Maine Bird List
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"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.”
CSXT L004 (old B724) has been on duty more than four hours and is just now starting north. They are technically still inside the Framingham Yard limits as they trundle northbound on the Fitchburg Branch at about MP QBU35.6. The entirety of the branch is designated as Other Than Main Track with this local operating at Restricted Speed but not exceeding 10 MPH the whole way making for an agonizingly long round trip. The two GP40-2s are snaking through the weedy trackage on the causeway over the Foss Reservoir/Sudbury River with a big train of nearly 30 cars.
This trackage dates from 1855 when the Agricultural Branch Railroad opened between Framingham and Northborough. In July 1866, the railroad opened a 14-mile extension to a connection with the Fitchburg and Worcester Railroad at Pratts Junction in Sterling. The next dozen years were rather convoluted as many small independent lines began to congeal into larger systems and by 1879 the route was part of the Old Colony Railroad, then ultimately the New York, New Haven, & Hartford in 1893.
This line, like its sister route to Lowell was one of only three incursions of the NH north of the defacto "Mason Dixon Line" of New England Railroading into Boston and Maine territory. For virtually a century, with few exceptions, the NH ruled CT and RI and everything in MA south of New York Central's Boston & Albany subsidiary that ran in a virtual straight line between its namesake cities bifurcating New England.
Today this 30 mile route meandering northwest is the last CSXT owned branchline in Massachusetts, with all the rest of any length that they still operate having been sold to MassDOT. The branch seems to have a solid future thanks to the addition of a busy new demolition debris customer near the end of the line in Leominster supplementing stalwarts like Ken's Foods, Nucor, and Bestway Lumber.
Framingham, Massachusetts
Friday December 9, 2022
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.
A supplement to “Edo Castle & Citadel.”
It is one of the 15 gates installed along the inner moat of Edo Castle.
It was originally built in 1602 and completed to the present shape in 1636. The gate as a whole forms a Masugata, which is a space sandwiched between two gate structures, namely, Kouraimon in the left and Watari-yaguramon in the right. The latter is also a turret against those come into Masugata by breaking Kouraimon.
Supplemental to today's 365. Taken a Knab Rock, Mumbles and given a preset treatment in Lightroom CC
Nutritional supplements are not a substitute
for a nutritionally balanced diet.
(Deepak Chopra)
Looking close... on Friday! - REFLECTION on BLACK BACKGROUND
(photo by Freya, edit by me)
Thanks for views, faves and comments!
Ukraine International began services to Heathrow in 2020, supplementing their Gatwick flights. The youngest of their five Embraer 190's is seen arriving as the AUI117 from Kiev-Boryspil.
AUTUMN LAKES WORKSHOP
Myself and Stuart McGlennon @stuartmcglennon have teamed up to offer this superb 5 night (4 days tuition) Lake District Workshop from 3rd-8th November.
Accommodation will be at the lovely Wallthwaite Farm near Keswick, this will be our base to explore all the best The Lakes has to offer. During the week there will also be presentations and post-processing sessions to supplement days in the field. I will also be showing my fine art workflow for those that might be interested in this particular style.
For more information follow this link
A collection of sheds passing Besscar Junction in June 2020 when services were supplemented by diverted Doncaster to Scunthorpe trains via Brigg.
The European robin (Erithacus rubecula), known simply as the robin or robin redbreast in the British Isles, is a small insectivorous passerine bird, specifically a chat, that was formerly classified as a member of the thrush family (Turdidae) but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher. About 12.5–14.0 cm (5.0–5.5 inches) in length, the male and female are similar in colouration, with an orange breast and face lined with grey, brown upperparts and a whitish belly. It is found across Europe, east to Western Siberia and south to North Africa; it is sedentary in most of its range except the far north.
The robin is diurnal, although has been reported to be active hunting insects on moonlit nights or near artificial light at night. Well known to British and Irish gardeners, it is relatively unafraid of people and drawn to human activities involving the digging of soil, in order to look out for earthworms and other food freshly turned up. Indeed, the robin is considered to be a gardener's friend and for various folklore reasons the robin would never be harmed. In continental Europe on the other hand, robins were hunted and killed as with most other small birds, and are more wary. Robins also approach large wild animals, such as wild boar and other animals which disturb the ground, to look for any food that might be brought to the surface. In autumn and winter, robins will supplement their usual diet of terrestrial invertebrates, such as spiders, worms and insects, with berries and fruit. They will also eat seed mixtures placed on bird-tables.
Male robins are noted for their highly aggressive territorial behaviour. They will fiercely attack other males and competitors that stray into their territories and have been observed attacking other small birds without apparent provocation. Such attacks sometimes lead to fatalities, accounting for up to 10% of adult robin deaths in some areas.
Because of high mortality in the first year of life, a robin has an average life expectancy of 1.1 years; however, once past its first year it can expect to live longer and one robin has been recorded as reaching 19 years of age. A spell of very low temperatures in winter may also result in significant mortality.
For more information, please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_robin
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!
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.
For more information about Ruby-throated hummingbirds that visit my garden, please click here:
*Created with: 20 balloons, 8 straws, 1 chicken toy pitcher, 10 plastic buckets, 1 electrical rubber cover.
* Butterflies and other insects engage in a unique behavior called 'mud pudding'; congregating around muddy waters for its minerals to supplement their diets.
*When plastic bottles, packaging and other non degradable waste find its way into our streams and rivers, pesticides degrade the quality of the nutrients essential to the butterflies' survival and that of future generations.
FloatSam Fauna.
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.
Common throughout much of North America, the White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) does most of its breeding in Canadian forests, where it will nest on the ground. It is a seed eater, devouring morsels of weeds and grasses, and supplementing these with the occasional insect. Interestingly, it will sometimes mate with a the closely-related dark-eyed junco, creating a hybrid that looks similar to a white-throated sparrow, but darker.
This little one is the first of the season for me. Flocks of warblers mustn't be far behind!
Kampong Phluk is a commune in Prasat Bakong District in Siem Reap Province Cambodia. The name means "Harbor of the Tusks". The community largely depends on fishing for survival, spending Cambodia's wet season (May-October) fishing. During the dry season (November-April) as the river thins due to receding water, many turn to farming to supplement their income. Tourism, which started in the village approximately 10 years ago, is also a growing part of the local economy.
As of 2019, the commune has 911 families with a total population of 3,707. The commune consist of three villages: Tnaot Kambot, Dey Krahom and Kok Kdol.
The village is on the Tonlé Sap which is a seasonally inundated freshwater lake, Tonlé Sap Lake, and an attached river, the 120 km long Tonlé Sap River, that connects the lake to the Mekong River. Wikipedia
Kampong Phluk is a commune in Prasat Bakong District in Siem Reap Province Cambodia. The name means "Harbor of the Tusks". The community largely depends on fishing for survival, spending Cambodia's wet season (May-October) fishing. During the dry season (November-April) as the river thins due to receding water, many turn to farming to supplement their income. Tourism, which started in the village approximately 10 years ago, is also a growing part of the local economy.
As of 2019, the commune has 911 families with a total population of 3,707. The commune consist of three villages: Tnaot Kambot, Dey Krahom and Kok Kdol.
Taken back in the summer of 2006, here's a jumping spider (Phidippus mystaceus, female) that suddenly appeared just as I was getting this pic. We were taking advantage of gloomy weather in the St. Margarets Bay area, deciding to spend a few hours at Indian Harbor. I was poking around piles of fishing gear when I spotted this float among heaps of ropes and net. The spider scooted out from under a rope to where you see it just as I snapped the pic. It sat there for only a second before vanishing in the tangle of net beside the float. I had a supplemental lens in my jacket pocket but as I began reaching for it, the spider was already gone.
Taken with my third digital camera, a Kodak P850, a handy pocket sized 5 MP point & shoot that had a good zoom range and image stabilization. Its main fault was the white screen printed lettering adjacent to each control button that wore off over time.
100_2187L
The Antonov An-22 "Antei" (NATO reporting name "Cock") is a heavy military transport aircraft designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Soviet Union.
Powered by four turboprop engines each driving a pair of contra-rotating propellers, the design was the first Soviet wide-body aircraft and remains the world's largest turboprop-powered aircraft to date. An-22 first appeared for public outside the Soviet Union at the 1965 Paris Air Show. Since then, the model saw extensive use in major military and humanitarian airlifts of the Soviet Union.
In the late 1950s the Soviet Union required a large military transport aircraft to supplement the Antonov An-8 and An-12s then entering service. Originally known as the An-20, the model was a conventional multi-engined high-wing design. In the early 1960s the Antonov bureau produced a wooden mock up at its Kiev workshops of what was designated the Model 100. The prototype now designated the An-22 was rolled out 18 August 1964 and first flew on 27 February 1965. The prototype was given the name Antheus and, after four-months of test flying, was displayed at the 1965 Paris Air Show. Serial aircraft were built at the Tashkent State Aircraft Factory and the first military delivery was made to the Air Transport Wing at Ivanovo Airbase in 1969.
The aircraft was designed as a strategic airlifter, designed specifically to expand the Soviet Airborne Troops' capability to land with their then-new BMD-1 armoured vehicles. The An-22 cargo hold can accommodate four BMD-1 compared to only one in the An-12.
It also has the capability to takeoff from austere, unpaved and short airstrips, allowing airborne troops to perform air-landing operations. This is achieved by four pairs of contra-rotating propellers, similar to those on the Tupolev Tu-114. The engines generate significant thrust, and produce a slipstream over the wings and large double-slotted flaps. The landing gear is ruggedized for rough airstrips, and, in early versions, tire pressures could be adjusted in flight for optimum landing performance, although that feature was removed in later models.
The An-22 follows traditional cargo transport design with a high-mounted wing allowing a large cargo space of 33m in length and a usable volume of 639m³. The forward fuselage is fully pressurized and provides space for 5 to 8 crew and up to 28 passengers, but the cargo space is pressurized to only 3.55 PSI / 0.245 bar allowing for a lighter airframe. A door equipped with pressure bulkhead is located at frame 14, separating the cargo attendant's compartment from the main cargo compartment. This allows the rear cargo doors to be opened during flight for paratroops and equipment drop. Like the An-12, the aircraft has a circular fuselage section. The An-22 has set a number of payload and payload-to-height world records[citation needed].
The An-22 has the general appearance of an enlarged version of the earlier Antonov An-12 except that it is fitted with a twin tail. This gives the An-22 better engine-out performance, and reduces height restrictions for hangars. Also of note are large anti-flutter masses on the top of each tail.
Only one production variant was built, the standard An-22. Prototypes, such as the one first featured at the 1965 Paris Air Show had fully glazed noses that lacked the nose mounted radar of production models. Those aircraft had the radar mounted below the right wheel well fairing, forward of the wheels. Antonov designated a variant with a modified electrical system and an additional augmented flight control system the An-22A but the designation was not used by the military.
A proposed civil airliner version capable of seating 724 passengers on upper and lower decks was planned but wasn't constructed. (For comparison, a typical Boeing 747 can carry 400–500 passengers.)
Vitamin D is needed to keep muscles and bones healthy (musculoskeletal health). However, we know that dietary sources of vitamin D are limited and that we obtain the majority of our vitamin D from exposure of our skin to the sun during the spring and summer.
Existing advice is for everyone to consider taking a daily dietary supplement of vitamin D between October and March, and for some at risk groups, including people who are not often outdoors such as the frail or housebound, and those with dark skin, to consider taking a dietary supplement throughout the year. However, we know that uptake of dietary supplements is poor and intakes of vitamin D fail to meet recommendations in all age groups.
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
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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
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.
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.
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 old family home for the wedding of Leslie to Arabella, the daughter of their neighbours, Lord Sherbourne and Lady Isobel Tyrwhitt. She has come a few days earlier than the other family members who are coming to stay at Glynes for the significant event.
Alighting from the London train at Glynes village railway station, Lettice is quickly swept away to the house by Harris, the chauffer, in the Chetwynd’s 1912 Daimler. As the Daimler purrs up the gravel driveway, Bramley, the Chetwynd’s butler, steps through the front door followed by Marsen, the liveried first footman. Descending the stairs Marsden pads across the crunching gravel and opens the door of the Daimler for Lettice.
“Welcome home, My Lady,” Bramley greets her with an open smile as she walks up the steps to the front door. “What a pleasure it is to see you back again.”
“Thank you Bramley,” she replies with a satisfied smile and a sigh as she looks up at the classical columned portico of her beloved childhood home basking in the weakening autumnal sunshine of the late morning. “It’s good to be home.”
She sweeps into the lofty classical Adam style entrance hall of Glynes where she waits for Bramley to accept her gloves, her fox fur stole and her grey travelling coat.
“How was the train journey from London, My Lady?” Bramley asks Lettice as helps her shirk her coat from her shoulders, revealing a smart silvery grey frock with a sailor collar, a double rope of perfect pearls given to her by her parents as a coming of age birthday gift about her neck.
“Oh, quite pleasant, thank you Bramley.”
“Her Ladyship is expecting you in the morning room.”
“I’ll just go upstairs and freshen up first.” Lettice points to her escape route up the stairs to her bedroom up on the third floor of the mansion.
“Very good My Lady. However… I should…” Bramley adds with a touch of hesitation. Sighing he continues, “Master Lionel has arrived home from British East Africa*.”
Lettice feels all the happiness she felt moments ago at returning to her childhood home for the wonderful occasion of her eldest brother’s wedding dissipate at the mere mention of her other brother’s name. Her face falls and the sparkle in her eyes is extinguished by a darkness. “Oh.” she mumbles, as she deposits her gloves in Bramley’s open and expectant hand.
“I… I thought you were better pre-warned, My Lady.” Bramley says dourly. “Her Ladyship has been anxious awaiting your arrival. She will wan….”
As if on cue, one of the double doors to the morning room just down the passageway opens with a squeak of door handles, the pop of a lock and the rasp of old wood.
“Ahh, Lettice!” Lady Sadie’s head crowned with her well-coiffed grey hair pops around the panelled door and smiles rather forcefully.
The older woman slips out the door, closing it quietly behind her before marching brusquely down the hall towards her daughter, the louis heels of her shoes clipping loudly on the parquetry floor beneath her.
“Thank god you’re here at last!” she sighs quietly with relief as she reaches her daughter’s side and places a hand heavily upon her forearm. “I thought you would never get here! I simply don’t think I can cope alone much longer with both your brother and Eglantine together in the same room.” She breathes heavily, as if her heart is under a major strain. “You must come and rescue me, at once.”
“But I was about to…” Lettice begins, gesticulating to the stairs.
“At once!” Lady Sadie demurs commandingly.
“Shall I bring some fresh tea, Your Ladyship?” Bramley asks.
“I’d prefer a dubonnet and gin at this moment.” Lady Sadie sighs, much to the surprise of both her unflappable faithful retainer and her daughter, both of whom exchange astonished glances. “My nerves are positively shot with Lionel and Eglantine to entertain all my own,” She looks accusingly at her daughter, as if she were responsible for the train arrival times from London. “And your father and brother conveniently nowhere in sight.”
“They’ll be out on estate business, Mamma.” Lettice chides her mother gently, as she unpins her hat from her head and passes it to the butler.
“It’s more convenience if you ask me.” She sniffs and stiffens, a steely haughtiness hardening the few softened edges of her face. “Considering the time of day, tea will have to suffice. Yes, Bramley. A fresh pot if you would, and some more biscuits if you can manage it.” Turning to Lettice she adds, “Your aunt always did have an over indulged sweet tooth, even during the war when we were on rations, and it seems that your brother has developed an unhealthy love of sugar during his time in Nairobi.”
“Very good, Your Ladyship.” Bramley says as he discreetly retreats with Lettice’s hat.
Wrapping her arm through Lettice’s, Lady Sadie forcefully guides her daughter towards the closed morning room door. “I know Emmery usually takes care of you when you are here, Lettice, but your Aunt Gladys’ maid has caught the flu, at the most inconvenient of times. So, Eglantine has graciously offered to share her maid with you.”
“Oh Mamma!” Lettice exclaims exasperatedly, her stomach tightening as they draw closer to the door. “I really don’t need a lady’s maid. I’m quite independent in London you know. It is 1922 after all – nearly 1923.”
“Now, now!” Lady Sadie scolds. “I can’t have idle servants’ gossip below stairs. What would the maids from the other guests think if their hostess’ daughter declines the use of a lady’s maid? Next, they’ll be calling you a bluestocking**!” Lettice rolls her eyes. “No!” Lady Sadie pressed her right hand firmly over Lettice’s left one. “We’ll just make up an excuse that your maid was taken ill too. In saying that, I can’t believe that Eglantine brought that awful girl!”
“Who, Lise?” Lettice queries, referring to her aunt’s lady’s maid by her first name. When Lady Sadie nods, she continues, “I’ve always found Lise to be very sweet and obliging.”
“It’s not her manner I mind,” the older woman lowers her voice. “It’s her cultural heritage that offends me.”
“Oh Mamma! How many times must you be told? Lise, just like Augusta and Clotilde, are Swiss, not German.”
“Swiss, German, it matters not! They are still foreign!” Lady Sadie snaps. “Eglantine always was contrary. Why on earth she had to have a foreigner when a good English lady’s maid would have been perfectly comparable is beyond my comprehension.”
“Well perhaps it’s…” Lettice begins, but her retort is cut short as her mother depresses the door handle to the morning room and pushes it open.”
“Here she is!” Lady Sadie announces brightly with false bonhomie to the guests sitting in her chairs. “Lettice is here at last!”
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 her 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 Glynes’ hothouse flowers stand on occasional tables, but even their fragrance cannot smother Lady Sadie’s Yardley Lily of the Valley scent which is ever present in the air.
“Well, if it isn’t my favourite nice!” Eglantine, known by all the Chetwnd children by the affectionate diminutive name of ‘Aunt Egg’, exclaims as she sits regally in the straight-backed chair next to Sadie’s soft upholstered wingback chair.
When she was young, Eglantine had Titian red hair that fell in wavy tresses about her pale face, making her a popular muse amongst the Pre-Raphaelites she mixed with. With the passing years, her red hair has retreated almost entirely behind silver grey, save for the occasional streak of washed out reddish orange, yet she still wears it as she did when it was at its fiery best, sweeping softly about her almond shaped face, tied in a loose chignon at the back of her neck, held in place by an ornate tortoiseshell comb. Sitting with perfect posture in her chair with her arms resting lightly on the arms, she looks positively regal. Large chandelier earrings containing sparking diamonds hang from her lobes whilst strings of pearls and bright beads cascade down the front of her usual uniform of a lose Delphos dress** that does not require her to wear a corset of any kind, and a silk fringed cardigan, both in strikingly beautiful shades of sea blue.
“Hullo Aunt Egg.” Lettice replies as she walks over to her aunt’s seated figure and kisses her first on one proffered cheek and then the other as her aunt’s elegant, yet gnarled fingers covered in rings reach up and clench her forearms firmly. “I keep saying that I’m sure you say that to Lally and all our female cousins.”
“And I keep telling you that you will never know until after I’m gone.” her aunt laughs raspily in reply. “For then the truth will be known through the disbursement of my jewels. To my favourite, or favourites, go the spoils!”
“Oh Aunt Egg!” Lettice scoffs. “You really mustn’t talk like that.”
“Eglantine always talks like that.” mutters Lady Sadie disapprovingly as she resumes her own seat.
“I wish I was six feet under when I can’t even smoke one of my Sobranies****.” Eglantine quips sulkily. “But your mother won’t let me smoke in here.”
“It’s undignified for a lady to smoke in public.” Sadie defends.
“I thought that we were in private, dear Sadie.”
“Don’t be so literal Eglantine, or are you being obtuse on purpose?” Sadie asks. Eglantine smiles mischievously behind one of her hands at the rise she has gained from her detested sister-in-law. “It’s undignified for a lady to smoke. Anyway, this is my house, so I should be allowed to make the rules.”
“Hullo Lettuce Leaf!” comes a male voice to Lettice’s right, its well-modulated tones dripping with a mixture of mirth, mischief and malice.
Cringing at the use of her abhorred childhood nickname, Lettice turns her head, to where her brother, Lionel’s reclining form lies amidst the overstuffed confines of their mother’s floral chaise lounge, where he flips rather languidly through a more recent copy of Lady Sadie’s Elite Styles*****. He looks up at her and purses his thin lips in what Lettice can only presume is his version of a mean smile, but looks more like he just smelt fresh horse droppings.
“Lionel.” Lettice says laconically in a peevish tone, returning his steely gaze of her with her own.
“Your brother has just been regaling us with wild tales of his horse breeding in British East Africa,” Eglantine remarks cheerfully, blissfully unaware of the animosity radiating already between the two siblings. “Haven’t you, my darling boy!” She lets go of Lettice and reaches over to her nephew’s hand, which he proffers to her so she can grasp it lovingly.
Lettice casts her eyes critically over her brother. His looks have changed over the three years of his exile to Kenya after fathering illegitimate children to not one, but two of the Glynes maids and the dullard daughter of one of their father’s tenant farmers in the space of one year. He has lost the softness of entitlement that he had, replaced now by a more muscular ranginess created through the exertions of breeding horses on a high altitude stud on the slopes of the Aberdare Range******. The African sun has bleached his sandy tresses blonde, a change made even more noticeable by the golden sunbathed pallor of his face. Yet for all these changes, Lionel still has blue eyes as cold as chips of ice, full of hatred, and a mean and malevolent smile beneath his equally mean little strip pencil moustache as he looks at her with barely contained detestation. Lettice shudders and looks away.
“It looks as though the Kenyan climate agrees with you, Lionel,” Lettice concedes. “You look remarkably well.”
“I am well, my dear little sister.” he replies in a rather bored tone. “The sun is glorious out there: full and rich, not like the weak version shining here.”
“Sit here, Lettice my dear.” Eglantine insists, standing up, snatching up her Royal Doulton rose decorated teacup and gliding around the table on which sits the remains of morning tea.
“Oh no, Aunt Egg.” Lettice protests. “I’ll be quite fine…”
“Nonsense, my dear.” Eglantine settles into the ornate Victorian salon chair of unidentifiable style opposite, the hem of her gown pooling around her feet like a cascade of water. “Your mother and I have had all morning to chat with Lionel. You two are the closest in age, and besides, you haven’t seen each other in three years, so I’m sure you have a lot to catch up on.”
Just at that moment there is a discreet knock at the door.
“Come.” calls out Lady Sadie commandingly from her throne by the cracking fire.
The door is opened by Moira, one of the Chetwynd’s maids who has taken to assisting wait table at breakfast and luncheon on informal occasions since the war, who walks into the morning room holding the door open for Bramley, who steps across the threshold carrying a silver salver on which stand a fresh pot of tea and coffee, milk, sugar and a cup matching the others already being used for Lettice.
“You had better have brought more of those biscuits, Bramley!” Lionel snaps at the butler, carelessly tossing the magazine he had in his thin hands aside onto the floral pouffe that acts as a barrier between he and his sister, the magazine clipping his cup, which rattles emptily as it jostles in its saucer. “A man needs to eat!”
“Yes Sir.” Bramley replies obsequiously, politely ignoring Lionel’s rudeness as he carefully slides the tray, on which stands a plate of fresh colourful cream biscuits, onto the round central table as Moira picks up the tray of used tea implements to take away.
As Moira straightens up, Lionel catches her eye and gives her a conspiratorial wink, making the maid smirk and colour flood her cheeks. Although not noticed by Lady Sadie or Eglantine who are now engaged in a conversation about flowers for the wedding, Lettice’s sharp eye doesn’t miss the silent exchange between the two, and as Moira curtseys to her mistress, Lettice makes a mental note to have a word with the Chetwynd’s housekeeper, Mrs. Casterton, later, and remind her to have her warn not only Moira, but all the new maids on the staff about her brother’s roué ways.
“I see you haven’t changed, Lionel.” Lettice remarks dryly as she takes her seat next to her abhorred brother, glancing meaningfully between him and the retreating figure of Moira.
“Evidently neither have you, Lettuce Leaf.” Lionel smirks with unbridled delight as his sister cringes yet again at the mention of her nickname. “You always were the Chetwynd with the sharpest eye. I should have aimed better at you with my slingshot when I was eight and you were six.” He shuffles forward on the chaise and snatches three biscuits greedily from the gilt edged plate before shuffling back with them, tossing two carelessly onto his saucer with a clatter and placing the remaining one to his lips. “If I’d had a sharper eye, I’d have had better aim. If I’d had better aim, I could have blinded you like I wanted to. If I’d blinded you, in one eye at least, it would have saved me a lot of trouble later in life, and banishment to the wilds of Africa.”
“You always were cruel to me,” Lettice mutters bitterly with a shiver as she remembers the sharp pain of the stone at it hit her temple and imbedded itself into her flesh. “To all of us, really. Lally, even Leslie,” She reaches up and rubs the spot where a faint scar still remains from the gash left by the stone shot from her brother’s catapult. “But cruellest of all to me. You savoured every hurt you could inflict on me.”
“Survival of the fittest, my dear Lettuce Leaf.” He bites meaningfully into the biscuit, growling menacingly, imitating a wild beast tearing at the flesh of its kill.
“You’re a brute, Lionel.” Lettice looks away in disgust. She reaches out and takes up the teacup Bramley brought her and pours tea into her cup.
“Top me up, Lettuce Leaf!” Lionel pipes up loudly.
“Oh!” gasps Eglantine from across the table. “I haven’t heard you called that for years, Lettice.” She chortles happily. “Haven’t you two grown out of calling each other childhood nicknames?” she remarks good naturedly, picking up her cup.
“Evidently not, Aunt Egg.” Lettice replies with false good humour.
From her wingback chair Sadie quickly glances with concern at her two youngest children before turning back to Eglantine and answering her question.
Lettice deposits her cup on the table between she and her mother and then reaches for the teapot. She leans over towards her brother, who indicates with lowered lids and a commanding nod towards his empty cup, however she ignores his lofty silent demand and hovers with the pot’s spout over Lionel’s groin.
“You wouldn’t dare.” Lionel snarls viscously as he glances with irritation at his sister.
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” She tilts the pot slightly, making Lionel flinch and squirm on the chaise in an attempt to avoid any hot tea hitting and burning him in such a sensitive area. Seeing his reaction, she smiles and returns the pot to an upright position in her hand. “I’m not the frightened little girl you said goodbye to here three years ago, Lionel.” she warns him quietly. “I live independently in London now, and I’m a lot more worldly than I was.”
“Slut!” he hisses.
His insult slices Lettice to the bone, but steeling herself, she remains poised and unflinching as she tilts the pot down again, this time allowing the smallest amount of hot tea to escape the spout. It splatters onto a cream coloured rose printed on the fabric of the chaise and is quickly absorbed. “Is that the kind of parlance fashionable in Nairobi these days?” she asks mockingly in a falsely sweet tone.
“I’ll tell you what I do know, my dear little sister, having been a damn good racehorse breeder these last three years.”
“And what’s that Lionel?” Lettice proceeds to pour tea into her brother’s empty cup.
“I can tell that you’re still a stupid little filly who needs a good siring from a stallion.” He gently grinds his groin back and forth, representing the act.
Unflinching, Lettice replies breezily, “Oh, so you’ve learned about animal husbandry whilst you’ve been away. Good.” She leans closer to Lionel. “But your use of that language and vulgar and unnecessary demonstration just makes me feel even more disgusted by you.” She screws up her nose in distaste and looks down upon him.
Undeterred, determined not to be outdone and to inflict hurt on his little sister, Lionel continues, “Mater told me that here you are at twenty-two and you’re still an old maid, despite her attempts to get you married off.”
“In case you’ve forgotten Lionel, there has been a war, and a whole generation of men far better than you have been wiped out.”
“Mater would happily foist you off onto any unwitting fool of a man, war cripple or otherwise that would have you. However, it appears that there are no takers: not even a shellshock victim or a blind veteran. If that’s what you call living an independent life, I pity you, Lettuce Leaf - shrivelled and dried up old Lettuce Leaf, trodden on and soiled, Lettuce Leaf.”
“I have a good life in London, I’ll have you know, Lionel. I run my own business now.”
“Oh yes, Mater told me that you’re pursuing this little interior design charade of yours to fill the gap that no husband will fill.”
“And I happen to be very good at what I do.” Lettice speaks determinedly over her brother’s hurtful words.
“If you say so, dear.” Lionel sneers. “Pass me the milk and the sugar.”
“I’ve been very successful” Lettice passes him the sugar bowl.
“Going to snitch to Pater and Mater again, are you, you little worm?” Lionel shakes his head as he hands the sucrier back to his sister. “Just like you did three years ago.”
“If I think there is a necessity, Lionel.” Lettice remarks as she returns the sugar bowl and takes up the milk jug. Leaning down in a pretence of adding milk to his tea, she quietly whispers to Lionel, “Have I cause to do so?”
“What?” Lionel snorts derisively as he takes the jug roughly from her. “With that little filly?” He glances to the door through which Moira exited with Bramley. “Fear not, my plucky little sister. My tastes have changed since I was forced to leave here.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” Lettice scoffs. “A leopard, his spots and all that.”
“No, I have, I assure you. I prefer mares now. The quality is better.”
“What are you insinuating, Lionel?”
“Well, despite Pater’s attempt to punish me for my dalliances: for the sewing of my wild oats,” Lettice looks away in abhorrence yet again as Lionel reaches down and rubs his inner thigh lasciviously. “He’s actually landed me in heaven on earth by sending me to Kenya.”
“Heaven?”
“Yes. The Muthaiga Club******* is full of hedonistic aristocrats, adventurers and elite colonial ex-pats,”
“No wonder you feel at home there.”
“Whose wives,” Lionel continues. “Are very bored in their husbands’ lengthy absences,” He hands her back the milk jug. “And their tiring presences. And unlike silly little fillies like the Moiras of this world, the mares know how not to get in the family way.”
“You sicken me, Lionel.” Lettice spits quietly.
In spite of her apparent engagement with Eglantine in conversation, Lady Sadie is keenly aware of the trouble brewing between er two children on the other side of the table, and her pale face crumples with concern.
“Nairobi is a veritable hotbed of drug taking and adultery,” Lionel goes on unabated. “Where promiscuity is de rigueur, little sister.” He smiles smugly as he takes a sip of his tea. “I was even taught a few things by the wife of a British peer who happens to be a good friend of Pater’s from his club!”
“Have you absolutely no shame?” Lettice asks in revulsion.
“Ahh, but that’s the good thing about Kenya. No-one has any need for shame there. Promiscuity and sexual prowess are badges of honour.”
“Then I’m sure you can’t wait to get back to your debauched lifestyle.”
“When I’m surrounded by British piety and hypocrisy here, my oath I am.”
“What are you two saying over there?” Lady Sadie pipes up nervously as she holds her cup and saucer in her lap.
“Oh, I was just asking Lionel when he has to go back to Kenya.” Lettice replies, looking gratefully to her mother for once.
“But he’s only just arrived, Lettice my dear!” chuckles Eglantine. “Surely you can’t want him to leave.”
“Oh it isn’t that, Eglantine,” Lady Sadie assures her sister-in-law. “It’s just that with the long journey both from British East Africa and back, he’ll have been away from the stud a good while, so he can only really stay until just after the wedding.”
“Oh really, Lionel?” Eglantine asks with a pout. “Can’t you even stay until Christmas? I don’t think we’ve had a Christmas with all you children under one roof since before the war.”
Knowing that his father, with whom he has a very strained relationship since being exiled in shame, only let him come back for Leslie and Arabella’s wedding for appearances’ sake, Lionel keeps up the pretence for his aunt’s sake and adds as he settles back into the scalloped back of the chaise, “Sorry Aunt Egg, but Mater is right. I’ll have been away from the farm for more than a month and a half by the time I get back.”
“But surely you have a steward you can leave in charge of the horse stud whilst you’re away.”
“Oh, I do, Aunt Egg.” Lionel agrees. “Capital chap too. Most capable.” He gazes down into his teacup. “However, it doesn’t pay to be away for too long. Kenya is full of treasure hunters and people on the make. I won’t let my stud suffer to line the pockets of, or up the prospects of, another man.”
“You always were competitive, even as child, my dear Lionel.” Eglantine smiles, shaking her head indulgently.
“Thinking of which, the Limru races will be coming up, not to mention the Kenya Derby******** so I have to be back for them!”
“Oooh!” Lettice sighs, raising her hand to her temple. “I think all this talk of wild Kenya is getting a bit much for me after my journey down from London.” She stands abruptly. “Would you all forgive me. I think I’d like to go to my room and lie down. I’m sure I’ll feel better after a short snooze and a freshen up.”
“Oh yes, do go up, Lettice.” Lady Sadie says soothingly, the look in her eyes betraying the fact that she knows how difficult it is for Lettice to even be in the same room as her brother. “It will be an hour or so before luncheon, so plenty of time to rest and recuperate. By that time your father and Leslie will be back from their estate rounds.” Turning to Eglantine she addresses her, “Eglantine, why don’t you and Lionel take a stroll around the gardens. I can’t stop you from smoking out of doors, and I’m sure Lionel would be happy to escort you.”
Lettice retreats, sighing with relief as she pulls the door of the morning room shut behind her, blocking out the hubbub of chatter. As she starts to retreat down the corridor, back to the main staircase, the door opens behind her and Lady Sadie slips out.
She scuttles up to her daughter. For the first time today, Lettice notices how pale and drawn her mother looks. Her pallor isn’t helped by her choice of a burnt orange coloured blouse, yet Lettice sees the dark circles under her eyes.
“Thank you for that, Lettice. I know that wasn’t easy for you.”
Lettice is stunned by her mother’s gracious acknowledgement and more so her thanks.
“Don’t worry,” Lady Sadie continues. “He’ll be gone the day after the wedding.” She heaves a shuddering sigh.
“If I don’t murder him before then.” Lettice seethes angrily.
“Well, if you do, I’ll help you bury his body in the rose garden.” Lady Sadie remarks with a smirk in a rare show of humour. “Your father has seen to it that Lionel will leave on Thursday, threating to cut him off without a bean if he doesn’t go quickly and quietly. Goodness knows the total of Lionel’s chits from the Muthaiga Club your father could practically re-roof this place with.”
“He’s just the same Mamma.” Lettice says with exasperation. “He hasn’t changed at all. In fact, I think he’s worse than before he left. He’s so full of bravado and priggish male privilege.”
“I’ve already told Mrs. Casterton to keep a sharp eye on all the maids whilst he’s here.”
“That won’t be easy with Leslie and Bella’s wedding to host, Mamma. You’d be better to tell her to warn all the girls to be on their guard.”
“Hhhmmm…” Lady Sadie considers. “Very sensible, Lettice. We’ll make you a suitable chatelaine of your own fine house, yet.”
“Oh Mamma!” Lettice sighs.
“Only until Thursday.” the older woman repeats.
“Only until Thursday.” Lettice confirms in reply.
*The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, commonly known as British Kenya or British East Africa, was part of the British Empire in Africa. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British Crown colony in 1920. Technically, the "Colony of Kenya" referred to the interior lands, while a 16 km (10 mi) coastal strip, nominally on lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar, was the "Protectorate of Kenya", but the two were controlled as a single administrative unit. The colony came to an end in 1963 when an ethnic Kenyan majority government was elected for the first time and eventually declared independence as the Republic of Kenya.
**The term bluestocking was applied to any of a group of women who in mid Eighteenth Century England held “conversations” to which they invited men of letters and members of the aristocracy with literary interests. The word over the passing centuries has come to be applied derisively to a woman who affects literary or learned interests.
***The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. It was championed by more artistic women who did not wish to conform to society’s constraints and wear a tightly fitting corset.
****The Balkan Sobranie tobacco business was established in London in 1879 by Albert Weinberg (born in Romania in 1849), whose naturalisation papers dated 1886 confirm his nationality and show that he had emigrated to England in the 1870s at a time when hand-made cigarettes in the eastern European and Russian tradition were becoming fashionable in Europe. Sobranie is one of the oldest cigarette brands in the world. Throughout its existence, Sobranie was marketed as the definition of luxury in the tobacco industry, being adopted as the official provider of many European royal houses and elites around the world including the Imperial Court of Russia and the royal courts of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Greece. Premium brands include the multi-coloured Sobranie Cocktail and the black and gold Sobranie Black Russian.
*****Elite Styles was one of the many glossy monthly magazines aimed at leisured middle and upper-class women, describing and illustrating the popular fashions of the era.
******The Aberdare Range (formerly the Sattima Range) is a one hundred mile long mountain range of upland, north of Kenya's capital Nairobi with an average elevation of thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty feet. It straddles across the counties of Nyandarua, Nyeri, Muranga, Kiambu and Laikipia.
*******The Muthaiga Club is a club in Nairobi. It is located in the suburb of Muthaiga, about fifteen minutes’ drive from the city centre. The Muthaiga Country Club opened on New Year's Eve in 1913, and became a gathering place for the colonial British settlers in British East Africa, which later became in 1920, the Colony of Kenya.
********The annual Kenya Derby has been held since 1914, originally at Kenya’s principal racecourse in Kariokor, near Nairobi’s centre until 1954 when it was moved to the newly erected Ngong Racecourse.
Cluttered with paintings, photographs and furnishings, Lady Sadie’s morning room with its Georgian and Victorian furnishings is different from what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection including pieces from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The silver tea set and silver galleried tray on the central table has been made with great attention to detail, and comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The gilt edged floral teacups, saucers and plates around the morning room come from a miniatures specialist stockist on E-Bay. The wonderful selection of biscuits on offer were made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The Elite Styles and Delineator magazines from 1922 sitting on the end of the chaise lounge and the floral pouffe were made by hand by Petite Gite Miniatures in the United States.
Lady Sadie’s morning room is furnished mostly with pieces from high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq. Lady Sadie’s cream wingback armchair is a Chippendale piece, whilst the gilt decorated mahogany tables are Regency style, as is the straight backed chair with unpadded arms. The ornate mahogany corner chair is high Victorian in style. The desk and its matching chair is a Salon Reine design, hand painted and copied from an Eighteenth Century design. All the drawers open and it has a lidded rack at either end. The china cabinet to the left-hand side is Georgian revival and is lined with green velvet and fitted with glass shelves and a glass panelled door. The cream coloured footstool with gold tasselling came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The floral chaise lounge and footstool I acquired from a miniatures specialist stockist on E-Bay.
The china cabinet is full of miniature pieces of Limoges porcelain that were made in the 1950s. Pieces include a milk jug, three sugar bowls and two lidded powder bowls. Also 1950s Limoges porcelain is the vase on the far left of the photo on the Regency table holding pink roses. The roses themselves are handmade miniatures that come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The fluted squat cranberry glass vase on the table to the right of the photo is an artisan miniature made of hand blown glass which also came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. Made of polymer clay that are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements, the very realistic looking red and white tulips are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany. The tiny gilt cherub statue I have had since I was a teenager. I bought it from a high street stockist who specialised in dolls houses and doll house miniatures. Being only a centimetre in height and half a centimetre in diameter it has never been lost, even though I have moved a number of times in my life since its acquisition.
The plaster fireplace comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom as well, and the fire screen and fire pokers come from the same high street stockist who specialised in dolls houses and doll house miniatures as the cherub statue. I have also had these pieces since I was a teenager. The Royal Doulton style figurines on top the fireplace, are from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland and have been hand painted by me. The figurines are identifiable as particular Royal Doulton figurines from the 1920s and 1930s.
The Chetwynd’s family photos seen on Lady Sadie’s desk, the mantlepiece 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 two books about flower growing on Lady Sadie’s desk 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. What might amaze you 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. He also made the envelopes sitting in the rack to the left of the desk. 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 painting of the Georgian family above the fireplace comes from Amber’s Miniatures in the United States, whilst the two silhouette portraits come from Lady Mile Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The painting of the lady in the gold frame wedged up in the corner of the room surrounded by photos is made by Marie Makes Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
The Persian rugs on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.
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.
After a busy morning working at her desk, painting some interior designs for one of a flurry of new clients since the publication of her interiors for ‘Chi and Treth’, the country residence of her friends Dickie and Margot Channon, in the periodical ‘Country Life’*, Lettice prepares to curl up in one of her armchairs and enjoy the latest edition of Vogue whilst taking a reviving cup of tea provided to her in her favourite Art Deco teaset by her maid, Edith, when the telephone rings noisily on the occasional table beside her.
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“Oh pooh!” Lettice curses. “And just as I was about to get comfortable.”
BBBBRRRINGGG!
Edith, just a few paces away looks aghast at the sparkling silver and Bakelite telephone. “That infernal contraption!” she mutters to herself. She then adds more loudly, “If it inconveniences you, Miss, you should have it disconnected.”
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“Yes, I’m sure you’d like that, Edith.” Lettice says with a cheeky smile. “Aa it happens, it’s not an inconvenience at all. It’s actually a delight to have it, although exactly who is calling, it is yet to be determined as to whether they are a delight or not.”
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“Oh Edith, be a brick and get that, would you.” Lettice says sweetly to her maid as she snuggles herself comfortably into the rounded back of her armchair with a mirthful grin and picks up her magazine.
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“I think it would be better if you answered it, Miss.” Edith says doubtfully. “You’re closer. You just have to reach across and pick it up.”
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“Nonsense,” Lettice answers dismissively. “It might be someone I might not wish to be at home to. You answer it.” She waves her hand dismissively at the telephone and turns back to her magazine, before she continues to flip through it in a desultory fashion.
Edith walks in and up to the black japanned occasional table upon which the telephone continues to trill loudly.
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“I know you don’t like it, Edith, but this is for your own good. As I keep telling you, any household you work in will have one now, so you simply must get used to answering it.” Lettice says in a matter-of-fact way. “Just pick it up and speak clearly into it, Edith. Quickly, before whomever it is hangs up. It may be Selwyn!“
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“I should run the Hoover over your chord, you infernal contraption.” Edith mutters. “Let’s hear you ring then!”
Edith hates answering the telephone. It’s one of the few jobs in her position as Lettice’s maid that she wishes she didn’t have to do. Whenever she has to answer it, which is quite often considering how frequently her mistress is out and about, and how popular her services are with the raising of her profile thanks to the ‘Country Life’ article, there is usually some uppity caller at the other end of the phone, whose toffee-nosed accent only seems to sharpen when they realise they are speaking to ‘the hired help’ as they abruptly demand Lettice’s whereabouts.
BBBBRRRINGGG!
Smoothing her suddenly clammy hands down the apron covering her print morning dress she answers with a slight quiver to her voice, “Mayfair 432, the Honourable Miss Lettice Chetwynd’s residence.” Her whole body clenches and she closes her eyes as she waits for the barrage of anger from some duchess or other titled lady, affronted at having to address the maid. A distant female voice speaks down the line. “Yes, this is the residence of Miss Chetwynd.” she answers, wondering why the caller didn’t listen to her the first time. There is a barrage of sharp barks followed by scolding at the end of the line before the female caller asks to speak to Lettice. “I’ll… I’ll just see whether she is at home.” she replies awkwardly. “May I ask who is calling, please?” The female voice burbles down the line again. “Yes, thank you Mrs. Hawarden. Just one moment please.”
Lettice looks up at her maid queryingly, her gaze answered with a shrug of her maid’s shoulders as she covers the mouthpiece to muffle any conversation between the two of them as Lettice has wisely shown her.
“Hawarden?” Lettice ponders, chewing her bottom lip in concentration as she considers the names of her current clients in her head. “I don’t think I know that name. Has she called before, Edith?”
The maid shakes her head quickly, her eyes growing wide in concern at having to hold the telephone’s receiver. “She has a very broad accent, so I’d says she’s from up north.” Edith raises her eyes to the white painted ceiling, as if that indicates north as she holds out he receiver hopefully to her mistress, the mouthpiece still covered by her clammy hand.
“Oh!” Lettice exclaims with frustration, taking pity on her nervous maid. “Oh very well.” She throws down her magazine onto the black japanned surface of the coffee table next to her teacup and the sugar bowl of her tea set, and indicates to Edith to pass the telephone receiver to her. “You are positively exasperating sometimes, Edith.”
“Yes Miss. Thank you, Miss.” Edith says gratefully, beaming in delight as she bobs a quick curtsey and hands the receiver to her mistress, who shoos her away with an elegant, if dismissive wave.
“Good morning, this is Lettice Chetwynd speaking. Mrs. Hawarden is it?” Lettice introduces herself and asks politely.
“Oh Miss Chetwynd!” Edith may be reluctant to answer the telephone, but her hearing and observation skills are excellent. The female voice at the other end of the line is clearly from Manchester judging by the thick and syrupy accent. “I’m so pleased you’re in. My name is Mrs. Evelyn Hawarden.”
“And how many I help you, Mrs. Hawarden?”
“Well, I was hoping you might consider helping me redecorate the drawing room and dining room of my new home, Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs. Hawarden replies, a hopeful lilt detectable in her voice.
“Perhaps you’d care to tell me a little bit more, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice suggests as she presses herself into the white upholstered back of her chair.
“So, you’re free to take on the job then, Miss Chetwynd?” the Mancunian woman asks presumptively, releasing a sigh of relief.
“Not necessarily, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice tempers the woman’s enthusiasm politely. “I’m simply wishing to ascertain some basic facts first. Would you care to tell me in a little bit more detail about what you had in mind. Is it just the drawing room and dining room you wish to engage my services for to redecorate, or are there other rooms? What is the current standard of the rooms? Is it to be a complete redecoration, or are there some elements of your current décor that you would perhaps entertain retaining?”
“Well,” Mrs. Hawarden replies a little less eagerly, evidently disappointed by her inability to engage Lettice’s services on a modicum of detail. “Yes, it would be the drawing room and the dining room. Maybe the entrance hall too, now I think about it.”
Lettice can almost hear the woman thinking about it. Lettice pictures a more mature woman standing in her entrance hall on the telephone looking around her at the current decoration of the space.
“We’ve only just moved in you see,” Mrs. Hawarden continues. “So I’m still trying to take it all in.”
“You’ve only just moved in, Mrs. Hawarden?” Lettice queries. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to settle first and work out what’s what before you engage my services?”
“Oh no! No!” splutters the woman at the end of the telephone. “Oh no, I need it redecorating before I can possibly receive guests, Miss Chetwynd.”
Lettice’s eyes grow wide as she wonders what is wrong with the interiors. Diplomatically she asks, “Is it that the interiors are damaged, or perhaps a little shabby, Mrs. Hawarden?”
“Oh no!” Mrs. Hawarden replies. “No the interiors are in splendid condition, Miss Chetwynd. It’s not that…” There is suddenly a burst of angry yaps at Mrs, Hawarden’s end of the line. “No! Yat-See no! No!” screams the woman, causing Lettice to pull the end of the receiver away from her ear. “Barbara! Barbara! Barbara come and fetch Yat-See! He’s about to…” Mrs. Hawarden’s end of the line is suddenly muffled, no doubt by the woman covering the telephone receiver’s mouth piece with her hand. There are some more muffled cries and some more volleys of sharp barking before things go quiet again. A moment later Lettice can hear the fingers uncovering the telephone’s mouthpiece. “I am sorry about that, Miss Chetwynd.” the Mancunian replies, suitably composed again. “As I said, we’re new here, and my dear little baby, Yat-See is getting into all sorts of naughty doggie mischief.” She laughs awkwardly. “Now, where were we?”
“The décor, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice prompt politely.
“The décor? Oh yes, the décor isn’t shabby at all, Miss Chetwynd. It’s just, just somewhat, dated, shall we say.”
Lettice ponders what the woman is saying and wonders whether she has recently inherited the house and is trying to rid herself of the former owner’s influence on her new home.
“So, you have inherited the décor with the house then, Mrs, Hawarden?”
“Yes, quite literally lock, stock and barrel, Miss Chetwynd, and, well, after I saw what you did for Mr. and Mrs. Channon in ‘Country Life’, I thought you could do wonders here. You can bring in some light and modernity to the old place.”
Lettice reaches over to the occasional table the telephone’s base stands on and picks up her leather diary which sits in front of it. Flipping the silver clasp, she begins to flick through the pages.
“Well, that does sound interesting, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice begins.
“So, you’ll take it on then?” Mrs. Hawarden asks again.
“Well,” Lettice tempers her again. “We shall have to see. I’d like to consult with you a little more, here at my residence in Mayfair and meet you formerly, before I make my final decision. Perhaps you might be free next Wednesday, Mrs. Hawarden?”
“Oh no!” Mrs. Hawarden balks. “I couldn’t possibly do that. I’m far too busy getting things straightened out here.” The sound of the dog’s yapping and the chiming of a grandfather clock can be heard in the distance in the pregnant pause that hangs like the miles between the two women. “We really have only just moved in, and I’m still sorting things here. Couldn’t I entreat you to come here, instead? That way, we could as you suggest, meet formally, and you could see the interiors at the same time.”
“Well, it’s not my usual practice, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice retorts.
“Oh please!” Mrs. Hawarden pleads. “It would be so much easier if you would just come here, Miss Chetwynd. Really it would!”
“As I said, Mrs. Hawarden, it really isn’t…”
“I’m still interviewing for staff at present,” the woman bursts in, not allowing Lettice to finish here sentence. “But we did bring our cook down with us, and she makes a delicious lunch.”
“Well,” Lettice asks tentatively. “Where is your house, Mrs. Hawarden?”
“Oh, it’s only a short trip outside of London.” Mrs, Hawarden trills gaily. “No difficulty at all. I’m in Ascot**.”
“Well if it’s no trouble at all, Mrs. Hawarden, I don’t see why…”
“Next Wednesday didn’t you say? I do just happen to be free, and I can have our chauffer collect you from the railway station if you don’t feel like motoring down yourself.”
Lettice considers the invitation for a moment. Ascot Week*** is fast approaching, so she will have friends staying in the neighbourhood, so she could have luncheon with Mrs. Hawarden, and even if Lettice decides to decline her as a client, she can still visit friends before going back to London, and be given a, hopefully, delicious luncheon at Mrs. Hawarden’s expense.
“Very well, Mrs. Hawarden. I’ll come up via the railroad for the afternoon.”
“Excellent Miss Chetwynd!” Mrs. Hawarden purrs with pleasure. “I knew you’d come to see reason. Shall we say one o’clock then? If you’d be good enough to consult the railway timetables and advise me, I’ll have Johnston collect you from the railway station.”
Lettice picks up her silver pen. “If you would please give me your particulars, Mrs. Hawarden. I’ll write them down.”
“Splendid! Splendid!” twitters Mrs. Hawarden in delight so evident that Lettice can picture her squirming up and down on the spot like a concertina, crumpling her tweeds.
*Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
**Ascot is a town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire. It is six miles south of Windsor and twenty-five miles west of London. It is most notable as the location of Ascot Racecourse, home of the Royal Ascot meeting. The town comprises three areas: Ascot itself, North Ascot and South Ascot. It is in the civil parish of Sunninghill and Ascot.
***One of Britain's most well-known racecourses, Ascot holds a special week of races in June each year called Royal Ascot, attended by the reigning sovereign. Once a staple for the London Season, where mothers to parade their unmarried daughters dressed in the latest European and British fashions before eligible bachelors and British society could mix with royalty in a rarefied social environment, this week has become in the Twenty-First Century Britain's most popular race meeting, welcoming around 300,000 visitors over five days, all dressed up in their finest clothes and hats.
This 1920s upper-class drawing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures including items from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. The magazines from 1923 sitting on the coffee table and on the lower level of the occasional table were made by hand by Petite Gite Miniatures in the United States.
On the tiered occasional table stands a 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 it is a black leather diary with the silver clasp which is an artisan crafted miniature made by the Little Green Workshop in the United Kingdom, who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures.
The vase of apricot roses on the Art Deco occasional table is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium, whilst the tall vase of flowers to the right of the china cabinet has been made by Falcon Miniatures, who are well known for their lifelike floral creations.
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The black japanned wooden china cabinet with its mirrored back is a Chippendale design. On its glass shelves sit pieces of miniature Limoges porcelain including jugs, teacups and saucers, many of which I have had since I was a child. All date from the 1950s and have green backstamps on them. They come from various Limoges miniature tea sets that I own.
The high backed back japanned chair next to the china cabinet is Chippendale too. It has been upholstered with modern and stylish Art Deco fabric.
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 green glass comport on the coffee table is an artisan miniature made from hand spun glass and acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug. The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
Supplementing its large fleet of Tridents, Nu-Venture purchased an ex-London WVL in September 2020 and was soon slotted in for repaint into fleet livery.
Looking smart in fleet colours, Nu-Venture WVL272 LX06 ECF is seen making a small diversion on Chatham Road, Ringlestone, whilst running empty from the garage in Aylesford to Cornwallis Academy to work school route 66 to Kingswood via Chart Sutton, Headcorn and Ulcombe. Thursday 12th November 2020.
Volvo B7TL - Wrightbus Eclipse Gemini 10.1m (Ex-Go-Ahead London WVL272)
Spokesmodels for client Supplement-IT.com. They developed a vitamin supplement for IT professionals.
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.
Today however we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid’s, parents live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. Whilst far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, the Harlesden terrace has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith and her brother, Bert.
Having recently met Mrs. McTavish, the grandmother of Frank Leadbetter, Edith’s young beau, Edith has now arranged for Frank to join her for a Sunday roast with her parents, so that they might finally meet. Wishing to make the right impression, Frank arrived on the doorstep of the Watsfords dressed in his Sunday best suit, and presented Ada with a bunch of beautiful yellow roses and George with a bottle of French red wine. Frank has not been the only one wishing to make a good impression, with Ada scrubbing her home from top to bottom in the days leading up to the visit.
The kitchen has always been the heart of Edith’s family home, and today it has a particularly special feel about it. Ada had pulled out one of her best table cloths which now adorns the round kitchen table, hiding its worn surface and the best blue and white china and gilded dinner service is being used today. Ada has even conceded to Edith’s constant reminders that she promised to use the pretty Price Washington ‘Ye Old Cottage’ teapot that Edith bought her.
The kitchen is filled with the rich smells of roasted ham and pumpkin, boiled potatoes and vegetables, gravy warming over the grate and the faint fruity aroma of one of Ada’s cherry tarts as it sits waiting to be served for dessert on the dresser’s pull out extension.
“It’s a pleasure to finally have you at our table on a Sunday after all this time, Frank.” Ada says welcomingly from her seat in the high backed Windsor chair in front of the kitchen range, smiling across the round kitchen table at their guest.
“It’s a great pleasure to be here and to meet you too Mrs. Watsford,” Frank answers, before quickly looking to his right and adding, “And of course you too, Mr. Watsford.”
“Yes,” adds George. “All we ever seem to hear from our Edith these days is ‘Frank and I did this’ or ‘Frank said that’, and we wondered when we were going to get to meet you.”
“Dad!” admonishes Edith hotly, her cheeks flushing with colour at her father’s direct remark.
Frank looks to his sweetheart and smiles at her, silently indicating that what her father said was fine with him. “I am sorry we haven’t met sooner, but I am a stickler for doing things properly.”
“Yes, so Edith told us.” Ada answers.
“So, she may have told you that I wanted her to meet my family first. Sadly, my parents aren’t alive any longer, but I still have my maternal grandmother, who had more than a hand in my upbringing. I needed to ease her into the idea that I have a sweetheart, you see. It has just been she and I since 1919. I didn’t want to upset our routine, so I slowly introduced the idea of Edith being my sweetheart to her before finally introducing them.”
“Edith tells us that the introduction to Mrs. Mc… Tavish, is it?” Ada begins querying. When Frank nods, she continues. “That her introduction to Mrs. McTavish went very well.”
“It did indeed. In fact, it went even better than I’d hoped.” Frank enthuses. “You must both be very proud of Edith.”
Edith blushes again and looks down into her napkin draped across her lap.
‘And now they’ve met,” Frank continues. “It means that we could meet.”
“Well,” Ada says kindly. “I think that’s very respectful of you, considering your grandmother’s feelings like that.”
“I’m sure Edith would do the same, were she in a similar position, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank replies with a slight blush of his own now gracing his usually pale cheeks.
“And thank you again for the lovely roses, Frank.” Ada adds, glancing at the bunch of fat yellow roses on the table that Frank presented to her upon his and Edith’s arrival at the Watsford family home.
“Oh, and the wine.” Edith points to the bottle of red wine also sitting on the table.
“I’m not really a wine drinker myself,” George remarks. “More of stout man, me.” He taps the reddish brown earthenware jug next to him comfortingly.
“It doesn’t matter, George.” Ada admonishes her husband. “It was very thoughtful of you, Frank. I’m sure you make your grandmother as proud as Edith makes us.” Yet even as she speaks, Ada looks distrustfully at the bottle of red wine with its fancy label decorated with garlands and writing in a foreign language. “And where did you find this wine, Frank?”
“I did make sure to ask Edith whether you were teetotal, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank assures Ada. “If you disapprove, I’ll take it away. I meant no disrespect.”
“Oh it’s not that, Frank. We just aren’t used to it is all. As my husband says, we don’t often have a cause to have wine in this house.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever had wine in the house.” George adds.
“Oh, when Mum was alive and used to make elderflower or blackberry wine, I always had a small demijohn*** of them on the dresser.” Ada corrects him. “Not that there was ever a great deal in the house.”
“I don’t remember that,” George chortles. “But then again,” he adds, raising his bushy eyebrows. “There are a good many things I don’t remember these days.”
“Well, I’m afraid this didn’t come from my Granny.” Frank apologises. “But she doesn’t make wine.”
“No, but she does make very pretty lace, Mum.” Edith turns to Frank. “So where did you get it from Frank?” she asks. “I don’t remember Mr. Willison being a wine merchant.”
“Well, that’s because he’s not. This is a bottle of French wine which comes from a chum of mine who runs a little Italian restaurant up the Islington****.” Frank looks at Edith and smiles. “I’ll take you there one day, Edith, for a very special dinner of home-made spaghetti.”
“I’d like that, Frank.” Edith beams.
“A French wine from an Italian restaurant?” George queries.
“Giuseppe, my chum, serves wine from different countries with his meals, and I asked him what might be best to have.” Frank explains. “And he sold me this bottle.”
Ada picks up her tumbler of wine, sniffing at its red liquified contents rather suspiciously before taking her first tentative sip. Swallowing the wine, she isn’t quite sure whether she likes it or not as it glides down her throat. She can taste the fruitiness of it, but it is matched by an acidity that surprises her. It doesn’t taste like the blackberry wine she remembers her mother making. “Once again, it’s very thoughtful of you to give us such a… treat.” Returning her tumbler to the table she discreetly pushes it away from her place at the table, hoping that Frank won’t notice or take offence.
“Mum has always said that good manners are the hallmark of a gentleman.” Edith adds with a smile and a nod towards er mother, knowing that Frank has made a good impression with her by the simple gesture of a gift.
“And so they are.” Ada nods.
“Yellow roses are the universal symbol of friendship.” Frank explains. “And I do sincerely hope that we will be friends, Mr. and Mrs. Watsford.” he adds hopefully, the statement rewarded by a kind smile from both of Edith’s parents.
“Where did you learn that from, Frank?” Ada asks.
“I came across an old book at the Caledonian Markets* Mrs. Watsford, called, ‘Floral Symbolica’** which lists the meaning of ever so many flowers.”
“That sounds very fancy.” George remarks. “Floral… floral sym… what?”
“Symbolica, Mr. Watsford.” Frank confirms.
“Frank’s a big reader, Dad.” Edith announces, attracting her father’s attention to common ground between the two of them.
“What else do you read then, Frank?” George asks with interest. “Besides books of flowers, that is.”
“I read lots of things, Mr. Watsford.” Frank replies proudly. “Anything to improve my mind.”
“Well, I wish you’d help improve Edith’s mind. She seems only to be interested in romance novels.” George teases his daughter cheekily.
“That’s not true, Dad!” Edith gasps, taking her father’s bait far too easily. “I read lots of different things, not just romance novels.”
“What do you like to read, Sir?” Frank asks helpfully in an effort to save his sweetheart further embarrassment and character assassination at her father’s hands.
“I probably don’t read things you’d like, Frank. I prefer to read for escapism. A good story that grabs me is what I like, like those Fu Manchu***** mystery books, or that new female mystery writer. What’s her name?” He clicks his fingers as he tries to recall her name. “Help me, will you Edith. The woman who wrote ‘The Secret Adversary’ and ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’.”
“Christie.” Frank pipes up.
“That’s it!” George sighs with relief. “Agatha Christie******. Thank you Frank. Do you read her books too?”
“No, I’m afraid I’m not much of a mystery reader myself, Mr. Watsford.”
“No, you don’t strike me as a murder mystery type, Frank.” George muses as he eyes the serious young man in his Sunday best suit up and down. “You seem to be a more studious type.” He shrugs. “Pity, she writes ripping good yarns.”
“And you’re a delivery lad I believe?” Ada asks, turning the subject more towards knowing more about Frank’s prospects as a potential suitor for her daughter.
“That’s right, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank replies proudly, sitting a little straighter in his seat at the table. “I work for Willison’s the Grocers in Mayfair, and I do deliveries around the neighbourhood.”
“But he’s doing more than just deliveries now, Dad.” Edith pipes up a little anxiously, seeing the creases in her father’s serious face.
“Yes!” Frank adds. “Mr. Willison has taken me under his wing so to speak and is teaching me about displaying goods in the window and the like.”
“It’s called visual merchandising.” Edith explains.
“Is it now?” Ada remarks, pursing her lips in distrust and raising her eyebrows. “Such fancy words. Our Edith is always coming home with fancy words from your neck of the woods these days.”
“Good for you, Lad!” George booms. “Mrs. Watsford here,” He glances beyond the bunch of yellow roses at his wife. “Is perhaps a little less at ease with the idea of bettering yourself than Edith and I are.”
“I wouldn’t say that, George.” Ada defends herself. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with a young man improving his lots in life.”
“But?” George asks, picking up on the silent second half of his wife’s statement.
“But I think that there is such a thing as aspiring too high. There is a class structure that has done us well for time long before I was born.”
“For some of us, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank pipes up.
Edith’s eyes grow wide as she realises that the conversation over Sunday luncheon is suddenly careening swiftly towards a topic that Frank feels very passionately about, but also one that rattles her mother. She worries that Frank’s enthusiasm might not be so well received by either of her parents. However, even as she thinks these thoughts, it is already too late as Frank opens his mouth and continues.
“Now is the time for the working man, and working woman too, to rise up and be better than the lot in life we’ve been dealt, Mrs. Watsford.”
Edith watches the almost imperceptible shifts in her mother’s features as they steels and harden.
“You may be happy with your place in life, but I for one want to do better. I don’t want to be a grocer’s boy forever. I want to do better, so that I can afford to give Edith a good home.”
“Do you plan to own your own grocer’s, lad?” George asks with an air of impossibility.
“Maybe, Mr. Watsford. I don’t see why I shouldn’t, or at least shouldn’t try. I have a lot of dreams you see, and ideas for the future.”
Ada takes a mouthful of ham, swallowing stiffly as she answers, “Yes, I’ve heard a great deal about your ideas from Edith, Frank.”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Watsford, that I am not a Communist.” Frank defends himself, having heard from Edith about her mother’s concerns. “I just want a better world for Edith, for me, for my children.”
“And that’s admirable, Frank.” Ada counters. “And I don’t disagree with you. Aspiring to a better life is good. I just think a little less radically than you do, and you’ll forgive me for saying this, but as a person who has had more years on this earth than you have, Frank, I don’t think my opinions are less valid, in spite of their lack of ambition for change.”
An uncomfortable silence falls over the table.
“Oh I’m sorry, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank says after a moment, dabbing the edge of is mouth with his napkin. “I didn’t mean to cause any offence. Edith tells me that when I get passionate about something, I talk before I think. I apologise for shooting off my mouth.”
“That’s alright lad.” George replies soothingly, covering over his wife’s stony silence. “It’s good to feel strongly and want change: a better future for yourself. Ada and I,” He places his bigger hand comfortingly and in a sign of solidarity over his wife’s as she still holds her fork, resting her wrist on the table. “Well, you’ll probably laugh at our old fashioned ideas, but we’ve made positive changes for ourselves and our children in our own, more quiet ways.”
“Sorry Mr. Watsford.” Frank sighs. “It’s not the first time my mouth has gotten me in trouble.”
“It’s alright, Frank.” Ada says quietly, releasing the handle of her fork and entwining her fingers with those of her husband. “I like you, in spite of the fact that you and I may not entirely agree with the way the world should be or how we go about making it a better place, but I just can’t help worrying about our Edith being with you and your revolutionary ideas.”
“Mum!” Edith gasps, raining her hands to her mouth.
“I’m sorry, Edith,” Ada says. “But I have to say my peace. I do worry about you. As a mother you do worry, about all your children.”
“I promise you that I won’t ever put Edith in harm’s way, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank swears earnestly.
“Not intentionally, I know, Frank, but what about unintentionally?” Ada says. “You’re a good lad, and I can see that by your thoughtfulness and your manners. You obviously treat Edith very well. However, the vehemence with which you spurn your new ideas around is frightening to me.” She looks at Edith seriously and continues earnestly. “You’re of age now, Edith love, and I can’t stop you from stepping out with Frank here. You can make your own decisions as to whether he is the right young man for you.”
“Oh he is, Mum! I promise you!” Edith pipes up, looking deep into her mother’s serious face.
“I suppose I’m just a bit like your granny was with our Edith, Frank. I need to get accustomed to you.” She looks at the plump yellow rose blooms. “George and I accept your offer of friendship, and we hope that you won’t feel too awkward after today to join us for Sunday tea again.”
“Oh I assure you Mrs. Watsford, I’d be delighted.”
“Good. But in extending the warm hand of friendship, I’d be obliged if you would perhaps temper your more modern and revolutionary ideas, whilst I get used to you, Frank.”
All four diners spend a few minutes quietly eating their dinner, with only the scrape of cutlery against crockery to break the silence.
As Edith chews her mouthful of boiled potato, she finds it hard to swallow, and when she finally does, she feels it slide down her throat and land heavily in the pit of her stomach. She glances across at Frank to her right, but he doesn’t look up from his plate as he puts a sliver of orange roast pumpkin in his mouth. She had warned Frank to try and curtail his passionate ideas before her parents, but realises now that to ask him to do so is to deny him one of the most important things in his life. She worries whether Frank and her mother will ever see eye-to-eye on things.
“So, enough about changing the world,” George says at length, breaking the silence. “What football team do you support then, young Frank?”
Edith smiles gratefully at her father, who winks at her over the rim of his glass as she takes a swig of ale.
“West Ham United, Sir.” Frank says proudly.
“Good lad!” George chortles. “See, he’s not all bad, Ada!”
“You must be as excited as me about West Ham playing Bolton at the inaugural Empire Stadium******* match that’s coming up then, Mr. Watsford.” Frank says, also smiling gratefully at George for being the peacemaker and easing the tension in the room.
“Oh we all are, lad!” agrees George. “Would that I could get tickets for the match, but being the opening of the stadium, tickets are hard to come by.”
“If they finish it in time.” Frank remarks. “There isn’t long to go now, and yet from what I’ve read, it’s nowhere near done yet.”
“Now, now, lad!” George admonishes Frank good naturedly, wagging his fork with a speared piece of cauliflower on it. “Have a bit of faith in British construction. That stadium is going to be the centrepiece of the British Empire Exhibition. No full blooded British man is going to let the Empire down by not competing it.”
“Yes, you’re quite right, Sir.” Frank agrees.
As the mood at the table lifts and shifts a little, Edith is suddenly heartened by the possibility that maybe Frank might win approval from both her parents in the end, if Frank can win her father over. Her father’s opinion matters a great deal to her mother. She slices her knife through another boiled potato on her plate and sighs quietly, knowing that whilst this first meeting of Frank and her parents was not all that she had hoped for, all is not lost and some bridges have been built.
*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.
**’Floral Symbolica; or, The Language and Sentiment of Flowers’ is a book written by John Ingram, published in London in 1870 by Frederick Warne and Co. who are perhaps best known for publishing the books of Beatrix Potter. ‘Flora Symbolica; or, The language and Sentiment of Flowers includes meanings of many species of flowers, both domestic and exotic, as well as floral poetry, original and selected. It contains a colour frontispiece and fifteen colour plates, printed in colours by Terry. John Henry Ingram (November the 16th, 1842 – February the 12th, 1916) was an English biographer and editor with a special interest in Edgar Allan Poe. Ingram was born at 29 City Road, Finsbury Square, Middlesex, and died at Brighton, England. His family lived at Stoke Newington, recollections of which appear in Poe's works. J. H. Ingram dedicated himself to the resurrection of Poe's reputation, maligned by the dubious memoirs of Rufus Wilmot Griswold; he published the first reliable biography of the author and a four-volume collection of his works.
***A demijohn originally referred to any glass vessel with a large body and small neck, enclosed in wickerwork. The word presumably comes from the French dame-jeanne, literally "Lady Jane", as a popular appellation; this word is first attested in France in the Seventeenth century. Demijohns are primarily used for transporting liquids, often water or chemicals. They are also used for in-home fermentation of beverages, often beer or wine.
****The Italian quarter of London, known commonly today as “Little Italy” is an Italian ethnic enclave in London. Little Italy’s core historical borders are usually placed at Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue - the Saffron Hill area of Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell spans Camden Borough and Islington Borough. Saffron Hill and St. Peter’s Italian Catholic Church fall within the Camden side. However, even though this was the traditional enclave for Italians, immigrants moved elsewhere in London, bleeding into areas like Islington and Soho where they established bars, cafes and restaurants which sold Italian cuisine and wines.
*****’The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu’ was a 1913 novel by prolific writer Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward under the non-deplume Sax Rohmer that portrayed Chinese as opium fiends, thugs, murders and villains. His supervillain Fu-Manchu proved so popular that he wrote a whole series of sequels featuring the odious character between 1914 ad 1917 and then again from 1933 until 1959. The image of "Orientals" invading Western nations became the foundation of Rohmer's commercial success, being able to sell twenty million copies of his books in his lifetime.
******By 1923 when this story is set, detective mystery fiction writer Agatha Christie had already written two successful novels, ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ published by The Bodley Head in 1921, which introduced the world to her fictional detective Hercule Poirot, and ‘The Secret Adversary’ also published by The Bodley Head, in 1922, which introduced characters Tommy and Tuppence. In May of 1923, Agatha Christie would release her second novel featuring Hercule Poirot: ‘The Murder on the Links’ which would retail in London bookshops for seven shillings and sixpence.
*******Originally known as Empire Stadium, London’s Wembley Stadium was built to serve as the centerpiece of the British Empire Exhibition. It took a total of three hundred days to construct the stadium at a cost of £750,000. The stadium was completed on the 23rd of April 1923, only a few days before the first football match, between the Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United, was to take place at the stadium. This first match was the 1923 FA Cup final, which later became known as the White Horse final. The stadium's first turf was cut by King George V, and it was first opened to the public on 28 April 1923. Much of Humphry Repton's original Wembley Park landscape was transformed in 1922 and 1923 during preparations for the British Empire Exhibition. First known as the "British Empire Exhibition Stadium" or simply the "Empire Stadium", it was built by Sir Robert McAlpine for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 (extended to 1925).
This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On the table the roast ham dinner that really does look good enough to eat is made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The gravy boat of gravy is also Frances Knight’s work. The knife sitting alongside the ham comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. The blue and white crockery on the table I have bought as individual from several online sellers on E-Bay. I imagine that whole sets were once sold, but now I can only find them piecemeal. The cutlery and the glasses (which are made from real glass) I bought as a teenager from a high street dollhouse suppliers. The pottery ale jug comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in England. The glass of ale comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The salt and pepper shakers come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The 1:12 artisan bottle of Bordeaux, made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, is made from glass and the winery on the label is a real winery in France. The vase of yellow roses came from a 1:12 miniatures stockist on E-Bay. The tablecloth is actually a piece of an old worn sheet that was destined for the dustbin.
In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table, the Windsor chair and the ladderback chair to the left of the photo, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. There are also some rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and a bread tin in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces I recently acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the the United Kingdom. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a tin of Macfie’s Finest Black Treacle, two jars of P.C. Flett and Company jam, a tin of Heinz marinated apricots, a jar of Marmite, some Bisto gravy powder, some Ty-Phoo tea and a jar of S.P.C. peaches. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, except the jar of S.P.C. peaches which comes from Shepherds Miniatures in the United Kingdom. All of them have great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.
Robert Andrew Macfie sugar refiner was the first person to use the term term Golden Syrup in 1840, a product made by his factory, the Macfie sugar refinery, in Liverpool. He also produced black treacle.
P.C. Flett and Company was established in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands by Peter Copeland Flett. He had inherited a small family owned ironmongers in Albert Street Kirkwall, which he inherited from his maternal family. He had a shed in the back of the shop where he made ginger ale, lemonade, jams and preserves from local produce. By the 1920s they had an office in Liverpool, and travelling representatives selling jams and preserves around Great Britain. I am not sure when the business ceased trading.
The American based Heinz food processing company, famous for its Baked Beans, 57 varieties of soups and tinend spaghetti opened a factory in Harlesden in 1919, providing a great deal of employment for the locals who were not already employed at McVitie and Price.
Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.
In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.
S.P.C. is an Australian brand that still exists to this day. In 1917 a group of fruit growers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley decided to form a cooperative which they named the Shepperton Fruit Preserving Company. The company began operations in February 1918, canning pears, peaches and nectarines under the brand name of S.P.C. On the 31st of January 1918 the manager of the Shepparton Fruit Preserving Company announced that canning would begin on the following Tuesday and that the operation would require one hundred and fifty girls or women and thirty men. In the wake of the Great War, it was hoped that “the launch of this new industry must revive drooping energies” and improve the economic circumstances of the region. The company began to pay annual bonuses to grower-shareholders by 1929, and the plant was updated and expanded. The success of S.P.C. was inextricably linked with the progress of the town and the wider Goulburn Valley region. In 1936 the company packed twelve million cans and was the largest fruit cannery in the British empire. Through the Second World War the company boomed. The product range was expanded to include additional fruits, jam, baked beans and tinned spaghetti and production reached more than forty-three million cans a year in the 1970s. From financial difficulties caused by the 1980s recession, SPC returned once more to profitability, merging with Ardmona and buying rival company Henry Jones IXL. S.P.C. was acquired by Coca Cola Amatil in 2005 and in 2019 sold to a private equity group known as Shepparton Partners Collective.
Also on the dresser on the pull out drawer is a cherry tart made by Frances Knight. Next to it stands a 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 roof and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics.
The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Tonight, we are in the little maid’s room off the Cavendish Mews kitchen, which serves as Edith, Lettice’s maid’s, bedroom. The room is very comfortable and more spacious than the attic she shared with her friend and fellow maid, Hilda, in her last position. The room is papered with floral sprigged wallpaper, and whilst there is no carpet, unlike Lettice’s bedroom, there are rugs laid over the stained floorboards. The room is big enough for Edith to have a comfortable armchair and tea table as well as her bed, a chest of drawers and a small wardrobe. Best of all, the room has central heating, so it is always warm and cosy on cold nights.
Edith has returned to Cavendish Mews after spending Christmas with her family in Harlesden and New Year with her beau Frank at a pub in Rotherhithe, arriving a few days ahead of Lettice who will shortly return from her own Christmas holiday spent with her family at their country estate, Glynes, in Wiltshire. Edith is luxuriating in the silence of the flat with no Lettice present. Although not overly demanding and a very good mistress to work for, Edith always knows when Lettice is home, sensing her presence in the soft clip of her footfall on the parquetry floor, the distant sound of her favourite or latest American records on the gramophone, the waft of her expensive French perfumes about the rooms of the flat, the peal of her laughter as she giggles over tea or cocktails with visiting friends or the jangle of the servants call bells bouncing about in the kitchen near the back door. For now, it is just Edith with only the tick of the clocks about the house and the distant burble of late night traffic along Bond Street to disturb her quiet.
She sighs and takes a sip of tea from the Delftware teacup, part of the kitchen set she uses and places it back on the tea table next to the pot, covered with a cosy knitted for her by her mother three years ago as a Christmas gift. She glances around the room at her possessions. In comparison to her mistress, what she has amassed is meagre to say the least, but she is very happy with her own personal touches about her little bedroom. Her hat, a second hand black straw cloche she came by at Petticoat Lane* decorated with bits and bobs she picked up from her Whitechapel haberdasher Mrs. Minkin, sits on her hat stand, also acquired from Petticoat Lane, on one end of the dark chest of drawers. Her lacquered sewing box, a gift from her mother when she first left home to go into service, sits at the other. Behind it is wedged her latest scrapbook that she fills with newspaper articles about fashion, films and the advances of women. Next to the sewing box sit the latest editions to her library, three romance novels from Lettice as a Christmas gift. Next to her hat stand, her collection of hat pins, and next to that, the brass framed portrait photo of she and her parents taken at a professional photographic studio in the Harlesden High Street. If she squints and concentrates hard, Edith can just remember the occasion, with her pressed into her Sunday best white pinny with lace, made for her by her mother, and starched by her too, being a laundress. The needlepoint home sweet home Edith made hangs on the wall in a simple wooden frame above the drawers. Her eyes return to the chest of drawers’ highly polished surface where the eau de nil Bakelite**dressing table set from Boots***, a gift from Lettice the previous Christmas, sits and then she sees the face of Bert, her first love, gazing out at her. Although he is sitting stiffly and was possibly ill at ease dressed in his Sunday best when the photograph was taken, it cannot hide the kindness in his eyes, or the cheeky smirk that plays at the corners of his mouth.
“I wonder if it’s time.” Edith muses quietly to herself, taking another sip of tea.
Edith’s young man was the local postman in Harlesden, and that was how Edith first met him, delivering mail in her street. The Watsfords, Edith’s family, never had much post, but Bert would always find an excuse to stop if he saw her in that last year before the war before she had her first live-in post as a maid and was still living at home. She was fourteen and he was eighteen, and Edith’s parents, George and Ada, said they were both too young to be tethering themselves to one another, what with all their lives ahead of them. Bert’s mother wasn’t too keen on him courting a laundress’ daughter about to go out into service either. She had expectations of Bert. She always felt that being employed in a steady job with the post office, he could make a successful career for himself, and could do better than a local girl with a father who baked biscuits at the McVitie and Price factory and a mother who laundered clothes for those more fortunate than she. But they didn’t mind what their parents said. They loved each other. What might have been, Edith was never to find out, for then the war broke out, and Bert took the King’s shilling****, like so many young men his age, and he died at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917.
“I think you’d like Frank,” Edith addresses Bert’s photograph. “He’s a hard worker, just like you were, and he rides a bike too.” She smiles. “He thinks he’s on the make, and maybe he is. He’s certainly trying to improve and better himself, and me too if he has his way. He wants to take me to an art gallery or two this year. He told me so on New Year’s Eve when we were down at The Angel by the Thames. Can you imagine me going and looking at paintings in a big gallery? I can’t, any more than I can imagine you doing it, Bert, but I’m willing to give it a go for him.”
She sits and thinks for a while, recalling moments spent with Frank on their days together.
Edith chuckles to herself again. “Last summer when the weather was fine, Frank and me, we would sometimes go to Hyde Park on our Sundays off rather than going to the pictures up in West Ham, and listen to the brass bands play in the rotunda. Frank paid for our deckchairs – he’s a gentleman like that you can rest assured – and we’d sit and listen to them play.” She sighs. “Oh it was grand! The sun shining warm on my face and only the distant burble of the traffic to even remind me that I was in London. And then on the way home, we’d stop and listen to the speakers***** if Frank thought they had anything decent to say. I bet you can’t imagine little me, your sweet and gentle Edith, listening to political speeches. If you had kept your head down over there in France, I might never have. We were never into politics, you and I, were we, Bert?” She takes another sip of her tea. “Not that we really knew each other all that well. We were both so young and probably really still finding out who we were ourselves, never mind each other.” She sighs more deeply as she ruminates. “The truth is that quite a lot of it goes over my head, Bert, but Frank takes the time to explain things to me so that I can understand it too. Frank is quite a political chap really, and he says that I should show an interest too. I asked him why, when I don’t even have the vote******, but he says it won’t always be the way it is now. He says that now is the time for the working man, and woman. He believes in the emancipation of women. There you go, Bert! That’s a big word for me isn’t it? Emancipation!” She smiles proudly. “It means to be set free from social or political restrictions.”
Edith stands up and wanders over to Bert’s photograph and picks it up. The Bakelite feels cool in her hands as she traces the moulded edges of the frame.
“I wonder if you’d come back from the war whether you would have come back a changed man, Bert, and whether we’d even still be together. Would I have been enough for you? Would you be a man like Frank, not that he went to the war. Being the same age as me, he just missed out on being old enough to enlist. Would you have come back different? So many did. I mean some came back with the most awful injuries you can imagine, and then there were the injuries you couldn’t see, which doctors are still considering.” She looks into Bert’s frozen face. “Mental damage, I mean – something the doctors are now calling shellshock. But for all of them, there were plenty of men who weren’t hurt in the war, and they all seem to want change. They haven’t gone back to their old jobs as footmen or other domestic staff or working on farms. Women too. Women who worked in the munitions factories during the war. Canary Girls, they called them, because their skin turned yellow from building the shells. They all want better jobs, better pay and better standards of living. Would you have joined their ranks, I wonder, and would I have been there to support you? I just did what Mum told me to do and went into domestic service proper, and I tell you what, Bert, with less men there to do the jobs in big houses, the work falls to women, and there are fewer of us too. Older staff mutter about women waiting at table and answering doors nowadays, because there are fewer footmen and butlers, but there are fewer parlour maids and kitchen maids too. I’ve read in the newspapers that it is called, ‘the servant problem’. I still keep scrapbooks, Bert, but the things I paste in them are different these days. There is less about Royal Family and more about fashion and the pictures, and ladies doing things they’ve never done before. Have I changed? Would you like the Edith Watsford I am today, I wonder?”
Edith runs her hands over Bert’s face, forever young, forever captured with that slight hint of smile and sparkle in his eyes.
“Frank wants me to meet his granny, Bert. His parents died of the Spanish Flu after the war, and he only has his granny now. I’d like to meet her, but at the same time I’m terrified. I’m not frightened of her, in fact I want to meet her.” She takes a deep sigh. “No, what I’m frightened of is the significance of meeting her, and what that meeting means. Mum and Dad have been crying out to meet Frank. They wanted him to come and join us in Harlesden for Christmas dinner, since my brother was at sea on Christmas Day, but I told them that Frank wants to do things correctly, which means I meet his family first and then he can meet mine. Meeting Frank’s granny means that I will have to let go of you, and I can’t really ask you how you feel about that. When you died, Mum just told me to get on with things, and not to worry about the past. Now I’m doing that. I didn’t think I’d ever find someone to love again, Bert, but I do love Frank. If I’m honest, now I’m older and know myself and the world a bit better, I might love Frank even more than I loved you. I was only fourteen after all, and didn’t really know much about love, other than what I’d read in romance novels.” She looks at the brightly coloured paper cover of one of the novels Lettice gave her for Christmas. “I still read them, but I know that what appears in those pages isn’t necessarily really love. I don’t expect a man to sweep me into his arms and confess his undying love for me. No, a mutual understanding and agreement about where we are going in life is what love is, or part of it anyway. Just look at Mum and Dad. Not that I don’t want a bit of romance along the way, and Frank is a good kisser. I’m sure he’d be happy to do a little more than kiss if I let him, but Mum told me not to let that happen until after I get a ring on my finger. By meeting Frank’s granny, Bert, it means it’s a big step closer to getting that ring on my finger. It means that I’m serious about him, and he me. It means that we are sure we want to be together and get married.”
Tears well in Edith’s eyes, even as she speaks.
“If I have to leave you behind in order to move on with Frank, would you let me, Bert? Would you be happy for me? Would you wish me well? Would you wish us well?”
Carefully Edith moves the latches on the back of the frame holding Bert’s image in place. She feels the backing come away and fall slightly into her fingers. The glass tilts, reflecting back a ghostly image of herself across Bert’s smiling face. She realises that no matter how she feels about Bert, there will never be a photograph of the two of them together. She thinks of her friend Hilda, who now works for Lettice’s friends Margot and Dickie Channon in a flat within walking distance of Lettice’s flat. Hilda longs to meet a man whom she can step out with the way Edith and Frank have been ding for almost a year now, yet she has no prospects. There are far fewer men to choose from than before the war, and plenty more women vying for interest in those who have returned from the conflict. Edith considers herself lucky to have such an opportunity with Frank. Perhaps the time for change has come.
Gently she slips her fingers between the photograph and the glass. She withdraws Bert’s photograph.
“If I’m serious about Frank, Bert, which I am, I can’t keep carrying you around in my purse, or in a picture frame. It’s not fair to Frank, or to me really. But, I’ll always carry a little of you in my heart.”
She opens one of the small top drawers of the chest of drawers, which squeaks on its rungs as it is pulled out. A waft of lavender from a small muslin sachet inside drifts up to her nose. She slips Frank’s photo underneath a stack of clean pressed handkerchiefs and then closes the drawer firmly. She opens the next drawer and places the frame into the empty space.
“I’ll take you out again when I have a photo of Frank to put in you.” she assures the frame as she closes the drawer again.
*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.
**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.
***Boots the chemist was established in 1849, by John Boot. After his father's death in 1860, Jesse Boot, aged 10, helped his mother run the family's herbal medicine shop in Nottingham, which was incorporated as Boot and Co. Ltd in 1883, becoming Boots Pure Drug Company Ltd in 1888. In 1920, Jesse Boot sold the company to the American United Drug Company. However, because of deteriorating economic circumstances in North America Boots was sold back into British hands in 1933. The grandson of the founder, John Boot, who inherited the title Baron Trent from his father, headed the company. The Boots Pure Drug Company name was changed to The Boots Company Limited in 1971. Between 1898 and 1966, many branches of Boots incorporated a lending library department, known as Boots Book-Lovers' Library.
****To take the King’s shilling means to enlist in the army. The saying derives from a shilling whose acceptance by a recruit from a recruiting officer constituted until 1879 a binding enlistment in the British army —used when the British monarch is a king.
*****A Speakers' Corner is an area where open-air public speaking, debate, and discussion are allowed. The original and best known is in the northeast corner of Hyde Park in London. Historically there were a number of other areas designated as Speakers' Corners in other parks in London, such as Lincoln's Inn Fields, Finsbury Park, Clapham Common, Kennington Park, and Victoria Park. Areas for Speakers' Corners have been established in other countries and elsewhere in Britain. Speakers here may talk on any subject, as long as the police consider their speeches lawful, although this right is not restricted to Speakers' Corner only. Contrary to popular belief, there is no immunity from the law, nor are any subjects proscribed, but in practice the police intervene only when they receive a complaint.
******It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over the age of twenty-one were able to vote in Britain and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men.
This cosy room may be a nice place to keep warm on a winter’s night, but what you may not be aware of is that it is made up entirely with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The eau-de-nil dressing table set on Edith’s chest of drawers, which has been made with incredible detail to make it as realistic as possible, is a Chrysnbon Miniature set. The mirror even contains a real piece of reflective mirror. Judy Berman founded Chrysnbon Miniatures in the 1970’s. She created affordable miniature furniture kits patterned off of her own full-size antiques collection. She then added a complete line of accessories to compliment the furniture. The style of furniture and accessories reflect the turn-of-the-century furnishings of a typical early American home. At the time, collectible miniatures were expensive because they were mostly individually crafted.
The photo of Bert in the eau-de-nil frame and the family portrait in the brass frame on the chest of drawers are real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The brass frame comes from Melody Jane’s Doll House Suppliers.
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. The hat stand it sits on also comes from her.
To the right of Edith’s hat is an ornamental green jar filled with hatpins. The jar is made from a single large glass Art Deco bead, whilst each hatpin is made from either a nickel or brass plate pin with beads for ornamental heads. They were made by Karen Lady Bug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
Edith’s scrapbook wedged behind her sewing box is a 1:12 size miniature made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe, as are the three novels you can see on the surface of Edith’s chest of drawers. Most of the books I own that Ken 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. When open, you will find the scarpbook contains sketches, photographs and article clippings. Even the paper has been given the appearance of wrinkling as happens when glue is applied to cheap pulp paper. To give you an idea of the work that has gone into this scrapbook, it contains twelve double sided pages of scrapbook articles, pictures, sketches and photographs and measures forty millimetres in height and thirty millimetres in width and is 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. 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. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The sewing box, the ‘home sweet home’ embroidery and the pencil all come from various online shops who sell dollhouse miniatures. The franked postcard in the foreground on the tea table comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
Also on the tea table, the tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in England.
The Deftware cup, saucer and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which I acquired from a private collection of 1:12 miniatures in Holland.
Edith’s armchair is upholstered in blue chintz, and is made to the highest quality standards by J.B.M. Miniatures. The back and seat cushions come off the body of the armchair, just like a real piece of furniture.
The chest of drawers I have had since I was a teenager. I bought it from the toy section of a large city department store.
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.
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