised in dolls and doll house miniatures.
The New Woman Art Deco statue on the bottom shelf of the cabinet is a hand painted 1:12 artisan pewter miniature also from Warwick Miniatures Ireland. She is named “Christianne”, and she also comes in a more risqué form as a nude.
The very striking round mirror backed mahogany Art Deco cabinet is made by high end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq. It comes from their Swanson range. The two pedestals either side of it were also made by Bespaq.
The two statues on the pedestals are 1:12 artisan miniatures also from Warwick Miniatures Ireland, however they have been had painted by me.
The black console table and the table in the foreground were made by Town Hall Miniatures.
The two porcelain vases on the console table have been hand painted and came from an online miniatures specialist on E-Bay. The glass comport is a 1:12 artisan glass piece made from real blown glass and is hand tinted. It comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The paintings on the wall come from Amber’s Miniatures in the United States.
The vase of flowers in the foreground is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium.
The Clarice Cliff style Art Deco tea set and tray on the table in the foreground have been hand painted and came from an online miniatures specialist on E-Bay.
No.73156 was one of 172 Standard Class 5 locomotives built by British Railways Workshops between 1951 and 1956. The Class was designed for mixed traffic duties throughout the Regions of British Railways.
The locomotive was one of nine examples built at Doncaster, emerging from the Plant in December, 1956 and, together with four others (Nos.73155-159), was allocated to Neasden depot (34E) at the London end of the Great Central main line. The Class 5s were not the first BR Standard type to arrive; having been preceded in 1956 by a batch of Class 4 76XXX series tender engines and Class 4 tank engines 80XXX series.
No.73156 arrived at Neasden on 6th January, 1957, one day after No.73155 and the two supplemented some seventy other steam locomotives from nine different classes. The depot also serviced locomotives arriving from the North, particularly from Leicester Central.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Lettice is visiting her family home after receiving a strongly worded instruction from her father by letter to visit without delay or procrastination. Over luncheon, Lettice was berated by her parents for her recent decision to decorate the home of the upcoming film actress, Wanetta Ward. Lettice has a strained relationship with her mother at the best of times as the two have differing views about the world and the role that women have to play in it, and whilst receiving complaints about her choice of clients, Lettice was also scolded by mother for making herself unsuitable for any young man who might present as an eligible prospect. Although Lettice is undeniably her father’s favourite child, even he has been less than receptive to her recent choices of clients, which has put her a little out of favour with him. After Lady Sadie stormed out of the dining room over one of Lettice’s remarks, Viscount Wrexham implored his headstrong youngest daughter to try and make an effort with her mother, which is something she has been mulling over during her overnight stay.
Now Lettice stands in the grand Robert Adam decorated marble and plaster entrance hall of her family home as she prepares to take her leave. Outside on the gravel driveway, Harris the chauffer has the Chetwynd’s 1912 Daimler ready to drive her to the Glynes village railway station for the one fifteen to London. She has bid farewell to her brother Leslie and her father. Now there is just one final member of the family whom she needs to say goodbye to.
“Thank you Marsden.” Lettice remarks to the liveried first footman as he carries the last of Lettice’s luggage out to the Daimler.
“I hope you have a safe journey back to London, My Lady.” Bramley, the Chetwynd’s butler remarks as he walks into the entrance hall to see Lettice off.
“Thank you, Bramley,” Lettice replies. “Oh, I’m glad you are here. Do you know where my Mother might be?”
Considering her question, the old butler looks to the upper levels and ceiling of the hall before replying knowingly. “Well, it is still mid-morning according to Her Ladyship, so I would imagine that she will be in the morning room. Shall I go and see, My Lady?”
“No thank you Bramley. You have more than enough to do I’m sure, managing this old pile of bricks, without doing that for me. I’m perfectly capable of seeking her out for myself.”
Turning on her heel, Lettice walks away from the butler, her louis heels echoing off the marble tiles around the entrance hall in her wake.
“Mamma?” Lettice trills with false cheer as she knocks with dread on the walnut door to the morning room.
When there is no reply to her call, she considers two possibilities: either her mother is still in a funk with her and not speaking to her after the scene in the dining room yesterday, or she isn’t in the morning room at all. Both are as likely as each other. Taking a deep breath, she turns the handle and opens the door, calling her mother again as she does so.
The Glynes morning room is very much Lady Sadie’s preserve, and the original classical Eighteenth Century design has been overlayed with the comfortable Edwardian clutter of continual and conspicuous acquisition that is the hallmark of a lady of her age and social standing. China cabinets of beautiful porcelain line the walls. Clusters of mismatched chairs unholstered in cream fabric, tables and a floral chaise lounge, all from different eras, fill the room: set up to allow for the convivial conversation of the great and good of the county after church on a Sunday. The hand painted Georgian wallpaper can barely be seen for paintings and photographs in ornate gilded frames. The marble mantelpiece is covered by Royal Doulton figurines and more photos in silver frames. Several vases of flowers stand on occasional tables, but even their fragrance cannot smother her mother’s Yardley Lily of the Valley scent. Lady Sadie is nowhere to be seen but cannot have been gone long judging by her floral wake.
Walking over to the Eighteenth Century bonheur de jour* that stands cosily in a corner of the room, Lettice snorts quietly with derision as she looks at the baby photograph of Leslie, her eldest brother, which stands in pride of place in a big silver frame on the desk’s serpentine top, along with a significantly smaller double frame featuring late Nineteenth Century younger incarnations of her parents. Lettice, her sister Lally and brother Lionel have been relegated to a lesser hanging space on the wall, as befits the children seen as less important by their mother. Everything has always been about Leslie as far as their mother is concerned, and always has been for as long as Lettice can remember.
Lettice runs her fingers idly over several books sitting open on the desk’s writing space. There is a costume catalogue from London and a book on Eighteenth Century hairstyles. “Making plans for the Hunt Ball.” Lettice muses with a smile. It is then that she notices a much thicker book below the costume catalogue which has a familiar looking worn brown leather cover with a gilt tooled inlay. Moving the catalogue Lettice finds a copy of Debrett’s**
“Oh Mamma!” she exhales with disappointment as she shakes her head.
As she picks it up, she dislodges a partially written letter in her mother’s elegant copperplate hand from beneath it. Lettice knows she shouldn’t read it but can’t help herself as she scans the thick white paper embossed with the Wrexham coat of arms. Its contents make her face go from its usual creamy pallor to red with frustration.
“Ahh! Lettice!” Lady Sadie’s crisp intonation slices the silence as she walks into the morning room and discovers her daughter standing over her desk. “Heading back to London, are we?” she continues cheerily as she observes her daughter dressed in her powder blue travelling coat, matching hat and arctic fox fur stole. She smiles as she indicates to the desk’s surface. “I’m making plans for my outfit for the Hunt Ball. I thought I might come as Britannia this year.”
Lettice doesn’t answer her mother immediately as she continues to stare down at the letter next to her mother’s silver pen and bottle of ink. Remembering her father’s request, she draws upon her inner strength to try and remain civil as she finally acknowledges, “How appropriate that you should come as the all-conquering female warrior.”
“Lettice?” Lady Sadie remarks quizzically.
“Perhaps you might like to reconsider your choice of costume and come as my faerie godmother, since I’m coming as Cinderella.”
“Oh, now that’s a splendid idea! Although I don’t…”
“Or better yet, come as cupid instead!” Lettice interrupts her mother hotly, anger seething through her clipped tones as she tries to keep her temper.
“Now you’re just being foolish, Lettice,” Lady Sadie replies as she walks towards her daughter, the cheerful look on her face fading quickly as she notices the uncovered copy of Debrett’s on her desk’s surface.
“Not at all, Mamma! I think it’s most apt considering what you are trying to do.”
“Trying to do? What on earth are you talking about Lettice?” the older woman chuckles awkwardly, her face reddening a little as she reaches her bejewelled right hand up to the elegant strand of collar length pearls at her throat.
Lettice picks up the letter, dangling it like an unspoken accusation between herself and her mother before looking down at it and reading aloud, “My dear Lillie, we haven’t seen you at Glynes for so long. Won’t you, Marmaduke and Jonty consider coming to the Hunt Ball this year? Do you remember how much Jonty and my youngest, Lettice, used to enjoy playing together here as children? I’m sure that now that they are both grown, they should be reacquainted with one another.” She lowers her hand and drops the letter on top of the edition of Debrett’s like a piece of rubbish before looking up at her mother, giving her a cool stare.
“It isn’t ladylike to read other people’s correspondence, Lettice!” Lady Sadie quips as she marches up to her desk and snatches the letter away from Lettice’s reach, lest her daughter should cast it into the fire cracking peaceably in the grate.
“Is it ladylike to arrange the lives of two strangers without discussing it?”
“It has long been the prerogative of mothers to arrange their children’s marriages.” The older woman defends herself. “And you and Jonty Hastings aren’t strangers, Lettice. You and he…”
“Haven’t seen each other since we were about six years old, when we played in the hedgerows together and had tea in the nursery with Nanny Webb after she had washed the mud off us!”
“Well, all the better for the two of you to become reacquainted then, as I’m suggesting to his mother.” She runs her fingers along the edges of the letter in her hands defiantly. “And I am going to send this letter, Lettice,” Her voice gathers a steely tone of determination. “Whether you like it, or lump it.”
“Yes, Pappa told me after you,” she pauses for a moment to consider her words carefully. “Left, us at luncheon yesterday, that you had been making some discreet enquiries about inviting some eligible young bachelors for me to the ball this year.”
“And so I have, Lettice.” Lady Sadie sniffs. “Since you seem incapable of finding yourself a suitable match even after your successful debut London Season, I have taken it upon myself to do some…”
“Matchmaking, Mamma?”
“Arranging, Lettice. Tarquin Howard, Sir John Nettleford-Hughes…”
“Sir John is as old as the hills!” Lettice splutters in disbelief. “You surely can’t imagine I’d consider him a likely prospect!”
“Sir John is an excellent match, Lettice. You can hardly fail to see how advantageous it would be to marry him.”
“Once I look past the twenty five, no more, years age difference. No, better he be chased by some social climbing American woman looking for an entrée into the society pages. Perhaps I should ask Miss Ward to the ball. I’m sure she would love to meet Sir John.”
Lady Sadie’s already pale face drains of any last colour at the thought of an American moving picture star walking into her well planned ball. “Well, if you won’t countenance Sir John, I’ve also invited Edward Lambley and Selwyn Spencely.”
“Selwyn Spencely?” Lettice laughs. “The guest list just gets more and more implausable.”
“What’s so implausible about Selwyn Spencely, Lettice? The Spencelys are a very good family. Selwyn has a generous income which will only increase when he eventually takes his father’s place as the next Viscount Markham. He inherited a house in Belgravia from his grandfather when he came of age, so you two can continue to live in London until you become chatelaine of Markham Park.”
“Can you hear yourself, Mamma?” Lettice cries as she raises her arms in exasperation, any good will she tried to muster for her Mother quickly dissipating. “Do you want to pick what wedding gown I am to wear too?” Lettice laughs again. “Selwyn and I haven’t laid eyes on each other for almost as long as Jonty and I.”
“Well, he’s grown into a very handsome young man, Lettice. I’ve seen his photograph in The Lady.” Her mother bustles across the end of the floral chaise where a pile of well fingered magazines sit. “Look, I can show you.”
“Oh, please don’t Mamma!” Lettice throws her hands up in protest. “Please don’t add insult to injury.”
Lady Sadie turns around, a hurt look on her face. “How can you say that to me, Lettice? I’m only trying to do right by you, by securing a suitable and advantageous marriage for you.”
“But what about love, Mamma?” Lettice sighs. “What if I don’t wish to marry at all? What if I am happy just running my interior design business.”
“Oh what nonsense, Lettice! The younger generation are so tiresome. All this talk of love! I blame those moving pictures your Ward woman stars in that you and your friends all flock to slavishly! Your Father and I had our marriage arranged. We weren’t in love.” She emphasises the last two words with a withering tone. “We’d only even met a handful of times before we were married. Love came naturally in time, and look how happy we are.” She smiles smugly with self satisfaction. “And as for your business, you aren’t Syrie Maugham***, Lettice. You’ve always been told, from an early age, that your duty as a daughter of a member of this great and noble family, even as the youngest daughter, is to marry and marry well.” She sinks onto the chaise. “This foolishness about interior design,” She flaps her glittering fingers distractedly at Lettice. “Will have to end when you get married. Whether it be Jonty, Nicolas or Selwyn, you’ll have to give it up. No respectable man of position and good breeding will have his wife working as a decorator! He’d be ashamed!”
At her mother’s harsh words, Lettice abandons any attempt to try and make an effort with her. She looks up to the ornate white painted plaster ceiling and crystal chandelier hanging in the middle of the room as she clenches her hands into fists. “Well,” she looks angrily at her mother. “We wouldn’t want my future husband to be ashamed of my success, now would we?”
“What success, Lettice?” her mother scoffs. “You were only able to decorate Gwendolyn’s small drawing room because I asked her to allow you to do it.”
“I’ve plenty of clients now, no thanks to you, Mamma!”
“Dickie and Margot don’t count, dear,” Lady Sadie replies dismissively as she fingers the edges of a copy of the Tattler distractedly. “They are your friends. Of course they were going to ask you to decorate their house.”
Lettice gasps as though her mother just punched all the air out of her chest. She stands, silent for a moment, her face flushing with embarrassment and anger. “You’ve always been so cruel to me Mamma, ever since I was little.”
“And you’ve always been so stubborn and obstinate, ever since you were a child! Goodness knows what I did to deserve a wilful daughter. Lally was so lovely and pliable, and certainly no trouble to marry off.” She folds her hands neatly in her lap over her immaculately pressed tweed skirt and looks up at her daughter. “I don’t mean to be harsh, Lettice, but someone has to make you see sense. Goodness knows your Father can’t, what with him wound around your little finger! You will have to marry eventually, Lettice, and preferably soon. It’s a foregone conclusion. It’s what is expected of you, and as I said yesterday, you aren’t getting any younger, and you certainly don’t want to be left stuck on the shelf. Just think of the shame it would bring you.”
“More think of the shame it would bring you, Mamma.” Lettice spits bitterly. “To have a daughter who is a spinster, an old maid, and in trade to boot!”
“Now there is no need to be overtly nasty, Lettice.” Lady Sadie mutters brittlely. “It’s unbecoming.”
A little gilt clock on an occasional table chimes one o’clock prettily.
“Mamma, however much I would love to sit here and share bitter quips and barbs with you all day over a pot of tea, I really do have to leave!” Lettice says with finality. “I have a train to catch. Gerald and I have a reservation at the Café Royal**** tonight.” She walks over to her mother, bends down and goes to kiss her cheek, but the older woman stiffens as she averts her daughter’s touch. Lettice sighs as she raises herself up again. “I’ll see you in a week for Dickie and Margot’s wedding and then after that for Bonfire Night*****.”
“Hopefully you’ll have come to your senses about marriage and this ridiculous designing business by then.”
Lettice raises her head proudly and takes a deep breath before turning away from her mother and walks with a purposeful stride across the room. “No I won’t, Mamma.” she says defiantly. As she opens the door to leave the morning room, she turns back to the figure of her mother sitting facing away from her towards the fire. “Pappa asked me to make an effort at the Hunt Ball, and I will. I will dance and flirt with whomever you throw in my general direction, be they old, blind or bandy-legged.” She sees her mother’s shoulders stiffen, indicating silently that she is listening, even if she doesn’t want to acknowledge that she is. “However, be under no pretence Mamma. I am doing it for him, and not you.”
“Lettice…” Lady Sadie’s voice cracks.
“And,” Lettice cuts her off sharply. “No matter who I dance with, or charm, I will not marry any of them. Goodbye Mamma.”
Lettice closes the door quietly behind her and walks back down the hallway to the entrance hall. She walks through the front doors with her head aloof, and steps into the back of the waiting Daimler. Marsden closes its door and Harris starts the engine. The chauffer can sense the tension seething through his passenger as she huffs and puffs in the spacious rear cabin, dabbing her nose daintily with a lace edged handkerchief, so he remains quiet as he steers the car down the sweeping driveway. As the car pulls away from Glynes basking in the early afternoon autumnal sun, Lettice can almost feel two sets of eyes on her back: one pair from her father looking sadly out from the library and the other her mother’s peering critically from behind the morning room curtains.
*A bonheur de jour is a type of lady's writing desk. It was introduced in Paris by one of the interior decorators and purveyors of fashionable novelties called marchands-merciers around 1760, and speedily became intensely fashionable. Decorated on all sides, it was designed to sit in the middle of a room so that it could be admired from any angle.
**The first edition of Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, containing an Account of all the Peers, 2 vols., was published in May 1802, with plates of arms, a second edition appeared in September 1802, a third in June 1803, a fourth in 1805, a fifth in 1806, a sixth in 1808, a seventh in 1809, an eighth in 1812, a ninth in 1814, a tenth in 1816, an eleventh in 1817, a twelfth in 1819, a thirteenth in 1820, a fourteenth in 1822, a fifteenth in 1823, which was the last edition edited by Debrett, and not published until after his death. The next edition came out in 1825. The first edition of The Baronetage of England, containing their Descent and Present State, by John Debrett, 2 vols., appeared in 1808. Today, Debrett's is a British professional coaching company, publisher and authority on etiquette and behaviour. It was founded in 1769 with the publication of the first edition of The New Peerage. The company takes its name from its founder, John Debrett.
***Syrie Maugham was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s and best known for popularizing rooms decorated entirely in shades of white. She was the wife of English playwright and novelist William Somerset Maugham.
****The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.
****Guy Fawkes Day, also called Bonfire Night, British observance, celebrated on November the fifth, commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Guy Fawkes and his group members acted in protest to the continued persecution of the English Catholics. Today Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated in the United Kingdom, and in a number of countries that were formerly part of the British Empire, with parades, fireworks, bonfires, and food. Straw effigies of Fawkes are tossed on the bonfire, as are—in more recent years in some places—those of contemporary political figures. Traditionally, children carried these effigies, called “Guys,” through the streets in the days leading up to Guy Fawkes Day and asked passersby for “a penny for the guy,” often reciting rhymes associated with the occasion, the best known of which dates from the Eighteenth Century.
Cluttered with paintings, photographs and furnishings, Lady Sadie’s morning room with its Georgian furnishings is different from what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The books on Lady Sadie’s desks 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. Therefore, it is a pleasure to give you a glimpse inside two of the books he has made. One of the books is a French catalogue of fancy dress costumes from the late Nineteenth Century, and the other is a book of Georgian hairstyes. To give you an idea of the work that has gone into these volumes, each book contains twelve double sided pages of illustrations and they measure thirty-three millimetres in height and width and are only three millimetres thick. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books 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. The 1908 Debrett’s Peerage book is also made by Ken Blythe, but does not open. He also made the envelopes sitting in the rack to the left of the desk and the stamps you can see next to the ink bottle. The stamps are 2 millimetres by two millimetres each! 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. I hope that you enjoy this peek at just two of hundreds of his books that I own, and that it makes you smile with its sheer whimsy!
On the desk is a 1:12 artisan miniature ink bottle and a silver pen, both made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures. The ink bottles is made from a tiny faceted crystal bead and has a sterling silver bottom and lid.
The Chetwynd’s family photos seen on the desk and hanging on the walls are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frames are almost all from Melody Jane’s Dollhouse Suppliers in the United Kingdom and are made of metal with glass in each. The largest frame on the right-hand side of the desk is actually a sterling silver miniature frame. It was made in Birmingham in 1908 and is hallmarked on the back of the frame. It has a red leather backing.
The vase of primroses in the middle of the desk is a delicate 1:12 artisan porcelain miniature made and painted by hand by Ann Dalton.
The desk and its matching chair is a Salon Reine design, hand painted and copied from an Eighteenth Century design, made by Bespaq. All the drawers open and it has a lidded rack at either end. Bespaq is a high-end miniature furniture maker with high attention to detail and quality.
The wallpaper is a copy of an Eighteenth Century blossom pattern.
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See the video here www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpaDlwlVhVU
Strobist:2 bare sb600's for BG illumination left and right rear. Sb800 shoot thru umbrella high camera right. Sb800 in 17" SB low camera left. Triggered by PW's processed in LR.
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.
Concerned about her beau, Selwyn Spencely’s, true affections for her, and worried about the threat his cousin and 1923 debutante, Pamela Fox-Chavers, posed to her own potential romantic plans with Selwyn, Lettice concocted a ruse to spy on Pamela and Selwyn at the Royal Horticultural Society’s 1923 Great Spring Show*. As luck would have it, Lettice ran into Pamela and Selwyn, quite literally in the latter’s case, and they ended up having tea together. Whilst not the appropriate place to talk about Selwyn’s mother, Lady Zinnia, whom Lettice suspects of arranging a match between Selwyn and Pamela, who are cousins, Selwyn has agreed to organise a dinner with Lettice where they can talk openly about the future of their relationship and the interference of Lady Zinnia. However, whilst Lettice waits for the dinner to be arranged, she has a wonderful distraction to take her mind off things.
That is why today we are far from London, returning to Wiltshire, where Lettice grew up at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his new wife Arabella. However, we are not at Glynes, but rather in Glynes Village at the local village hall where a much loved annual tradition is taking place. Every year the village have a summer fête, run by the local women and overseen by Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, to help raise money for a worthy cause in the village. The summer fête is one of the highlights of the village and country calendar as it always includes a flower show, a cake stand, stalls run by local famers’ wives selling homemade produce, games of hoopla, a coconut shy, a tombola and a jumble sale, a white elephant stall and a fortune teller – who is always local haberdasher Mrs. Maginot who has a theatrical bent and manages the Glynes theatrical players as well as her shop in the village high street. All the stalls and entertainments are held either in the village hall or the grounds surrounding it. Not only do the citizens of the village involve themselves in the fête, but also the gentry, and there is always much excitement when matriarch of the Brutons, Lady Gwyneth – Gerald’s mother, and Lady Isobel Tyrwhitt – Arabella’s mother, attend. Neither lady have been well over the last few years with Lady Gwyneth suffering a spate of bronchial infections and Lady Isobel receiving treatment for cancer, so it is a rare treat to have both in attendance. This year’s summer fête is a special one for Arabella in particular, for as the newly minted Mrs. Leslie Chetwynd, she now joins the effort to help run the Glynes summer fête for the first time and has been given the second-hand clothing stall to run as part of the jumble sale.
The Glynes village hall is a hive of activity, and the cavernous space resounds with running footsteps, voluble chatter from the mostly female gathering, hammering and children’s laughter and tears as they run riot around the adults as they set up their stalls. Mr. Lovegrove, who runs the village shop, climbs a ladder which is held by the elderly church verger Mr. Lewis and affixes the brightly coloured Union Jacks and bunting that have been used every year since the King’s Coronation in 1911 around the walls. Lady Sadie casts a critical eye over the white elephant stall, rearranging items to put what she considers the best quality items on more prominent display, whilst removing a select few pieces which she thinks unsuitable for sale, which she passes to Newman, her ladies maid, to dispose of. Bramley, the Chetwynd’s butler arranges and categorises books for the second-hand book stall, perhaps spending a little too much time perusing some of the titles. Mrs. Elliott who runs the Women’s Institute manages the influx of local women bringing in cakes with regimental efficiency. And amongst all the noise, activity and excitement, Arabella busies herself unpacking boxes of old clothes and tries her best to make her trestle an attractive addition to the summer fête. Lettice perches on an old bentwood chair, offering suggestions to her sister-in-law whilst pulling faces as she lifts up various donations before depositing them in disgust where they had been beforehand.
“Here we are then,” Gerald announces as he walks across the busy floor of the hall bearing a wooden tray containing several teacups and a plate of cupcakes from the refreshments stand, narrowly avoiding Mrs. Lovegrove’s two youngest children as they chase one another around his legs. The sound of his jolly call and his footsteps joining all the other cacophony of setting up going on around him. “Refreshments for the hard workers,” he looks at Arabella. “And the not-so-hard-workers.” he looks at Lettice.
“Don’t be cheeky!” Lettice says to him with a hard stare, letting a limp stocking fall from her hand and collapse into a wrinkled pool on the trestle table’s surface.
Gerald puts the three tea cups down where he can find a surface on Arabella’s trestle table, followed by a long blue and gilt edged platter on which sit three very festive cupcakes featuring Union Jacks made of marzipan sticking out of white clouds of icing.
“Mrs. Casterton’s special cupcakes.” he announces proudly with a beaming smile.
“How on earth did you get those, Gerald?” gasps Lettice in surprise, eyeing the dainty cakes greedily. “Mrs. Casterton hasn’t let me take food from her kitchen since I started dining at the table with the rest of the family, never mind pinch anything from her stall for the fundraiser!”
“It helps when you aren’t her employer’s indulged youngest child.” Gerald says, tapping his nose knowingly.
“I was not an indulged child!” Lettice defends, raising her hand to the boat neckline of her frock and grasping her single strand of creamy white pearls hanging about her neck. “You were more indulged by Aunt Gwen than I ever was by Mater or Pater.”
“Oh, just ignore him, Tice!” laughs Arabella from her place behind the trestle. “You know Gerald has always had the ability to charm anything from anyone when he wants to.”
“That’s true,” Lettice replies, eyeing Gerald with a cocked eyebrow and a bemused smile as she picks up her magenta and gilt rimmed cup and sips her tea. “I had forgotten that.”
“What can I say?” laughs Gerald proudly with a shrug of his shoulders.
“It’s not so much what you can say as what you can do, Gerald.” mutters Arabella with a frustrated sigh.
“I am at your service, my lady?” Gerald replies, making a sweeping bow before Arabella and Lettice, who both laugh at his jester like action.
“Be careful what you promise, Gerald.” giggles Lettice.
“Bella would never expect too much from me, Lettice.” Gerald retorts with a smile. “She’s known me all her life and she knows what my limitations are.”
“Well, I was hoping you could help me by working some magic on my second hand clothing stall.” Arabella remarks with another frustrated sigh as she tugs at the old fashioned shirtwaister** blouse with yellowing lace about the collar. “I’ve tried and tried all morning, but nothing I seem to do helps make anything look more modern and more attractive to buy.”
Lettice and Gerald look around at Arabella’s stall. The shirtwaister outfit with its pretty, albeit slightly marked, lace, tweed skirt and leather belt with a smart, yet old fashioned Art Nouveau buckle really is the most attractive piece that she has on display. Around it on the surface of her trestle are a jumble of yellowing linen napkins complete with tarnished napkin rings, a selection of embroidered, tatted*** and crocheted doilies, mismatched pairs of leather and lace gloves and several rather worn looking hats that are really only suitable for gardening now, rather than being worn to church services on Sunday.
“I warned you Gerald.” Lettice says with a knowing wink.
“Don’t you remember how much we all felt sorry for whomever ran the second-hand clothing stall at the fête each year as children, Bella?” Gerald asks.
“It was always the short straw.” Lettice adds.
“Yes, being stuck under the piercing stare of His Majesty.” Gerald indicates to the portrait of King George V, dating back to the pre-war years when the King still had colour in his hair.
“The worst stall to have because none of the villagers ever seem to have anything nice or remotely fashionable to donate, even for a good cause like new books for the village school.” Lettice picks up a pretty primrose yellow napkin. “These are nice at least.”
“Except there are only three of them.” points out Arabella with a disappointed air. “I can’t seem to find a fourth.” She picks up a red dyed straw hat in the vain hope that it will be there, even though she has searched beneath it three times already. “And I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Tea for two, perhaps?” Gerald suggests hopefully as he picks up his own teacup and takes a sip of tea.
“Oh, you two are no help!” scoffs Arabella. “I’ve a right mind to stick you both with these!” She grasps a pair of knitting needles complete with some rather dreadfully made rows of incomplete knitting and a ball of wool and thrusts them through the air between she, Lettice, and Gerald. “They’ll get you working.”
“Even if they do, Bella, we aren’t miracle workers.” remarks Gerald.
All three of them laugh good heartedly.
“Oh I must make the best of it,” Arabella sighs resignedly as she tugs at the left leg-of-mutton sleeve**** of the shirtwaister. “After all, this is my first year as Leslie’s wife, and the first jumble sale I am actively helping to run to help raise funds for the village. I must make this stall a success no matter what.” The steely determination in her voice surprises her as she speaks. “I’m a Chetwynd now, and I can’t disappoint the villagers with a poor show.”
“Nor Mater.” adds Lettice, taking another sip of tea.
“No indeed!” agrees Gerald. “Lady Sadie will be judging you from afar, Bella, rest assured. If your stall isn’t a great success, you’ll hear about it.”
“In a dozen little quips.” Lettice adds.
“More like a hundred.” corrects Gerald.
“Tearing delicately phrased strips off you.” agrees Lettice.
“Inflicting as much pain for as long as possible.” adds Gerald with seriousness.
“Oh stop, Gerald!” laughs Arabella. “She isn’t anywhere near as much of a dragon as you and Tice paint her to be.”
“You’ve only been married to the family for a little while now,” Lettice counters, looking at her sister-in-law over the magenta and gilt painted rim of her cup. “And you and Leslie have your own lives and are left pretty much to your own devices down in the Glynes Dower House from what I can gather. We’ll give you a little while longer to find out the truth about your wicked mother-in-law.” She smiles cheekily.
“I have grown up alongside you, going in and out of your house, Tice,” Arabella replies with a dismissive wave of her hand. “So it’s not like Sadie is an unknown quantity to me.”
“But you’ve never been a recipient of her acerbic tongue either, I’ll wager.” adds Gerald dourly. “You’re far too sweet and compliant a young daughter-in-law for that, but both Lettice and I have.”
“I still don’t know,” Lettice queries, turning her attention to Gerald. “What was it you said to Mater that night of Hunt Ball that set her so against you, Gerald? I’ve never known her to take against anyone so vehemently, except perhaps poor Aunt Egg who can never do any right in her eyes.”
Gerald blushes, remembering the altercation he had with Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, at the ball. In a slightly inebriated state he told her that neither she nor Lettice had any sway over Selwyn Spencely’s choice of a wife, any more than Selwyn did himself, explaining that it was his mother, the Duchess of Mumford, Lady Zinnia, who would choose a wife for him. “I keep telling you, darling girl. I really don’t remember,” he replies awkwardly, covering his tracks as best as he can. “If you remember, I was rather tight***** that night on your father’s champagne.”
“Well,” Arabella says with a sigh. “I’m determined not to incur her wrath, even though I’m sure it’s nowhere near as awful as you two suggest.”
“Oh-oh!” Gerald mutters under his breath to Lettice. “In coming.”
“Oh no.” moans Lettice quietly in return behind the painted smile she places on her face as she, Gerald and Arabella are suddenly set upon by the Miss Evanses, the two spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house in the village.
The trio smile benignly as the two sisters twitter to one another in crackling voices that sound like crisp autumn leaves underfoot as they approach them.
“Well, twice in as many weeks, Miss Chetwynd!” exclaims the younger of the Miss Evanses in delight, a joyous smile spreading across her dry, unpainted lips. “Last week at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show, and now here! How very blessed we are to see you again.”
“How do you do, Miss Evans, Miss Evans,” Lettice acknowledges them both with a curt nod from her seat. She glances at the two old women, who must be in their seventies at least, both dressed in a similar style to when she saw them last week at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show, in floral gowns of pre-war Edwardian era length, their equally old fashioned whale bone S-bend corsets****** forcing their breasts into giant monobosoms down which sautoirs******* of glittering Edwardian style beads on gold chains cascade. Wearing toques with feather aigrettes jutting out of them atop their waved white hair they look like older versions of Queen Mary.
“I’m afraid you are a little early for the jumble sale, Miss Evans and Miss Evans,” Arabella remarks sweetly. “We are still setting up.”
“Oh, thank you! We know, Mrs. Chetwynd.” twitters the elder of the Miss Evanses, surprising Arabella a little as she still gets used to being referred to by her new married name. “I was just remarking to Henrietta this very morning over breakfast that we do so much look forward to the village fête every year.”
“Yes, it’s a nice way for us to be able to support the local community in our own small way, isn’t that right Geraldine?” enthuses her sister, raising her white lace glove clad hand to her wrinkled and dry mouth as she giggles in a rather unseemly girlish way.
“Indeed yes, Henrietta. It is to aid the school this year, is it not?”
“It is Miss Evans.” Arabella confirms. “To help buy new books for the children.”
“A very fine cause, I must say,” the younger of the Miss Evanses remarks indulgently. “Helping the young ones to read and develop their fertile minds. Rather like gardening, wouldn’t you say?”
“It is not even remotely like gardening!” quips her sister. “Stop talking such nonsense Henrietta.”
“We shall of course be glad of your patronage when the jumble sale opens in an hour.” Arabella quickly says in an effort to diffuse any unpleasantness between the two spinster sisters, at the same time emphasising the time the sale begins.
“Well,” adds the elder of the Miss Evanses seriously. “We shall of course come and spend a few shillings and pence when it opens officially, but…”
“Oh!” interrupts the younger of the Miss Evanses. “Is your frock designed by Master Bruton, Miss Chetwynd?” She addresses Gerald in the old fashioned deference of the village and county folk when addressing the children of the bigger aristocratic houses.
“Yes, Miss Evans. Mr. Bruton,” Lettice applies gravatas to the correct reference to Gerald’s name now that he is of age. “Did design my frock.”
“Oh it’s ever so smart!” the younger of the sisters enthuses.
“Thank you, Miss Evans.” Gerald acknowledges her.
“And your hat?” Miss Evans points to the yellow straw hat. “Didn’t I see you wearing that at Master Leslie’s wedding to Miss Arabella?”
“Mrs. Chetwynd, I think you mean, Henrietta.” corrects her sister with a sharpness to her remark.
“Oh yes!” bristles the younger Miss Evans at her sister’s harsh correction, raising her hand to her mouth again. “Yes of course! Mrs. Chetwynd, I do apologise.”
“It’s quite alright, Miss Evans.” Arabella assures her. “I am still getting used to being Mrs. Chetwynd myself.”
“How very observant of you, Miss Evans.” Lettice addresses the younger of the siblings. “I did indeed have my hat made for Leslie and Bella’s wedding. It was made by a friend of Mr. Bruton’s, Miss Harriet Milford.”
“Yes, well thinking of hats, I…” begins the elder Miss Evans.
“Oh it’s most becoming, Miss Chetwynd.” the younger Miss Evans interrupts her sister again as she compliments Lettice in an obsequious manner, followed by another twittering giggle.
“I can send someone down to Holland House this afternoon after the fête with her details if you like.” Lettice replies. “The next time you’re in London, you might pay her a call.”
The two sisters give one another a sour look at the idea, their lips thinning and their eyes lowering as they nod to one another in unison before turning back to Lettice and Gerald.
“Aside from the Great Spring Show, we don’t have much call to go up to London these days, do we Henrietta?”
“Indeed no, Geraldine.” agrees the younger Miss Evans between pursed lips, a tinge of regret in her statement.
“Besides we find the services of Mrs. Maginot’s in the high street to be quite adequate.”
“Good lord!” gasps Gerald, causing the two spinster sisters to blush at his strong language. “Is old Mrs. Maginot still going?” He chuckles. “Fancy that!”
The elder Miss Evans clears her dry and raspy throat awkwardly before continuing. “For our more bucolic, and doubtlessly simple tastes, Master Bruton, we find Mrs. Maginot to be quite satisfactory.” Both sisters raise their lace gloved hands to their toques in unison, patting the runched floral cotton lovingly. “We aren’t quite as fashionable as you smart and select London folk down here in sleepy little Glynes, Master Bruton, Miss Chetwynd, but we manage to keep up appearances.”
“On indeed yes, Miss Evans.” Lettice replies with an amused smile. “No-one could fault you on maintaining your standards.”
“I imagine you will soon be designing Miss Chetwnd’s own wedding frock, Master Bruton.” the younger of the Miss Evanses announces rather vulgarly.
“That’s only if I let her get married, Miss Evans,” Gerald teases her indulgently. “I might like to whisk her away and lock her in a tower so that I can keep her all to myself.”
“After what we all saw with our own eyes at the Hunt Ball, I’m sorry Master Bruton, but I don’t think you are in the running for Miss Chetwynd’s affections!” the younger Miss Evans twittering giggle escapes her throat yet again as her eyes sparkle with delight at the very faintest whiff of any gossip.
“How is Mr. Spencely, Miss Chetwynd?” the elder Miss Evans asks pointedly, her scrutinising gaze studying Lettice’s face.
Lettice blushes at the directness of both Miss Evans’ question and her steely gaze. “Oh, he’s quite well, as far as I know, Miss Evans.” she replies awkwardly.
“As far as you know?” the older woman’s outraged tone betrays her surprise as she looks quizzically into Lettice’s flushed face.
“Well, I haven’t seen Selw… err, Mr. Spencely just as of late.”
“Oh?” the elder Miss Evans queries. “I thought we saw you leave the tent we were in at the Great Spring Show, on the arm of Mr. Spencely.”
“Yes, I’m sure it was him, Miss Chetwynd.” adds the younger Miss Evans as she raises a lace clad finger in thought. “He’s very striking and hard to mistake for someone else.”
Silently Lettice curses the beady eyed observation the two spinster sisters are known for. Of course, they of all people at the bustling and crowded Chelsea flower show, noticed her inadvertent stumble into Selwyn and then her departure with him. Although perfectly innocent, and accompanied by her married friend Margot Channon, and Selwyn’s cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers, she can see how easily the Miss Evanses can construe the situation to their own advantage of spreading salacious London gossip about Lettice, as daughter of the local squire, around the citizenry of Glynes village.
“I believe you were here for a purpose, Miss Evans.” Gerald pipes up, quickly defending his best friend from any more uncomfortable cross examination.
“Oh,” the elder Miss Evans replies, the disappointment at the curtailing of her attempt to gather gossip clear in both her tone of voice and the fall of her thin and pale face. “Yes.” She turns to Arabella. “I have actually come early today to see you on business, Mrs. Chetwynd.”
“Me, Miss Evans?” Arabella raises her hand to the scalloped collar of her blouse and toys with the arrow and heart gold and diamond broach there – a wedding gift from her husband.
“Yes.” replies the elder of the two sisters. “You see, when I heard that you were running the second-hand stall this year, I did feel sorry for you.”
“Sorry for me, Miss Evans?”
“Yes,” she replies, screwing up her eyes. “For as you know, there is always a poor offering of donated goods by the other villagers, and it makes for a rather sad and depressing sight amidst all this gaiety.” She gesticulates over Arabella’s trestle with a lace glove clad hand, sending forth the whiff of lavender, cloves and camphor in the process.
“Unless you are donating one of your lovely frocks to the sale, Master Bruton?” the younger of the Miss Evanses adds with a hopeful lilt in her voice. “I should buy it, even if it didn’t fit me.”
Gerald splutters and chokes on the gulp of tea he has just taken as the question is posed of him. Coughing, he deposits his cup quickly and withdraws a large white handkerchief which he uses to cover his mouth and muffle his coughs.
“Oh, poor Master Bruton!” exclaims the younger of the Miss Evanses as she reaches out and gently, but pointlessly, taps Gerald on the shoulder in an effort to help him. “Did you tea go down the wrong way?”
“I arrest my case.” her elder sister snaps giving Gerald a steely, knowing look.
“Now be fair, Miss Evans,” Lettice defends her friend, filled with a sudden burst of anger towards the hypocritical old woman, who despite having plenty of money of her own, only spends a few shillings at the fundraiser every year. “Gerald is still establishing himself in London! He cannot afford to give one of his frocks away when he has to pour what little profit he currently makes back into supporting and promoting his atelier.”
“As you like, Miss Chetwynd.” Miss Evans replies dismissively. “It is a pity though that neither Master Bruton, nor yourself could cast something Mrs. Chetwynd’s way, to help make her stall more,” She pauses momentarily as she considers the correct word. “Appealing.”
Lettice feels the harshness of the old woman’s rebuke, but she says nothing as she feels a flush of shame rise up her neck and fill her face.
“Geraldine!” her younger sister scolds her. “That’s most uncharitable of you.”
“Charity, my dear Henrietta, begins at home.” She looks critically at the knotted half completed knitting, the yellow and age stained linen and the mismatched gloves. “And Mrs, Chetwynd, I see that try as you might, you cannot disguise the usually dispirited efforts of the village used clothing drive this year.”
“Oh, well I haven’t really finished setting up yet, Miss Evans.” Arabella defends herself. “There are still some things to unpack from the boxes behind me.” She indicates to several large wooden crates stacked up behind her against the wall under the watchful gaze of the King.
“Which are items that doubtlessly didn’t sell last year, or the year before that have been shuffled away, only to make their annual reappearance.”
“Perhaps you have something appealing,” Lettice emphasises her re-use of the elder Miss Evans’ word as she tries to regain some moral standing against the older woman. “To offer at this year’s second-hand clothing stall, Miss Evans.”
“As a matter of fact,” the elder Miss Evans replies with a self-satisfied smile and sigh. “That is exactly why I am here.”
With a groaning heave, she foists the wicker basket, the handle of which she has been grasping in her bony right hand, up onto the trestle table’s surface. She opens one of the floral painted flaps and withdraws a large caramel felt Edwardian style picture hat of voluminous pre-war proportions from within the basket’s interior. The brim of the hat is trimmed with coffee and gold braid, woven into an ornate pattern whilst the crown is smothered in a magnificent display of feathers in curlicues and the brim decorated with sprigs or ornate autumnal shaded foliage and fruit.
“As I said, charity begins at home, so I thought I would add some style and panache to your stall, Mrs. Chetwynd, with the addition of this beautiful hat.”
“Oh, thank you, Miss Evans.” Arabella says with a sweet, yet slightly forced smile as the older woman tears off a smaller blue stiffed lace hat from a wooden hatstand and replaces it with her enormous millinery confection.
“I know it is only a hat from Mrs. Maginot, and not a London milliner,” she looks pointedly at Lettice. “But I dare say it will be more than suitable for our modest little country jumble sale.”
“Oh I’m sure it will be,” Arabella lies politely as she looks in dismay at the old fashioned headwear.
“Geraldine!” gasps her sister in disbelief. “You love that hat! I remember you had Mrs. Maginot make it for the King’s Coronation celebrations at great expense!”
“That’s true, Henrietta, but it just sits in a box at home these days and never gets worn anymore. It seems a shame to hide it away when it could look fetching on another’s head in church on Sunday. No-one will have anything to rival it. Not even you, Miss Chetwynd.”
“I agree with that,” whispers Lettice discreetly into Gerald’s ear, unnoticed by either of the spinster sisters. “I’d rather die than be caught in that ghastly thing. It looks every minute of it’s age.”
“Just a touch Miss Havisham, don’t you think?” Gerald whispers back, causing both he and Lettice to quietly snort and stifle their giggles.
“Well, that really is most kind of you, Miss Evans.” Arabella says loudly and brightly with a polite nod of acknowledgement, anxious to cover up the mischievous titters from her friend and sister-in-law.
“It’s my pleasure.” she replies with a beatific smile. “Well, we shan’t hold you up any longer from doing your setting up of the clothes, Mrs. Chetwynd. Come along Henrietta. Let’s go and make sure Mr. Beatty has my floral arrangement in a suitably advantageous place. I’m not having it shunted to the back like last year.”
“Oh, yes Geraldine.” her sister replies obsequiously.
Lettice, Gerald and Arabella watch as the two old ladies slowly retreat and heave a shared sigh of relief.
Gerald deposits his cup on the trestle’s surface and walks up to the grand Edwardian hat and snatches it off the wooden stand before placing it atop his own head with a sweeping gesture. “Do you think it suits me?” he laughs.
Lettice and Arabella laugh so much they cannot answer.
“Well,” Gerald sighs, returning the hat to the stand. “Even if Hattie could make hats a hundred times more fashionable than this, maybe some local lady who is a bit behind the times will want to take this beauty home.” He arranges it carefully on the rounded block so that it shows off the autumnal themed fruit garland pinned to the wide felt brim.
“That’s the spirit I need, Gerald.” Arabella manages to say as she recovers from laughing at her friend’s theatrical modelling of the hat, and quietly she hopes that someone will buy the hat and everything else she has in her remit to sell, to help raise money for schoolbooks for the local village and country children that attend the Glynes Village School.
*May 20 1913 saw the first Royal Horticultural Society flower show at Chelsea. What we know today as the Chelsea Flower Show was originally known as the Great Spring Show. The first shows were three day events held within a single marquee. The King and Queen did not attend in 1913, but the King's Mother, Queen Alexandra, attended with two of her children. The only garden to win a gold medal before the war was also in 1913 and was awarded to a rock garden created by John Wood of Boston Spa. In 1919, the Government demanded that the Royal Horticultural Society pay an entertainment tax for the show – with resources already strained, it threatened the future of the Chelsea Flower Show. Thankfully, this was wavered once the Royal Horticultural Society convinced the Government that the show had educational benefit and in 1920 a special tent was erected to house scientific exhibits. Whilst the original shows were housed within one tent, the provision of tents increased after the Great War ended. A tent for roses appeared and between 1920 and 1934, there was a tent for pictures, scientific exhibits and displays of garden design. Society garden parties began to be held, and soon the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show became a fixture of the London social calendar in May, attended by society ladies and their debutante daughters, the occasion used to parade the latter by the former. The Chelsea Flower Show, though not so exclusive today, is still a part of the London Season.
**A shirtwaister is a woman's dress with a seam at the waist, its bodice incorporating a collar and button fastening in the style of a shirt which gained popularity with women entering the workforce to do clerical work in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.
***Tatting is a technique for handcrafting a particularly durable lace from a series of knots and loops. Tatting can be used to make lace edging as well as doilies, collars, accessories such as earrings and necklaces, and other decorative pieces.
****A leg of mutton sleeve is a sleeve that has a lot of fullness around the shoulder-bicep area but is fitted around the forearm and wrist. Also known as a gigot sleeve, they were popular throughout different periods of history, but in particular the first few years of the Twentieth Century.
*****’Tight’ is an old fashioned upper-class euphemism for drunk.
******Created by a specific style of corset popular between the turn of the Twentieth Century and the outbreak of the Great War, the S-bend is characterized by a rounded, forward leaning torso with hips pushed back. This shape earned the silhouette its name; in profile, it looks similar to a tilted letter S.
*******A Sautoir is a long necklace consisting of a fine gold chain and typically set with jewels, a style typically fashionable in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.
Whilst this charming village fête scene may appear real to you, it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection, including items from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Perhaps the main focus of our image, the elder Miss Evans’ camel coloured wide brimmed Edwardian picture hat is made of brown felt and is trimmed with miniature coffee coloured braid. The brim is decorated with hand curled feathers, dyed to match the shade of the hat, as well as a spray of golden “grapes” and dyed flowers. Acquired from an American miniatures collector who was divesting herself of some of her collection, I am unsure who the maker was, other than it was made by an American miniature artisan. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism such as these are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable.
The shirtwaister dummy, complete with lace blouse, tweed skirt and Art Nouveau belt attached to a lacquered wooden base, is an artisan miniature as well, once again by an unknown person. It came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom.
The divine little patriotic cupcakes, each with a Union Jack on the top, has been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. Each cupcake is only five millimetres in diameter and eight millimetres in height! The plate on which they stand and the teacups on the table are made by the Dolls House Emporium and are part of a larger sets including plates, tureens and gravy boats.
Miss Evans’ wicker picnic basket that can be seen peeping out near the right-hand side of the picture was made by an unknown miniature artisan in America. The floral patterns on the top have been hand painted. The hinged lids lift, just like a real hamper, so things can be put inside. When I bought it, it arrived containing the little yellow napkins folded into triangles and the hand embroidered placemats that you see on the table in the foreground.
The knitting needles and tiny 1:12 miniature knitting, the red woven straw hat, the doilies, the stockings and the napkins in their round metal rings all came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The elbow length grey ttravelling gloves on the table are artisan pieces made of kid leather. I acquired these from a high street dolls house specialist when I was a teenager. Amazingly, they have never been lost in any of the moves that they have made over the years are still pristinely clean.
The wooden boxes in the background with their Edwardian advertising labels have been purposely aged and came from The Dolls’ House Supplier in the United Kingdom.
The Portrait of King George V in the gilt frame in the background was created by me using a portrait of him done just before the Great War of 1914 – 1918. I also created the Union Jack bunting that is draped across the wall in the background.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews. We have travelled east across London, through Bloomsbury, past the Smithfield Meat Markets, beyond the Petticoat Lane Markets* frequented by Lettice’s maid, Edith, through the East End boroughs of Bethnal Green and Bow, and through the 1880s housing development of Upton Park, to East Ham. It is here that we have followed Edith and her beau, grocery delivery boy Frank, to the Premier Super Cinema**, where, just before Christmas, Edith is being treated to her festive season gift from Frank.
The pair of lovers stand in the warmth of the cinema’s foyer, which as well as being a welcome place of warmth after the December chill of the journey up the High Street from the East Ham railway station, it is also brightly lit and cheerful. The cinema, renovated the previous year, isn’t called a picture palace for nothing, and no expense has been spared with thick red wall-to-wall carpets covering the floors and brightly coloured up-to-date Art Deco wallpaper covering the walls.
“And did Mrs. Boothby’s son like the book you gave him?” Frank asks his sweetheart.
Several months ago, Edith met Lettice’s Cockney charwoman*** Mrs. Boothby’s son, a forty-two year old man who is a sweet and gentle giant with the aptitude of a six year old, when Mrs. Boothby sold her a good quality second-hand hand treadle sewing machine. The old Cockney woman found it easier not to mention that she has a son, not because she is ashamed of him, but because not everyone outside of her Poplar neighbourhood would understand her wanting to keep and raise a child with such difficulties. Mrs. Boothby took Edith into her confidence by introducing her to her son, Ken, so aside from Frank, Edith hasn’t told anyone about Ken’s existence, not even her best friend Hilda. Several weeks ago, she bough Ken a copy of Beatrix Potter’s ‘The Tale of Benjamin Bunny’ from Selfridge’s as a Christmas gift because she discovered after meeting him how much he likes rabbits.
“Oh yes Frank! He loved it! He had me read it to him twice over when I visited Mrs. Boothby’s house for tea last Sunday. I think Mrs. Boothby was very touched that I should think of Ken at Christmas time. But why shouldn’t I? After all, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have a beautiful new sewing machine to whip up frocks on. He’s ever such a sweet soul. No wonder he is known as the gentle giant of Poplar.”
“That’s my girl,” Franks says proudly. “Generous to, and thoughtful of others.”
“Oh Frank!” Edith blushes at the compliment.
“I have to say that you’re looking every inch a lady, like your Miss Chetwynd, Edith,” Frank says as he admires the companion on his arm, dressed smartly in her three-quarter length black winter coat and purple rose and black feather decorated straw hat. “Far too grand for the likes of me.”
“Oh nonsense, Frank!” Edith scoffs in reply. “I’m not wearing anything new. My coat came from a Petticoat Lane second-hand clothes stall.” She gathers the hem in her black glove clad hand. “I picked it up dead cheap and remodelled it myself. The hat I decorated with bits and bobs I picked up from Mrs. Minkin’s down in Whitechapel.”
“Well, with that fancy new bag of yours,” He points to her snakeskin handbag with the gold chain slung over her wrist. “You look like you could afford to buy every seat in the cinema.”
“Oh, get away with you Frank!” Edith playfully slaps his arm with her left hand, before winding her right arm more tightly through his left arm and snuggling closer against his shoulder. “It’s second hand from Petticoat Lane too.” She pauses for a moment before continuing. “Mind you, I did buy it because I really wanted one like Miss Lettice’s.”
“That’s my girl, bettering herself all the time.” Frank says proudly.
“But not enough to better myself from you, Frank Leadbetter.” she coos softly in return.
“I just wish I could have afforded to buy you a better Christmas gift, Edith.”
“What?” Edith cries. “A slap up tea at Lyons Corner House**** on Tottenham Court Road, some delicious Gainsborough Dubarry Milk Chocolates*****,” She pats the side of her handbag in which the chocolates sit. “And a trip to the pictures! What more could a girl ask for, for Christmas?”
“I’d have liked to have got you something proper though Edith.”
“Like what?”
“Like a nice brooch or something.” Frank admits with a disappointed tone in his voice. “A girl like you deserves a nice piece of jewellery from her chap.”
“I don’t need any jewellery from you, Frank.” Edith assures him. “You give me all I need.” She gives his arm a gentle squeeze, eliciting a blush from the young man. “I’d much rather you save your pennies than spend them on unnecessary frippery for me.”
“It’s not frippery when we’re talking about you, Edith.” Frank mutters.
“Yes, it is, when you’re talking about wanting to move away from your current lodging house, Frank. Aren’t you always complaining to me about how it smells of boiled cabbage, and that your landlady who won’t allow any of you to have lady callers even visit and sit in the parlour with her as chaperone?”
“You wouldn’t want to sit in Mrs. Chapman’s front parlour, believe me!” Frank assures her with raised eyebrows. “Between the stink of cabbage, the sticky oil cloth on the tea table and the miserly amount of coal she ever puts on the fire, it’s not a welcoming place.”
“Well then, Frank Leadbetter! All the better you save your pennies and move to a different house with a nicer landlady who doesn’t cook cabbage, does put coals on the fire, and welcomes visitors.”
“I might need a better paying job for that.” Frank admits. “But I’m hoping that Mr. Willison might give me an increase to my wages in the new year. I’ve been doing more for him, ever since Mrs. Willison became poorly after catching pneumonia last month and she’s had to rest at home, and he’s been spending more time at home taking care of her.”
“That’d be good, Frank.”
“I know! I’ve taken on a lot more duties and been a real help. Mr. Willison even said so not last week.”
“Well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, Frank.”
“Just think, if I did get an increase in my wages, I could afford to buy you a nice piece of jewellery, Edith.”
“Now don’t go spending it before you get it, Frank.” Edith scolds her beau, not unkindly. “Come on. Let’s decide what we’re going to see.”
The pair of lovers scan the brightly coloured posters plastered across the walls. Rudolph Valentino looks smoulderingly into the eyes of Nita Naldi as he holds her dramatically in his arms in an advertisement for ‘Blood and Sand’******. Marion Davies looks sombre yet beautifully aristocratic draped in jewels as Mary Tudor in ‘When Knighthood was in Flower’*******. John Bowers looks grimly down upon them as he holds Madge Bellamy to his side in an advertisement for ‘Lorna Doone’********.
“Look at this, Frank!” Edith gasps, pointing to a stand upon which is advertised another film.
“The Gipsy Cavalier*********,” Frank reads aloud the title printed in red script on the promotional lobby poster. “It looks like a lavish production.” he adds as he scans the images in the poster.
“It’s made here in England,” Edith says excitedly as she scans the credit information in fine print at the bottom of the poster. “So it might star Wanetta Ward!”
“Didn’t you tell me that she works for Islington Studios**********, Edith, not Vitagraph***********.”
“Well, she’s a big star here now, so she may work for several studios. Can we see this, please Frank?”
“Well,” Frank replies. “This is your Christmas gift, so of course we can see it.”
A short while later, the pair mill about the brightly illuminated foyer along with a handful of other patrons outside the cinema door, waiting for the film currently showing to end. Eventually, the double doors open and with the voluble burble of cheerful chatter, people begin to file out the door in pairs or small groups. Edith and Frank stand aside, next to the board advertising The Gipsy Cavalier to let them pass. Amongst them are two girls around the same age as Edith, one slender with a hard face and angular features in a moss green coat and black cloche hat, and her companion, a dark haired, rather pale, and doughy girl in a dark brown coat and matching cloche. At the sight of Frank and Edith the larger girl comes to a sudden halt, pulling up her thinner friend with whom she has linked her arm, their animated conversation ceasing as the thinner one turns to see what her friend has stopped for.
“Frank Leadbetter!” the doughy girl says, her face hardening as she puts her hands featuring pale fingers that look like uncooked sausages on her heavy hips defiantly. “You’ve got some cheek showing your face around here.”
“Oh, give over Vi!” Frank says, placing his arms akimbo across his chest in defence of her sharp words.
Noticing Edith standing next to Frank, her arm entwined with his, Vi’s dark eyes grow cold as she looks her up and down. “So, this is who you threw me over for, is it? A cook’s assistant not good enough for you? You want some skinny tart who looks better in a skirt and hat than I do, eh?”
Edith is taken aback by this strange girl’s rough language and vehemence towards her. Having never been called something so horrible before, she blanches at the insult and tightens her grip around Frank’s arm, too afraid to say anything in her defence.
Around them, patrons murmur and mutter disgruntledly, suddenly alerted to the altercation by the girl’s vulgar word cutting through the conviviality and joviality of the theatre foyer like a knife.
“You better watch your mouth, Vi.” Frank growls back warningly in a deep voice. “This here is a lady,” He untwines his arm from Edith, but them wraps his arm protectively around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him in a chivalrous gesture. “Which judging by the way you are addressing her, you most definitely are not. Sounds like you’ve been hanging around pub corners a bit too much on your afternoons off, Vi.”
“Where I hang round on my afternoons off is none of your business, Frank Leadbetter!” Vi spits back bitterly, her whole body edging forward menacingly.
“You’re right there, Vi,” Frank agrees with a snort. “I don’t care what rocks you crawl under. I never promised you anything.”
“You’re just saying that, ‘cos she’s here!” Vi acknowledges Edith with a curt nod in her direction and a sneer of revulsion.
Edith shrinks further back into Frank, but doesn’t say anything as she wraps her hands around her snakeskin handbag.
More murmuring goes on around them as interest in the argument picks up amongst the other people waiting to enter the cinema, an electric undercurrent of excitement filling some, whilst others peer over at the quartet with unveiled interest.
“Say what you like, Vi, but you’re the one who wanted to walk out with me.” Frank replies bravely. “I never wanted to step out with you, and I didn’t. Whereas,” He turns his head and looks down with a proud smile at Edith. “This is my girl, and I am stepping out with her.”
“You’re a liar Frank Leadbetter!” Vi spits viciously. “I know I meant something to you.”
“Only in your mind, Vi.” he recounters.
“Come, Vi,” her thin friend mutters, tugging on her arm. Looking both Frank and Edith up and down quickly with a look of disgust, she adds, “He’s not worth it.”
Reluctantly, the larger girl reneges and recants, walking away with her friend, their two heads together muttering as they go.
“Alright ladies and gents,” Frank announces to those who have been standing around watching his argument with Vi. “The real show is about start.” He looks down at Edith. “Shall we?”
Frank escorts Edith through the crowd of chattering cinema goers and they go to their seats.
Inside the dimly lit theatre a fug of cigarette smoke fills the auditorium. The place is filled with the faint traces of various perfumes, which mix with the stronger traces of cigarettes, fried food, and body odour. Around them quiet chatter and the occasional burst of a cough resound. It feels cosy and safe. At the front of the theatre, in a pit below the screen, a middle aged woman in an old fashioned Edwardian gown with an equally outmoded upswept hairdo that wet out of fashion before the war plays an upright piano with enthusiasm, dramatically banging out palm court music for the audience before the beginning of the feature.
Settling in their plush red velvet seats in the middle of the auditorium, Frank tentatively puts his arm around Edith’s shoulder. “You do know that I was telling the truth back there, don’t you, Edith?” Frank asks nervously. He looks to see Edith’s face, but it is obscured by the feather and flower decorated brim of her black straw hat.
“Oh I know you wouldn’t lie to me,” comes her soft reply. “But who was she, Frank?”
“Vi,” he sighs. “Vi used to work as a cook’s assistant, well a glorified kitchen maid really, for the house of an earl in Pimlico. I used to do deliveries there for Mr. Willison, and she’d be loitering around the kitchen door, smoking a Woodbine************ waiting for me. She was nice at first. I had fun chatting with her – nothing intimate mind you – just a how do you do and a passing of the day. I sensed she was lonely and perhaps didn’t have many friends amongst the staff of the house. Then Vi took a fancy to me and wanted me to step out with her, but I wouldn’t.”
Turning her head towards him, Frank can see tears glistening in Edith’s blue eyes as they gather there. “She said the most horrible thing to me.”
“Oh, please don’t let her spoil my Christmas present to you, Edith.” Frank pleads. “She isn’t worth a second thought, much less one of your tears. Honestly!” He pauses for a moment before continuing his story. “Vi grew more and more insistent with her propositions. She made some rather lewd and vulgar suggestions, all unwarranted and as you saw, she can be a bit intimidating. Eventually, it got so uncomfortable for me that I complained to Mr. Willison, and then one day when I went to deliver groceries she wasn’t there anymore. I heard from the house’s hall boy************* that she’d upped and done a flit in the night after some kerfuffle with the cook – not an uncommon thing apparently owing to Vi’s rather fiery temper. I never saw her again until just before.”
“Well,” Edith says shakily, dabbing her eyes with a white lace trimmed handkerchief she pulls from the confines of her snakeskin purse. “Thank you for calling me a lady, and for being so chivalrous, Frank. That meant a great deal to me back there.”
“Of course I’ll defend you, Edith, and call you a lady, because you are a lady. You’re my lady.” Frank pauses and removes his arm from about Edith before looking down earnestly at her. “That is, if you still want to be my lady.”
Edith’s heart melts at the mixture of fear and hope that sculpt the young man’s features in the dim golden light of the picture theatre.
“Put your arm back, Frank.” she says softly, with a gentle smile. “Of course I want to be your lady. I know how much courage it took for you to ask me to step out with you. So, if that awfully overbearing woman was so racy as to proposition you, I know you would never have said yes to walking out with her. That’s why I like you, Frank. You aren’t like so many other men. You’re a gentleman, and a gentle man. You’re kind and considerate and unlike so many other men who only want one thing from a girl.” She flushes at the mention of it.
“Goodness!” gasps Frank as he returns his arm to drape around Edith’s shoulders. “Thanks awfully, Edith.”
“Best of all, Frank, you showed me that I could find love again. After Bert died in the war, and with so many young men our age killed, I never thought I’d be lucky enough to meet someone again.”
“Do you mean that, Edith?” Frank breathes. “Truly?”
“Yes, of course I do, Frank. I wouldn’t lie to you any more than you would to me. Why do you ask?”
“Well, because you’re really the only girl I’ve ever felt this way about, so it’s rather jolly that you should feel the same way about me.” He smiles broadly across at her.
“Well, that’s the best Christmas present you could ever give me, Frank. That means more to me than any tea at Lyon’s, or trips to the pictures, or any jewellery that you could give me.”
“Thank you Edith.”
Edith reaches into her bag and withdraws the box of chocolates Frank gave her at the beginning of the evening when they met outside the Lyon’s Corner House on Tottenham Court Road. Opening it, she holds the box of brightly foil wrapped sweets out to Frank. “Here, have a Dubarry milk chocolate, Frank.”
As the lights in the picture theatre start to dim, Frank turns to Edith.
“I do love you, you know, Edith.” he whispers.
“I know Frank,” she whispers in reply. “I love you too.”
Behind them the projector whirrs and suddenly the screen is illuminated in blinding, brilliant white as the pianist in the pit below the screen starts to play the dramatic opening bars to the music to accompany The Gipsy Cavalier.
*Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
**The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.
***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.
****J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.
*****Although packaged in a purple of the box the same colour as Cadbury’s trademark purple, Gainsborough’s Dubarry range of milk chocolates were not marketed as Cadbury’s, but rather Gainsborough’s, paying tribute to the market town of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, where Rose Bothers manufactured and supplied machines that wrapped chocolates. The Rose Brothers are the people for whom Cadbury’s Roses chocolates are named.
******Blood and Sand is a 1922 American silent drama film produced by Paramount Pictures, directed by Fred Niblo and starring Rudolph Valentino, Lila Lee, and Nita Naldi. It was based on the 1909 Spanish novel Sangre y arena (Blood and Sand) by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and the play version of the book by Thomas Cushing.
*******When Knighthood Was in Flower is a 1922 American silent historical film about the romantic travails of Mary Tudor directed by Robert G. Vignola, based on the novel by Charles Major and play by Paul Kester. The film was produced by William Randolph Hearst (through his Cosmopolitan Productions) for Marion Davies and distributed by Paramount Pictures. This was William Powell's second film.
********Lorna Doone is a 1922 American silent drama film based upon Richard Doddridge Blackmore's 1869 novel of the same name. Directed by French director Maurice Tourneur in the United States, the film starred Madge Bellamy and John Bowers.
*********A Gipsy Cavalier is a 1922 British historical drama film directed by J. Stuart Blackton and starring Georges Carpentier, Flora le Breton and Rex McDougall. It was one of three films made in Britain during the early 1920s by the British-born American founder of Vitagraph Studios. All involved elaborate sets, costumes and extras and set an example of showmanship to emerging British filmmakers. It was adapted from the novel My Lady April by John Overton.
**********Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
***********Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907, it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films.[1] It was bought by Warner Bros. in 1925.
************Woodbine was a brand of cigarettes launched in 1888 by W.D. and H.O. Wills. Noted for its strong unfiltered cigarettes, the brand was cheap and popular in the early Twentieth Century with the working-class, as well as with army men during the Great War and the Second World War. In the Great War, the British Army chaplain Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy MC was affectionately nicknamed "Woodbine Willie" by troops on the Western Front to whom he handed out cigarettes along with Bibles and spiritual comfort. The intricate nineteenth century packet design remained current until the mid 1960s. Although Wills changed the packaging, Woodbine sales continued to drop. In common parlance, the unfiltered high-tar Woodbine was one of the brands collectively known as "gaspers" until about 1950, because new smokers found their harsh smoke difficult to inhale. A filtered version was launched in the United Kingdom in 1948, but was discontinued in 1988. Woodbines came in four different packs: five cigarettes, ten cigarettes, twenty cigarettes and fifty cigarettes.
*************The hall boy or hallboy was a the lowest ranked male domestic position held by a young male worker on the staff of a great house, usually a young teenager. The name derives from the fact that the hall boy usually slept in the servants' hall.
This beautiful Art Deco cinema interior is not all it appears to be, for it is made up entirely with pieces from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The posters around the cinema walls were all sourced by me and reproduced in high quality colour and print. “The Gipsy Cavalier” board is the only one I have created myself rather than printing an existing poster because there are no posters that I can find in the public domain for it. However all the images used in it, including the film reel images to either side of the main photo are all stills from the film, and the central image is a publicity shot for the film.
The chrome Art Deco smoker’s stand is a Shackman miniature from the 1970s and is quite rare. I bought it from a dealer in America via E-Bay.
The easel, table , vase of flowers and two flounced red velvet chairs all come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House in the United Kingdom.
The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, who did so in the hope that I would find a use for it in the “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
The thick and bright red carpet is in fact a placemat which I appropriated in the late 1970s to use as a carpet for my growing miniatures collection. Luckily I was never asked to return it, and the rest of the set is long gone!