Maine Bird List
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Chough - Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax
Pembrokeshire
While its black plumage identifies it as a crow, the chough (pronounced 'chuff') has a red bill and legs unlike any other member of the crow family. It is restricted to the west of the British Isles.
It readily displays its mastery of flight with wonderful aerial displays of diving and swooping. This Schedule 1 species can be found in flocks in autumn and winter.
There are two species of passerine birds commonly called chough that constitute the genus Pyrrhocorax of the Corvidae (crow) family of birds. These are the red-billed chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax), and the Alpine chough (or yellow-billed chough) (Pyrrhocorax graculus). The white-winged chough of Australia, despite its name, is not a true chough but rather a member of the family Corcoracidae and only distantly related.
The choughs have black plumage and brightly coloured legs, feet, and bills, and are resident in the mountains of southern Eurasia and North Africa. They have long broad wings and perform spectacular aerobatics. Both species pair for life and display fidelity to their breeding sites, which are usually caves or crevices in a cliff face. They build a lined stick nest and lay three to five eggs. They feed, usually in flocks, on short grazed grassland, taking mainly invertebrate prey, supplemented by vegetable material or food from human habitation, especially in winter.
Population:
UK breeding:
250-350 pairs in Great Britain; 120-150 pairs on the Isle of Man
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My 2019-2023 tours album is here:
www.flickr.com/gp/jenslpz/SKf0o8040w
My bird album is here:
www.flickr.com/gp/jenslpz/1240SmAXK4
My nature album is here:
www.flickr.com/gp/jenslpz/27PwYUERX2
My Canon EOS R / R5 / R6 album is here:
www.flickr.com/gp/jenslpz/bgkttsBw35
Kleiber (Sitta europaea) - Eurasian nuthatches
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber_(Art)
Der Kleiber (Sitta europaea) ist eine Vogelart aus der Familie der Kleiber.
Name
Der Name bezieht sich darauf, dass der Kleiber den Eingang von Bruthöhlen anderer Vögel, zum Beispiel die von Spechten, mit Lehm verklebt, um sie selbst zu nutzen. Der Begriff „Kleiber“ stammt aus dem Mittelhochdeutschen und bezeichnete Handwerker, die Lehmwände erstellten. Um die Höhle vor dem Zugriff von Mardern oder Krähen zu schützen, „mauern“ die Kleiber den Eingang zu ihren Bruthöhlen mit einer Mischung aus Lehm und Speichel so weit zu, dass sie gerade durchpassen. Der Kleiber wird auch „Spechtmeise“ genannt, da seine Lebensweise und sein Aussehen an beide Vögel – Spechte und Meisen – erinnert.
Ein Kleiber hat gerade die Bruthöhle, deren Eingang mit Lehm verkleinert wurde, verlassen
Merkmale
Der Kleiber erreicht eine Körperlänge von 12 bis 14,5 Zentimetern. Der Körper ist gedrungen mit großem Kopf, sehr kurzem Hals und kurzem Schwanz. Der Schnabel ist lang, spitz und grau gefärbt. Die Oberseite des Gefieders ist blaugrau und die Unterseite je nach Unterart weiß bis ockerfarbig oder rostrot gefärbt. Auf den immer rotbraun gefärbten Oberschwanzdecken sind große, weiße Flecken. Der Kleiber hat einen schwarzen Augenstreifen. Die Wangen und die Kehle sind weiß. Die Iris ist schwarz und die Beine sind orangegelb.
Stimme
Der Kleiber ist sehr ruffreudig und laut, daher ist er meistens als erster anhand seiner Stimme zu bemerken. Er hat ein umfangreiches Repertoire. Bei der Nahrungssuche ruft er einen scharf und spitz, etwa wie „zit“ klingenden Kontaktruf. Bei Erregung ruft er den kräftigen, lauten und etwa wie „twett“ klingenden Warnruf. Dieser wird oft in schnellen, kurzen Folgen mit kurzen Pausen zwischen mehreren Folgen gerufen.
Der Gesang besteht aus mehreren, lauten Strophen unterschiedlichen Typs, die von einer erhöhten Sitzwarte aus vorgetragen werden. Meist sind es langsame Folgen gleicher Pfeiftöne, die etwas an- oder absteigen können, etwa wie „wuih wuih wuih wuih...“ oder „wiiü wiiü wiiü wiiü“. Manche Varianten der Strophen können auch schnell, klar und trillernd, etwa wie „wiwiwiwiwiwi“, oder langsamer und rhythmischer gereiht, wie „djüdjüDJÜ djüdjüDJÜ“, klingen.
.
Eurasian nuthatch
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_nuthatch
The Eurasian nuthatch or wood nuthatch (Sitta europaea) is a small passerine bird found throughout the Palearctic and in Europe, where its name is the nuthatch. Like other nuthatches, it is a short-tailed bird with a long bill, blue-grey upperparts and a black eye-stripe. It is a vocal bird with a repeated loud dwip call. There are more than 20 subspecies in three main groups; birds in the west of the range have orange-buff underparts and a white throat, those in Russia have whitish underparts, and those in the east have a similar appearance to European birds, but lack the white throat.
Its preferred habitat is mature deciduous or mixed woodland with large, old trees, preferably oak. Pairs hold permanent territories, and nest in tree holes, usually old woodpecker nests, but sometimes natural cavities. If the entrance to the hole is too large, the female plasters it with mud to reduce its size, and often coats the inside of the cavity too. The 6–9 red-speckled white eggs are laid on a deep base of pine or other wood chips.
The Eurasian nuthatch eats mainly insects, particularly caterpillars and beetles, although in autumn and winter its diet is supplemented with nuts and seeds. The young are fed mainly on insects, with some seeds, food items mainly being found on tree trunks and large branches. The nuthatch can forage when descending trees head first, as well as when climbing. It readily visits bird tables, eating fatty man-made food items as well as seeds. It is an inveterate hoarder, storing food year-round. Its main natural predator is the Eurasian sparrowhawk.
Fragmentation of woodland can lead to local losses of breeding birds, but the species' range is still expanding. It has a large population and huge breeding area, and is therefore classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as being of least concern.
Another supplement to the photos taken from the Nagasaki lookout. This is one of the dive sites in Chichijima archipelago.
▪️ MACRO MONDAYS - THEME: CONDIMENTS
▪️ GARLIC ON A SPOON
▪️ CLOVE OF GARLIC ON A SPOON.
Maximum dimension of photo does not exceed 6 cm
HAPPY MACRO MONDAY!
RSPB Bird Hide Llyn Vyrnwy Llanwddyn Oswestry Wales
What3Words
///boils.weeks.acrobatic
The Eurasian Siskin (Spinus spinus) is a small, lively songbird in the finch family (Fringillidae), known for its acrobatic feeding style and vibrant yellow-green plumage.
Key Characteristics
Appearance:
Males are distinctive with a bright yellow breast, black crown, and a small black bib. Females and juveniles are more subdued, appearing grey-green with heavy dark streaking on their undersides and no black cap. Both sexes have prominent yellow wing bars and a deeply forked tail with yellow sides.
Size:
They are very small, typically 11–12.5 cm long with a wingspan of 20–23 cm.
Diet:
Primarily granivorous, they specialize in extracting seeds from conifers (like spruce), alder, and birch trees. In spring, they may supplement their diet with insects to provide protein for their chicks.
Behavior:
Siskins are highly social and often form compact, mobile flocks, sometimes mixing with redpolls. They are famous for their agility, frequently hanging upside-down to reach seeds.
Habitat and Distribution
Range:
They are widespread across Europe and Asia (Eurosiberia) and parts of North Africa.
Habitat:
They favor coniferous and mixed woodlands, particularly those with spruce, pine, or alder trees.
Movement:
While some southern populations are residents, northern birds are migratory. They exhibit "irruptive" behavior, where large numbers may migrate south unpredictably if seed crops fail in their northern range.
Breeding and Lifecycle
Nesting:
Females build small, neat nests high in conifer trees using twigs, moss, and lichen, lined with hair or feathers.
Reproduction:
They typically lay 3–5 eggs and can raise up to two broods per year between April and July.
Conservation Status:
The species is currently classified as Least Concern by the IUCN, with a stable global population estimated between 24 and 46 million mature individuals.
Garden Interaction
In the UK and other parts of Europe, siskins have become more common garden visitors, especially in late winter when natural food supplies dwindle. They are particularly attracted to niger seeds, sunflower hearts, and peanuts in mesh feeders.
A supplement to the previous uploads under the theme "Azumino Valley in Spring." This is an alternative version of the Ooyamazakura grove by Lake Nakatsuna-ko.
Two photos were merged to get this image.
This photo was taken in late April.
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.
“The construction of beams
brings the fruition of dreams.
The casting of steel
makes your fantasy real…”
Read this post on a little virtual keyhole ☂
Love and sparkles,
Dea
11 000 large scallop shells were used as roof tiles, with a further 4,500 crushed into aggregate for the building's concrete front patio. This summer refuge was constructed towards the end of the loop known as the 'Circuit des cabanes' in Limognes-en-Quercy, on the high plateau above the river Lot. Over 20 shepherd's huts and cabanes, along with many associated walls were restored by a talented team over a period of some 20 years. The quality of their work certainly deserved recognition and financial support, as the 'petit patrimoine' of the Occitanie is in much need of skill-set, raw material and chronophage purpose. The above building offers new lines and is the second example of modern refuge, or sleep-over point along the Europes main pilgrim's path to north west Spain. A second example - Super-Cayrou (linked below) - helps to add dynamic to the subject of dry stone. The above 'Pecten Maximus' project is not without interest, despite an entrance that perhaps feels closer to 'residential supplement' than rural practicality.
AJM 04.12.22
Some months back, while lost at Wally World looking for a cheap wireless mouse to supplement a horrendous track pad on a terrible Windows 11 laptop, I did a double take when I saw a two-pack of Fujifilm disposable cameras for sale on the shelf. I figured it had been well over a decade since the last time I saw a single-use 35mm film camera in the wild. I can remember an old head Philly explorer by the name of Radical Ed used to carry around a disposable camera to snap pictures while exploring Byberry and then post the scans to the Opacity.us Forums back in like 2006. I always thought the results were awesome; low quality in the sense that the adventure was more about the explore than the photos. I thought to myself, "why the Hell not?" and picked up a two-pack and still stumble around using the shitty track pad to this day.
I like to wander around a lot, checking out the nooks and crannies of society. However, sometimes what I discover goes un-photographed because it's not necessarily worth my time to unbury my dSLR camera from my backpack for a single scene and taking photos with a cellphone just ain't fun. Other times, I'm merely in the mood to roam and don't have the appetite to put any effort into photographing and just want to enjoy the adventure for what it is. It seemed a disposable camera was the perfect supplement. A quick and shitty way to photograph the corners of interest I find which I am often too lazy to properly capture.
Recently, I sent out the first of the two cameras to be developed. The pictures go back weeks and it was fun to suddenly see what I had forgotten I had captured show up as random photographs within a dump of jpegs that were emailed back to me in a large ZIP file from the lab. This photo of the abandoned Rockaway Beach Branch of the Long Island Rail Road highlights just such a lazy trip. A wonderful place to go for a graffiti-spotting stroll within a city of 8 million and not see another person. Yet, not so important that I needed to break out my traditional digital camera. I'm sure I will be sharing some more crappy shots within the coming months; I have at least 26 more.
After reading all the comments about the flowers I've been posting, I'm guessing that in some parts of North America, things are dark, cold,drab, depressing, and/or a downer. Well, not much I can do about that - especially after the week of torrential rain, plus lightening and thunder (although, after 20+ years of nothing like that, I loved every minute) - but I know that thanks toi our weather, there will be a whole new crop of flowers starting as soon as we dry out a bit. But, now I also have a backlog of birds, and today I give you one of the "rarer" birds where I live, the Downy Woodpecker. Btw, it's only rare because I've only seen four in the last 20+ years, but uit's range is most of North America.
The Downy can be confused with the Hairy and the Hairy with the Nuttall's, but I have a suffcient number of all to give you a pretty good idea. Maybe I'll have a Woodpecker Wednesday. Not a bad idea. Okay, this is the first WW.
The downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) is a species of woodpecker, the smallest in North America. Length ranges from 14 to 18 cm (5.5 to 7.1 in). Downy woodpeckers primarily live in forested areas throughout the United States and Canada, with the exception of deserts in the southwest and the northern tundra. The bird nests in tree cavities and feeds primarily on insects, although it supplements its diet with seeds and berries. The downy woodpecker is very similar in appearance to the hairy woodpecker, although they are not closely related. Why they evolved this way cannot be explained with confidence; it may be relevant that the species exploit rather different-sized foodstuffs and do not compete very much ecologically. Well, I can explain it with confidence. I'll be wrong, but I might be the only one who can obfuscate with such skill ... or use the word obfuscate more than once every five years. I can use the word, but better still, I have been known to practice obfuscation every week. I'm proud of my limited skills.
Anyway, I found all four of my Downy Woodpeckers on Mt. Dalo between 2010 and 2014. I misidentified it four times as a Nuttall's woodpecker. And then did that again with my one and only Hairy and the Nuttall's. If I could get all three on one branch, the differences would be obvious. I'll see what I can do when I post the Nuttall's and the other two opn the same Flickr page.
Did I tell you that the Downy is NA's smallest woodpecker? It is, but all measurements are given in metrics, and I feel that you should reall do some pf this work yourselves. This particular Downy was found hammering away on an old pear tree new Old Borges Ranch. One day, if I ever see a member of the Borges familll hav to ask what the bird life was 50 or 60 years ago. The downy woodpecker is mainly black on the upperparts and wings, with a white back, throat and belly and white spotting on the wings. There is one white bar above the eye, and one below. They have a black tail with white outer feathers barred with black. Adult males have a red patch on the back of the head whereas juvenile birds display a red cap.
Enjoy a little more color which I'll provide in everthing but the weather. Flowers, blue birds, and insects have already started to return, and I plan on posting more color from old and just the last two years at the Garden. The past 23 years have been the best in so many ways. Certainly, digital photography; long lenses on the SX Canon series allowing me to move from flowers to sparrows and raptors; great landscape capabilities at the other end... and, honestly Flickr (and first, Smug Mug) that gave me a platform to share as I've never had in the first 60 year of my nature photography. And, of course, so many of you and the stories you tell. Remember, the experience of taking a picture is often more memorable than the image like the time that mammoth came after me...
For this week's MacroMondays challenge "Container" .
De SOS Talisman is een klein kastje aan een halsketting of horlogeband. In het kastje zit een papieren strookje waarop je persoonlijke gegevens kunnen worden in gevuld. Aangevuld met je medische gegevens zoals bijvoorbeeld je medicijnen. In geval van nood kunnen hulpdiensten daar de nodige gegevens lezen.
The SOS Talisman is a small box on a necklace or watch strap.
There is a paper slip in the box on which your personal
data can be entered. Supplemented with your medical data
such as your medicines, for example. In case of emergency, emergency services can read the necessary data there.
Welcome to my Flickr space & thank you for visiting,
hope you enjoy my images.
Many thanks to everyone who takes the time to look,
like and comment on my pictures.
Don't use this image on any media without my permission.
You can contact me on my website at:
Thanks for more than 16 000 000 views.
Also check out my Time Laps photo / videos.
I really appreciate it if you comment on my photos,
but please DO NOT add any photos or other images to your comments.
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!
After grabbing a few cars from the siding in town, South Shore's PF10 crew has resumed their trip south to Kingsbury with GP38-2s #2000 and #2006. #2000, along with ex-LIRC #2010, are the last units on the CSS to not have PTC.
South Shore Freight's group of 10 GP38-2s were built new for the railroad in 1980. Since the railroad was owned by Chessie System at the time, the units were built to Chessie specs, even arriving in Chessie blue and yellow paint and wearing the standard Nathan K5LA horn. Rebuilt many times over the years, all 10 units continue to work for the CSS, and in recent years have been supplemented by a pair of SD38-2s and another GP38-2 from sister railroad Louisville & Indiana.
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:
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!
GASP !!!! Supplemental to my Anfield Murals series, and in the interests of courtesy and solidarity with our Blue neighbours, in their current predicament...also, because I don't want to raise the ire of lifelong Blue and super Flickr friend Elaine 55...I have decided to put my few Blue mural photos up, amongst the much more numerous ( and close to my heart ) Red ones.
These are all quite eye - catching, and are painted by the same artists that painted our murals...so...here we go.
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.
Supplemental irrigation is a must in the arid west and wheel-lines are among the most efficient way to get needed water to crops in the field. Primarily, very large fields.
I also find it nearly impossible to pass by a beautiful, back-lit wheel-line when the conditions for a compelling photograph are rather extraordinary, as they were in this particular instance near
Corvallis, Montana in the heart of the Bitterroot Valley.
These guys were attracted to this log, shown in a prior post. First they climbed it, chewed on it a bit, then decided to test their mettle against each other. Right after this little scrum them headed for the meadow to eat the grass, which seems during June to the their principal food source, supplemented with clams or other protein they may happen to find or capture. Mostly grass and clams. Berries where just coming into bloom which would attract them to the forest and make them much harder to observe.
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.
“The construction of beams
brings the fruition of dreams.
The casting of steel
makes your fantasy real…”
Read this post on a little virtual keyhole ☂
Love and sparkles,
Dea
title.
← → ↓↓
(Panasonic Lumix G3 shot)
Charles de Gaulle Airport. Paris. France. year 2012. … 7 / 10
(Today's photo. It's unpublished.)
Images
SG Lewis, Lucky Daye - Vibe Like This ft. Ty Dolla $ign
_________________________________
_________________________________
Exhibition in 2023
theme
Camera kisses time.
Mitsushiro-Nakagawa
organizer
design festa
place
Tokyo Big Site
schedule
Nov. 11th. Sat. 12th. Sun. 2023.
exhibition.mitsushiro.nakagawa@gmail.com
images.
SEVENTEEN(세븐틴)-All My Love
_________________________________
_________________________________
#WWDC23 #RealityPro #apple #applecar #apple
supplement. English was not translated until the end. Fixed.In Chat GPT, English translated after Japanese.
Apple car, presentation. Announced in the fall of 2023. (It's my delusion 😃)
#WWDC23 #RealityPro #アップルカー #アップル #apple #applecar #apple
補足。英語が最後まで翻訳されていなかった。修正しました。チャットGPTで、英語は日本語の後に翻訳しました。
【 アップルカー、プレゼンテーション。202３年秋、発表。（僕の妄想です😃）】
みなさんおはよう。
偶然だが、おととしの今日、私は新型コロナウィルスのワクチンを接種した。
みなさんのなかには、すでに二度目の接種を受けた方もいるだろう。
この新型コロナウィルスは世界に1つの境界線を引いた。
それまでとそれ以降だ。
私たちを取り巻く環境は激変した。
ウィルスに対応するためあらゆる場所に除菌液が設置され、部屋の空気を浄化し、そんな環境が至る所に展開されてきた。
アップルも、これらを認識しつつ、新しいプロジェクトに臨んできた。
新しい価値観を受け入れるためには、新しいスタイルが必要だ。
私たちの周囲もアップデートされなければ、私たちは生き残れないだろう。
アップルは時代を生き残るために、いくつかを提示してきた。
パーソナルコンピューターであるマッキントッシュ。
音楽デバイスであるアイポッド。
携帯電話であるアイフォーン。
そして、今日、アップルはみなさんに伝えたいことがある。
それはもうひとつのサヴァイヴだ。
アップルカー。
アップルは車を再発明する。
【これまでの自動車の状態】
今までのガソリン車を振り返ってみよう。
ガソリンという化石燃料を使い、ガスを排出する。そして環境を悪化させてきた。
山林は業火に見舞われ、大雨の大洪水に街はさらわれ、乾いた大地が覆い尽くす。
これからもこの状態が続くという事は地球自体の崩壊を招く。
私たちはそれを止めなければならない。少なくとも見直しに取り掛かることが重要だ。
世界的にトップだったトヨタはこれに積極的に取り掛からなかった。
すでに多くの世界で走っているハイブリッドのプリウス。
これは１９９２年に発表されたにも関わらず、新しい車種でさえも未だにハイブリッドのままだ。
発売してからの約３０年もの間、いったい彼らは何を目的としてこの車に固執し、開発してきたのか？
なぜ彼らはこの車種を見直さなかったのか？
現状のハイブリット、プラグインハイブリット。そういった類は結局は化石燃料を使っている。
彼らはこの新しい展開に積極的に臨んできたというが、現状維持という考えを変えなかった。
むしろ現時点においても、それがベストだとさえ言ってるように思えてならない。
私たちはそこで他の会社も見渡してみた。
【電気自動車の現在】
テスラだ。
皆さんご存知のようにテスラは積極的に環境問題に取り組み、世界規模で大きく発展し貢献してきた。化石燃料を使わない、そして自動運転、洗練されたデザイン。これらは多くの人たちを魅了してきた。
しかし広く普及はしたものの、皆さんの家のそばにこの車は走ってるだろうか？
答えはノーだ。
なぜ車が走っていないか。
私たちは3時間ほどしっかり考えた。
まぁ、たった3時間だが。
答えは単純だ。
車が高いからだ。高価すぎるのだ。
これはテスラに限らず電気自動車を作っているすべての会社に言えることだ。
とにかく車の値段が高すぎる。
私たちはこれを念頭に置きつつ、車を再発明した。
【アップルカーのポイント】
アップルカーのポイントは三つだ。
ひとつめ。
価格。
電気自動車が普及しない理由は非常に簡単だ。
価格が高いからだ
なぜ電気自動車が高いのか。それは本体価格の大半を占めるバッテリーの値段が最も高いからだ。
それが大きく占めている。
そこでアップルはリン酸鉄リチウムイオンバッテリーと言う素材を使うことに行き着いた。
これは全個体電池のように高価ではなく安価で、iPhoneのように充電する時間は短く、すぐに使えることを優先させ、かつ、耐久性に優れていると言うポイントがある。
私たちはこの2点を重視した。
車を短時間で充電し、短距離を即、走行可能となることを目指した。
iPhoneやアップルウォッチと同じ結論を反映させたのだ。
現在、電気自動車は長距離を走ることを目標としているが、果たして、きょう、あなたが会社から帰る際に、長距離用のバッテリが必要だろうか？
何百キロも走ることが必要だろうか？
すぐに家に帰り、すぐに充電し、また朝には出勤する。
全個体電池などという長距離が走れる高価なバッテリは、現段階では不要なのだ。
アップルはそう判断した。
次にアップルが目指したポイントの2つ目は安全性だ。
WHOの報告では、年間で世界中の事故死者数は１３５万人に上る。
これは、２４秒にひとりが命を落としている計算になる。
アップルはこの事故を劇的に減らそうと考えた。
Apple Watchを腕に巻いた子供が車の下にいた場合。
iPhone 5Gを持っている人が側道にいたり、信号待ちをしている場合。
彼らを事前に感知し、彼らには接近しないように考えた。
人の居場所を事前に察知することができれば、車は避けられる。
私たちは、車自体が人から離れることを計算した。
3つ目は先進性だ。
これまでの車と言うのは、車に乗るとわかるが、ダッシュボードにはいつもの通風口が口を開けて待っている。
これは見慣れた光景で、もううんざりだ。飽き飽きだ。
私たちはこの風景を大きく前進させる。
フロントガラスにAR機能を搭載し、ナビゲーションで誘う。※１
また、ダッシュボードには皆さんが持っているiPhoneやiPadを貼り付け、聴いていた音楽をそのまま車内で流せる。
もちろん、望めばそのままエンジンもスタートだ。
ワイパーなんてもう不要だ。水滴なんて風圧で飛ばすした方が美しい。
シートベルトもあなたが座れば自動で閉まる。きつ過ぎず、ゆる過ぎず、あなたは快適な空間を提供されるだろう。
また、ハンドルを握って前を見据えた瞬間にドライバーの健康状態をアップルカーは察知する。
あなたが酔っていたら、車は決して動かない。もう酔っ払い運転の事故は発生しないだろう。
以上の三つがアップルカーのポイントだ。
１ 価格
２ 安全性
３ 先進性
アップルはこれらを重視した。
そして、皆さんが最も気になるのは価格のはずだ。
価格は29,999ドル。
車の予約は来週から。半年後にまずはアメリカから発売する。
それでは実際にアップルカーをお見せしよう。
ティム・クック、自分のApple Watchに顔を寄せて車に呼びかける。
アップルカー登場。
備考。
ここで重要なのは自動運転に触れていないこと。
多分アップルは自動運転には触れず、車をまず普及させることをアピールしてくるはず。
自動運転のアップデートは後回し。
色はのちに5色を展開。
追記 ２０２３年９時５９分
※１ ウィンドウにAR、VRは、上位機種。下位機種廉価版街乗りタイプは、ここがReality Pro になる。社内だけでなく、自転車、徒歩、あらゆるシチュエーションに対応。
CatGPTに以下は翻訳してもらいました😃
The following was translated by CatGPT😃
Sure, here's the translation:
#WWDC23 #RealityPro #AppleCar #AppleCarPresentation #Apple #AppleCarStrategy #iCar
#iCarPresentation #iCarStrategy #apple #applecar #car #presentation #pc #computer #Mac #Mac #iCar #AppleCar #AppleCarPresentation #Apple #AppleCarStrategy #iCarPresentation #iCarStrategy #apple #applecar #Car #Presentation #pc
Apple Car, presentation. Announced in the fall of 2023. (It's my delusion 😃)
(The video was uploaded hastily with the text, so it's not perfectly synchronized 😅 Please read the following text, which is the final version 😃)
Good morning, everyone.
Coincidentally, two years ago today, I received the COVID-19 vaccine. Some of you may have already received your second dose.
This novel coronavirus drew a line in the world. It divided time into “before” and “after.”
Our surrounding environment has undergone drastic changes. Disinfectants have been installed everywhere to combat the virus, rooms are being purified, and such measures have been implemented everywhere. Apple, too, has embarked on new projects while acknowledging these changes.
To embrace new values, we need a new style. If our surroundings don’t update, we won’t be able to survive.
Apple has presented several innovations to survive the times.
The personal computer, Macintosh.
The music device, iPod.
The mobile phone, iPhone.
And today, Apple has something else to share with you.
It’s another “Survive.”
Apple Car.
Apple is reinventing the automobile.
[The State of Existing Automobiles]
Let’s look back at traditional gasoline-powered cars. They use fossil fuels, emit gases, and have contributed to environmental deterioration. Forests have been engulfed in wildfires, cities have suffered from heavy floods, and dry lands have been covered. Continuing in this state would lead to the collapse of the Earth itself. We must put a stop to it, or at the very least, reevaluate.
Toyota, which was once a global leader, did not actively pursue change. Despite the introduction of the Prius, a hybrid vehicle that has been running in many parts of the world, even the latest models are still hybrids. Over the past approximately 30 years since its release, what was their purpose for sticking with and developing this model? Why didn’t they reconsider it? The current hybrids and plug-in hybrids still rely on fossil fuels. They claim to have embraced this new trend, but they haven’t changed their mindset of maintaining the status quo. In fact, it seems they still believe it is the best option. So, we looked at other companies.
[The Current State of Electric Vehicles]
Tesla. As you all know, Tesla has actively addressed environmental issues and made significant contributions on a global scale. They have used clean energy, implemented self-driving capabilities, and offered sophisticated designs that have captivated many people. However, despite its widespread popularity, do you see these cars driving near your homes? The answer is no.
Why aren’t these cars on the roads? We thought about it for about three hours. Well, only three hours, but the answer is simple: they are too expensive. The high cost of electric vehicles is the reason why they haven’t become mainstream. We kept this in mind when reinventing the car.
[Key Features of Apple Car]
Apple Car has three key features.
Firstly, price. The reason electric vehicles haven’t become popular is quite simple: they are expensive. Why are electric vehicles expensive? The battery, which constitutes a significant portion of the overall cost, is the most expensive component. Apple has chosen to use lithium iron phosphate batteries, a material that is less expensive than individual cell batteries, charges quickly like an iPhone, and offers durability. We emphasized these two points: charging the car quickly and enabling short-distance travel. We reflected the same conclusion as with the iPhone and Apple Watch.
Currently, electric vehicles aim to achieve long-distance travel. But do you really need a long-range battery when you return home from work today? Do you need to travel hundreds of kilometers? You want to arrive home quickly, charge the car immediately, and be ready to commute in the morning. Expensive batteries designed for long-distance travel, like individual cell batteries, are unnecessary at this stage. Apple has made that judgment.
The second point Apple aimed for is safety. According to the WHO, there are 1.35 million fatalities
The second point that Apple aimed for is safety. According to WHO reports, the annual number of fatalities worldwide due to accidents reaches 1.35 million, which translates to one person losing their life every 24 seconds.
Apple sought to dramatically reduce these accidents. For instance, if a child wearing an Apple Watch is underneath a car or if someone with an iPhone 5G is on a side road or waiting at a traffic light, Apple intended to detect their presence in advance and prevent any approaching danger. By anticipating the location of individuals, cars could be avoided, and Apple even calculated the distance that cars should maintain from people.
The third point is innovation. Previous cars had the familiar sight of air vents waiting on the dashboard, but Apple aimed to push this landscape forward significantly. They incorporated augmented reality (AR) features into the windshield, providing navigation guidance. Additionally, the dashboard allowed users to attach their iPhones or iPads, enabling them to play their favorite music directly in the car. Of course, if desired, the engine could start as well. Wipers were no longer necessary; it was more aesthetically pleasing to use wind pressure to blow away water droplets. Seat belts automatically closed at just the right tension level, providing a comfortable space for passengers. Moreover, the moment you grasp the steering wheel and look ahead, the Apple Car would detect the driver’s health condition. If you were intoxicated, the car would never move, eliminating the occurrence of accidents caused by drunk driving.
So, the three key points of the Apple Car are:
1.Price
2.Safety
3.Innovation
Apple emphasized these aspects. And the aspect that most people are concerned about is the price, which is $29,999. Car reservations will begin next week, and it will initially be released in the United States after six months.
Now, let me show you the Apple Car in action. Tim Cook leans towards his Apple Watch and addresses the car. The Apple Car makes its appearance.
Note: What’s important here is that there is no mention of autonomous driving. Apple probably intends to focus on popularizing the car first, without delving into autonomous driving. Updates related to autonomous driving will come later.
The car will be available in five different colors at a later time.
Update: 9:59 AM, 2023
Note 1: AR and VR on the window are available on the higher-end models. The lower-end models, affordable for city driving, will have Reality Pro at this position. It will cater to various situations, not only within the car but also for bicycles, pedestrians, and other scenarios.
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Notice regarding "Lot No.402_”.
From now on # I will host "Lot No.402_".
The work of Leonardo da Vinci who was sleeping.
That is the number when it was put up for auction.
No sign was written on the work.
So this work couldn't conclude that it was his work.
However # as a result of various appraisals # it was exposed to the sun.
A work that no one notices. A work that speaks quietly without a title.
I will continue to strive to provide it to many people in various ways.
October 24 # 2020 by Mitsu - Nakagawa.
Mitsushiro Nakagawa belong to Lot No. 402 _.Copyright©︎2022 Lot No.402_ All rights reserved.
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Profile.
In November 2014 # we caught the attention of the party selected to undertake the publicity for a mobile phone that changed the face of the world with just a single model # and will conclude a confidentiality agreement with them.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
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Interviews and novels.
About my book.
I published a book a long time ago.
At that time # I uploaded my interview as a PDF on the internet.
Its Japanese and English.
I will publish it for free.
For details # I explained to the Amazon site.
How to write a novel.
How to take a picture.
A sense of distance to the work.
All of these have something in common.
I wrote down what I felt and left it.
I hope my text will be read by many people.
Thank you.
Mitsushiro.
1 Interview in English
2 novels. unforgettable 'English version.(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)
3 Interview Japanese version
4 novels. unforgettable ' JPN version.
5 A streamlined trajectory. only Japanese.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
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iBooks. Electronic Publishing. It is free now.
0.about the iBooks.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
1.unforgettable '(ENG.ver.)(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)
itunes.apple.com/us/book/unforgettable/id1216576828?ls=1&...
2.unforgettable '(JNP.ver.)(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)
itunes.apple.com/us/book/unforgettable/id1216584262?ls=1&...
3. Streamlined trajectory.(For Japanese only.)
itunes.apple.com/us/book/%E6%B5%81%E7%B7%9A%E5%BD%A2%E3%8... =11
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My Novel : Unforgettable'
(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)
Synopsis
Kei Kitami # who is aiming for a university # meets Kaori Uemura # an event companion who is 6 years older than her on SNS.
Kaori's dream of coming to Tokyo is to become friends with famous artists.
For that purpose # the presence of radio station producer Ryo Osawa was necessary.
Osawa talks to Kaori during the live radio broadcast.
"I have a wife and a child # but I want to see you."
Kay's classmate # Rika Sanjo # who thinks of him # was exploring Kaori's trends. .. .. .. ..
Synopsis.
Kei Kitami who aims at university.
A 6 year old older event companion woman. Meet Kaori Uemura on SNS.
The dream of Kaori who has moved to Tokyo.
It is to be a friend of the artist.
The producer of the radio station for that. The existence of Ryo Osawa was necessary.
Live on the radio.Osawa talks to Kaori.
"I have a wife and a child # but I want to see you."
Kei’s classmate Rika Sanzyou who is thinking of him.
She was searching for Kaori.
Mitsushiro Nakagawa
All Translated by Yumi Ikeda .
images.
U2 - No Line On The Horizon Live in Dublin
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKwnkYFsiE&feature=related
Main story
There are two reasons why a person faces the sea.
One # to enjoy a slice of shine in the sea like children bubbling over in the beach.
The other # to brush the dust of memory like an old man who misses old days # staring at the shine
quietly.
Those lead to only one meaning though they do not seem to overlap. It’s a rebirth.
I face myself to change tomorrow # a vague day into something certain.
That is the meaning of a rebirth.
I had a very sweet girlfriend when I was 18.
After she left # I knew the meaning of gentleness for the first time and also a true pain of loss. After
she left # how many times did I depend too much on her # doubt her # envy her and keep on telling lies
until I realized it is love?
I wonder whether a nobody like me could have given something to her who was struggling in the
daily life in those days. Giving something is arrogant conceit. It is nothing but self-satisfaction.
I had been thinking about such a thing.
However # I guess what she saw in me was because I had nothing. That‘s why she tried to see
something in me. Perhaps she found a slight possibility in me # a guy filled with ambiguous # unstable
tomorrow. But I wasted days depending too much on her gentleness.
Now I finally can convey how I felt in those days when we met.
1/9
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24577016535/in/dateposted...
2/9
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24209330259/in/dateposted...
3/9
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/23975215274/in/dateposted...
4/9
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24515964952/in/dateposted...
5/9
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24276473749/in/dateposted...
6/9
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24548895082/in/dateposted...
7/9
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24594603711/in/dateposted...
8/9
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24588215562/in/dateposted...
9/9
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/24100804163/in/dateposted...
Fin.
images.
U2 - No Line On The Horizon
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKwnkYFsiE&feature=related
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Title of my book : unforgettable'
Author : Mitsushiro Nakagawa
Out Now.
ISBN978-4-86264-866-2
in Amazon.
www.amazon.co.jp/Unforgettable’-Mitsushiro-Nakagawa/dp/...
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The schedule of the next novel.
Still would stand all time. (Unforgettable '2)
(It will not go away forever)
Please give me some more time. That is Japanese.
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Exhibition in 2023
theme
The camera kisses time.
Mitsushiro --Nakagawa
The schedule for 2023 is unstable.
I plan to do one of the following two.
Both are scheduled around November.
I give priority to museums.
1 This will be done when the 1st attached gallery is released in 2023.
place
DIC Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art 1st attached gallery
2 This is planned as a spare.
place
Design Festa
images.
BTS… Film out Lyrics (방탄 소년단 / BTS Film out Japanese subtitles 가사) [Color Coded Lyrics / Kan / Rom / Eng]
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My Works.
1 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48072442376/in/dateposted...
2 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48078949821/in/dateposted...
3 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48085863356/in/dateposted...
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Do you want to hear my voice?
:)
1
About the composition of the picture posted to Flicker. First type.
2
About the composition of the picture posted to Flicker. Second type.
3
About when I started Fotolog. Architect 's point of view.
4
Why did not you have a camera so far?
5
What is the coolest thing? The photo is as it is.
6
About the current YouTube bar. I also want to tell # I want to leave.
7
About Japanese photographers. Japanese YouTube bar is Pistols.
8
The composition of the photograph is sensibility. Meet the designers in Milan. Two questions.
9
What is a good composition? What is a bad composition?
10
What is the time to point the camera? It is slow if you are looking into the viewfinder or display.
11
Family photos. I can not take pictures with others. The inside of the subject.
12
About YouTube 's photographer. Camera technology etc. Sensibility is polished by reading books.
13
About the Japanese newspaper. A picture of a good newspaper is Reuters. If you continue to look at useless photographs # it will be useless.
14
About Japanese photographers. About the exhibition.
Summary. I wrote a novel etc. What I want to tell the most.
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I talked about how to make a work.
About work production 1/2
About work production 2/2
1 Photo exhibition up to that point. Did you want to go?
2 Well # what is an exhibition that you want to visit even if you go there?
3 Challenge to exhibit one work every month before opening a solo exhibition at the Harajuku Design Festa.
4 works are materials and silhouettes. Similar to fashion.
5 Who is your favorite artist? What is it? Make it clear.
6 Creating a collage is exactly the same as taking photos. As I wrote in the interview # it is the same as writing a novel.
7 I want to show it to someone # but I do not make a piece to show it. Aim for the work you want to decorate your own room as in the photo.
8 What is copycat? Nowadays # it is suspected to be beaten. There is something called Mimesis?
kotobank.jp/word/Mimesis-139464
9 What is Individuality? What is originality?
www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/
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Explanation of composition. 2
1.Composition explanation 2 ... 1/4
2.Composition explanation 2 ... 2/4
3.Composition Explanation 2 ... 3/4
4.Composition Explanation 2 ... 4/4
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My shutter feeling.
Today's photo.
It is a photo taken from Eurostar.
This video is an explanation.
I went to Milan in 2005.
At that time # I went from Milan to Venice.
We took Eurostar into the transportation.
This photo was not taken from a very fast Eurostar.
When I changed the track # I took a picture at the moment I slowed down.
Is there a Japanese beside you?
Please have my video translated.
:)
In the Eurostar to Venice . 2005. shot ... 1 / 2
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/49127115021/in/dateposted...
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Miles Davis sheet 1955-1976.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
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flickr.
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/
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instagram.
www.instagram.com/mitsushiro_nakagawa/
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Pinterest.
www.pinterest.jp/MitsushiroNakagawa/
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YouPic
youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/
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twitter.
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facebook.
www.facebook.com/mitsushiro.nakagawa
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Amazon.
www.amazon.co.jp/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHSKI3YMYPYE5UE...
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My statistics. (As of May 11 # 2021)
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Japanese is the following.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
Title of my book unforgettable' Mitsushiro Nakagawa Out Now. ISBN978-4-86264-866-2
Mitsu Nakagawa belong to Lot No. 204 _ . Copyright©︎2020 Lot No.402_ All rights reserved.
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title.
← → ↓↓
(Panasonic Lumix G3 shot)
シャルル・ド・ゴール空港。パリ。フランス。2012年。… 7 / 10
(今日の写真。それは未発表です。）
Images
SG Lewis, Lucky Daye - Vibe Like This ft. Ty Dolla $ign
次の小説のイメージ。
Still would stand all time.(unforgettable'2)
（いつまでもなくならないだろう）
重要なお知らせ。
僕は以下の条件を緩和します。
僕はTシャツを無料で世界中へ配布します。
m.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/50656401427/in/dateposted-p...
m.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/50613367691/in/dateposted-p...
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２０２３年の展示
テーマ
カメラは時間にキスをする。
Mitsushiro - Nakagawa
主催
デザインフェスタ
場所
東京ビッグサイト
日程
１１月１１日。土曜日。12日。日曜日。2023年。
exhibition.mitsushiro.nakagawa@gmail.com
images.
SEVENTEEN(세븐틴)-All My Love
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” Lot No.402_ ” に関するお知らせ。
今後、僕は、” Lot No.402_ ”を主催します。
このロットナンバーは、眠っていたレオナルドダヴィンチの作品がオークションにかけらた際に付されたものです。
作品にはサインなどがいっさい記されていなかったため、彼の作品だと断定できませんでした。
しかし、様々な鑑定の結果、陽の光を浴びました。
誰にも気づかれない作品。肩書がなくとも静かに語りかける作品。
僕はこれから様々な形で、多くの皆様に提供できるよう努めてゆきます。
2020年10月24日 by Mitsu - Nakagawa.
Copyright©︎2021 Lot No.402_ All rights reserved.
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プロフィール
2014年11月、たった1機種で世界を塗り替えた携帯電話の広告を請け負った選考者の目に留まり、秘密保持同意書を結ぶ。
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
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インタビューと小説。
僕の本について。
僕は、昔に本を出版しました。
その際に、僕のインタビューをPDFでネット上へアップロードしていました。
その日本語と英語。
僕は、無料でを公開します。
詳細は、アマゾンのサイトへ解説しました。
小説の書き方。
写真の撮影方法。
作品への距離感。
これらはすべて共通項があります。
僕は、僕が感じたことを文章にして、残しました。
僕のテキストが多くの人に読んでもらえることを望みます。
ありがとう。
Mitsushiro.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
１ インタビュー 英語版
２ 小説。unforgettable’ 英語版。
３ インタビュー 日本語版
４ 小説。unforgettable’ 日本語版。(この小説は未来のアーティストへ捧げます)
(四百字詰め原稿用紙４５６枚)
あらすじ
大学を目指している北見ケイは、SNS上で、6歳年上のイベントコンパニオン、上村香織に出会う。
上京してきた香織の夢は、有名なアーティストの友達になるためだ。
そのためにはラジオ局のプロデューサー、大沢亮の存在が必要だった。
大沢は、ラジオの生放送中、香織へ語りかける。
「僕には妻子がある。しかし、僕は君に会いたいと思っている」
ケイの同級生で、彼を想っている三條里香は、香織の動向を探っていた。。。。。
本編
人が海へ向かう理由には、二つある。
ひとつは、波打ち際ではしゃぐ子供のように、今の瞬間の海の輝きを楽しむこと。
もうひとつは、その輝きを静かに見据えて、過ぎ去った日々を懐かしむ老人のように記憶の埃を払うこと。
二つは重なり合わないようではあるけれども、たったひとつの意味しか生まない。
再生だ。
明日っていう、曖昧な日を確実なものへと変えてゆくために、自分の存在に向き合う。
それが再生の意味だ。
十八歳だった僕には大切な人がいた。
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
５ 流線形の軌跡。 日本語のみ。
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
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iBooks.電子出版。（現在は無料）
0.about the iBooks.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
1.unforgettable’ ( ENG.ver.)(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)
itunes.apple.com/us/book/unforgettable/id1216576828?ls=1&...
For Japanese only.
2.unforgettable’ ( JNP.ver.)(この小説は未来のアーティストへ捧げます)
itunes.apple.com/us/book/unforgettable/id1216584262?ls=1&...
3.流線形の軌跡。
itunes.apple.com/us/book/%E6%B5%81%E7%B7%9A%E5%BD%A2%E3%8...
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僕の小説。英語版
My Novel Unforgettable' (This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)
Mitsushiro Nakagawa
All Translated by Yumi Ikeda .
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Fin.
images.
U2 - No Line On The Horizon Live in Dublin
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKwnkYFsiE&feature=related
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Title of my book : unforgettable'
Author : Mitsushiro Nakagawa
Out Now.
ISBN978-4-86264-866-2
in Amazon.
www.amazon.co.jp/Unforgettable’-Mitsushiro-Nakagawa/dp/...
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次の小説の予定。
Still would stand all time.(unforgettable'2)
（いつまでもなくならないだろう）
もう少し時間をください。それは日本語です。
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僕の作品。
1 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48072442376/in/dateposted...
2 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48078949821/in/dateposted...
3 www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/48085863356/in/dateposted...
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あなたは僕の声を聞きたいですか？
:)
1
フリッカーへ投稿した写真の構図について。１種類目。
2
フリッカーへ投稿した写真の構図について。２種類目。
3
Fotologを始めた時について。 建築家の視点。
4
なぜ、今までカメラを手にしなかったのか？
5
何が一番かっこいいのか？ 写真はありのままに。
6
現在のユーチューバーについて。僕も伝え、残したい。
7
日本人の写真家について。日本のユーチューバーはピストルズ。
8
写真の構図は、感性。ミラノのデザイナーに会って。二つの質問。
9
良い構図とは？ 悪い構図とは？
10
カメラを向ける時とは？ ファインダーやディスプレイを覗いていては遅い。
11
家族写真。他人では撮れない。被写体の内面。
12
ユーチューブの写真家について。カメラの技術等。感性は、本を読むことで磨く。
13
日本の新聞について。良い新聞の写真はロイター。ダメな写真を見続けるとダメになる。
14
日本の写真家について。その展示について。
まとめ。僕が書いた小説など。僕が最も伝えたいこと。
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作品制作について 1/2
作品制作について 2/2
１ それまでの写真展。自分は行きたいと思ったか？
２ じゃ、自分が足を運んででも行きたい展示とは何か？
３ 原宿デザインフェスタで個展を開くまでに、毎月ひとつの作品を展示することにチャレンジ。
４ 作品とは、素材とシルエット。ファッションと似ている。
５ 自分が好きなアーティストは誰か？ どんなものなのか？ そこをはっきりさせる。
６ コラージュの作成も写真の撮り方と全く同じ。インタビューに書いたように小説の書き方とも同じ。
７ 誰かに見せたい、見せるがために作品は作らない。写真と同じように自分の部屋に飾りたい作品を目指す。
８ パクリとは何か？ 昨今、叩かれるパクリ疑惑。ミメーシスとは？
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ミメーシス
https://kotobank.jp/word/ミメーシス-139464
９ 個性とはなにか？ オリジナリティってなに？
おまけ 眞子さまについて
という流れです。
お時間がある方は是非聴いてください。
:)
www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/
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構図の解説２
1.構図の解説２ ... 1/4
2.構図の解説２ ... 2/4
3.構図の解説２ ... 3/4
4.構図の解説２ ... 4/4
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僕のシャッター感覚
In the Eurostar to Venice . 2005. shot ... 1 / 2
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/49127115021/in/dateposted...
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Miles Davis sheet 1955-1976.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
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flickr.
www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/
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YouTube.
www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/
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instagram.
www.instagram.com/mitsushiro_nakagawa/
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Pinterest.
www.pinterest.jp/MitsushiroNakagawa/
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YouPic
youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/
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fotolog
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twitter.
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facebook.
www.facebook.com/mitsushiro.nakagawa
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Amazon.
www.amazon.co.jp/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHSKI3YMYPYE5UE...
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僕の統計。（2021年5月11日現在）
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Japanese is the following.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vBRMWGk29EmsoBV2o9NM1LIVi...
Title of my book unforgettable' Mitsushiro Nakagawa Out Now. ISBN978-4-86264-866-2
Mitsushiro Nakagawa belong to Lot no.204_ . Copyright©︎2020 Lot no.204_ All rights reserved.
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” Lot No.402_ ” に関するお知らせ。
今後、僕は、” Lot No.402_ ”を主催します。
このロットナンバーは、眠っていたレオナルドダヴィンチの作品がオークションにかけらた際に付されたものです。
作品にはサインなどがいっさい記されていなかったため、彼の作品だと断定できませんでした。
しかし、様々な鑑定の結果、陽の光を浴びました。
誰にも気づかれない作品。肩書がなくとも静かに語りかける作品。
僕はこれから様々な形で、多くの皆様に提供できるよう努めてゆきます。
2020年10月24日 by Mitsu - Nakagawa.
Copyright©︎2020 Lot No.402_ All rights reserved.
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#Paris #Lumix #写真 #France #パリ #フランス #ルミックス #Panasonic #空港 #airport #CharlesdeGaulleAirport #SGLewis #VibeLikeThis #kawamuramemorialdicmuseumofart #川村記念美術館 #デザインフェスタ #デザフェス #designfesta #tokyobigsight #東京ビッグサイト #WWDC23
やちまた市 写真解説 後編
１ アップル ヘッドセットMR,ARは、既存ディスプレイを一掃する、
と２０２３年アップルカー発表
２ 僕の、嵐、キスマイの再生回数は？ 😄
３ やちまた市、写真解説、後編
A 僕が世界からなぜ、【きみは写真の世界に名前を残すだろう】と言われるのか？
B なぜ日本人が撮る写真は評価されないのか？
C なぜ海外へ行くべきなのか？
徹底的に熱く語りました。
老人よりも若手のみなさんにぜひ聞いてもらい、参考にしていただければと思います。
みなさんの感性に、日本のアートは委ねられています。😃
がんばって！！😃
前回の動画
やちまた市の写真解説前編？😃
• やちまた市の写真解説前編？😃
#アップルのヘッドセットはディスプレイを一掃する #WWDC23
#なぜ日本人が撮る写真は評価されないのか #きみは写真の世界に名前を残すだろう #アップルのヘッドセットはディスプレイを一掃する #なぜ海外へ行くべきか #アーティスト #写真家 #やちまた #八街 #アップルヘッドセット #appleheadset #AR #VR #xrOS #applecar #アップル #ちば #アップルカー #ジャニーズ #嵐 #キスマイ #ジャニーズ事務所 #arashi #kissmy #海外 #海外旅行 #千葉
#wwdc23 #Apple #Apple #iPhone #Mac #Headset #eyephone #wwdc23 #Apple #アップル #アイフォン #マック #ヘッドセット #eyephone
#WWDC23 #RealityPro #アップルカー #アップルカーのプレゼンテーション #アップル #アップルカーの戦略 #アイカー
#アイカーのプレゼンテーション #アイカーの戦略 #apple #applecar #車 #プレゼン #pc #パソコン #マック #Mac #icar #AppleCar #AppleCarPresentation #Apple #AppleCarStrategy #icarpresentation #icarstrategy #apple #applecar #Car #Presentation #pc
«Sarcastic clap»
Le mani si toccano applaudendo in modo sarcastico. Questo gesto, infatti, esprime tutto tranne che l’intento di fare i complimenti a chi ci è di fronte.
The hands are touching clapping sarcastically. This gesture, in fact, expresses anything but the intent to make compliments to whoever is in front of us.
from Supplemento al supplemento al dizionario italiano di Bruno Munari si Dude Magazine
www.dudemag.it/attualita/supplemento-al-supplemento-al-di...
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.
365: The 2018 Edition-Artificial Light
We went shopping at Indian Creed Farm today and they have this enormous porch on the front of their main building. This is where the produce is set out for sale. Because it's so big it blocks out the sun and they have supplemental light to help the patrons see their produce.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid, is paying an unexpected call on her beloved parents whilst her mistress is away visiting her own parents in Wiltshire. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith. Usually even before she walks through the glossy black painted front door, Edith can smell the familiar scent of a mixture of Lifebuoy Soap, Borax and Robin’s Starch, which means her mother is washing the laundry of others wealthier than she in the terrace’s kitchen at the rear of the house. Yet with her father’s promotion, Edith’s mother is only laundering a few days a week now, and today, rather than soap and starch greeting her on the street, she can hear familiar laughter.
“Mum!” Edith calls out cheerily as she opens the unlocked front door and walks in. “Mum, it’s me! Is that Bert with you?”
She takes a deep breath and holds it with anticipation as she runs down the narrow corridor with excited footsteps past the front room and down into the kitchen, which serves as the heart of Edith’s parent’s home. Bursting through the kitchen door she beams and gasps with delight, for there at Ada’s old and worn round kitchen table sits her mother and her brother Bert. Edith’s little brother works aboard the SS Demosthenes as a dining saloon steward, sailing between England and Australia. Australia was where Bert spent Christmas 1922, so he wasn’t with his family for Christmas. Yet now, just like in the postcard he sent from Queensland showing a bird called a kookaburra inside the shape of the great southern continent surrounded by yellow wattle flowers, he is home on shore leave.
“Bert!” Edith gasps in delight. “You’re home!”
“Hullo Edith!” Bert says with an equally happy smile as he leaps out of the comfortable Windsor chair usually inhabited by their father and enfolds his sister in an embracing hug.
“Oh Bert.” Edith presses herself against her brother, the comforting smell of their mother’s lux soap flakes filling her nostrils. Pressing her hands against his hips, she breaks their embrace and pushes herself back. “Let me look at you then!”
Although a year younger than his sister, Bert is taller than Edith now, after a final growth spurt when he was in his late teens. Dressed in one of their mother’s home knitted jumpers and a pair of grey flannel trousers his skin looks sun kissed after spending a few days ashore in Melbourne during the height of summer in the southern hemisphere before sailing back, and the sun has given his sandy blonde hair some natural highlights.
“The sea air agrees with you, Bert.”
“More likely the Australian sun!” Ada remarks as she picks herself up out of her own chair with a slight groan. “Just look at those colourful cheeks and those freckles.” She waves her hand at her son lovingly. “We don’t usually see them until high summer.”
“Hullo Mum!” Edith walks up and embraces her mother. ‘How are you?”
“Oh, I’m grand now our Bert is home, and you are too, Edith love.” Ada says in reply, a broad smile gracing her lips and a happy brilliance in her brown eyes. “Now, put that basket down and have a seat. I’ll pop the kettle on and brew us a fresh pot.” She begins to bustle around the great blacklead range and moves the heavy kettle onto the hob. Turning back to the table she picks up the beautiful, glazed teapot in the shape of a cottage with a thatched roof with the chimney as the lid, which Edith bought for her from the Caledonian Market**, and makes a grand sweeping gesture to show Edith it’s presence. “See Edith, a special occasion calls for the use of my special teapot.”
“Any day should be a special enough day for you to use that pretty teapot that Edith gave you, Mum.” Bert says, sitting back down at the table.
“That’s what I tell her!” Edith agrees.
“But then it wouldn’t be a special teapot any more, would it?” Ada says, stepping behind Bert and going to the small tough sink the corner of the kitchen where she turns the squeaky taps and rinses out the pot. “No. It’s a special teapot for special occasions.” She takes up the yellow tea towel with red stitching that hangs over a metal rail above the range and dries the pot. “I used it on Christmas Day didn’t I, Edith love?”
“Yes,” Edith agrees. “But you haven’t used it a day since then.”
“That’s because there hasn’t been a special occasion worthy of using it,” Ada defends. “Until Bert came home, that is.” She gently squeezes her son’s left shoulder.
“I give up!” Edith throws her hands in the air. She shucks off her black three quarter length coat and hangs it on a hook by the back door. She then places her hat on one of the carved knobs of the ladderback chair drawn up to the table next to her mother’s usual seat.
“Oh I told you, Edith!” Ada chides. “Don’t put your pretty hat there, love.” She walks over to the Welsh dresser that dominates one wall of the crowded kitchen and pulls out the battered tea cannister. “It might get damaged. Such a pretty hat should sit on the table where it’s safe. You know Edith made that, don’t you Bert?”
“Yes, I do, Mum.” Bert acknowledges cheerfully. “Our Edith is the cleverest girl I know.”
“I keep saying Mum, the hat’s nothing special. And besides, I didn’t make it. It came from Petticoat Lane***, just like my coat, and it’s not new. I simply decorated the hat with bits and bobs I picked up from a Whitechapel haberdasher Miss Lettice’s char****, Mrs. Boothby, told me about.”
“Well, homemade or not, it’s still too pretty to hang there.”
“It’s my hat, Mum. I always hang it there and it’s always fine, and I promise you, it’ll be fine there today.”
“Well, suit yourself, love. You’re an adult now, just the same as Bert.” Ada remarks dismissively but looks at her daughter doubtfully as she scoops out some black dried tea leaves and puts the heaped spoonfuls into the pot. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“So,” Bert sinks back into his seat and toys with his teacup decorated with pink roses, slowly turning it in its saucer. “What’s the gossip with you then, Edith? How’s your Frank then? Mum says that she and Dad haven’t met him yet.”
“It’s become quite the mute point.” Ada remarks as she turns back from the dresser and folds her arms akimbo, frowning at her daughter.
“And I hope,” Edith defends herself, challenging her mother’s steely stare. “That she told you why.”
“I did!” Ada says crisply.
“Word is you’re meeting his mum soon, Edith.” Bert says excitedly.
“Well, not his mum. His parents died of the Spanish Flu, but I’m meeting his Granny, who is a bit like his surrogate mum.”
“That’s nerve wracking.” Bert replies.
“I know! I’m so nervous.” Edith confides, lowing her voice as she leans across the table conspiratorially and reaches for the battered McVitie and Price biscuit tin.
“That’s why I can’t get a girl to come home here.” Frank says with a wink and slight indicating nod to their mother. “Imagine meeting Mum.” He lifts the lid off the tin for his sister and lets her make her selection. “They’re all too scared of her.”
“Cheeky!” Ada says, laughing good naturedly and swatting her son with the tea towel. “Any girl would be lucky to have me as a prospective mother-in-law.” She shuffles her shoulders and tilts her head upwards as her face forms into a dignified expression. “Or boy.” she adds with undisguised meaning and importance.
“So, me and Frank are just fine, thanks Bert. We’re just tickety-boo.*****!” Edith tells her brother before popping a biscuit into her mouth.
“Tickety-boo!” Bert enthuses. “You are up on all the latest small talk and phrases, living with your Miss Chetwynd up in Mayfair.”
“She comes home with new phrases all the time.” Ada places the freshly refilled cottage ware teapot down on the table between them all. “Goodness knows I can’t keep up with her. It’s the influence of all those fine ladies and gentlemen and moving picture stars that frequent Mis Chetwynd’s flat.”
“Moving picture stars? Really” Bert asks excitedly.
“Oh Bert!” Edith scoffs, flapping her hand playfully at him. “I only answer the door to them, or serve them tea. And Miss Lettice has only had one moving picture star to tea since I’ve been there: Wanetta Ward.” She sighs. “She’s so beautiful! She works for Gainsborough Pictures******. You’re more likely to have a longer conversation with a moving picture star on board your ship as a dining saloon steward, Bert, than ever I will at Miss Lettice’s.”
“I doubt that. There aren’t that many moving picture stars sailing between Australia and home, well none that I know of. Although they are mad for moving pictures over there. There are picture houses everywhere, and they even make their own films there, just like here.”
“Anyway, I’m not the interesting one, Bert.” Edith says, seeing a way to turn the conversation to her brother and his news. “You are. Tell me about life on the ship this voyage.”
A short while later over tea and biscuits, Edith is brought up to date with Bert’s latest adventures on board his ship, and the interesting people he has served as a first-class saloon steward.
“Oh!” Ada suddenly gasps. “Bert! Aren’t you going to give Edith her present?”
“Present?” Edith asks with a querying look to her brother.
“Yes, Edith love. Don’t you remember Bert wrote it in his last postcard to us?”
Edith casts her mind back a few weeks to when her mother showed her the postcard Bert had sent from Australia.
“Right you are Mum!” Bert agrees. “So Edith, on Christmas Day, the Second Officer, Mr. Collins, organised a trip for we lads and some of the girls on the ship’s staff who were away from home for Christmas and that were at a loose end. A lot found their own amusements in Melbourne. It’s such a big and vibrant city, full of fun things to do. But about twenty of us didn’t have anywhere to go, so we said yes.”
“What did you do, Bert? What had Mr. Collins organised?” Edith asks in suspense.
“Well, Mr. Collins was born in Melbourne. Well no, actually he was born a few hours outside of Melbourne in the country at a place called Yarra Glen. It’s quite famous and lots of toffs go there to holiday, not that was where Mr. Collins took us.” Bert quickly adds, seeing the excitement in his sister’s face. “No, Mr. Collins was born on a farm out there – something they call a cattle station – and he took us all out there for a picnic on his parent’s station.”
“But a station is a railway station.” Edith mutters, shaking her head, her face crumpling in disbelief.
“Well in Australia there are railway stations and cattle station, which are big farms. So, Mr. Collins packed us all into a railway carriage at Flinders Street Railway Station and off we went. We left at ten in the morning and we didn’t get to the railway station at the Yarra Glen until nearly midday.”
“Was it hot?” Edith asks. “You always say Australia is hot around this time of year.”
“Well it was, but it was alright because we opened up our window in our carriage and poked our heads out so we could look at the passing countryside, so we had a nice breeze. The countryside is so different to here. It’s all yellow grasses and funny trees with washed out leaves: no real greenery at all so to speak, but it’s still really beautiful in its own way.”
“Hmph!” Ada snorts from her chair. “Nothing beats the Kentish countryside for beauty.”
“Well I guess beauty is a subjective thing, Mum.” Bert goes on, “Mr. Collins was telling us on the train trip down that sometimes travelling artists set up camp on his parent’s property just so that they can paint the landscape.”
“Fancy that, Frank!” Edith enthuses. “Did you like it?”
“Oh yes! It’s very pretty, in a foreign kind of way. Not many flowers. But we saw jumping kangaroos from the train on the trip down. They sat in the grass and watched us pass, and then some of them just up and jumped away. They can move very quickly when they jump. Anyway, we finally pulled into Yarra Glen. We had to wait whilst a big party of toffs and all their mountains of luggage were taken care of and packed up into cars. Mr. Collins says that there is a famous opera singer who lives out there, named Nellie Melba*******.”
“I’ve heard nellie Melba sing before!” Ada exclaims, dropping her pink and yellow floral teacup into her saucer and clapping her hands.
“You have, Mum?” Edith asks, the look of lack of comprehension on her face matching her brother’s as they both look to her.
“Well, not live of course!” Ada says, taking up her cup of tea before continuing. “But once when I was at Mrs. Hounslow’s, I heard her sing. She was playing records on her gramophone, and I asked who it was, and she invited me to stand in her parlour and listen to her recording of Nellie Melba sing ‘Ave Maria’.” Her children pull a face at the mention of their landlady, the rich and odious old widow whom they both grew up hearing about regularly, and seeing on the rare occasions she would deign to stop by to collect their rent in person, rather than her rent collector. “Now don’t be like that, children! Mrs. Hounslow’s husband died a hero in the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War.”
“And neither you, nor she will ever let us forget it.” Bert drones, rolling his eyes.
“Now I won’t have a bad word said about her, Bert.” Ada wags her finger admonishingly at her son. “She’s helped pay for many a meal in this house with her sixpences and shillings over the years, especially during the war when things were hard. You should be grateful to her. We all should be.”
“Pshaw!” Edith raises her eyes to the ceiling above. “Enough about old Widow Hounslow! Go on with your story, Bert.”
“Well,” Bert continues. “Miss Melba must have been home and hosting a big house party, but once they were all packed off, we were ushered to a charabanc******** which took us out to Mr. Collins’ family farm. Once we got to the house – which they call a homestead – Mrs. Collins, Mr, Collins’ mum, had picnic baskets for us, full of delicious sandwiches and pies and cakes. There was even beer and stout for us to drink. When Mr. Collins lead us away from the house to where we were to take our picnic, he took us to a place where there was a stream, so we could dunk the bottles of beer and stout into it to keep them warm. We tethered them to the bank with string he gave us. And so, we sat under these big trees with white bark and ate and drank and had a jolly time of it, all at Mr. Collin’s expense.”
“That was nice of him, Bert.” Edith remarks.
“It was! We were ever so grateful. He had brought a cricket bat and stumps from the house with him, so we played some cricket after luncheon until it got too warm, and then we sang Christmas carols.”
“It must have felt odd, singing Christmas carols in the summer sunshine.”
“Not really Edith.” Bert replies. “Christmas is Christmas all over the world, no matter what the weather, if you are in high spirits.”
“And the gift?” Ada says, patting her son’s arm as a reminder.
“So, when we were walking back from out picnic by the stream, I was carrying one of the picnic baskets, and I noticed what a pretty painted lid it had. When we arrived back at the homestead, I asked Mr. Collins’ mother about it. It turns out that Mr. Collin’s brother and his wife live on the property as well. She cooks for the farmhands and helps keep house for old Mrs. Collins, and she also makes picnic baskets from the reeds growing around the stream we used to keep our beer and stout warm. Her husband carves the lids and she paints them, and she sells them in Yarra Glen.” Bert reaches under the table and pushing his seat backwards, he stands up and places a picnic basket on the table. “So this is for you. It’s the picnic basket I brought back to the house, and then brought all the way from Australia for you. A belated Merry Christmas, big sister.”
Edith gasps and raises her hands to her mouth as a smile fills her face. The beautiful picnic hamper sitting proudly on the table has woven pale reed sides and two hinged lids on the top, both painted with stylised leaves and creamy yellow daisies.
“Oh Bert!” Edith gasps, as tears well in her eyes. “Oh it’s lovely!” She gets up and hurries over to her brother and embraces him. “Thank you so much!”
“I’m so glad you like it, Edith.” Bert replies. “I got more than a bit of ribbing from the other chaps on the sailing home. They took up calling me ‘Basket Bert’.”
“Oh they didn’t, Bert?” Edith cries. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing for you be sorry for, Edith, but I afraid that I think it will stick,” Frank adds. “However it’s worth it, if you like the basket. I thought if things were still going well with Frank, you two might use it to go on a picnic in summer.”
“Oh, I will Bert!” Edith replies as she runs her hand along the thin and elegant handle. “It’s wonderful! Thank you so much!”
*The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.
**The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.
***Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
****A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
*****Believed to date from British colonial rule in India, and related to the Hindi expression “tickee babu”, meaning something like “everything's alright, sir”, “tickety-boo” means “everything is fine”. It was a common slang phrase that was popular in the 1920s.
******Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
*******Dame Nellie Melba was an Australian operatic lyric coloratura soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early Twentieth Century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town. Melba studied singing in Melbourne and made a modest success in performances there. After a brief and unsuccessful marriage, she moved to Europe in search of a singing career. She succeeded in London and Paris. Her repertoire was small; in her whole career she sang no more than 25 roles and was closely identified with only ten. She was known for her performances in French and Italian opera, but sang little German opera. She returned to Australia frequently during the Twentieth Century, singing in opera and concerts, and had a house, “Coombe Cottage” built for her in the Yarra Valley outside of Melbourne.
********A charabanc or "char-à-banc" is a type of horse-drawn vehicle or early motor coach, usually open-topped, more common in Britain, but also found in places like Australia during the early part of the Twentieth Century. It has benched seats arranged in rows, looking forward, commonly used for large parties, whether as public conveyances or for excursions.
This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The central focus of our story, sitting on Ada’s table, is the wicker picnic basket that Bert brought home for Edith. In truth it is not Australian made, but was made by an unknown miniature artisan in America. The floral patterns on the top have been hand painted. The hinged lids lift, just like a real hamper, so things can be put inside.
In front of the basket stands Ada’s cottage ware teapot. Made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson, it has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched rood and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics.
Surrounding the cottage ware teapot are non-matching teacups, saucers, a milk jug and sugar bowl, all of which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Sitting on the table in the foreground is a McVitie and Price’s Small Petite Beurre Biscuits tin, containing a selection of different biscuits. The biscuits were made by hand of polymer clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. McVitie's (Originally McVitie and Price) is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie and Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Harlesden, London (where Edith’s father works). McVitie and Price's first major biscuit was the McVitie's Digestive, created in 1892 by a new young employee at the company named Alexander Grant, who later became the managing director of the company. The biscuit was given its name because it was thought that its high baking soda content served as an aid to food digestion. The McVitie's Chocolate Homewheat Digestive was created in 1925. Although not their core operation, McVitie's were commissioned in 1893 to create a wedding cake for the royal wedding between the Duke of York and Princess Mary, who subsequently became King George V and Queen Mary. This cake was over two metres high and cost one hundred and forty guineas. It was viewed by 14,000 and was a wonderful publicity for the company. They received many commissions for royal wedding cakes and christening cakes, including the wedding cake for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip and Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Under United Biscuits McVitie's holds a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.
Edith’s black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers was made by an unknown artisan. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. This hat is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.
In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table, the Windsor chair and the ladderback chair to the left of the photo, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. There are also some rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and a bread tin in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces I recently acquired from The Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a tin of Macfie’s Finest Black Treacle, two jars of P.C. Flett and Company jam, a tin of Heinz marinated apricots, a jar of Marmite, some Bisto gravy powder, some Ty-Phoo tea and some Oxo stock cubes. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.
Robert Andrew Macfie sugar refiner was the first person to use the term term Golden Syrup in 1840, a product made by his factory, the Macfie sugar refinery, in Liverpool. He also produced black treacle.
P.C. Flett and Company was established in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands by Peter Copeland Flett. He had inherited a small family owned ironmongers in Albert Street Kirkwall, which he inherited from his maternal family. He had a shed in the back of the shop where he made ginger ale, lemonade, jams and preserves from local produce. By the 1920s they had an office in Liverpool, and travelling representatives selling jams and preserves around Great Britain. I am not sure when the business ceased trading.
The American based Heinz food processing company, famous for its Baked Beans, 57 varieties of soups and tinend spaghetti opened a factory in Harlesden in 1919, providing a great deal of employment for the locals who were not already employed at McVitie and Price.
Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.
In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.
The first Bisto product, in 1908, was a meat-flavoured gravy powder, which rapidly became a bestseller in Britain. It was added to gravies to give a richer taste and aroma. Invented by Messrs Roberts and Patterson, it was named "Bisto" because it "Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One". Bisto Gravy is still a household name in Britain and Ireland today, and the brand is currently owned by Premier Foods.
Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.
The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).
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.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews, although we are still in Mayfair, moving a few streets away to Hill Street, where Edith, Lettice’s maid, is visiting her friend and fellow maid Hilda. Edith and Hilda used to share at attic bedroom together in the Pimlico townhouse of Mr. and Mrs. Plaistow, their former situation, where they worked together as parlour maids. Edith recently helped Hilda obtain a new position as live-in maid for Lettice’s married Embassy Club coterie friends, Dickie and Margot Channon. Whilst Edith spends her Sundays off with her beau, Willison’s Grocers delivery boy Frank, she shares her Wednesdays off between visiting her parents in Harlesden and spending the day enjoying the pleasures London has to offer with Hilda. It is in the Channon’s Hill Street flat’s kitchen that we find ourselves today where Edith and Hilda are taking luncheon before heading off to nearby Oxford Street for a spot of window shopping.
Hilda has found that the Channon’s rather chaotic household and way of living somewhat of challenge to get used to working in, but it always guarantees great stories that she can share with her best friend, and this is what the girls are doing. The Channons are away, visiting Dickie’s parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Taunton in Cornwall, which makes it easier for Hilda to entertain Edith at the flat in Hill Street, and the pair are enjoying Dickie and Margot’s unknown largess as the table is set with tea for two, bread from the glazed bread crock and a choice of spreads for them to enjoy.
“Well, “ Hilda says with a sigh of relief as she unscrews the yellow lid from the Marmite* jar. “I can tell you I was relieved to hear Mrs. Channon say to your Miss Lettice over lunch last week that the reason why they are going to see her in-laws is because they find it too lowering to visit the flat.” She scoops some of the thick dark Marmite out of the jar and smears the paste thinly across her slice of bread.
“Mmmm…” murmurs Edith in reply, her own knife still laying next to her untouched slice of bare bread.
“She sounds like a nasty old trout anyway.” Hilda prattles on as she cuts her slice of Marmite topped bread into two by slicing it with ungainly drags of her Bakelite** handled knife. “Poor Mrs. Channon always comes back from these stays at the in-law’s castle so downcast, and despondent.”
“Yes…” Edith replies in a distracted way, still leaving her bread untouched.
“And I’ve heard she and Mr. Channon talk about the fact that they have no children yet.” Hilda picks up one half of her bread and bites into it hungrily, chewing her mouthful a few times and half swallowing it before adding, “I mean, I know they have been married for a year and all, so it is unusual.” She loudly chews her mouthful of bread and Marmite a few more times. “But you can’t force babies to come, now can you?”
“Mmmm…”
“And, I mean fancy the Marchioness being rich enough to live in a castle, yet she and the Marquess barely give Mr. Channon a penny to live by, and they won’t visit his home because they think it’s too lowering.” Hilda emphasises the last word before taking another large bite of her bread. “What a cheek! ‘d hate her for a mother-in-law, no matter how rich she is! She’s just plain rude, if you ask me! Don’t you agree, Edith?”
“No…” Edith replies after a few moments, her voice reedy and tinged with a far off quality.
“You don’t, Edith?” Hilda asks, her face screwing up in disbelief, her mouth a thin, long line moving up and down as she chews.
“I don’t what?” Edith replies.
“You don’t agree with me, Edith!” Hilda retorts in surprise. “Haven’t you been listening to me?” She looks at the slice of bare bread on Edith’s plate and her untouched cup of tea, and then up into Edith’s rather pale and wan face with apprehension. “What’s wrong Edith? You haven’t touched your tea.”
“Oh!” Edith gasps, before smiling at her friend. “Nothing, Hilda.” She picks up the jar of Golden Shred Marmalade*** and unscrews the painted red lid.
“Aren’t you going to put butter on your bread first?” Hilda asks with disquiet as she watches Edith’s clean knife edge towards the gelatinous golden orange conserve within the jar.
“What?” Edith looks at the marmalade and then looks at the bar of creamy pale yellow butter on the white glazed tray of the butter dish. “Oh! Oh yes!” She giggles somewhat forcefully at her mistake. “Silly me.”
“What’s wrong Edith?” Hilda asks her friend in genuine concern as she watches her butter her bread. “You’ve been a bit off ever since you’ve arrived, and I don’t think you’ve really heard a word I said since you got here.”
“Yes I have, Hilda!” Edith defends.
“You’re not,” Hilda glances down to Edith’s stomach, encased in a pretty floral print frock of her own making, cocking her eyebrow as she does. “You know… in the family way with Frank, are you?”
“Hilda!” Edith let’s her knife clatter loudly onto her blue and white plate. “Good heavens, no!” She blushes. “I’m not that kind of girl! You know that! How could you even think such a thing? I haven’t let Frank touch me like that, and he knows he can’t, until he’s put a ring on my finger.”
“Oh, that’s a relief!” Hilda sinks back not the comfort of the round back of her Windsor chair. “Then what is it? Something’s bothering you. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. Is it Miss Lettice? Has she done something? I know your brother is home. Is he alright?”
“Of course my brother’s alright!” Edith scoffs in surprise. “You only saw him at the Hammersmith Palais**** on Sunday. And no, it’s nothing about Miss Lettice.”
“Well, a lot can happen in a few days, Edith. So, what is it, then. Is it to do with Frank?”
Edith doesn’t reply for a moment, which tells her best friend so much before she finally does reply falteringly. “Well, yes… well not him, exactly.”
“What is it then?” Hilda sits forward and picks up the last bite of her first half of her bread. “Come on! Out with it then!”
Edith sighs deeply and toys with the marmalade as she smears it across her slice of bread. “I’m worried about meeting Frank’s grandmother on Sunday.”
“But I thought you wanted to meet her.” Hilda replies, her eyes widening in surprise. “You’re the one who has been banging on to me for weeks about Frank dragging his heels. Now he’s gone and done the right thing and organised for you two to finally meet. I don’t understand.”
“Oh, I am glad, Hilda. Really, I am.”
“Well you don’t sound it, I must confess.” Hilda says matter-of-factly as she snatches up her second half of her bread and bites deeply into it, emitting a small gasp of pleasure at doing so.
Edith cuts her slice of bread in half with desultory strokes as she considers her reply. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
“Alright. Well, I’m worried that she won’t like me.”
“What?” Hilda gasps. “What is there not to like about you, Edith? You’re wonderful! Frank’s picked himself the best of the catch!” She pats Edith’s arm comfortingly as she leans forward. “You’re pretty and smart. You’ve landed yourself a good job as far as being in service goes. Goodness,” She slaps Edith’s forearm. “You’re even clever enough to whip Frank up a shirt on that new Singer***** of yours, I’ll wager. I’m sure she’ll be tickled pink that her grandson has found such a catch as you.”
“But she sounds so grand, Hilda. She makes lace, and she lives in Upton Park. It sounds much nicer than Harlesden.”
“What rubbish!” Hilda scoffs. “Lots of women make lace, and they aren’t fine ladies like Mrs. Channon or Miss Lettice. In fact, I doubt that either of our mistresses could sew their own lace. And as for Upon Park, it’s just an ordinary suburb, just like any other in London.”
“Have you been there?”
“Well, no.” Hilda admits. But as her friend’s face falls, she quickly adds, “But I have been with you to the Premier****** in East Ham, and that isn’t far away, and there’s nothing particularly grand or special about it. Upton Park is just an ordinary London suburb, just like many others, and that includes Harlesden.”
“I don’t really know much about Frank’s upbringing, other than his parents died in the Spanish Flu epidemic. His grandmother might not approve of a working girl whose father works in a biscuit factory and a mother who is a laundress.”
“Rubbish! Your parents are both respectable people, Edith. Your mum keeps a lovely house and did a splendid job of raising you and your brother. You’ve nothing whatever to be ashamed of! I’m sure your nerves are just bringing all this nonsense up.”
“Oh,” Edith sighs. “You’re probably right, Hilda.” She smiles wanly at her friend and reaches up her own right hand and places it gratefully on her best friend’s left forearm. “Thank you.”
“Course I’m right.” Hilda says with satisfaction.
The pair settle back in companionable silence for a short while. Hilda happily helps herself to another slice of thick and soft white bread from the bread crock, far nicer than the bread she used to be served by the cook in Mrs. Plaistow’s, who deliberately gave the maids food of a poorer quality out of sheer spite, whilst feeding she and her kitchen maid little delicacies that she would create just for them. Smearing a thick layer of rich, dark and gleaming Marmite on her bread, Hilda feels the silence change. Glancing up at her friend she watches as she gingerly nibbles at her slice of bread, spread with a thin layer of jewel like orange marmalade. Her eyes, usually so bright, seem dull and sad and she is obviously troubled and distracted by something more than she is saying. Hilda sips her tea and ponders the situation.
“There’s something else worrying you, isn’t there Edith?” she confronts her friend at length.
“No, I…”
“Don’t try and deny it!” Hilda protests, raising one of her doughy arms with its wide hands and fat, sausage like fingers. “I’ve known you long enough Edith Watsford, to know there is something wrong. What is it? Don’t you want to tell it me?”
Edith looks guiltily at her, evidently upset at withholding information from her most trusted of friends, yet unable to voice them. Finally, she speaks.
“You’ll think me foolish, if you thought my other reasons were rubbish, Hilda.”
“Your reasons may be rubbish,” Hilda agrees. “But your concerns aren’t. Come on Edith. We tell each other everything. You know I won’t think you’re foolish. Like I said before, you’re a smart girl, and smart girls aren’t foolish.” She smiles in a welcoming fashion, encouraging Edith to share. “I won’t pass judgement on you.” she concludes softly, putting down her slice of bread, just to prove the point that she is paying full attention. “Promise.”
Edith puts down her own nibbled slice of bread and explains with a heaviness and reluctance, “I feel foolish, because I can’t help but feel I’m cheating on Bert’s memory by going to see Frank’s grandmother.”
When Edith pauses and looks across at her friend, Hilda doesn’t respond, even though she wants to. She wants to tell her that such an idea is nonsense, and that she has been crying over the photo of a dead man for far too long as it is, but she knows that will only make Edith feel foolish, and she doesn’t want her to feel that way. Instead, she stays silent for a moment before asking, “How’s that then?”
“Well, by me going to see Frank’s grandmother, it commits me more to Frank, and I can’t help but feel that in doing so, I’m not being generous to Bert’s memory.”
“That’s,” Hilda begins, about to add the word rubbish. However, she quickly changes her mind, swallows the word and instead says, “Understandable.”
“Do you really think so, Hilda?”
Hilda smiles, but her smile contains pity for her friend. “For all the time we shared that awful, cold attic bedroom at Mrs. Plaistow’s, I remember how often you talked about Bert, and how often you looked at his picture. Of course, he was your first love, and whilst I have no real experience of love myself, I do know that first loves remain in your heart.”
Edith nods shallowly.
“But I think that Bert would be disappointed in you if you didn’t take this chance with Frank, Edith. He sounded like a nice chap, and I think he’d be happy for you if you had a chance at love again. You’re lucky.” she adds. “Not all of us get that chance.” Now her pity is for herself.
“Oh, I’m sorry Hilda!” Edith exclaims. “I must sound so ungrateful! Here I am with a lovely man like Frank, and I’m worried about a man who isn’t even alive any more.”
“He lives in your heart.” Hilda says in a strangulated voice as she struggles to hold back her own tears.
“Don’t worry, Hilda!” Edith assures her friend. “We’re going to find you a good man at the Hammersmith Palais. You wait and see!”
“Not with the number of women there are in comparison to the men.” Hilda says doubtfully, picking up her bread slice and her cup. “Like most of the plainer girls, I end up dancing with other women rather than sit and be a wallflower. Thank goodness for your Frank dancing with me from time to time, or your brother last week.” After slurping a sip of hot sweet and milky tea, she adds, “My Mum used to tell me I had good child-bearing hips. I think she used to say it out of kindness, because I’ve always been on the heftier side.” She looks down at herself. “I’ll never be a slip of thing like you, and there’s a fact.”
“Oh I wouldn’t…” Edith begins, but Hilda holds up her hand in protest again as she pops her bread between her teeth.
Taking the slice out of her mouth, she continues, “Anyway, Mum doesn’t say that any more, partially I think to spare me the humiliation of being reminded that I’m still single at the age of twenty three, but I think more so to keep herself from remembering that as her only child left alive, if I am destined to be an old maid, she’ll never have grandchildren.”
“Oh, don’t talk like that, Hilda! You might meet the man you are going to marry, tomorrow.”
“Let’s be honest, Edith,” Hilda says in a deflated fashion. “I’m nowhere near as pretty as you, nor as trim, and with so many young men killed in the war, my chances of finding someone are slim. Besides, I can’t sew my own pretty frocks like you can, and it seems that dresses in my size are mostly muddy brown or olive in colour. They are hardly becoming are they?”
“Well, we might be able to do something about that.” Edith says with a genuine smile that returns brightness to her eyes. “Now that I do have my own sewing machine, I can just as easily make up a frock for you as I can for me. I have plenty of Weldon’s******* at home.”
Hilda’s sad face suddenly brightens and her cheeks fill with colour, giving her a pretty flush of pink. “Would you Edith?” she dares to ask. “Would you really?”
“Oh yes, of course I will!” Edith exclaims. “If I start working on it in the evenings this week, it might even help keep my mind off meeting Frank’s grandmother. I probably won’t have anything ready for a week or two, but if you don’t mind waiting.”
“Oh, of course I don’t mind waiting! That would be wonderful!”
“Well,” Edith says, sparking up herself at the thought of making a frock for her best friend. “I know we said we were going to go and look in the shop windows on Oxford Street, but why don’t we go to Mrs. Minkin’s Haberdashers in Whitechapel instead? We could pick some nice fabric today, and maybe even look at frock patterns to see what you like.”
“We’d better eat up then!” Hilda says before stuffing what is left of her second slice of bread into her mouth and washing it down with another slurp of tea. Through a wall of chewed up bread mixed with tea she adds, “Whitechapel’s a bit further away than Oxford Street.”
As Edith stands and prepares to help tidy the luncheon dishes away, Hilda waves her hands over them, indicating to her that she will take care of them when she gets back. Hilda goes to the pegs by the back door to the flat and picks up her chocolate brown overcoat and camel felt cloche with the chocolate brown grosgrain ribbon, the latter of which she pulls down over her mousy brown hair. Holding out Edith’s black coat to her, the pair of best friends wrap up against the still chilled early spring weather and slip out the door, their joyously chattering filling the air like birdsong as they discuss what Hilda’s new frock might look like.
*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.
**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.
***Golden Shred orange marmalade still exists today and is a common household brand both in Britain and Australia. They are produced by Robertson’s. Robertson's Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson's marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.
****The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.
*****The Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing machines, it was renamed Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865, then the Singer Company in 1963. In 1867, the Singer Company decided that the demand for their sewing machines in the United Kingdom was sufficiently high to open a local factory in Glasgow on John Street. The Vice President of Singer, George Ross McKenzie selected Glasgow because of its iron making industries, cheap labour, and shipping capabilities. Demand for sewing machines outstripped production at the new plant and by 1873, a new larger factory was completed on James Street, Bridgeton. By that point, Singer employed over two thousand people in Scotland, but they still could not produce enough machines. In 1882 the company purchased forty-six acres of farmland in Clydebank and built an even bigger factory. With nearly a million square feet of space and almost seven thousand employees, it was possible to produce on average 13,000 machines a week, making it the largest sewing machine factory in the world. The Clydebank factory was so productive that in 1905, the U.S. Singer Company set up and registered the Singer Manufacturing Company Ltd. in the United Kingdom.******The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.
*******Created by British industrial chemist and journalist Walter Weldon Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was the first ‘home weeklies’ magazine which supplied dressmaking patterns. Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal was first published in 1875 and continued until 1954 when it ceased publication.
This cosy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Hilda’s deal table is everything required for a nice, hearty luncheon for two working maids. The bread crock, butter knives and the butter dish come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The bar of butter on the dish I have had since I was six. It came as part of a dinner set, underneath a silver butter dish. The blue and white floral tea set, plates and bread slices all come from different online stockists of miniatures on E-Bay. The vase of flowers also comes from an online shop on E-Bay. The jar of Marmite and the jar of Golden Shred Marmalade are handmade artisan miniatures with great attention to the labelling, made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire., a panoply of things as she readies luncheon for Lettice and her guests. The mahogany stained serving tray, the gravy boat of gravy, the chopping board, napkins and cutlery all came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. Edith’s green handbag, appearing on the table at the bottom right-hand corner of the photo, is handmade from soft leather. I bought it along with many other items from an American miniature collector named Marilyn Bickel.
Hilda’s two different Windsor chairs are hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniatures which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat of either, but both are definitely unmarked artisan pieces.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
Departing Buchanan Bus Station in Glasgow is First Glasgow Alexander Dennis Enviro 400EV City bodied BYD electric double decker 38470 - LG72DZR in an overall advert for British-Supplements.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews, although we are still in Mayfair, moving a few streets away to Hill Street, where Edith, Lettice’s maid, and her beau, grocery boy Frank Leadbetter, are visiting Edith’s friend and fellow maid Hilda. It is a beautiful, sunny Sunday and Sundays all three have as days off from their jobs as domestic servants and delivery boy. Taking advantage of this, all three are going to spend the afternoon at Hammersmith Palias de Danse*. As usual, Frank collects Edith from Cavendish Mews and the pair then go to the home of Lettice’s married friends Margot and Dickie Channon, where Hilda works as a live-in maid.
Being Hilda’s day off, her employers usually decamp for the day, and today they are visiting their friend Priscilla who recently married American dry goods heir Georgie Carter. The pair have just returned to London from their honeymoon which took in much of Europe before visiting Georgie’s family in Philadelphia. The quartet will dine at the Café Royal**, doubtless at the expense of Georgie since the Channons seem perpetually to have financial difficulties, but as a result, the Channons have invited the Carters back to their Hill Street flat for after supper coffee, which means that Hilda must do one of her most hated jobs: grind coffee beans to make real coffee for Georgie Carter, who is particular about his American style coffee. We find the trio in the kitchen of the Hill Street flat, the ladies’ dancing frocks and Frank’s suit at odds with their surrounds as Hilda grinds the coffee beans sitting in a white china bowl in the large wooden and brass coffee grinder. By preparing the coffee, ready to make before she goes out, it will be easy to serve when her employers and their guests return after dinner, and the beans will still be fresh enough for Georgie’s liking.
“You know,” Frank remarks as he stands at Edith’s elbow and watches Hilda turn the handle of the coffee grinder with gusto. “I don’t see why they can’t just drink Camp Coffee*** like the rest of us.”
“Oh Frank!” gasps Edith, looking up at her beau and patting his hand with her own as he squeezes her left shoulder lovingly. “You know perfectly well why not, Frank. Mr. and Mrs. Channon’s friend, Mr. Carter is an American gentleman, and just like Miss Wanetta Ward the American moving picture star, he doesn’t like British coffee.”
“What rot!” Frank scoffs at the suggestion. “There’s nothing wrong with British coffee! If British coffee isn’t to Mr. Carter’s taste, let him have tea then, and save poor Hilda the effort of having to grind up coffee beans for his lordship.” He slips off the jacket of his smart Sunday blue suit, revealing his crisp white shirt, red tie and smart navy blue vest. He drapes it over the back of the Windsor chair Edith sits in. “Come on old girl,” he says to Hilda as he moves around the deal pine kitchen table. “Give me a go then. Give your arms a chance to recuperate before we go dancing.”
“You’re such a Socialist, Frank Leadbetter.” pipes up Hilda as with a grunt, she pushes the handle of the grinder mechanism over a particularly recalcitrant coffee bean.
“What?” gasps Frank as he takes over grinding from the grateful maid. “I thought you’d come to my defence, Hilda, especially as I’m being so chivalrous as to grind coffee beans for you.”
“Oh I am grateful, Frank, ever so.” Hilda replies, rubbing her aching forearms with her fat, sausage like fingers. “But just because you are being gallant, doesn’t mean I can’t call you a Socialist.”
“Because a hard working man like me thinks I’m every bit as good as this friend of your Mr. and Mrs. Channon, I’m now a Socialist?” Frank asks in an appalled voice. “You’re as bad as Edith’s mum.” He nods in his sweetheart’s direction.
“Mum thinks Frank might be a Communist.” Edith explains. “Even though we’ve both told her that he isn’t.”
“Handsome is as handsome does.” remarks Hilda with a cheeky smile as she glances at Frank winding the red knob topped brass handle of the grinder.
“I’m neither, I’ll have you know, Hilda Clerkenwell!” Frank retorts. “I’d prefer to think of myself as more of a progressive thinker when it comes to the rights and privileges of the working man,” He looks poignantly at Hilda. “And woman.”
“Same thing.” Hilda retorts matter-of-factly as she starts to straighten the russet grosgrain bandeau**** embellished with gold sequins which has slipped askew whilst she has been grinding coffee beans.
“Pardon my ignorance,” Edith begins gingerly. “But what exactly is a Socialist?”
“Socialism is a political movement that wants to reform various economic and social systems, transferring them to social ownership as opposed to private ownership.” remarks Hilda as she runs her hands down the back of her hair.
“Well done, Hilda!” Frank congratulates her.
“You sound surprised, Frank.” Hilda says with a cheeky smile. “Don’t they have smart girls where you come from, present company excluded, Edith!” Hilda adds hurriedly so as not to offend her best friend.”
“Oh, you know I’m not very political,” Edith assures Hilda, yet at the same time self consciously toys with her blonde waves as she speaks.
“I must confess, Hilda, I am a little surprised.” Frank admits. “I don’t know many girls who are interested in social rights and can give explanations so eloquently.”
“I’m so sorry Frank!” Edith defends herself. “I know you’ve tried to teach me, but I can’t help it. I get confused between this ist and the other ist. They all seem the same to me.” She blushes with mild embarrassment at her own ignorance.
“No, no, Edith!” Frank assures her as he stops grinding the coffee beans and reaches out his left hand, clasping her right one as it rests on the tabletop and squeezes it reassuringly. “This isn’t a criticism of you! It was a compliment to Hilda. You’re wonderful, and there are things that you understand and are far better at than me.”
“Than both of us, Edith.” adds Hilda quickly, the look of concern about her friend taking umbrage clear on her round face.
“Yes, inconsequential things.” Edith mumbles in a deflated tone.
“No, not at all.” Frank reassures her soothingly as he takes up grinding coffee again. “What good am I to myself if I can’t cook a meal to feed myself.”
“And for all my love of reading, Edith, you know I can’t sew a stitch.” Hilda appends. “I could never have made this beautiful frock.” She grasps the edge of the strap of her russet coloured art satin***** dress as she speaks. “Not in a million years. We’re all good at different things, and no-one could say you weren’t smart, Edith.”
“That’s right.” Frank concurs, smiling at his sweetheart. “One of the reasons why I’ve always admired you is because you aren’t some silly giggling Gertie****** like some of the housemaids I’ve known. You aren’t turned by just a handsome face, and your head isn’t filled with moving picture stars and nothing else.”
“Well, I do like moving picture stars, Frank.” Edith confesses.
“Oh I know, Edith, and I love you for that too.” Frank reassures her. “But it’s not all that is in there. You have a good head on your shoulders.”
“And a wise one too.” Hilda interjects. “How often do I ask you for advice? I’ve always asked you for your opinion on things for as long as we’ve been friends.”
“You are clever, and insightful, and you want a better life for yourself too, and that’s why I really love you. We want the same things from life.” Frank says in a soft and soothing tone full of love as he gazes at Edith. “You are very pretty, and no-one can deny that – not even you,” He holds out an admonishing finger as Edith goes to refute his remark. “But beauty, however glorious will fade. Just look at our Dowager Queen Mother*******. When beauty fades, wit and intelligence remain, and you have both of those qualities in spades, Edith.”
“Oh Frank.” Edith breathes softly. “You aren’t ashamed of me then?”
“Of course I’m not Edith! How could I ever be ashamed of you? I’m as proud as punch******** to step out with you! You’re my best girl.”
Frank winds the gleaming brass coffee grinder handle a few more times before stopping. He pulls out the drawer at the bottom and as he does, the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee beans fills the air around them, wafting up his, Edith and Hilda’s nostrils. He sighs with satisfaction at a job well done.
“Good enough for his American lordship?” Frank asks Hilda.
She peers into the drawer. “Good enough.” she acknowledges with another of her cheeky smirks, nodding affirmatively.
“I still think he could jolly well grind his own, you know, Hilda!” Frank opines.
“Socialist.” she laughs in reply as she walks around Frank, withdraws the drawer of ground coffee and knocks the contents into the small, worn Delftware coffee cannister with careful taps, so as not to spill and waste any of the hard-won grinds.
“I bet you, your Wanetta Ward doesn’t grind her own coffee, Edith.” Frank goes on as he walks back around to Edith and slips his jacket on again.
“I bet you she does, Frank!” Edith counters.
“What? A moving picture star grinding her own coffee? I don’t believe it!”
“Miss Ward is a very unorthodox person, Frank, even for an American.” she assures him. “I think she might surprise you if you ever get the pleasure of meeting her one day.”
“Maybe.” Frank says doubtfully. “Well now that coffee is ground, we should really get going.” He runs his hands around the back of his jacket collar to make sure it is sitting straight. “The Hammersmith Palais waits for no-one, not even those who slave for undeserving Americans.” He laughs good heartedly. “Shall we go?”
“Oh yes!” enthuses Edith as Frank chivalrously pulls out her chair for her as she stands up. “I’ll fetch our coats.”
With her pretty blue floral sprigged frock swirling about her figure, Edith hurries over to the pegs by the door where Frank’s, Hilda’s and her own coat and hats hang. She moves lightly across the floor, practicing her dance steps as she goes, silently moving to the music she hears the band playing in her head.
“I really wonder why I bother sometimes.” Hilda says despondently as she pulls her brown coat on over the top of the luxurious man-made silk frock that Edith made for her and decorated with lace trimming and small bursts of sequins.
“Like I said,” Frank mutters. “He should settle for Camp Coffee like the rest of us, or have tea.”
“Not grinding coffee, Frank!” Hilda scoffs in reply. “I mean go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais week after week. What’s the point?”
“What do you mean, Hilda?” Edith asks gently, slipping her arms into her own black three-quarter length coat as Frank holds to open for her.
“I mean why do I bother going dancing when no man at the Palais ever looks at me, even in this beautiful new frock you made me, Edith.” She picks up the lace trimmed hem of her dance dress and lifts it despondently.
Edith and Frank both glance anxiously at one another for a moment. Both know they are thinking exactly the same thing. What Hilda says is true. Whenever the three of them go to the Hammersmith Palais de Danse there are always far more women in attendance than men. The Great War decimated the male population, and almost drove an entire generation of young men into extinction. Sadly, this means that more and more women are finding themselves without a gentleman to step out with, and are deemed surplus to needs by society. In spite of any of his faults, Edith knows how lucky she is to have a young man like Frank. Even the attentions of pretty girls are less in demand with fewer men in circulation desiring their company. Unlike Edith, Hilda is a little on the plump side, enjoying the indulgence of sticky buns from the bakers and an extra serving of Victoria Sponge at the Lyons Corner Shop********* at the top of Tottenham Court Road. Her face is friendly, with soft brown eyes and a warm smile, but she isn’t pretty. Even with the judicious application of a little powder and rouge acquired from the make-up counter of Selfridges********** her skin lacks the fresh gleam that Edith has, and for as long as she has known her, Edith has always found Hilda to have a very pale complexion. When the three of them do go dancing, Frank is often the only man she dances with when he partners her around the dancefloor, and more often than not, Hilda ends up taking the part of the man, dancing with any number of other neglected wallflowers, just to ward of the tedium of waiting for someone to ask her to dance. The plight, for plight it was, of women like Hilda was all too common, in the post-war world of the 1920s.
“Perhaps you’re looking in the wrong place, Hilda.” Frank says.
“What do mean, Frank?”
“Well, a girl with brains like you needs a man who will stimulate her mentally. Perhaps you might find the man of your dreams at a library.”
“A library!” Hilda’s mind conjures up images of pale bookish young men in glasses with phlegmatic characters who would much rather shake her hand limply and discuss the benefits of Socialism, rather than sweep her off her feet romantically.
“Not at all helpful, Frank!” hisses Edith as she watches her best friend’s face fall.
“I was only joking.” Frank shrugs apologetically, unsure what to say.
Edith hurries over and wraps her arm around Hilda’s slumping shoulders consolingly. “A faint heart never won a fair lady, Hilda.” She pulls Hilda to her lovingly. Hilda looks up at her friend sadly, yet thoughtfully. “And I think it works the same in reverse.”
Seeing a way to make amends for his ill-timed joke, Frank pipes up, “That’s exactly right, Hilda. Edith wouldn’t have been anywhere near as attractive to me if she hadn’t had a bit of pluck.”
“And you look splendid in the dance frock I made for you, Hilda,” Edith adds. “Really you do.”
“Do you really think so, Edith?” Hilda asks, looking at her friend.
“Of course I do! I’m a professional seamstress, and you are my best friend. I wouldn’t make something that didn’t suit you!”
“No, no of course not.” Hilda replies.
“And didn’t Mrs. Minkin say that russet satin would suit your colourings?”
“She did.”
“Well then,” Edith replies matter-of-factly. “There is nothing more to be said.”
“That’s right.” agrees Frank, and without further ado, he sweeps Hilda into his arms.
With the ease of a natural dancer, Frank begins to waltz his partner carefully across the black and white chequered linoleum floor of the Channon’s kitchen, guiding her around the kitchen table and the chairs gathered around it, past the black and white stove and the dresser cluttered with crockery and provisions.
“Oh Frank!” Hilda says, laughing joyously as she allows herself to be swept away. “You really are a one!”
Edith smiles as she sees a light return to her best friend’s eyes, and a smile appear upon her pert lips. She considers herself so fortunate not just because she has a chap to step out with, but because Frank is so kind and considerate. Not just any man would understand or appreciate Edith’s wish to include Hilda in their excursions to the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, and not every man would be as willing to take a turn with her on the dancefloor, as has been proven. Then again, Frank is no ordinary man, and as time goes on and she gets to know him better, the more she is becoming aware that her sweetheart is a very special man indeed. She laughs as Frank dips Hilda, making her squeal in delight, before raising her up again and restoring her to her feet.
“There!” Frank says with a huff as he catches his breath. “Now that your feet are suitably warmed up, you’re ready to go, Miss Clerkenwell. We’ll have no more talk of you not wanting to come dancing with us.”
“Today might be the day you meet someone, Hilda. Don’t give up on the chance.” Edith enthuses.
“Oh alright you two!” Hilda acquiesces. “I give up. Let’s go then.”
“That’s the spirit, Hilda!” Frank says. “That pluck will win you a fine and handsome gentleman with a brain that you deserve.”
“I can hardly battle both of you, can I?” Hilda laughs as she carefully places her floppy brimmed brown velvet and copper faille poke-style bonnet decorated with a beige rose and leaves atop her head.
The three friends walk out of the kitchen door that leads out onto the flat’s back stairs and begin to descend to the street. Hilda locks the door behind her and the coffee grinder and the as of yet to be ground coffee beans sit on the table, ready for when she returns later that day to serve to Margot, Dickie and their friends Priscilla and Georgie Carter.
*The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.
**The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.
***Camp Coffee is a concentrated syrup which is flavoured with coffee and chicory, first produced in 1876 by Paterson & Sons Ltd, in Glasgow. In 1974, Dennis Jenks merged his business with Paterson to form Paterson Jenks plc. In 1984, Paterson Jenks plc was bought by McCormick & Company. Legend has it (mainly due to the picture on the label) that Camp Coffee was originally developed as an instant coffee for military use. The label is classical in tone, drawing on the romance of the British Raj. It includes a drawing of a seated Gordon Highlander (supposedly Major General Sir Hector MacDonald) being served by a Sikh soldier holding a tray with a bottle of essence and jug of hot water. They are in front of a tent, at the apex of which flies a flag bearing the drink's slogan, "Ready Aye Ready". A later version of the label, introduced in the mid-20th century, removed the tray from the picture, thus removing the infinite bottles element and was seen as an attempt to avoid the connotation that the Sikh was a servant, although he was still shown waiting while the kilted Scottish soldier sipped his coffee. The current version, introduced in 2006, depicts the Sikh as a soldier, now sitting beside the Scottish soldier, and with a cup and saucer of his own. Camp Coffee is an item of British nostalgia, because many remember it from their childhood. It is still a popular ingredient for home bakers making coffee-flavoured cake and coffee-flavoured buttercream. In late 1975, Camp Coffee temporarily became a popular alternative to instant coffee in the UK, after the price of coffee doubled due to shortages caused by heavy frosts in Brazil.
****A bandeau is a narrow band of fabric worn round the head to hold the hair in position. Although bandeaus existed long before the 1920s, there was a resurgence in popularity for embroidered grosgrain ribbons to be worn around the head across the forehead in the 1920s, and they are synonymous with 1920s flapper fashion.
*****The first successful artificial silks were developed in the 1890s of cellulose fibre and marketed as art silk or viscose, a trade name for a specific manufacturer. In 1924, the name of the fibre was officially changed in the U.S. to rayon, although the term viscose continued to be used in Europe.
******Although obscure as to its origin, the term “giggling Gertie” is of English derivation and was often used in a derisive way to describe silly children and young people, usually girls, who were deemed as being flippant and foolish.
*******Queen Alexandra was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from the twenty-second of January 1901 to the sixth of May 1910 as the wife of King-Emperor Edward VII. Daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark, at the age of sixteen Alexandra was chosen as the future wife of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the son and heir apparent of Queen Victoria. When she arrived in England she was famed for her beauty and her style of dress and bearing were copied by fashion-conscious women. From Edward's death, Alexandra was queen mother, being a dowager queen and the mother of the reigning monarch. Alexandra retained a youthful appearance into her senior years, but during the Great War her age caught up with her. She took to wearing elaborate veils and heavy makeup, which was described by gossips as having her face "enamelled".
********Although today we tend to say as “pleased as punch”, the Victorian term actually began as “proud as punch”. This expression refers to the Punch and Judy puppet character. Punch's name comes from Punchinello, an Italian puppet with similar characteristics. In Punch and Judy shows, the grotesque Punch is portrayed as self-satisfied and pleased with his evil actions.
*********J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.
********** Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of upscale department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1908. Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. was an American-British retail magnate who founded the London-based department store. His twenty year leadership of Selfridge’s led to his becoming one of the most respected and wealthy retail magnates in the United Kingdom. He was known as the 'Earl of Oxford Street'.
***********Faille is a type of cloth with flat ribs, often made in silk. It has a softer texture than grosgrain, with heavier and wider cords or ribs. Weft yarns are heavier than warp, and it is manufactured in plain weaving. It was especially popular in the Nineteenth Century, and its popularity, although somewhat dwindling, did carry through into the early decades of the Twentieth Century.
This cosy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Hilda’s deal table stands her coffee grinder with its brass handle, wooden base and drawer, and red knobs. It comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The little Delftware canister and the white china bowl also come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The coffee beans in the bowl are really black carraway seeds. The vase of flowers comes from an online shop on E-Bay.
Hilda’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not at Cavendish Mews. Instead, we are just a short distance away in London’s busy shopping precinct on Regent Street, where amidst the throng of London’s middle-class housewives and upper-class ladies shopping for amusement, two maids – Edith who is Lettice’s maid and her best friend Hilda who is the maid for Lettice’s friends Margot and Dickie Channon - are enjoying the pleasures of window shopping under the wide canvas awnings of Selfridges on their day off. The usually busy footpath outside the enormous department store with London’s biggest plate glass windows seems even busier today as the crowds are swelled by visitors who have come in from the outer suburbs of London and elsewhere around England to do a little bit of early Christmas shopping. Already Edith is noticing that the shops are busier than usual, and even though Christmas is still a good two months away, there are signs of Christmas cheer with bright and gaudy tinsel garlands and stars cut from metallic paper hanging in shop windows and gracing shop counters. Around them, the vociferous collective chatter of shoppers mixes with the sound of noisy automobiles and chugging double decker busses as they trundle along Regent Street.
“So how are things at Hill Street, Hilda?” Edith asks her best friend as the pair stand before a window display of brightly coloured umbrellas just perfect to brighten the upcoming winter days. “Have you settled in alright?”
“Oh yes, I’ve settled in just fine,” Hilda begins, but her voice belies concerns.
“I sense there is a but. Don’t tell me it’s worse than awful old Mrs, Plaistow’s?”
“Oh no!” Hilda assures her friend, raising her glove clad hands in defence. “Far from it. It’s just that, well…” She pauses. “I don’t know where Mrs. Channon learned her housekeeping skills.”
Edith laughs. “Don’t be silly, Hilda. Mrs. Channon is a lady, and a future marchioness. She isn’t meant to know how to cook and clean! That’s what you are there for.”
“No Edith. I didn’t mean that.” Hilda deflects.
Edith tuns to her friend, but is momentarily distracted by the passing parade of shoppers behind them on the pavement and passenger faces in the fogged up windows of a red and cream double decker bus as it chugs noisily past them, belching out fumes. “What do you mean then, Hilda?”
“I meant that she doesn’t have the first idea about housekeeping. She’s the one who comes to me, asking me how much the housekeeping budget for the week should be.”
“Oh dear! Doesn’t Mrs. Channon give you a set amount each week then?”
“Well, I tried that, but it fluctuates from week to week.” Hilda replies exasperatedly. “Some weeks she gives me more than I’ve asked for. Sometimes she asks me if what I’ve quoted is enough, and some weeks she just adds extra in anyway, telling me to splurge on something extravagant to cook, or worse yet to buy something special and frivolous for myself!”
“No!” Edith gasps in incredulity.
“And yet on other weeks I tell Mrs. Channon how much I need, and she tells me that she can’t quite meet that budget.”
“Well maybe that’s why Mrs. Channon gives you a bit extra sometimes, to put aside for a rainy day.”
“To be honest, I don’t think Mrs, Channon would know a rainy day if it slapped her in the face with a wet fish*.” The pair of maids titter girlishly for a moment with their hands to their mouths as they imagine Margot Channon being slapped in the face with a salmon or a kipper. “She seems to have no real concept about money, other than she either has it or she hasn’t.”
The pair move across to the next window featuring an array of pretty autumnal hats with wide and narrow brims made of straw and brightly patterned fabric decorated with a mixture of feather, fur and floral trims.
“I don’t think either Mr. or Mrs. Channon even know the meaning of the word budget.” Hilda carries on. “Take these for example,” She points to the hats. “Mrs Channon’s father, Lord de Virre gave Mr. and Mrs. Channon a motor car as a wedding gift, but it sits gathering dust in the garage at Hill Street and they seldom use it because they don’t have the money for petrol to fill it. Yet they take taxis everywhere. I’m forever having to go down to the corner to the taxi stand to fetch one for them. And then Mrs. Channon comes home from a day of shopping with three, mind you three, new hats she really doesn’t need, and she asks me if I have sixpence left over from the housekeeping for the driver waiting downstairs to be paid!”
“Oh, that does sound rather chaotic, Hilda.”
“Chaotic is right!” Hilda agrees. “Mrs. Channon is just lucky that I do know how to work on a budget, and I don’t go spending the extra money she gives me some weeks on frippery and do have enough to cover the shortfalls when they happen. And goodness knows what that Pegeen did when she was working as maid at Hill Street!”
“Oh dear! Did you find another Pegeen present the other day?”
“Did I ever! Mr. and Mrs. Channon had Lord and Lady de Virre for supper the other night, so they had Harrods cater it.”
“You had the money for that then?”
“Yes, luckily, from Mr. Channon. Anyway, they asked for lobster, so when I went to the drawer for the lobster piks** I found it stuffed not only with a jangle of odds and ends of silverware, but half a dozen empty oyster shells, no doubt left over from another dinner party!”
“You’re lucky they didn’t smell!”
“I think they’d been there for a few months.” Hilda remarks dubiously. “I mean, I know Pegeen is Irish, but surely even they have dustbins in Ireland!”
Edith giggles again. “At least you have jolly good stories to regale me with on our days off, Hilda.”
The pair meander to the next window which is crowded with clusters of small children with their noses pressed to the glass, their harried mothers or frustrated nannies trying desperately to get them to come away. Peering over the top of the children’s heads, they see it is a window full of wonderful toys: teddy bears***, tin soldiers, brightly painted wooden castles and forts, games, blocks and books.
As they look, Edith’s eyes fall upon something and she gasps, clapping her hands in delight.
“What is it, Edith?” asks Hilda.
“Come on!” Edith says, grasping Hilda’s right hand in her left. “We have to go inside! I just found the perfect Christmas present!”
The pair enter Selfridge’s grand department store by one of the three revolving doors and are immediately enveloped by the wonderful scent of dozens of perfumes from the nearby perfumery counters. Despite Hilda’s protestations at being drawn away from the perfume and beauty counters, the pair make their way upstairs to the toy department.
The pair meander between tables laden with mountains of boxed dolls, teddy bears, toy tea sets and dolls’ house furnishings, jostling for space with excited children in toy heaven escorted by their frazzled parents. The air is punctuated with laughter, squeals of delight and the occasional sharp slap and harsh words of admonishment when a child does more than just look at what is on display.
“What are we looking for?” Hilda asks in a desultory fashion as she tags along behind Edith who charges about like a woman with a purpose.
“I’ll know when I see them.” Edith says excitedly. Then she spies what she is seeking. “Ahh, how perfect! Right next to the register!”
The pair brusquely walk over to a glass topped counter on which sits a brightly polished brass cash register. In front of it is a display of wooden and plush rabbits, and there, nestled amongst them, a selection of books written by Beatrix Potter. Excitedly, Edith deposits her newly acquired from the Petticoat Lane Market**** second-hand snakeskin purse – almost an exact replica of Lettice’s – onto the glass counter. She snatches up a copy of ‘The Tale of Samuel Whiskers’ and ‘The Tale of Two Bad Mice’.
“I wonder which one he’d like?” Edith ponders as she holds the two brightly coloured books in her hands. “Then again, he does like rabbits.” she mutters aloud as she puts them back and takes up a copy of ‘The Tale of Benjamin Bunny’.
“Beatrix Potter Books?” Hilda queries, screwing up her nose as she sidles up alongside her friend, hooking her black handled brolly on the raised edge of the counter. “What do you want them for?” Then she pauses, her eyes growing wide. “Bert hasn’t got some poor stewardess in the family way has he, Edith?”
Edith’s eyes roll as she turns to her friend. “No, my brother hasn’t done any such thing, I’ll thank you very much, Hilda. No, these are for Mrs, Boothby.”
“Mrs. Boothby?” Hilda queries, thinking of the mature Cockney charwoman***** employed by both her mistress, Margot, and Edith’s mistress, Lettice, who does all the hard graft that neither she nor Edith have to do. “What on earth would Mrs. Boothby want with Beatrix Potter Books?”
Edith sighs in exasperation. “You can be so literal sometimes, Hilda! They aren’t for Mrs. Boothby. They are for…” Edith pauses mid-sentence and thinks before she speaks. Several weeks ago, Edith met Mrs. Boothby’s son, a forty-two year old man who is a simple and gentle giant with the aptitude of a six year old. The old Cockney charwoman’s words ring in her ears about how it is easier for her not to mention that she has a son, not because she is ashamed of him, but because not everyone would understand her wanting to keep and raise a child with such difficulties. She knows that Mrs. Boothby has taken her into her confidence by introducing her to her son, Ken. “For one of her grandchildren.” Edith fabricates.
“Grandchildren? I didn’t even know Mrs. Boothby had children, never mind grandchildren!”
“Well, there’s a lot about Mrs. Boothby you don’t know, Hilda.”
“And how do you know about her grandchildren, Edith?”
“Don’t you remember, Hilda? I went over to Mrs. Boothby’s in Poplar a few weeks ago and she sold me a second-hand sewing machine that she had found for me.” Altering the truth a little, Edith goes on, “Her grandson was playing next door. Mrs. Boothby’s neighbour looks after all the little local children whilst their parents work. He is quite partial to Peter Rabbit, so I thought I might buy him a new Beatrix Potter book for Christmas.”
“That’s very good of you, Edith.” Hilda acknowledges.
“Oh, it’s the least I can do Hilda, after Mrs. Boothby having sold me that sewing machine so cheaply. I’d never have been able to afford a new one. It’s made such a difference for me already.”
“May I help you, Miss?” asks a young shopgirl who has slipped up silently to the register as Edith and Hilda have been chatting.
“How much are these each?” Edith asks.
“They are three and six, Miss.” the shopgirl replies with a smile. “A lovely gift for birthday or Christmas if I may, Miss.”
“I’ll take this one, thank you.” Edith smiles, handing over ‘The Tale of Benjamin Bunny’ to the girl behind the counter and delving into her new snakeskin purse purchase to find the correct money, pleased to have found what she hopes will be a welcome Christmas present for Ken Boothby, the gentle giant of Poplar.
*These days we usually associate slapping people with a wet fish to Monty Python’s Fish Slapping Dance, but the term “to be slapped with a wet fish” goes back as far as the early Twentieth Century, if not earlier. In Marcel Proust’s novel, ‘Swann’s Way’ (1913, Dr Cottard compliments Odette by saying “I’d rather have it in my bed than a slap with a wet fish”. Two lines further on, the narrator refers to the statement as “that old joke”. The term however really came into the popular vernacular between the wars in the 1920s and 1930s.
**A lobster pick or lobster fork is a long, narrow food utensil used to extract meat from joints, legs, claws, and other small parts of a lobster.
***Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in America and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early Twentieth Century, the teddy bear, purportedly named after American President Theodore Roosevelt, became a popular children's toy very quickly, and by 1922 when this story is set, a staple of many children’s nursery toys.
****Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
*****A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
This joyful shop counter display of children’s treasures may not appear to be what they really are, for however lifelike they are, they are in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Central to this story, the copies of Beatrix Potter’s books 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! These are amongst the smaller number that do not open. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. In this case, the magazines are non-opening, however what might amaze you is that all Ken Blythe’s books and magazines are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The two wooden rabbits are in fact wooden Christmas ornaments from Germany which I was given when I was about six. The plush white rabbit I acquired from an online stockist of miniatures on E-Bay. The Benjamin Bunny box and also the Noah’s Ark you can see on the shelves in the background, come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom.
The brightly shining cash register was supplied by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom.
Edith’s snakeskin handbag with its gold clasp and chain comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. Hilda's umbrella comes from Smallskale Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
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 just a short distance from Cavendish Mews, at Mr. Willison’s grocers’ shop. Willison’s Grocers in Mayfair is where Lettice has an account, and it is from here that Edith, Lettice's maid, orders her groceries for the Cavendish Mews flat, except on special occasions like the soirée that Lettice threw for Dickie and Margot Channon’s engagement, when professional London caterers are used. Mr. Willison prides himself in having a genteel, upper-class clientele including the households of many titled aristocrats who have houses and flats in the neighbourhood, and he makes sure that his shop is always tidy, his shelves well stocked with anything the cook of a duke or duchess may want, and staff who are polite and mannerly to all his important customers. The latter is not too difficult, for aside from himself, Mrs. Willison does his books, his daughter Henrietta helps on Saturdays and sometimes after she has finished school, which means Mr. Willison technically only employs one member of staff: Frank Leadbetter his delivery boy who carries orders about Mayfair on the bicycle provided for him by Mr. Willison. He also collects payments for accounts which are not settled in his Binney Street shop whilst on his rounds.
Lettice’s maid, Edith, is stepping out with Frank, and to date since he rather awkwardly suggested the idea to her in the kitchen of the Cavendish Mews flat, the pair has spent every Sunday afternoon together, going to see the latest moving pictures at the Premier in East Ham*, dancing at the Hammersmith Palais or walking in one of London’s many parks. They even spent Easter Monday at the fair held on Hampstead Heath***. Whilst Lettice is away in Cornwall selecting furniture from Dickie and Margot’s Penzance country house, ‘Chi an Treth’, to be re-purposed, Edith is taking advantage of a little more free time and has come to Willison’s Grocers under the pre-text of running an errand in the hope of seeing Frank. The bell rings cheerily as she opens the plate glass door with Mr. Willison’s name painted in neat gilt lettering upon it. Stepping across the threshold she immediately smells the mixture of comforting smells of fresh fruits, vegetables and flour, permeated by the delicious scent of the brightly coloured boiled sweets coming from the large cork stoppered jars on the shop counter. The sounds of the busy street outside die away, muffled by shelves lined with any number of tinned goods and signs advertising everything from Lyon’s Tea**** to Bovril*****.
“Miss Watsford!” exclaims Mr. Willison’s wife as she peers up from her spot behind the end of the return counter near the door where she sits doing her husband’s accounts. “We don’t often have the pleasure.”
Edith looks up, unnerved, at the proprietor’s wife and bookkeeper, her upswept hairstyle as old fashioned as her high necked starched shirtwaister****** blouse down the front of which runs a long string of faceted bluish black beads. “Yes,” Edith smiles awkwardly. “I… I have, err… that is to say I forgot to give Fr… err, Mr. Leadbeater my grocery list when he visited the other day.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Willison queries. “I could have sworn that we had it.” She starts fussing through a pile of papers distractedly. “That isn’t like you Miss Watsford. You’re usually so well organised.”
“Well,” Edith thinks quickly. “It… it isn’t really the list. It’s just that I left a few things off. Miss Chetwynd… well, you see she fancies…”
“Oh, well give me the additions, Miss Watsford,” Mrs. Willison thrusts out her hand efficiently, the frothy white lace of her sleeve dancing around her wrist. “And I’ll see to it that they are added to your next delivery. We don’t want the Honourable Miss Chetwynd to go without, now do we?”
With a shaky hand Edith reluctantly hands over her list of a few extra provisions that aren’t really required, especially with her mistress being away for a few days. As she does, she glances around the cluttered and dim shop hopefully.
“Will there be anything else, Miss Watsford?” Mrs. Willison asks curtly.
“Err… yes.” Edith stammers, but falls silent as she continues to look in desperation around the shop.
Mrs. Willison suspiciously eyes the slender and pretty domestic through her pince-nez*******. She scrutinises Edith’s fashionable plum coloured frock with the pretty lace collar. The hem of the skirt is following the current style and sits higher than any of Mrs. Willison’s own dresses and it reveals Edith’s shapely stockinged calves. She wears her black straw cloche decorated with purple silk roses and black feathers over her neatly pinned chignon. “Is that a few frock, Miss Watsford?” the grocer’s wife continues.
“Ahh, yes it is, Mrs. Willison. I made it myself from scratch with a dress pattern from Fashion for All********,” Edith replies proudly, giving a little twirl that sends her calf length skirt flaring out prettily, and Mrs. Willison’s eyebrows arching with disapproval as the young girl reveals even more of her legs as she does. “Do you like it?”
“You seem a little dressed up to run an errand here, Miss Watsford.” Mrs. Willison says with bristling disapprobation.
“Well, I… I err… I do have some letters to post too, Mrs. Willison,” Edith withdraws two letters from her wicker basket and holds them up in her lilac glove clad hand.
“Well, we mustn’t keep you from your errand, now must we, Miss Watsford? Now what else did you require before you leave?” the older woman emphasises the last word in her sentence to make clear her opinion about young girls cluttering up her husband’s shop.
“An apple.” Edith says, suddenly struck with inspiration. “I’d like an apple for the journey, Mrs. Willison.”
“Very good, Miss Watsford.” the older woman starts to move off her stool. “I’ll fetch…”
“No need, Mrs. Willison!” Frank’s cheerful voice pipes up as he appears from behind a display of tinned goods. “I’ll take care of Miss Watsford. That’s what I’m here for. You just stay right there Mrs. Willison. Right this way, Miss Watsford.” He ushers her with a sweeping gesture towards the boxes of fresh fruit displayed near the cash register.
“Oh Fran…” Edith catches herself uttering Frank’s given name, quickly correcting herself. “Err… thank you, Mr. Leadbetter.”
Mrs. Willison lowers herself back into her seat, all the while eyeing the pair of young people critically as they move across the shop floor together, their heads boughed conspiratorially close, a sense of overfamiliarity about their body language. She frowns, the folds and furrows of her brow eventuated. Then she sighs and returns to the numbers in her ledger.
“What are you doing here, Edith?” Frank whispers to his sweetheart quietly, yet with evident delight in his voice.
“Miss Lettice is away down in Cornwall on business, so I thought I’d stop in on my way through in the hope of seeing you, Frank.” She glances momentarily over her shoulder. “Then Mrs. Willison greeted me. I thought I was going to get stuck with the disapproving old trout and not see you.”
“The weather looks good for Sunday, Edith. It’s supposed to be sunny. Shall we go to Regent’s Park and feed the ducks if it is?”
“Oh, yes!” Edith clasps her hands in delight, her gloves muffling the sound. “Maybe there will be a band playing in the rotunda.”
“If there is, I’ll hire us a couple of deck chairs and we can listen to them play all afternoon in the sunshine.”
“That sounds wonderful, Frank.”
“Well,” pronounces Frank loudly as the stand over the wooden tray of red and golden yellow apples. “This looks like a nice juicy one, Miss Watsford.”
“Yes,” Edith replies in equally clear tones. “I think I’ll have that one, Mr. Leadbeater.”
“Very good, Miss Watsford. I’ll pop it into a paper bag for you.”
“Oh, don’t bother Fr… Mr. Leadbeater. I’ll put it in my basket.”
Frank takes the apple and walks back around the counter to the gleaming brass cash register surrounded by jars of boiled sweets. “That will be tuppence please, Miss Watsford.” He enters the tally into the noisy register, causing the cash draw to spring open with a clunk and the rattle of coins rubbing against one another with the movement.
Edith hooks her umbrella over the edge of the counter, pulls off her gloves and fishes around in her green handbag before withdrawing her small leather coin purse from which she takes out tuppence which she hands over to Frank.
“Here,” Frank says after he deposits her money and pushes the drawer of the register closed. He slides a small purple and gold box discreetly across the counter.
Edith gasps as she looks at the beautifully decorated box featuring a lady with cascading auburn hair highlighted with gold ribbons, a creamy face and décollétage sporting a frothy white gown and gold necklace. She traces the embossed gold lettering on the box’s lid. “Gainsborough Dubarry Milk Chocolates!”
“Can’t have my girl come all this way to see me and not come away with a gift.” Frank whispers with a beaming smile dancing across his face.
“Seeing you is gift enough, Frank.” Edith blushes.
“Ahem!” Mrs. Willison clears her throat from the other end of the shop. “Will they be going on the Honourable Miss Chetwynd’s account, Frank?” she asks with a severe look directly at her husband’s employee.
“Um… no Mrs. Willison. Don’t worry. I’ll be paying for them.” Frank announces loudly. Bending his head closer to Edith, he whispers, “I can see why Mr. Willison has her in here when he isn’t. You can’t get away with anything without her knowing: ghastly old trout.”
Edith giggles as she puts the small box of chocolates and the apple into her basket. “I’ll save them for Sunday.” she says with a smile. “We can share them whilst we listen to the band from our deckchairs.”
Frank smile broadens even more. “Righty-ho, Edith.”
“Righty-ho, Frank.”
“Well, as I was saying, Miss Watsford,” Mrs. Willison pronounces from her stool. “We mustn’t keep you from your errands. I’m sure you have a lot to do, and it is almost midday already.”
“Yes indeed, Mrs. Willison.” Edith agrees, unable to keep the reluctance out of her voice. “I really should be getting along. Well, goodbye Mr. Leadbeater. Thank you for your assistance.” She then lowers her voice as she says, “See you Sunday.”
Both Frank and Mrs. Willison watch as the young lady leaves the shop the way she came, by the front door, a spring in her step and a satisfied smile on her face, her basket, umbrella and handbag slung over her arm.
“Frank!”
Frank cringes as Mrs. Willison calls his name. Turning around he sees her striding with purpose behind the counter towards him, wending her way through the obstacle course of stacks of tins and jars of produce, hessian sacks of fresh vegetables and fruits and boxes of bottles.
“Yes, Mrs Willison?”
“Frank,” she says disappointingly. “I can’t stop you from stepping out with a girl in your own time,” She comes to a halt before him, domineering over him with her topknot, her arms akimbo. “And I’d say the Honourable Miss Chetwynd is foolishly modern enough to let you take her maid out on Sundays.” She looks at him with disapproving eyes. “However, I’d be much obliged if you kept your dalliances to your own time, and kindly keep them out of my husband’s establishment during business hours!”
“Yes Mrs. Willison!” Frank replies, sighing gratefully, now knowing that he isn’t going to be given notice for chatting with Edith during work hours.
“And I’ll make an adjustment to your wages this week for the chocolates.” she adds crisply.
“Yes Mrs. Willison.” Frank nods before hurrying away back to the stock room.
*The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.
**The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.
***Hampstead Heath (locally known simply as the Heath) is a large, ancient London heath, covering 320 hectares (790 acres). This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London Clay. The heath is rambling and hilly, embracing ponds, recent and ancient woodlands, a lido, playgrounds, and a training track, and it adjoins the former stately home of Kenwood House and its estate. The south-east part of the heath is Parliament Hill, from which the view over London is protected by law.
****Lyons Tea was first produced by J. Lyons and Co., a catering empire created and built by the Salmons and Glucksteins, a German-Jewish immigrant family based in London. Starting in 1904, J. Lyons began selling packaged tea through its network of teashops. Soon after, they began selling their own brand Lyons Tea through retailers in Britain, Ireland and around the world. In 1918, Lyons purchased Hornimans and in 1921 they moved their tea factory to J. Lyons and Co., Greenford at that time, the largest tea factory in Europe. In 1962, J. Lyons and Company (Ireland) became Lyons Irish Holdings. After a merger with Allied Breweries in 1978, Lyons Irish Holdings became part of Allied Lyons (later Allied Domecq) who then sold the company to Unilever in 1996. Today, Lyons Tea is produced in England.
*****Bovril is owned and distributed by Unilever UK. Its appearance is similar to Marmite and Vegemite. Bovril can be made into a drink ("beef tea") by diluting with hot water or, less commonly, with milk. It can be used as a flavouring for soups, broth, stews or porridge, or as a spread, especially on toast in a similar fashion to Marmite and Vegemite.
******A shirtwaister is a woman's dress with a seam at the waist, its bodice incorporating a collar and button fastening in the style of a shirt which gained popularity with women entering the workforce to do clerical work in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.
*******Pince-nez is a style of glasses, popular in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, "to pinch", and nez, "nose".
********”Fashion for All” was one of the many women’s magazines that were published in the exuberant inter-war years which were aimed at young girls who were looking to better their chances of finding a husband through beauty and fashion. As most working-class girls could only imagine buying fashionable frocks from high street shops, there was a great appetite for dressmaking patterns so they could dress fashionably at a fraction of the cost, by making their own dresses using skills they learned at home.
This cluttered, yet cheerful Edwardian shop 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:
Central to the conclusion of our story is the dainty box of Gainsborough Dubarry Milk Chocolates. This beautifully printed confectionary box comes from Shepherd’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Starting in the Edwardian era, confectioners began to design attractive looking boxes for their chocolate selections so that they could sell confectionary at a premium, as the boxes were often beautifully designed and well made so that they might be kept as a keepsake. A war erupted in Britain between the major confectioners to try and dominate what was already a competitive market. You might recognise the shade of purple of the box as being Cadbury purple, and if you did, you would be correct, although this range was not marketed as Cadbury’s, but rather Gainsborough’s, paying tribute to the market town of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, where Rose Bothers manufactured and supplied machines that wrapped chocolates. The Rose Brothers are the people for whom Cadbury’s Roses chocolates are named.
Also on the shop counter is an apple which is very realistic looking. Made of polymer clay it is made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany. The brightly shining cash register, probably polished by Frank, was supplied by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. The cylindrical jars, made of real spun glass with proper removable cork stoppers which contain “sweets” I acquired as a teenager from an auction as part of a larger lot of miniature items. Edith’s lilac coloured gloves are made of real kid leather and along with the envelopes are artisan pieces that I acquired from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Edith’s green leather handbag I acquired as part of a larger collection of 1:12 artistan miniature hats, bags and accessories I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. The umbrella comes from Melody Jane’s Doll House Suppliers in the United Kingdom. Edith’s basket I acquired as part of a larger lot of 1:12 miniatures from an E-Bay seller in America.
The packed shelves you can see in the background is in fact a Welsh dresser that I have had since I was a child, which I have repurposed for this shot. You can see the dresser more clearly in other images used in this series when Edith visits her parent’s home in Harlesden. The shelves themselves are full of 1:12 artisan miniatures with amazing attention to detail as regards the labels of different foods. Some are still household names today. So many of these packets and tins of various foods would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. They come from various different suppliers including Shepherds Miniatures in the United Kingdom, Kathleen Knight’s Doll House in the United Kingdom, Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering and Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Items on the shelves include: Tate and Lyall Golden Syrup, Lyall’s Golden Treacle, Peter Leech and Sons Golden Syrup, P.C. Flett and Company jams, Golden Shred and Silver Shred Marmalades, Chiver’s Jelly Crystals, Rowtree’s Table Jelly, Bird’s Custard Powder, Bird’s Blancmange Powder, Coleman’s Mustard, Queen’s Gravy Salts, Bisto Gravy Powder, Huntly and Palmers biscuits, Lyon’s Tea and Typhoo Tea.
In 1859 Henry Tate went into partnership with John Wright, a sugar refiner based at Manesty Lane, Liverpool. Their partnership ended in 1869 and John’s two sons, Alfred and Edwin joined the business forming Henry Tate and Sons. A new refinery in Love Lane, Liverpool was opened in 1872. In 1921 Henry Tate and Sons and Abram Lyle and Sons merged, between them refining around fifty percent of the UK’s sugar. A tactical merger, this new company would then become a coherent force on the sugar market in anticipation of competition from foreign sugar returning to its pre-war strength. Tate and Lyle are perhaps best known for producing Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Lyle’s Golden Treacle.
Peter Leech and Sons was a grocers that operated out of Lowther Street in Whitehaven from the 1880s. They had a large range of tinned goods that they sold including coffee, tea, tinned salmon and golden syrup. They were admired for their particularly attractive labelling. I do not know exactly when they ceased production, but I believe it may have happened just before the Second World War.
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.
Golden Shred orange marmalade and Silver Shred lime marmalade still exist today and are common household brands both in Britain and Australia. They are produced by Robertson’s. Robertson’s Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson’s Silver Shred is a clear, tangy, lemon flavoured shredded marmalade. Robertson’s marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.
Chivers is an Irish brand of jams and preserves. For a large part of the Twentieth Century Chivers and Sons was Britain's leading preserves manufacturer. Originally market gardeners in Cambridgeshire in 1873 after an exceptional harvest, Stephen Chivers entrepreneurial sons convinced their father to let them make their first batch of jam in a barn off Milton Road, Impington. By 1875 the Victoria Works had been opened next to Histon railway station to improve the manufacture of jam and they produced stone jars containing two, four or six pounds of jam, with glass jars first used in 1885. In around 1885 they had 150 employees. Over the next decade they added marmalade to their offering which allowed them to employ year-round staff, rather than seasonal workers at harvest time. This was followed by their clear dessert jelly (1889), and then lemonade, mincemeat, custard powder, and Christmas puddings. By 1896 the family owned 500 acres of orchards. They began selling their products in cans in 1895, and the rapid growth in demand was overseen by Charles Lack, their chief engineer, who developed the most efficient canning machinery in Europe and by the end of the century Chivers had become one of the largest manufacturers of preserves in the world. He later added a variety of machines for sorting, can making, vacuum-caps and sterilisation that helped retain Chivers' advantage over its rivals well into the Twentieth Century. By the turn of the century the factory was entirely self-sufficient, growing all its own fruit, and supplying its own water and electricity. The factory made its own cans, but also contained a sawmill, blacksmiths, coopers, carpenters, paint shop, builders and basket makers. On the 14th of March 1901 the company was registered as S. Chivers and Sons. By 1939 there were over 3,000 full-time employees, with offices in East Anglia as well as additional factories in Montrose, Newry and Huntingdon, and the company owned almost 8,000 acres of farms. The company's farms were each run independently, and grew cereal and raised pedigree livestock as well as the fruit for which they were known.
Founded by Henry Isaac Rowntree in Castlegate in York in 1862, Rowntree's developed strong associations with Quaker philanthropy. Throughout much of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, it was one of the big three confectionery manufacturers in the United Kingdom, alongside Cadbury and Fry, both also founded by Quakers. In 1981, Rowntree's received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade. In 1988, when the company was acquired by Nestlé, it was the fourth-largest confectionery manufacturer in the world. The Rowntree brand continues to be used to market Nestlé's jelly sweet brands, such as Fruit Pastilles and Fruit Gums, and is still based in York.
Bird’s were best known for making custard and Bird’s Custard is still a common household name, although they produced other desserts beyond custard, including the blancmange. They also made Bird’s Golden Raising Powder – their brand of baking powder. Bird’s Custard was first formulated and first cooked by Alfred Bird in 1837 at his chemist shop in Birmingham. He developed the recipe because his wife was allergic to eggs, the key ingredient used to thicken traditional custard. The Birds continued to serve real custard to dinner guests, until one evening when the egg-free custard was served instead, either by accident or design. The dessert was so well received by the other diners that Alfred Bird put the recipe into wider production. John Monkhouse (1862–1938) was a prosperous Methodist businessman who co-founded Monk and Glass, which made custard powder and jelly. Monk and Glass custard was made in Clerkenwell and sold in the home market, and exported to the Empire and to America. They acquired by its rival Bird’s Custard in the early Twentieth Century.
Queen’s Gravy Salt is a British brand and this box is an Edwardian design. Gravy Salt is a simple product it is solid gravy browning and is used to add colour and flavour to soups stews and gravy - and has been used by generations of cooks and caterers.
The first Bisto product, in 1908, was a meat-flavoured gravy powder, which rapidly became a bestseller in Britain. It was added to gravies to give a richer taste and aroma. Invented by Messrs Roberts and Patterson, it was named "Bisto" because it "Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One". Bisto Gravy is still a household name in Britain and Ireland today, and the brand is currently owned by Premier Foods.
Huntley and Palmers is a British firm of biscuit makers originally based in Reading, Berkshire. The company created one of the world’s first global brands and ran what was once the world’s largest biscuit factory. Over the years, the company was also known as J. Huntley and Son and Huntley and Palmer. Huntley and Palmer were renown for their ‘superior reading biscuits’ which they promoted in different varieties for different occasions, including at breakfast time.
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.
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 Lettice is entertaining a potential new client, Miss Wanetta Ward, an American actress come to London, in her Mayfair drawing room. Lettice’s maid, Edith, is starstruck. She coyly glances at her mistress’ guest as she sets out tea and her home made Victoria sponge on the black japanned coffee table between the two comfortable tub chairs the ladies are ensconced in. Miss Ward is tall and statuesque, with striking green eyes and auburn hair fashionably cut and styled in a bob. Dressed in an orchid silk chiffon gown, her lisle clad thighs are clearly visible. Toying with a long string of pearls between her painted fingernails, she is the embodiment of the ‘new woman’: fearless, nonchalant and bold.
“Thank you Edith,” Lettice says with a bemused smile, her long and elegant fingers partially hiding it. “That will be all.”
“Oh,” Edith replies, obviously crestfallen. “Yes Miss.”
Edith retreats, somewhat begrudgingly back through the adjoining dining room and though the green baize door, back into the service area of Lettice’s flat.
“I am sorry, Miss Ward,” Lettice apologises to her guest, draped languidly across the chair opposite her. “I’m afraid my maid might be a little in awe of you.”
“Oh please don’t apologise, darling!” the American replies, her joyous laughter bursting forth. “I’m used to it. Poor little thing. Does she like the flicks*?”
Lettice ponders the answer to her guest’s question for a moment as she pours tea into her cup. “I don’t rightly know, Miss Ward. I don’t know what my maid does on her days off.”
“Well, I must ask her on the way out.” The American replies, adding a generous slosh of milk and two teaspoons of sugar to her tea.
“I do wish you’d let Edith take your hat and cane, Miss Ward.” Lettice adds, picking up her own cup.
“Nonsense, darling! Can’t be without my good luck charm!” She lovingly pats the pink silk flower covered hat sitting on the chinoiserie stool next to her chair, and Lettice cannot help but notice how perfectly her guest’s nail varnish matches her hat and dress.
“Your good luck charm?” Lettice muses. “What on earth do you mean?”
“No doubt you’ll think me odd, most people do when I tell them,” She twists her pearls self consciously around her fingers. “But every time I wear this hat, I always have good luck.”
“I must ask your permission to borrow it then Miss Ward,” Lettice moves her hand to unsuccessfully conceal her amusement. “The next time I go to the Ascot races.”
“See!” the American replies, sinking back in her seat feeling vindicated. “I told you that you’d think me odd!”
“Not at all, Miss Ward.” Lettice soothes her guest. “When you are the daughter of an old and venerable British family like I am, a certain element of hereditary oddity is de rigueur.”
“De rigueur?”
“A must, Miss Ward.”
“Oh, then I shan’t feel so conscious of flaunting my superstition around London.”
“Especially when it is such a pretty accessory too, Miss Ward.”
“Why thank you darling.” She flaps her long and elegant hand, batting away Lettice’s compliment. “You are just the sweetest.”
“Now, I believe you’ve come about redecorating your flat in Pimlico, Miss Ward?”
“That’s right!” She claps her hands in unabashed glee. “Well, it isn’t quite mine yet. I take possession next Thursday. Oh!” She continues, throwing up her right hand dramatically, her wrist coming to rest upon her forehead. “The place looks like a mausoleum at present! All this heavy clutter: thick velvet curtains, occasional tables covered in knick-knacks, stuffed birds beneath glass. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you my dear?” She reaches down and picks up her plate of sponge and takes a slightly larger than polite slice from it with her fork. “I just had to come and see you!”
Lettice smiles with pleasure, taking a sip of tea from her cup before placing it on the telephone table at her left. “So, I’m the first interior designer that you’ve visited here in London, Miss Ward?”
“Well, not exactly. No,” The American sits back in her seat blushing. “I did go and see Syrie Maugham**.”
“Oh.” Lettice frowns, unable to hide her disappointment.
“Oh, but I didn’t like what she suggested, darling!” Miss Ward replies quickly, assuring her host, fearful of having made a social gaffe and jeopardising her chance of having Lettice agree to decorate her flat. “All those ghastly shades of white…” The American suddenly stops mid-sentence, noticing for the first time that Lettice’s walls are papered in white and that she is sitting on a white upholstered chair. “Anyway,” She clears her throat awkwardly and looks sheepishly at Lettice. “I don’t think she approved of me.”
“Whyever not, Miss Ward?” Lettice asks with a tinge of pleasure in her question, feeling suddenly a little less crushed.
“I don’t think she approves actresses, period. She talked about forgoing worldly pleasures and went on about white representing purity.” Miss Ward shivers at the recollection. “Besides,” she continues. “I did hear that you did some redecorating for the Duchess of Whitby.”
“Your contacts are correct,” Lettice replies. Suspecting Miss Ward to be something of a gossip she then continues, brandishing the knowledge Lord de Virre gave her just an hour before, “What they don’t know, and this is strictly between us, you understand Miss Ward,”
“Oh! My lips are sealed, darling.” The American puts her finger to her lips conspiratorially as she leans forward, her excitement at the thought of a secret shared palpable.
“Well, I shall also soon be decorating the principal rooms of the home belonging to the eldest son of the Marquis of Taunton.”
“Really?” Miss Ward enthuses overdramatically. “The Marquis of Taunton! Fancy that!”
Lettice smiles as she picks up her plate and eats a small, ladylike portion of Victoria sponge, satisfied in the knowledge that Miss Ward has no idea who she is talking about, but being a parvenu, will quickly spread the news to those who do.
“Your sources of information are well informed about me, Miss Ward, and yet, I know nothing of you. Please do tell me a little bit about yourself and why it is that you wish for me to be your interior designer.”
“Well, that’s really why I wanted to see you, even before I saw that pious Syrie Maugham. You’re young, and bold, like me!” She looks up and off into the distance, waving her hand dramatically. “A trailblazer! I also heard that you favour oriental elements in your interior designs. I’ve just spent the last six months in the International Settlement in Shanghai you see, and I just love all those oriental designs.”
“Shanghai?”
“Yes. My brother has a club there: the Diamond Lotus Club, and I’ve been headlining there. Shanghai is so much more exciting than dull old Chicago!” she enthuses. “The clothes cost less to have made,” She grasps the hem of her skirt and squeezes the chiffon. “And the far east is so exotic and colourful.”
“Then forgive me for asking, but if you love it so much, why have you come to London?”
“Well, I loved singing in the club, but I really have my heart set on being an actress.” She takes another large mouthful of cake.
“Well, the West End is full of theatres, Miss Ward.”
“Oh, not a stage actress darling!” Miss Ward dabs at the corners of her mouth for crumbs with her beautifully painted fingers. “No, a film actress. I have a screen test at Islington Studios*** on Monday.” She tilts her head and lowers her kohl framed lids in a slightly coquettish way as though already auditioning.
“Well, you certainly have a great presence, Miss Ward.” Lettice says diplomatically. “I’m sure you’ll do splendidly.”
“Thank you, darling. I can’t disagree with you. My mother always told me that everyone knew when I entered the room, even when I was a little girl in ringlets.”
“Yes, I’d believe that.” Lettice smiles.
“And what better place for a successful film actress to entertain, than in a beautiful orientally inspired drawing room decorated by you, darling! I want bold and colourful wallpapers and carpets, oriental vases, Chinese screens.” She looks hopefully at Lettice. “So, will you take me on?”
“Take you on, Miss Ward?”
“Yes, take me on, as a client?” Her face falls suddenly, her fork of cake midway between the plate and her mouth. “Oh, please don’t tell me that you don’t approve of actresses either!”
“Oh, I’m not Syrie Maugham, Miss Ward.” Lettice replies, smiling cheekily. “And besides, it will irritate my Mamma no end if I have a film actress as a client.”
“You mean,” she gasps, clasping her hands. “You’ll agree to decorate my new flat?”
“Well, I’ll still need to visit you new home, and we’ll need to discuss matters further.” Lettice elaborates. “However, in principle, yes.”
“Oh darling! I could positively kiss you!” She drops her plate with a loud clatter on the coffee table surface and leaps up from her seat.
“That really won’t be necessary, Miss Ward.” Lettice assures her, raising her hands gently in defence in the face of the American’s statuesque form across the crowded table. “Just make sure that you settle my accounts promptly.”
“American railroad dollars good enough for you?”
“Only if they can be converted into British currency.” Lettice beams. “And, when you are a famous actress, I expect you to tell everyone who designed your interiors.”
“Oh! I’ll tell all my friends to come and see you, you darling girl! You’ll have to beat them away from the door with a hickory stick.”
“Indeed, Miss Ward.” Lettice takes another sip from her teacup.
“See!” Miss Ward replies, taking her seat again and patting the top of her pink hat. “I told you this was my lucky charm! I wore a blue beret to see Syrie Maugham.”
“Then today must be both our lucky days, Miss Ward.”
“Oh no! Enough of this ‘Miss Ward’ business. If you are to design somewhere as intimate as my boudoir, you must call me, Wanetta.”
*”Flicks” is an old fashioned term for a cinema film, named so for the whirring sound of the old projectors and flickering picture cast upon the silver screen.
**Syrie Maugham was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s and best known for popularizing rooms decorated entirely in shades of white. She was the wife of English playwright and novelist William Somerset Maugham.
***Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
This 1920s upper-class domestic scene is different to what you may think, 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 tableaux include:
Lettice’s tea set sitting on the coffee table is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. The Victoria sponge (named after Queen Victoria) is made by Polly’s Pantry Miniatures in America. The green tinged bowl behind the tea set is made of glass and has been made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
Wanetta’s lucky pink hat covered in silk flowers, which you can see poking out from behind the armchair on the right is made by Miss Amelia’s Miniatures in the Canary Islands. It is an artisan miniature made just like a real hat, right down to a tag in the inside of the crown to show where the back of the hat is! 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. Miss Amelia is an exception to the rule coming from Spain, but like her American counterparts, her millinery creations are superb. Like a real fashion house, all her hats have names. This pink raw silk flower covered hat is called “Lilith”. Wanetta’s walking stick, made of ebonized wood with a real metal knob was made by the Little Green Workshop in England.
The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature of a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling chord does stretch out. The vase of yellow tiger lilies and daisies on the Art Deco occasional table is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium. The vase of roses and lilies in the tall white vase on the table to the right of the photo was also made by hand, by Falcon Miniatures who are renowned for their realistic 1:12 size miniatures.
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The black japanned wooden chair is a Chippendale design and has been upholstered with modern and stylish Art Deco fabric. The mirror backed back japanned china cabinet is Chippendale too. On its glass shelves sit pieces of miniature Limoges porcelain including jugs, teacups and saucers, many of which I have had since I was a child.
To the left of the Chippendale chair stands a blanc de chine Chinese porcelain vase, and next to it, a Chinese screen. The Chinese folding screen I bought at an antiques and junk market when I was about ten. I was with my grandparents and a friend of the family and their three children, who were around my age. They all bought toys to bring home and play with, and I bought a Chinese folding screen to add to my miniatures collection in my curio cabinet at home! It shows you what a unique child I was.
The painting in the gilt frame is made by Amber’s Miniatures in America. 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.
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 however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Lettice is visiting her family home as her parents host their first Hunt Ball since 1914. Lady Sadie has been completely consumed over the last month by the planning and preparation of the occasion, determined that not only will it be the event of the 1922 county season, but also that it will be a successful entrée for her youngest daughter, still single at twenty-one years of age, to meet a number of eligible and marriageable men. Letters and invitations have flown from Lady Sadie’s bonheur de jour* to the families of eligible bachelors, some perhaps a little too old to be considered before the war, achieving more than modest success. Whilst Lettice enjoys dancing, parties and balls, she is less enthusiastic about the idea of the ball being used as a marriage market than her parents are.
We find ourselves in the lofty Adam design hall of Glynes with its parquetry floors and ornate plasterwork, outside the entrance to the ballroom antechamber, through which guests must pass to enter the grand ballroom where tonight’s Hunt Ball is being held. From the ballroom, the sound of the band hired for the evening to play can be heard above the hubbub of happy voices as like an exclusive club, aristocracy and local county guests intermingle. At the entrance to the ballroom antechamber stand the Viscount and Countess Wrexham, Leslie and Lettice, all forming a reception line where they have been standing for the last half hour, since the clocks around them struck eight and the first guests began to arrive. Now a steady stream of partygoers appear across the threshold of the house, through the door held open by Mardsen, the Chetwynd’s tall first footman. He acknowledges each person with a bow from the neck which is seldom acknowledged in return as ladies and gentlemen in thick fur coats and travel capes, fur tippets and top hats alight from the motorcars and in a few cases, horse drawn carriages that pull up to the front door. Bustling with idle chatter they each sweep through the door with a comfortable sense of privilege and self assurance, gasping with pleasure as they feel the heat of the blazing fire in the hearth of the foyer: a delightful change to the chill of the evening air their journeys were taken in. Bramley, the Chetwtynd’s butler takes the gentleman’s topcoats, capes, hats, gloves and canes, whilst Mrs. Renfrew, the Chetwynd’s housekeeper, helps the ladies divest themselves of their capes, furs and muffs, the pair revealing spectacular fancy dress costumes of oriental brocade, pale silks and satins, colourfully striped cottons and hand printed muslins.
Standing next to her mother who is dressed as Britannia, Lettice, costumed as Cinderella in an Eighteenth century style wig and gown, smiles politely, yet vacantly, as she greets guest after guest, watching the passing parade of Pierrots, and Columbines, Sinbads and faeries, princesses and Maharajas, pirates and mandarins.
“Oh good evening Miss Evans, and Miss Evans,” Lady Sadie exclaims, placing her glove clad fingers onto the forearms of the two spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house in the village. “How delightful to see you both. Do come in out of the cold and make yourselves comfortable. It was good of you to come up from the village for tonight’s festivities when I know you were both poorly before Christmas.” She smiles benignly as they twitter answers back at her in crackling voices that sound like crisp autumn leaves underfoot. “You remember my youngest daughter, Lettice don’t you ladies?”
“How do you do, Miss Evans, Miss Evans,” Lettice replies with a nod, accepting the two ladies from her mother like a parcel on a conveyor belt, smiling the same polite painted smile she, her parents and brother have been wearing since the first guest arrived. She glances at the two old women, who must be in their seventies at least, one dressed as Little Bo-Peep complete with shepherdess’ crook and the other as Miss Muffet with a hand crocheted spider dangling from her wrist, both looking more like tragic pantomime dames than anything else. Both women have worn the same costumes to every Hunt Ball Lettice can remember, and she is surer now that they are at close quarters, that the costumes are made from genuine Eighteenth Century relics from their ancestors. “What delightful costumes. Miss Bo-Peep I believe?”
“Indeed, Miss Chetwynd!” Giggles the elder of the Miss Evanses. “My how you’ve grown into a smart young woman since the last Hunt Ball your parents threw before the war.”
“We read about you often in the London illustrated papers, don’t we Geraldine?” pipes up her sister.
“Oh quite! Quite Henrietta! What a marvellous time you must have up there in London. It’s good of you to come and join us for these little parochial occasions, which must be so dull after all the cosmopolitan pleasures you enjoy.”
“Not at all, Miss Evans. Now, please do go in. You must be freezing after your drive up from the village. There’s a good fire going in the antechamber. Please go and warm yourselves.”
“You are too kind, Miss Chetwynd! Too kind!” acknowledges Henrietta.
The two rather macabre nursery rhyme characters giggle and twitter and walk into the ballroom antechamber.
“Ahh, Lady Sadie,” a well intonated, yet oily voice annunciates, causing Lettice to shudder. “What a pleasure it is to be asked to the event of the country season.”
Lettice turns to see Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, tall and elegant, yet at the same time repugnant to her, dressed in full eveningwear, yet also wearing a very ornamental turban in deference to the Hunt ball’s fancy dress theme. Lettice shudders again as Sir John takes up her mother’s right hand in his and draws it to his lips and kisses it.
“Oh, Sir John!” Lady Sadie giggles in a girlish way Lettice seldom hears from her dour and matronly Edwardian mother.
“Well, I must kiss the hand of the brave and bold defender of the Empire.” He smiles up at her with wily eyes glittering with mischief. “You are Britannia, are you not?”
“Indeed I am, Sir John.” Lady Sadie chortles proudly. “Well done. Now, you remember my youngest daughter, Lettice, don’t you?” She turns Sir John’s and her own attention to her daughter beside her.
“Good heavens!” Sir John exclaims, his piercing blue eyes catching Lettice’s gaze and holding it tightly as he eyes her up and down. “Could this elegant Marie Antoinette be the lanky teenager I remember from 1914?”
Lettice feels very exposed by the intensity of his stare, and she feels as he looks her over, that in his mind he is removing her gown and wig to see what lies beneath them. She feels the flush of a blush work its way up her neck, the heat of it at odds with the coolness of the Glynes necklace of diamonds and rubies, lent to her for the evening by her mother, at her throat.
“I’m actually Cind…” Lettice begins, before stopping short and gasping as she feels the sharp toe of her mother’s dance pump kick firmly into her ankle beneath her skirts. “So pleased to see you again, Sir John.” she concludes rather awkwardly.
“Do you know, Sir John,” Lady Sadie gushes. “I do believe we have a painting of Marie Antoinette in our very own Glynes gallery.”
“Is that so, Lady Sadie?” he replies, without disengaging his eyes from Lettice.
“Yes, one of Cosmo’s ancestors brought it back from France after the Revolution, when all those lovely things from the French aristocracy were being sold for a song.”
“Then I should very much like to see it, Lady Sadie, and make my own comparison between the woman that was,” He takes up Lettice’s right hand and plants a kiss on it just as he had done to her mother. “And the lady who is.”
Lettice quickly withdraws her hand from Sir John’s touch, feeling more repugnance for him by the moment.
“I’m sure that could be arranged, Sir John,” Lady Sadie says with a beaming smile. “Lettice, perhaps you might show Sir John the painting of Marie Antoinette in the East Wing Long Gallery after the buffet supper tonight?”
“I shall look forward to that, my lady,” Sir John says without waiting for Lettice’s agreement, his gaze still piercing her, until suddenly he glances away and strides confidently in the wake of the two Miss Evanses.
Lettice greets the next few guests politely, yet vacantly constantly gazing at the top of her glove clad hand where she felt Sir John’s pressing lips. She is still distracted by it when a cheerful voice interrupts her uneasy thoughts.
“I say, Lettice my dear, are you quite well?”
Brought back from her unsettled imaginings, Lettice finds herself staring onto the most friendly looking pirate she has ever seen.
“Lord Thorley!” she says with a genuine smile forming across her lips. “How do you do.”
“You are looking a bit peaky, my dear.” he replies, lifting up his black felt eye patch so that he might see her with both eyes. Looking concerned, Lord Thorley Ayres continues, “Are you quite well?”
“Oh, quite, Lord Thorley. It’s just a little… a little warm in here, what with the fire and my costume.” She starts fanning herself with her hand.
“Oh, I thought you looked a bit pale, rather than flushed, my dear.”
“Don’t nanny poor Lettice so, Thorley,” mutters his wife, dressed as a Spanish Infanta of the Seventeenth Century in a magnificent panniered gown and fitted bodice that pushes her already evident breasts further into view. “The poor thing probably feels quite overwhelmed by the ball. It’s been a few years since there was a ball here last. Now move along and let me see the woman who was once the girl I knew.” She shoos her husband along with a wave of her hand.
“Lady Ayres,” Lettice says with a pleasurable smile. “How very good to see you. It’s been far too long since we had a ball here.”
“Quite right. But all that sadness and austerity of the war is behind us now, thank goodness!” She rolls her eyes implying the tediousness of the Great War just passed. “Now we can enjoy our fun and frivolities again, just as we used to. Now, of course you remember our son, Nicholas.” Lady Rosamund grasps the slender shoulders of a young man in a Pierrot costume and forcefully moves him forward to meet Lettice.
“Of course I do.” Lettice remarks kindly, smiling at the young man around her age, who is obviously reluctant to be there. She remembers the stories friends from the Embassy Club have told her about Nicholas Ayers, the reluctant heir to a vast estate, Crofton Court, in Cumbria. They giggled and blushed as they told Lettice in less than hushed whispers that his visits to a well known Molly-house** near Covent Garden and his debauched ‘at homes’ on Fridays were amongst the worst kept secrets in London. She gazes at his pale face, which was evidently white enough before being given a liberal dusting of white powder. How ironic, she thinks to herself, that his face is painted up so sadly with Pierrot’s iconic dark teardrop running from his left eye, when he is so evidently unhappy to be on parade as a reluctant suitor under the hawk eyes of both his parents. What sort of life will he live, she wonders, never mind the poor unfortunate society debutante who does eventually marry him, oblivious to his inclinations towards men rather than women? She knows her father knows about Nicholas’ inclinations, but is equally aware that her mother is innocent of such knowledge. She glances quickly at her mother and when she sees that she is talking animatedly to the next guest, she leans forward and whispers in Nicholas’ ear, “It’s alright, you only have to dance with me the once, and then you’ve done your duty.” Nicholas looks at her in genuine fear. “It’s alright. Your secrets are safe with me Nicholas. I won’t tell. I don’t want to be on parade any more than you do, so let’s just do our duty, and then you can go back to your life and I’ll go back to mine.”
“Can’t you two wait until you are on the dancefloor to whisper sweet nothings in one another’s ears?” chortles Thorley good naturedly, a cheeky smile painting his lips.
“Don’t embarrass them, Thorley!” Rosamund slaps her husband’s hand playfully with her ivory and lace fan, the pearl drop earrings at her lobes shaking about wildly. She reaches out to Nicholas and grabs him by the shoulders again, steering him away. “Come along Nicholas. You’ll have plenty of time to dance with Lettice later.”
Lettice glances at her mother, who has now turned all her attention to her daughter. She smiles proudly and nods her approval at a potential interest between Lettice and Nicholas Ayres and his tens of thousands of pounds a year. Lettice glances away quickly, allowing her eyes to follow the backs of Nicholas and Lord and Lady Ayres as they wend their way into the throng gathering in the antechamber adjoining the ballroom, and sighs quietly. A lecherous old man who would enjoy nothing more than a moment alone with her, and an invert*** who would probably rather face a pit of snakes than dance with her: how will she survive this ordeal of her mother’s making? Why can’t her mother just accept the fact that she is happier being unmarried and running a successful business.
Sighing, Lettice quickly reforms her painted smile and greets the next Hunt Ball guest.
*A bonheur de jour is a type of lady's writing desk. It was introduced in Paris by one of the interior decorators and purveyors of fashionable novelties called marchands-merciers around 1760, and speedily became intensely fashionable. Decorated on all sides, it was designed to sit in the middle of a room so that it could be admired from any angle.
**A Molly-house was a term used in 18th- and 19th-century Britain for a meeting place for homosexual men. The meeting places were generally taverns, public houses, coffeehouses or even private rooms where men could either socialise or meet possible sexual partners.
*** Sexual inversion is a theory of homosexuality popular primarily in the late 19th and early 20th century. Sexual inversion was believed to be an inborn reversal of gender traits: male inverts were, to a greater or lesser degree, inclined to traditionally female pursuits and dress and vice versa.
This grand Georgian interior may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection and includes items from my childhood, as well as those I have collected as an adult.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster. On its mantlepiece stand two gilt blue and white vases which are from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House in the United Kingdom. They are filled with a mixture of roses made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The marble and ormolu clock on the mantle between them is of a classical French style of the Georgian or Regency periods and comes from Smallskale Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The fire dogs and guard are made of brass and also come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House, as to the candelabra hanging on the wall either side of the central portrait.
The gilt Louis Quatorze chairs either side of the fireplace and the gilt swan pedestals are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq. The candelabras on the two pedestals I have had since I was a teenager.
The pair of Palladian console tables in the foreground, with their golden caryatids and marble were commissioned by me from American miniature artisan Peter Cluff. Peter specialises in making authentic and very realistic high quality 1:12 miniatures that reflect his interest in Georgian interior design. His work is highly sought after by miniature collectors worldwide. This pair of tables are one-of-a-kind and very special to me.
The floral arrangements in urns on top of the tables consist of pink roses, white asters and white Queen Anne’s Lace. Both are unmarked, but were made by an American miniature artisan and their pieces have incredible attention to detail. The Seventeenth Century musical statues to the side of the flower arrangements were made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. They were hand painted by me.
All the paintings around the Glynes ballroom antechamber in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and the wallpaper of the ballroom antechamber is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s.
The marquetry floor of the room is in fact a wooden chessboard. The chessboard was made by my Grandfather, a skillful and creative man in 1952. Two chess sets, a draughts set and three chess boards made by my Grandfather were bequeathed to me as part of his estate when he died a few years ago.
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, Lettice has been entertaining her two Embassy Club coterie friends, newly married couple Dickie and Margot Channon, whom she recently redecorated a few rooms of their Regency country retreat in Cornwall, ‘Chi an Treth’. The dinner has come to a pleasurable conclusion and the trio have withdrawn to Lettice’s drawing room, adjunct to the dining room, to enjoy a digestif* and continue their gossip, before going out around ten o’clock to the Embassy Club in Bond Street for more drinks and dancing well into the wee small hours of the morning with their other friends.
“Dickie daring, why don’t you play barman, since you enjoy it so much.” suggests Margot as they sit down, Lettice and Margot in the two white, luxuriously padded tub armchairs and Dickie on the Hepplewhite desk hair placed between them.
“As you wish, my love!” Dickie says cheerily. “Gin and tonics all round?”
“Please!” enthuses Margot.
“Heavenly!” exclaims Lettice.
Whilst Dickie goes to the black japanned drinks cabinet in the adjoining dining room and fetches three highball glasses, the soda siphon and a bottle of Gordon’s gin**, Lettice presses the servant’s call bell next to the fireplace, eliciting a soft buzzing that can be heard from the kitchen through the green baize door leading to the service part of the flat.
“Right!” Dickie says, returning with his arms full. “Gin, tonic water, three glasses,” he remarks as he puts the items down one by one on the low black japanned coffee table between the tub chairs. “Now all we need is…”
“Yes Miss?” Edith, Lettice’s maid, asks as she appears with perfect timing by her mistress’ side, dressed in her black dress and fancy lace trimmed apron, collars and cap that she wears as her evening uniform.
“What do you need, Dickie?” Lettice asks, deferring to her friend with an elegant sweep of her hand.
“Ahh, some ice in a bucket, tongs, a lemon and a knife if you can manage it, Edith old girl.” Dickie replies with a bright smile.
“Yes sir,” Edith replies, smiling brightly as she bobs a curtsey.
Returning a few minutes later with the items on a silver tray, just as Edith bobs another curtsey to her mistress and her guests, Margot pipes up, “Oh Edith!”
“Yes Mrs. Channon?”
“I just wanted to let you know that Hilda is working out splendidly so far.” She smiles up at the maid, whose pretty face is framed by her lacy cap. “Thank you, Edith.”
“I’m pleased, Mrs. Channon. Will there be anything else?”
“No, thank you Edith.” Lettice replies with a smile and dismissing her maid with a gentle wave. “We won’t be here for too much longer. You can clean up the dining table after Mr. and Mrs. Channon and I have gone out to the club.”
“Yes Miss.”
The trio of friends sit in silence whilst they wait for Edith to retreat to the kitchen, Dickie quietly slicing the lemon with a small sharp silver handled knife.
“You do know that Edith probably already knows how her friend is faring, don’t you Margot darling?” Lettice says kindly.
“What?” Margot asks, here eyes widening like saucers. “How?”
Lettice laughs at her friend’s naivety. “You do give Hilda time off, don’t you?”
“Well of course I do, Lettice darling!” Margot defends herself, pressing her elegantly manicured hand to her chest where it presses against the gold flecked black bugle bead necklace she is wearing over her black evening dress. “I’m trying to be a model employer.”
“And what days did you give her off?”
“Well, she asked for Wednesdays, and Sundays free until four.”
Lettice smiles knowingly. “Just the same as Edith.”
When Margot’s look of confusion doesn’t lift, Dickie elucidates. “I think what Lettice is saying, my love, is that Hilda and Edith probably catch up on their days off, since the two have those in common.” He chuckles in an amused fashion as he pours gin over some ice in one of the highball glasses. “Really my love, you can be very naïve sometimes.”
“Do you think they talk about us?” Margot gasps.
“Margot darling, what servant doesn’t talk about their employer behind their back?” Dickie replies, depressing the release of the siphon, spraying carbolised tonic water into the glass. “That’s why it’s called servant’s gossip.”
“Well, I must be careful what I say around Hilda!” Margot replies, raising her hands to her flushed cheeks.
“I should think you would anyway.” her husband adds.
“I don’t think you have too much to worry about, Margot darling. If your Hilda is anything like Edith, the talk is more likely to be about the conditions she works in. I think Edith is more scanadalised by my life than genuinely interested in it. In fact, I think being the good chapel girl that she is, she is probably happier not to know what I get up to. Occasionally she might show an interest in one of my clients, like she did with Wanetta Ward the moving picture actress, but overall she’s just a shy young girl with her own life. She’s very discreet, and I’m sure your Hilda is too, Margot darling, so don’t worry too much.”
‘The joys of slum prudery***,” Dickie chuckles as he hands Lettice her digestif gin and tonic garnished by a slice of lemon. “You may not have to worry with Hilda, my love, but you’ll have to worry about the servants gossiping when you become the Marchioness of Taunton.” Dickie adds sagely, adding a good measure of gin to his wife’s glass as he prepares her drink. “My parents’ household staff thrive on any bit of gossip they can snaffle out. A single piece can keep them going for weeks. In fact I’m sure Mummy feeds them titbits of gossip just to keep them happily employed. My father might not be able to afford to pay them enormous wages, but Mummy makes up for it with morsels of gossip to amuse them all.”
“Well, thankfully I don’t have to worry about that yet,” Margot says. “I’m only just learning how to run a small household as it is. How on earth would I manage with a huge estate? I didn’t marry Dickie for his future title!”
“We know that. I’m sure you’ll be fine when the time comes, Margot darling.” Lettice soothes her friend assuringly, picking up the underlying sense of alarm in her voice. She takes a sip of her drink. “Bliss, Dickie!” she exclaims as the cool tartness of the gin and tonic reaches her tastebuds. “Thank you!”
“My pleasure, old girl!” Dickie replies as she goes about picking up ice cubes with the silver tongs and placing them in his and Margot’s highball glasses.
“Now, thinking of weddings, I must tell you about a most unusual occurrence, Margot darling.” Lettice continues, reaching down to the shelf beneath the surface of the table next to her on which she keeps the telephone. “I received this the other day in the post, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”
Lettice withdraws a postally franked envelope which she tosses onto the cover of her Vogue magazine sitting on the coffee table. Margot picks it up eagerly. She opens the already opened envelope and takes out an elegant card printed on thick paper featuring a champagne bottle buried amid a plethora of flowers on its front. Written in stylish lettering across the image in two banners are the words, wedding celebration.
“Oh, you received Priscilla’s wedding invitation!” Margot enthuses as she holds it in her lap. “I’m so pleased. Yes, we’re going too, if that was what you were going to ask.”
Dickie gives his wife a knowing look as he pours some gin into his highball glass, but says nothing.
“Well that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about as it happens.” Lettice replies. “I assumed that as we are all friends of Priscilla, that of course you would be attending her wedding to Georgie. No, it’s what’s inside that puzzled me.”
“Inside?” Margot queries, a cheeky smile curling up the corners of her mouth.
Dickie looks again at his wife as he adds a slug of extra gin to his own glass, but still says nothing.
“Yes!” Lettice says. “Take a look.”
Margot opens up the card and peruses it lightly before placing the card upright on the table between them, the cheeky smile broadening across her carefully painted lips, but says nothing.
Surprised, Lettice says, “The invitation is for me,” She pauses. “And a friend. Don’t you think that’s rather odd, even for Priscilla?” When Margot doesn’t reply, Lettice adds, “You don’t seem terribly surprised, Margot darling.”
Dickie squirts tonic into one glass. “Oh do stop being so coy, Margot. It doesn’t suit you tonight.” He sprays tonic irritably into the second glass. “Tell her!”
“Tell me what?” Lettice looks firstly at Dickie as he picks up a piece of lemon and places it on the lip of one of the highball glass, and then at Margot as she smiles back benignly at her.
“Me?” Margot asks, feigning innocence, raising her elegantly manicured hand to her throat where a blush starts to bloom.
“For pity’s sake, just own up and tell her!” Dickie hands her the prepared gin and tonic digestif.
“Well, I wish someone would tell me!” Lettice says a little irritated at being kept out of whatever the secret is.
When Margot says nothing, Dickie says as he picks up hie own glass. “It was Margot who arranged that.” He takes a sip of his drink, sighing with satisfaction.
“Margot?”
“Well, it was me who organised it,” Margot admits coyly.
“You did?” Lettice’s eyes widen in surprise.
“Yes. When Priscilla was chatting to me about wedding invitations,” Margot continues with a self conscious chuckle as she starts toying with her beads again. “I simply suggested that, well with you and Selwyn getting along so well together, that she might like to leave an opening for you to invite him if you wished.”
“Oh Margot!” Lettice exclaims aghast, blushing red as she does.
“I say!” Margot’s eyes grow wide as she glances first at her stunned, red faced friend and then her husband, who wears a knowing look. “Have I dropped the tiniest of social briquettes?”
“Well, it was a little,” Dickie pauses, trying to think of the correct word.
“What?”
“I did think it a little presumptuous, my love, when you told me.”
“Oh Lettice darling, I was only trying to help!” exclaims Margot, thrusting out her hands across the table to her friend, her face awash with anguish as she does. “Please don’t be cross with me! As I said, I just thought with you two getting along so well, you’d be sure to want to ask him. I haven’t done wrong, have I?”
Lettice doesn’t answer at first, taken aback by Dickie and Margot’s revelation. “Well, it was imprudent, Margot darling.” Lettice chastises her friend softly finally as she reaches out an takes Margot’s outstretched hands. “What if Selwyn and I had quarrelled? I would then have had to ask another gentleman of my acquaintance who isn’t invited to the wedding,” She pauses. “And as a jeune fille à marier****, that might have its own unwanted consequences.”
“I did try to warn you, my love,” Dickie says not unkindly to his wife. “But the deed was already done.”
“You haven’t quarrelled with him, have you?” Margot’s dark and frightened eyes scan Lettice’s face. “Selwyn that is.”
“No Margot darling.” Lettice assures her. “But what if I had?”
Lettice releases Margot’s hands as Dickie lifts up the highball glass of gin and tonic garnished with a lemon to his wife. She accepts it gratefully and takes more than a small and ladylike sip to calm her jangled nerves as she presses her hand to the cleft in her chest.
“Let this be a lesson to you about meddling in other people’s love lives, my darling.” Dickie says with a serious look to Margot. “I’m sure that poor Lettice and Spencely have more than enough meddling between Lady Sadie and Lady Zinnia.”
“Yes, Mamma tells me that marriages are made by mothers, not their children. There is plenty of meddling from Mater, Dickie darling, but I don’t actually think Lady Zinnia knows about Selwyn and I seeing one another socially.” Lettice says.
Dickie looks across at her doubtfully.
Settling back in her seat, cradling her digestif, Lettice continues, “Mind you, that will all be about to change.”
“How so, old girl?” Dickie queries as he sips his own gin and tonic.
“Because I did exactly what Margot hoped I would, and I invited Selwyn to Priscilla and Georgie’s wedding.”
Margot leans forward in her seat, her beads clattering together in in haste, her mouth hanging slightly open in sudden anticipation. “And did he say, yes?”
“Of course he did, Margot darling!” Lettice laughs lightly.
Margot quickly drops her highball glass onto the coffee table, narrowly missing sloshing some onto its black shiny surface. “Oh hoorah!” She claps her hands in delight, making the bangles on her arms jangle and beams at Lettice, who smiles back shyly, blushing a little as she does.
“If he’d said no, how else would Lady Zinnia know about he and I?” She doesn’t notice Dickie’s sage gaze towards her. “She’ll have to know after the wedding, as it will be in all the papers. Therefore, so will Selwyn and I.”
“That will be a social briquette to drop then.” remarks Dickie quietly.
“What do you mean, my love?” asks Margot.
“Because according to Mummy’s stories about Lady Zinnia, it is she who likes to make the society news, not read it.” He pauses for a moment before continuing, ‘And she likes to have her finger very firmly on all that happens in society’s upper echelons.” He cocks his eyebrow as he looks at Lettice. “She will be fit to be tied to find out through the tabloids that her son is seeing you and she didn’t even have the faintest whiff of it. Are you quite sure she doesn’t know about you and Spencely?”
“Oh quite, Dickie. We’ve not really seen anyone that we know when we have been out to luncheon, or dinner.”
“Or to that picnic in St. James’ Park.” Margot giggles girlishly.
“Or in St. James’s Park.”
“Oh pooh old Lady Zinnia and her grasp on gossip!” Margot says with a dismissive wave. “It’s Lettice and her happiness we care about.”
“I know,” mumbles Dickie half into his drink as he lifts it to his lips and swallows a bit of it, washing down any further thoughts about what Lady Zinnia’s reaction to finding out about Lettice and her son in such a public way might be.
*After dinner drinks are often referred to as digestifs. Digestif is actually the French word for “digestive,” meaning they are exactly what the name suggests: alcoholic beverages typically served after a meal to aid digestion.
**Gordon's London Dry Gin was developed by Alexander Gordon, a Londoner of Scots descent. He opened a distillery in the Southwark area in 1769, later moving in 1786 to Clerkenwell. The Special London Dry Gin he developed proved successful, and its recipe remains unchanged to this day. The top markets for Gordon's are (in descending order) the United Kingdom, the United States and Greece. Gordon's has been the United Kingdom’s number one gin since the late Nineteenth century. It is the world's best-selling London dry gin.
***After the excesses of the reign of William IV, Queen Victoria introduced a very middle-class morality with a focus on respectability to the British monarchy. As her people’s main influencer, the British became very prudish under her reign, and whilst affairs and the like were still not uncommon amongst the upper classes, the middle and lower classes became much more moralistic in the Nineteenth Century. In Queen Victoria’s slums, middle-class respectability and higher than average social morals were often seen as the only ways to escape a poor upbringing. Such attitudes were often called “slum prudery” by their upper-class social betters who had no need of such qualms because of their wealth and birthright allowing them access to society no matter what their behaviour.
****A jeune fille à marier was a marriageable young woman, the French term used in fashionable circles and the upper-classes of Edwardian society before the Second World War.
This upper-class Mayfair drawing room is different to what you may think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
The bottle of Gordon’s Dry Gin, the syphon and the glasses are all 1:12 artisan miniatures. All are made of real glass, as is the green tinged glass comport on the coffee table in the foreground. The bottle of gin came from a specialist stockist in Sydney. The comport, the syphon and hors d‘oeuvres were all supplied by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The porcelain ice bucket and tongs was made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. The two empty highball glasses I have had since I was a teenager, when I acquired them from a specialist high street shop.
The postally franked envelope and the wedding invitation on the coffee table are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Mostly known for his miniature books, of which I have quite a large representation in my collection, Ken also made other items including letters and envelopes. To create something so small with such intricate detail really is quite extraordinary and a sign of artistry. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The vase of yellow roses on the Art Deco occasional table and the vase of red roses on the right-hand side of the mantlepiece are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium.
The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature of a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling cord does stretch out.
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chairs are of black japanned wood and have removable cushions, just like their life sized examples. To the left of the fireplace is a Hepplewhite drop-drawer bureau and chair of black japanned wood which has been hand painted with chinoiserie designs, even down the legs and inside the bureau. The Hepplewhite chair has a rattan seat, which has also been hand woven. To the right of the fireplace is a Chippendale cabinet which has also been decorated with chinoiserie designs. It also features very ornate metalwork hinges and locks.
On the top of the Hepplewhite bureau stand three real miniature photos in frames including an Edwardian silver frame, a Victorian brass frame and an Art Deco blue Bakelite and glass frame.
The fireplace is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace which is flanked by brass accessories including an ash brush with real bristles.
On the left hand side of the mantle is an Art Deco metal clock hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken.
In the middle of the mantle is a miniature artisan hand painted Art Deco statue on a “marble” plinth. Made by Warwick Miniatures in England, it is a 1:12 copy of the “Theban Dancer” sculpture created by Claire-Jeanne-Roberte Colinet in 1925.
The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug, and 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.